We the Living

  "Yes, indeed," Lydia said icily.

  Kira performed the introductions. Alexander Dimitrievitch said: "Good evening," and made no other sound, watching the guest fixedly, nervously. Lydia nodded and turned away.

  But Galina Petrovna smiled eagerly: "I'm so glad, Comrade Taganov, that my daughter is going to hear a real proletarian opera in one of our great Red theaters!"

  Kira's eyes met Andrei's over the wick. She was grateful for the calm, gracious bow with which he acknowledged the remark.

  Two days a week were "Profunion days" at the State Academic Theaters. No tickets were sold to the public; they were distributed at half-price among the professional unions. In the lobby of the Mikhailovsky Theater, among trim new suits and military tunics, a few felt boots shuffled heavily and a few calloused hands timidly removed leather caps with flapping, fur-lined ears. Some were awkward, diffident; others slouched insolently, defying the impressive splendor by munching sunflower seeds. Wives of union officials ambled haughtily through the crowd, erect and resplendent in their new dresses of the latest style, with their marcelled hair, sparkling manicures and patent leather slippers. Glistening limousines drove, panting sonorously, up to the light-flooded entrance and disgorged heavy fur coats that waddled swiftly across the sidewalk, projecting gloved hands to throw coins at the ragged program peddlers. The program peddlers, livid, frozen shadows, scurried obsequiously through the free "profunion" audience, a wealthier, haughtier, better fed audience than the week-day paying guests.

  The theater smelt of old velvet, marble and moth balls. Four balconies rose high to a huge chandelier of crystal chains that threw little rainbows on the distant ceiling. Five years of revolution had not touched the theater's solemn grandeur; they had left but one sign: the Imperial eagle was removed from over the huge central box which had belonged to the royal family.

  Kira remembered the long satin trains, and the bare white shoulders, and the diamonds that sparkled like the crystals of the chandelier, moving down the orange carpets of the wide aisles. There were few diamonds now; the dresses were dark, sober, with high necklines and long sleeves. Slender, erect in her soft gray satin, she walked in as she had seen those ladies walk many years ago, her arm on that of a tall young man in a leather jacket.

  And when the curtain went up and music rose in the dark, silent shaft of the theater, growing, swelling, thundering against walls that could not hold it, something stopped in Kira's throat and she opened her mouth to take a breath. Beyond the walls were linseed-oil wicks, men waiting in line for tramways, red flags and the dictatorship of the proletariat. On the stage, under the marble columns of an Italian palace, women waved their hands softly, gracefully, like reeds in the waves of music, long velvet trains rustled under a blinding light and, young, carefree, drunk on the light and the music, the Duke of Mantua sang the challenge of youth and laughter to gray, weary, cringing faces in the darkness, faces that could forget, for a while, the hour and the day and the century.

  Kira glanced at Andrei once. He was not looking at the stage; he was looking at her.

  During an intermission, in the foyer, they met Comrade Sonia on the arm of Pavel Syerov. Pavel Syerov was immaculate. Comrade Sonia wore a wrinkled silk dress with a tear in the right armpit. She laughed heartily, slapping Kira's shoulder.

  "So you've gone quite proletarian, haven't you? Or is it Comrade Taganov who's gone bourgeois?"

  "Very unkind of you, Sonia," Pavel Syerov remonstrated, his pale lips opening in a wide grin. "I can compliment Comrade Argounova on her wise choice."

  "How do you know my name?" Kira asked. "You've never met me."

  "We know a lot, Comrade Argounova," he answered very pleasantly, "we know a lot."

  Comrade Sonia laughed and, steering Syerov's arm masterfully, disappeared in the crowd.

  On the way home, Kira asked: "Andrei, did you like the opera?"

  "Not particularly."

  "Andrei, do you see what you're missing?"

  "I don't think I do, Kira. It's all rather silly. And useless."

  "Can't you enjoy things that are useless, merely because they are beautiful?"

  "No. But I enjoyed it."

  "The music?"

  "No. The way you listened to it."

  At home, on her mattress in the corner, Kira remembered regretfully that he had said nothing about her new dress.

  Kira had a headache. She sat at the window of the auditorium, her forehead propped by her hand, her elbow on a slanting desk. She could see, reflected in the window pane, a single electric bulb under the ceiling and her drawn face with dishevelled hair hanging over her eyes. The face and the bulb stood as incongruous shadows against the frozen sunset outside, beyond the window, a sunset as sinister and cold as dead blood.

  Her feet felt cold in a draft from the hall. Her collar seemed too tight around her throat. No lecture had ever seemed so long. It was only December second. There were still so many days to wait, so many lectures. She found her fingers drumming softly on the window pane, and each couple of knocks was a name of two syllables, and her fingers repeated endlessly, persistently, against her will, a name that echoed somewhere in her temples, a name of three letters she did not want to hear, but heard ceaselessly, as if something within her were calling out for help.

  She did not notice when the lecture ended and she was walking out, down a long, dark corridor, to a door open upon a white sidewalk. She stepped out into the snow; she drew her coat tighter against a cold wind.

  "Good evening, Kira," a voice called softly from the darkness.

  She knew the voice. Her feet stood still, then her breath, then her heart.

  In a dark corner by the door, Leo stood leaning against the wall, looking at her.

  "Leo . . . how . . . could . . . you?"

  "I had to see you."

  His face was stern, pale. He did not smile.

  They heard hurried steps. Pavel Syerov rushed past them. He stopped short; he peered into the darkness; he threw a quick glance at Kira; then he shrugged and hurried away, down the street. He turned once to glance back at them.

  "Let's get away from here," Kira whispered.

  Leo called a sleigh. He helped her in, fastened the heavy fur blanket over their knees. The driver jerked forward.

  "Leo . . . how could you?"

  "I had no other way of finding you."

  "And you. . . ."

  "Waited at the gate for three hours. Had almost given up hope."

  "But wasn't it. . . ."

  "Taking a chance? A big one."

  "And you came . . . again . . . from the country?"

  "Yes."

  "What . . . what did you want to tell me?"

  "Nothing. Just to see you."

  On the quay, at the Admiralty, Leo stopped the sleigh and they got out and walked along the parapet. The Neva was frozen. A solid coat of ice made a wide, white lane between its high banks. Human feet had stamped a long road across its snow. The road was deserted.

  They descended down the steep, frozen bank to the ice below. They walked silently, suddenly alone in a white wilderness.

  The river was a wide crack in the heart of the city. It stretched the silence of its snow under the silence of the sky. Far away, smokestacks, like little black matches, fumed a feeble brown salute of melting plumes to the sunset. And the sunset rose in a fog of frost and smoke; then it was cut by a red gash, raw and glowing, like living flesh; then the wound closed and the blood flowed slowly higher up the sky, as if under a misty skin, a dull orange, a trembling yellow, a soft purple that surrendered, flowing up into a soft irrevocable blue. The little houses high and very far away, cut brown, broken shadows into the sky; some windows gathered drops of fire from above; others answered feebly with little steely lights, cold and bluish as the snow. And the golden spire of the Admiralty held defiantly a vanished sun high over the dark city.

  Kira whispered: "I . . . I was thinking about you . . . today."

  "Were you thinking about me?" br />
  His fingers hurt her arm; he leaned close to her, his eyes wide, menacing, mocking in their haughty understanding, caressing and masterful.

  She whispered: "Yes."

  They stood alone in the middle of the river. A tramway clattered, rising up the bridge, shaking the steel beams to their roots in the water far below. Leo's face was grim. He said: "I thought of you, too. But I didn't want to think of you. I fought it this long."

  She did not answer. She stood straight, tense, still.

  "You know what I wanted to tell you," he said, his face very close to hers.

  And, without thought, without will or question, in a voice that was someone's order to her, not her voice, she answered: "Yes."

  His kiss felt like a wound.

  Her arms closed around the frightening wonder of a man's body. She heard him whisper, so close that it seemed her lips heard it first: "Kira, I love you. . . ."

  And someone's order to her repeated through her lips, persistently, hungrily, insanely: "Leo, I love you. . . . I love you. . . . I love you. . . ."

  A man passed by. The little spark of a cigarette jerked up and down in the darkness.

  Leo took her arm and led her away, on perilous ground, through the deep, unbroken snow, to the bridge.

  They stood in the darkness of steel vaults. Through the black webbing above, they saw the red sky dying out slowly.

  She did not know what he was saying; she knew that his lips were on hers. She did not know that her coat collar was unbuttoned; she knew that his hand was on her breast.

  When a tramway rose up the bridge over their heads, the steel clattered convulsively, a dull thunder rolling through its joints; and for a long time after it was gone, the bridge moaned feebly.

  The first words she remembered were: "I'll come tomorrow."

  Then she found her voice and stood straight and said: "No. It's too dangerous. I'm afraid someone saw you. There are spies at the Institute. Wait for a week."

  "Not that long?"

  "Yes."

  "Here?"

  "No. Our old place. At night. Nine o'clock."

  "It will be hard to wait."

  "Yes, Leo . . . Leo. . . ."

  "What?"

  "Nothing. I like to hear your name."

  That night, on the mattress in the corner of her room, she lay motionless and saw the blue square of the window turn pink.

  VIII

  IN THE INSTITUTE CORRIDOR, ON THE NEXT day, a student with a red badge stopped her.

  "Citizen Argounova, you're wanted in the Communist Cell. At once."

  In the room of the Communist Cell, at a long bare table, sat Pavel Syerov.

  He asked: "Citizen Argounova, who was the man at the gate with you last night?"

  Pavel Syerov was smoking. He held the cigarette firmly at his lips and looked at Kira through the smoke.

  She asked: "What man?"

  "Comrade Argounova having trouble with her memory? The man I saw at the gate with you last night."

  A picture of Lenin hung on the wall, behind Pavel Syerov. Lenin looked sidewise, winking slyly, his face frozen in half a smile.

  "Oh, yes, I do remember," said Kira. "There was a man. But I don't know who he was. He asked me how to find some street."

  Pavel Syerov shook the ashes off his cigarette into a broken ashtray. He said pleasantly: "Comrade Argounova, you're a student of the Technological Institute. Undoubtedly you wish to continue to be."

  "Undoubtedly," said Kira.

  "Who was that man?"

  "I wasn't interested enough to ask him."

  "Very well. I won't ask you that. I'm sure we both know his name. All I want is his address."

  "Well, let me see, . . . yes, he asked the way to Sadovaia Street. You might look there."

  "Comrade Argounova, I'll remind you that the gentlemen of your faction have always accused us proletarian students of belonging to a secret police organization. And, of course, that might be true, you know."

  "Well, may I ask you a question, then?"

  "Certainly. Always pleased to accommodate a lady."

  "Who was that man?"

  Pavel Syerov's fist came down on the table. "Citizen Argounova, do you have to be reminded that this is no joke?"

  "If it isn't, will you tell me what it is?"

  "You'll understand what it is and damn quick. You've lived in Soviet Russia long enough to know how serious it is to protect counter-revolutionaries."

  A hand opened the door without knocking. Andrei Taganov came in. His face showed no astonishment or emotion. Syerov's did; he raised the cigarette to his lips a little too quickly.

  "Good morning, Kira," Andrei said calmly.

  "Good morning, Andrei," she answered.

  He walked to the table. He took a cigarette and bent toward the one in Syerov's hand. Syerov held it out to him hastily. Syerov waited; but Andrei said nothing; he stood by the table, the smoke of his cigarette rising in a straight column. He looked at Kira and Syerov, silently.

  "Comrade Argounova, I do not doubt your political trustworthiness," Comrade Syerov said gently. "I'm sure that the single question of one address will not be hard for you to answer."

  "I told you I don't know him. I've never seen him before. I can't know his address."

  Pavel Syerov tried surreptitiously to observe Andrei's reaction; but Andrei did not move. Pavel Syerov leaned forward and spoke softly, confidentially. "Comrade Argounova, I want you to understand that this man is wanted by the State. Perhaps it's not our assignment to search for him. But if you can help us to find him, it will be very valuable to you and to me--and to all of us," he added significantly.

  "And if I can't help you--what am I to do?"

  "You're to go home, Kira," said Andrei.

  Syerov dropped his cigarette.

  "That is," Andrei added, "unless you have lectures to attend. If we need you again--I'll send for you."

  Kira turned and left the room. Andrei sat down on the corner of the table and crossed his legs.

  Pavel Syerov smiled; Andrei was not looking at him. Pavel Syerov cleared his throat. Pavel Syerov said: "Of course, Andrei, old pal, I hope you don't think that I . . . because she is a friend of yours and. . . ."

  "I don't think it," said Andrei.

  "I'd never question or criticize your actions. Not even if I did think that it's not good discipline to cancel a fellow Communist's order before an outsider."

  "What discipline permitted you to call her for questioning?"

  "Sorry, pal. My fault. Of course, I was only trying to help you."

  "I have not asked for help."

  "It was like this, Andrei. I saw her with him at the door last night. I've seen his pictures. The G.P.U. has been searching for him for almost two months."

  "Why didn't you report it to me?"

  "Well, I wasn't sure it was the man. I might have been mistaken . . . and . . ."

  "And your help in the matter would have been--valuable to you."

  "Why, old pal, you're not accusing me of any personal motives, are you? Maybe I did overstep my authority in these little G.P.U. matters that belong to your job, but I was only thinking of helping a fellow proletarian in his duty. You know that nothing can stop me in fulfilling my duty, not even any . . . sentimental attachments."

  "A breach of Party discipline is a breach of Party discipline, no matter by whom committed."

  Pavel Syerov was looking at Andrei Taganov too fixedly, as he answered slowly: "That's what I've always said."

  "It is never advisable to be overzealous in one's duty."

  "Certainly not. It's as bad as being lax."

  "In the future--any political questioning in this unit is to be done by me."

  "As you wish, pal."

  "And if you ever feel that I cannot perform that task--you may report it to the Party and ask for my dismissal."

  "Andrei! How can you say that! You don't think that I question for a single minute your invaluable importance to the Party? Have
n't I always been your greatest admirer--you, the hero of Melitopol? Aren't we old friends? Haven't we fought in the trenches together, under the red flag, you and I, shoulder to shoulder?"

  "Yes," said Andrei, "we have."

  In the year 1896, the red-brick house in the Putilovsky factory district of St. Petersburg had no plumbing. The fifty worker families that clotted its three floors had fifty barrels in which to keep their water. When Andrei Taganov was born, a kindly neighbor brought a barrel from the stair-landing; the water was frozen; the neighbor broke the ice with an ax, and emptied the barrel. The pale, shivering hands of the young mother stuffed an old pillow into the barrel. Such was Andrei's first bed.

  His mother bent over the barrel and laughed, laughed happily, hysterically, until tears fell into the dimples of the tiny, red hands. His father did not hear of his birth for three days. His father had been away for a week and the neighbors spoke about it in whispers.

  In the year 1905, the neighbors did not need to whisper about the father any longer. He made no secret of the red flag he carried through the streets of St. Petersburg, nor of the little white pamphlets he sowed into the dark soil of crowds, nor of the words his powerful voice sent like a powerful wind to carry the seeds--the flaming words to the glory of Russia's first revolution.

  It was Andrei's tenth year. He stood in a corner of the kitchen and looked at the brass buttons on the gendarmes' coats. The gendarmes had black moustaches and real guns. His father was putting his coat on slowly. His father kissed him and kissed his mother. The gendarmes' boots grated the last paint off the kitchen floor. His mother's arms clung to his father's shoulders like tentacles. A strong hand tore her off. She fell across the threshold. They left the door open. Their steps rang down the stairs. His mother's hair was spilled over the bricks of the stair-landing.

  Andrei wrote his mother's letters. Neither of them had been taught to write, but Andrei had learned it by himself. The letters went to his father and the address bore, in Andrei's big, awkward handwriting, the name of a town in Siberia. After a while his mother stopped dictating letters. His father never came back.

  Andrei carried the baskets with the laundry his mother washed. He could have hidden himself, head and toes, in one of the baskets, but he was strong. In their new room in the basement there was a white, billowing, sour foam, like clouds, in the wooden trough under his mother's purple hands and a white, billowing, sour steam, like clouds, under the ceiling. They could not see that it was spring outside. But they could not have seen it, even without the steam: for the window opened upon the sidewalk and they could watch only the shiny new galoshes grunting through the mud of melting snow, and, once, someone dropped a young green leaf right by the window.