We the Living (56 page)

“The future of our republic is in the coming generation. The upbringing of our youth is a vital problem. Our child shall have the advantage of a Party mother—and father—to guide its steps.”

“Hell, Sonia! That’s not at all up to date. There are day-nurseries and, you know, collective training, one big family, the spirit of the collective learned early in life, and . . .”

“State nurseries are to be the great accomplishment of the future. At present—they are imperfect. Our child shall be brought up as a perfect citizen of our great republic. Our child . . .”

“Our child! Oh, hell! how do I know . . .”

“Pavel, are you intimating that . . .”

“Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean anything, but . . . Hell! Sonia, I was drunk. You should have known better than . . .”

“Then you regret it, Pavel?”

“Oh, no, no, of course not. You know I love you, Sonia. . . . Sonia, listen, honest, I can’t get married right now. Really, I’d like nothing better and I’d be proud to marry you, but look here, I’m just starting, I’ve got a career to think about. I’ve just made such a fine beginning, and . . . and it’s my duty to the Party to train and perfect myself and rise . . .”

“I could help you, Pavel, or . . .” She said it slowly, looking at him. She did not have to finish; he understood.

“But, Sonia . . .” he moaned helplessly.

“I’m as upset about it as you are,” she said calmly. “It was a more painful surprise to me than it is to you. But I’m prepared to do what I consider my duty.”

He fell heavily on his chair and said dully, without raising his head: “Listen, Sonia, give me two days, will you? To think it over and get sort of used to the idea and . . .”

“Certainly,” she answered, rising, “think it over. My time’s up anyway. Have to run. So long.”

“So long,” he muttered, without looking at her.

Pavel Syerov got drunk, that evening. On the following day, he called at the Railroad Workers Union’s Club. The president said: “Congratulations, Comrade Syerov. I hear you’re going to marry Comrade Sonia. You couldn’t make a better match.” At the Party Cell, the secretary said: “Well, Pavlusha, all set to go far in this world? With such a wife . . .” At the Marxist Club, an imposing official, whom he had never met before, smiled, slapping his shoulder: “Come and see me any time, Comrade Syerov. I’m always in to a friend of your future wife.”

That evening, Pavel Syerov called Antonina Pavlovna and swore at Morozov and requested a larger share than he had been getting, and demanded it in advance—and, receiving it, bought drinks for a girl he met on the street.

Three days later, Pavel Syerov and Comrade Sonia were married. They stood before a clerk in the bare room of the Zags and signed a large register. Comrade Sonia signified her intention of retaining her maiden name.

That evening, Comrade Sonia moved into Syerov’s room, which was larger than her own. “Oh, darling,” she said, “we must think of a good revolutionary name for our child.”

A hand knocked on Andrei’s door, a weighty knock followed by a thud, as if a fist had leaned heavily against the panel.

Andrei sat on the floor, studying, with a lamp by his side, with the huge white sheets of drafts spread before him. He raised his head and asked impatiently: “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Andrei,” a man’s voice answered heavily. “Open the door. It’s me, Stepan Timoshenko.”

Andrei jumped up and threw the door open. Stepan Timoshenko, who had served in the Baltic Fleet and in the Coast Guard of the G.P.U., stood on the stair-landing, swaying a little, leaning against the wall. He wore a sailor’s cap, but its band bore no star, no ship’s name; he wore civilian clothes, a short jacket with a mangy rabbit fur collar, with rubbed spots on the elbows of sleeves too tight for his huge arms; the fur collar was unfastened; his tanned neck with bulging cords was open to the cold. He grinned, the light glistening on his white teeth, in his dark eyes.

“Good evening, Andrei. Mind if I butt in?”

“Come in. I’m glad to see you. I thought you had forgotten your old friends.”

“No,” said Timoshenko. “No, I haven’t.” He lumbered in, and closed the door behind him, reeling a little. “No, I haven’t. . . . but some of the old friends are only too damn glad to forget me. . . . I don’t mean you, Andrei. No. Not you.”

“Sit down,” said Andrei. “Take that coat off. Aren’t you cold?”

“Who, me? No. I’m never cold. And if I was, it would do me no good because this here is all I’ve got. . . . I’ll take the damn thing off. . . . Here. . . . Sure, all right, I’ll sit down. I bet you want me to sit down because you think I’m drunk.”

“No,” said Andrei, “but . . .”

“Well, I am drunk. But not very much. You don’t mind if I’m a little drunk, do you?”

“Where have you been, Stepan? I haven’t seen you for months.”

“Oh, around. I was kicked out of the G.P.U., you know that, don’t you?”

Andrei nodded slowly, looking down at his drafts on the floor.

“Yep,” said Timoshenko, stretching his feet out comfortably, “I was kicked out. Not reliable. No. Not reliable. Not revolutionary enough. Stepan Timoshenko of the Red Baltfleet.”

“I’m sorry,” said Andrei.

“Shut up. Who’s asking you for sympathy? That’s funny, that’s what it is. . . . Very, very humorous. . . .” He looked up at the Cupids on the cornice. “And you’ve got a funny place here. It’s a hell of a place for a Communist to live in.”

“I don’t mind,” said Andrei. “I could move, but rooms are so hard to get these days.”

“Sure,” said Timoshenko and laughed suddenly, loudly, senselessly. “Sure. It’s hard for Andrei Taganov. It wouldn’t be hard for little Comrade Syerov, for instance. It wouldn’t be hard for any bastard that uses a Party card as a butcher knife. It wouldn’t be hard to throw some poor devil out on the ice of the Neva.”

“You’re talking nonsense, Stepan. Would you . . . would you like something to eat?”

“No. Hell, no. . . . What are you driving at, you little fool? Think I’m starving?”

“Why, no, I didn’t even . . .”

“Well, don’t. I still have enough to eat. And to drink. Plenty to drink. . . . I just came around because I thought little Andrei needed someone to look after him. Little Andrei needs it badly. He will need it very badly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. Nothing, pal. Just talking. Can’t I talk? Are you like the rest of them? Want everybody to talk, order them to talk, talk, talk, without the right to say anything?”

“Here,” said Andrei, “put that pillow under your neck and take it easy. Rest. You’re not feeling well.”

“Who, me?” Timoshenko took the pillow and flung it at the wall and laughed. “I’ve never felt better in my life. I feel grand. Free and finished. No worries. No worries of any kind any more.”

“Stepan, why don’t you come here more often? We used to be friends. We could still help each other.”

Timoshenko leaned forward, and stared at Andrei, and grinned somberly: “I can’t help you, kid. I could help you only if you could take me by the scruff of my neck and kick me out and with me kick out everything that goes with me, and then go and bow very low and lick a very big boot. But you won’t do it. And that’s why I hate you, Andrei. And that’s why I wish you were my son. Only I’ll never have a son. My sons are strewn all over the whorehouses of the U.S.S.R.”

He looked down at the white drafts on the floor, and kicked a book, and asked: “What are you doing here, Andrei?”

“I was studying. I haven’t had much time to study. I’ve been busy at the G.P.U.”

“Studying, eh? How many years you got left at the Institute?”

“Three years.”

“Uh-huh. Think you’ll need it?”

“Need what?”

“The learning.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Say, pal, did I tell you they kicked me out of the G.P.U.? Oh, yes, I told you. But they haven’t kicked me out of the Party. Not yet. But they will. At the next purge—I go.”

“I wouldn’t think of that in advance. You can still . . .”

“I know what I’m talking about. And you do, too. And do you know who’ll go next?”

“No,” said Andrei.

“You,” said Stepan Timoshenko.

Andrei rose, crossed his arms, looked at Timoshenko, and said quietly: “Maybe.”

“Listen, pal,” Timoshenko asked, “have you got something to drink here?”

“No,” said Andrei. “And you’re drinking too much, Stepan.”

“Oh, am I?” Timoshenko chuckled, and his head rocked slowly, mechanically, so that its huge shadow on the wall swung like a pendulum. “Am I drinking too much? And have I no reason to drink? Say, I’ll tell you,” he rose, swaying, towering over Andrei, his shadow hitting the doves on the ceiling. “I’ll tell you the reason and then you’ll say I don’t drink enough, you poor little pup in the rain, that’s what you’ll say!”

He pulled at his sweater, too tight under the arms, and scratched his shoulder blades, and roared suddenly: “Once upon a time, we made a revolution. We said we were tired of hunger, of sweat and of lice. So we cut throats, and broke skulls, and poured blood, our blood, their blood, to wash a clean road for freedom. Now look around you. Look around you, Comrade Taganov, Party member since 1915! Do you see where men live, men, our brothers? Do you see what they eat? Have you ever seen a woman falling on the street, vomiting blood on the cobblestones, dying of hunger? I have. Did you see the limousines speeding at night? Did you see who’s in them? There’s a nice little comrade we have in the Party. A smart young man with a brilliant future. Pavel Syerov’s the name. Have you ever seen him open his wallet to pay for a whore’s champagne? Did you ever wonder where he gets the money? Did you ever go to the European roof garden? Not often, I bet. But if you had, you’d see the respectable Citizen Morozov getting indigestion on caviar. Who is he? Just assistant manager of the Food Trust. The State Food Trust of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. We’re the leaders of the world proletariat and we’ll bring freedom to all suffering humanity! Look at our Party. Look at the loyal members with ink still wet on their Party tickets. Watch them reaping the harvest from the soil that our blood had fertilized. But we’re not red enough for them. We’re not revolutionaries. We’re kicked out as traitors. We’re kicked out for Trotskyism. We’re kicked out because we didn’t lose our sight and our conscience when the Czar lost his throne, the sight and the conscience that made him lose it. We’re kicked out because we yelled to them that they’ve lost the battle, strangled the revolution, sold out the people, and there’s nothing left now but power, brute power. They don’t want us. Not me nor you. There’s no place for men like you, Andrei, not anywhere on this earth. Well, you don’t see it. And I’m glad you don’t. Only I hope I’m not there on the day when you will!”

Andrei stood, silent, his arms crossed. Timoshenko seized his jacket and pulled it on hastily, reeling.

“Where are you going?” asked Andrei.

“Going. Anywhere. I don’t want to stay here.”

“Stepan, don’t you think that I see it, too? But screaming about it won’t help. And drinking yourself to death won’t help. One can still fight.”

“Sure. Go on fighting. It’s none of my business. I’m going to have a drink.”

Andrei watched him buttoning the jacket, pulling the starless sailor cap over one ear. “Stepan, what are you going to do?”

“Now?”

“No. In the years to come.”

“The years to come?” Timoshenko laughed, throwing his head back, the mangy rabbit collar shaking on his huge shoulders. “That’s a cute sentence: the years to come. Why are you so sure they’re coming?” He leaned toward Andrei, and winked slyly, mysteriously. “Did it ever occur to you, Comrade Taganov, what a peculiar thing it is that so many of our Party comrades are dying of overwork? You’ve read it in the papers, haven’t you? Another glorious victim fallen on the path of the revolution, a life burned out in a ceaseless task. . . . You know what they are, don’t you, those comrades dying of a ceaseless task? Suicides. That’s what they are. Suicides. Only the papers will never say it. Funny how many of them are killing themselves these days. Wonder why.”

“Stepan,” Andrei took a huge, hot, clammy hand into his strong, cold ones, “you’re not thinking of . . .”

“I’m not thinking of anything. Hell, no. All I want is a drink. And, anyway, if I do think, I’ll come to say good-bye. I promise.”

At the door, Andrei stopped him once again: “Stepan, why don’t you stay here? For a while?”

Stepan Timoshenko waved with the majesty of sweeping a mantle over his shoulders, and shook his head, reeling out to the landing of the long marble stairway:

“No. Not here. I don’t want to see you, Andrei. I don’t want to see that damn face of yours. Because . . . you see, I’m an old battleship, ready for the scrap heap, with all its guts rusted and rotted. But I don’t mind that. And I’d give the last of these rotted guts to help the only man I know left in the world—and that’s you. But I don’t mind that. What I mind is that I know that could I take my guts out and give them for you—it still wouldn’t save you!”