We the Living Read online

  She saw the changes in the dining room. The spoon she held was not the monogrammed silverware she remembered; it was of heavy tin that gave a metallic taste to the mush. She remembered crystal and silver fruit vases on the buffet; one solitary jug of Ukrainian pottery adorned it now. Big rusty nails on the walls showed the places where old paintings had hung.

  Across the table, Maria Petrovna was talking with a nervous, fluttering hurry, a strange caricature of the capricious manner that had charmed every drawing room she entered. Her words were strange to Galina Petrovna, words like milestones of the years that had been parted and of what had happened in those years.

  "Ration cards--they're for Soviet employees only. And for students. We get only two ration cards. Just two cards for the family--and it isn't easy. Victor's student card at the Institute and Irina's at the Academy of Arts. But I'm not employed anywhere, so I get no card, and Vasili. . . ."

  She stopped short, as if her words, running, had skidded too far. She looked at her husband, furtively, a glance that seemed to cringe. Vasili Ivanovitch was staring into his plate and said nothing.

  Maria Petrovna's hands fluttered up eloquently: "These are hard times, God have pity on us, these are hard times. Galina, do you remember Lili Savinskaia, the one who never wore any jewelry except pearls? Well, she's dead. She died in 1919. It was like this: they had nothing to eat for days, and her husband was walking in the street and he saw a horse that fell and died of hunger, and there was a mob fighting for the body. They tore it to pieces, and he got some. He brought it home and they cooked it, and ate, and I suppose the horse hadn't died of hunger only, for they both got terribly sick. The doctors saved him, but Lili died. . . . He lost everything in 1918, of course. . . . His sugar business--it was nationalized the same day when our fur store. . . ."

  She stopped short again, her eyelids trembling over a glance at Vasili Ivanovitch. Visili Ivanovitch said nothing.

  "More," said little Acia sullenly and extended her plate for a second helping of millet.

  "Kira!" Irina called brightly across the table, her voice very clear and loud, as if to sweep away all that had been said. "Did you eat fresh fruit in the Crimea?"

  "Yes. Some," Kira answered indifferently.

  "I've been dreaming, yearning and dying for grapes. Don't you like grapes?"

  "I never notice what I eat," said Kira.

  "Of course," Maria Petrovna hurried on, "Lili Savinskaia's husband is working now. He's a clerk in a Soviet office. Some people are taking employment, after all. . . ." She looked openly at Vasili Ivanovitch and waited, but he did not answer.

  Galina Petrovna asked timidly: "How's . . . how's our old house?"

  "Yours? On Kamenostrovsky? Don't even dream of it. A sign painter lives there now. A real proletarian. God knows where you'll find an apartment, Galina. People are crowded like dogs."

  Alexander Dimitrievitch asked hesitantly: "Have you heard what . . . about the factory . . . what happened to my factory?"

  "Closed," Vasili Ivanovitch snapped suddenly. "They couldn't run it. Closed. Like everything else."

  Maria Petrovna coughed. "Such a problem for you, Galina, such a problem! Are the girls going to school? Or--how are you going to get ration cards?"

  "But--I thought--with the NEP and all, you have private stores now."

  "Sure--NEP, their New Economic Policy, sure, they allow private stores now, but where will you get the money to buy there? They charge you ten times more than the ration cooperatives. I haven't been in a private store yet. We can't afford it. No one can afford it. We can't even afford the theater. Victor's taken me to a show once. But Vasili--Vasili won't set foot inside a theater."

  "Why not?"

  Vasili Ivanovitch raised his head, his eyes stern, and said solemnly: "When your country is in agony, you don't seek frivolous recreations. I'm in mourning--for my country."

  "Lydia," Irina asked in her sweeping voice, "aren't you in love yet?"

  "I do not answer indecent questions," said Lydia.

  "I'll tell you, Galina," Maria Petrovna hurried and coughed, choked, and went on, "I'll tell you the best thing to do: Alexander must take a job."

  Galina Petrovna sat up straight, as if she had been slapped in the face. "A Soviet job?"

  "Well . . . all jobs are Soviet jobs."

  "Not as long as I live," Alexander Dimitrievitch stated with unexpected strength.

  Vasili Ivanovitch dropped his spoon and it clattered into his plate; silently, solemnly, he stretched his big fist across the table and shook Alexander Dimitrievitch's hand and threw a dark glance at Maria Petrovna. She cringed, swallowed a spoonful of millet, coughed.

  "I'm not saying anything about you, Vasili," she protested timidly. "I know you don't approve and . . . well, you never will. . . . But I was just thinking they get bread cards, and lard, and sugar, the Soviet employees do--sometimes."

  "When I have to take Soviet employment," said Vasili Ivanovitch, "you'll be a widow, Marussia."

  "I'm not saying anything, Vasili, only. . . ."

  "Only stop worrying. We'll get along. We have so far. There are still plenty of things to sell."

  Galina Petrovna looked at the nails on the walls; she looked at her sister's hands, the famous hands that artists had painted and a poem had been written about--"Champagne and Maria's hands." They were frozen to a dark purple, swollen and cracked. Maria Petrovna had known the value of her hands; she had learned how to keep them in sight constantly, how to use them with the pliant grace of a ballerina. It was a habit she had not lost. Galina Petrovna wished she would lose it; the soft, fluttering gestures of those hands were only one more reminder.

  Vasili Ivanovitch was speaking suddenly. He had always been reticent in the expression of his feelings. But one subject aroused him and then his expressions were not restrained: "All this is temporary. You all lose faith so easily. That's the trouble with our spineless, snivelling, impotent, blabbering, broad-minded, drooling intelligentsia! That's why we are where we are. No faith. No will. Thin gruel for blood. Do you think all this can go on? Do you think Russia is dead? Do you think Europe is blind? Watch Europe. She hasn't said her last word yet. The day will come--soon--when these bloody assassins, these foul scoundrels, that Communist scum. . . ."

  The door bell rang.

  The old servant shuffled to open the door. They heard a man's steps, brisk, resonant, energetic. A strong hand threw the dining-room door open.

  Victor Dunaev looked like a tenor in an Italian grand opera, which was not Victor's profession; but he had the broad shoulders, the flaming black eyes, the wavy, unruly black hair, the flashing smile, the arrogantly confident movements. As he stopped on the threshold, his eyes stopped on Kira; as she turned in her chair, they stopped on her legs.

  "It's little Kira, isn't it?" were the first sounds of his strong, clear voice.

  "It was," she answered.

  "Well, well, what a surprise! What a most pleasant surprise! . . . Aunt Galina, younger than ever!" He kissed his aunt's hand. "And my charming cousin Lydia!" His dark hair brushed Lydia's wrist. "Sorry to be so late. Meeting at the Institute. I'm a member of the Students' Council. . . . Sorry, Father. Father doesn't approve of any elections of any sort."

  "Sometimes even elections are right," said Vasili Ivanovitch without disguising the paternal pride in his voice; and the warmth in his stern eyes suddenly made them look helpless.

  Victor whirled a chair about and sat next to Kira. "Well, Uncle Alexander," he flashed a row of sparkling white teeth at Alexander Dimitrievitch, "you've chosen a fascinating time to return to Petrograd. A difficult time, to be sure. A cruel time. But most fascinating, like all historical cataclysms."

  Galina Petrovna smiled with admiration: "What are you studying, Victor?"

  "Institute of Technology. Electrical engineer. Greatest future in electricity. Russia's future. . . . But Father doesn't think so. . . . Irina, do you ever comb your hair? What are your plans, Uncle Alexander?"

&nb
sp; "I'll open a store," Alexander Dimitrievitch announced solemnly, almost proudly.

  "But it will take some financial resources, Uncle Alexander."

  "We've managed to save a little, in the south."

  "Lord in Heaven!" cried Maria Petrovna. "You'd better spend it quickly. At the rate that new paper money is going down--why, bread was sixty thousand rubles a pound last week--and it's seventy-five thousand now!"

  "New enterprises, Uncle Alexander, have a great future in this new age," said Victor.

  "Until the government squashes them under its heel," Vasili Ivanovitch said gloomily.

  "Nothing to fear, Father. The days of confiscations are past. The Soviet government has a most progressive policy outlined."

  "Outlined in blood," said Vasili Ivanovitch.

  "Victor, they're wearing the funniest things in the south," Irina spoke hurriedly. "Did you notice Kira's wooden sandals?"

  "All right, League of Nations. That's her name. Trying to keep peace. I would love to see the sandals."

  Kira raised her foot indifferently. Her short skirt concealed little of her leg; she did not notice the fact, but Victor and Lydia did.

  "At your age, Kira," Lydia remarked pointedly, "it's time to wear longer skirts."

  "If one has the material," Kira answered indifferently. "I never notice what I wear."

  "Nonsense, Lydia darling," Victor stated with finality, "short skirts are the height of feminine elegance and feminine elegance is the highest of the Arts."

  That night, before retiring, the family gathered in the drawing room. Maria Petrovna painfully counted out three logs, and a fire was lighted in the fireplace. Little flames flickered over the glazed abyss of darkness beyond the big, bare, curtainless windows; little sparks danced in the polished curves of the hand-carved furniture, leaving in shadows the torn brocade; golden spangles played in the heavy gold frame of the only picture in the room, leaving in shadows the picture itself: a painting of Maria Petrovna twenty years ago, with a delicate hand resting on an ivory shoulder, mocking the old knitted shawl which the living Maria Petrovna clutched convulsively over her trembling shoulders when she coughed.

  The logs were damp; a fretful blue flame hissed feebly, dying and flaring up again in a burst of acrid smoke.

  Kira sat in the deep, silken fur of a white bear rug at the fireplace, her arm encircling affectionately the huge monster's ferocious head. It had been her favorite since childhood. When visiting her uncle, she had always asked for the story of how he had killed that bear, and she had laughed happily when he threatened that the bear would come back to life and bite disobedient little girls.

  "Well," said Maria Petrovna, her hands fluttering in the fire glow, "well, here you are back in Petrograd."

  "Yes," said Galina Petrovna, "here we are."

  "Oh, Saint Mother of God!" sighed Maria Petrovna. "It makes it so hard sometimes to have a future to think about!"

  "It does," said Galina Petrovna.

  "Well, what are the plans for the girls? Lydia darling, quite a young lady, aren't you? Still heart-free?" Lydia's smile was not a grateful one. Maria Petrovna sighed: "Men are so strange, nowadays. They don't think of marriage. And the girls? I was carrying a son at Irina's age. But she doesn't think of a home and family. The Academy of Arts for her. Galina, do you remember how she used to ruin my furniture with her infernal drawings as soon as she was out of diapers? Well, Lydia, are you going to study?"

  "I have no such intention," said Lydia. "Too much education is unfeminine."

  "And Kira?"

  "It's funny to think that little Kira is of college age, isn't it?" said Victor. "First of all, Kira, you'll have to get a labor book--the new passport, you know. You're over sixteen. And then. . . ."

  "I think," Maria Petrovna suggested eagerly, "that a profession is so useful nowadays. Why don't you send Kira to a medical school? A lady doctor gets such nice rations!"

  "Kira a doctor?" Galina Petrovna sneered. "Why, the selfish little thing just loathes physical injury. She wouldn't help a wounded chicken."

  "My opinion . . ." Victor began.

  A telephone rang in the next room. Irina darted out and returned, announcing aloud with a significant wink at Victor: "For you, Victor. It's Vava."

  Victor walked out reluctantly. Through the door, left open by a draft, they heard some of his words: ". . . I know I promised to come tonight. But it's an unexpected examination at the Institute. I have to study every minute of the evening. . . . Of course not, no one else. . . . You know I do, darling. . . ."

  He returned to the fireplace and settled himself comfortably on the white bear's back, close to Kira.

  "My opinion, my charming little cousin," he stated, "is that the most promising career for a woman is offered not by a school, but by employment in a Soviet office."

  "Victor, you don't really mean that," said Vasili Ivanovitch.

  "One has to be practical nowadays," Victor said slowly. "A student's ration doesn't provide much for a whole family--as you ought to know."

  "Employees get lard and sugar," said Maria Petrovna.

  "They are using a great many typists," Victor insisted. "A typewriter's keys are the stepping stones to any high office."

  "And you get shoes, and free tramway tickets," said Maria Petrovna.

  "Hell," said Vasili Ivanovitch, "you can't make a drayhorse out of a racing steed."

  "Why, Kira," asked Irina, "aren't you interested in the subject of this discussion?"

  "I am," Kira answered calmly, "but I think the discussion is superfluous. I am going to the Technological Institute."

  "Kira!"

  There were seven startled voices and they all uttered one name. Then Galina Petrovna said: "Well, with a daughter like this even her own mother isn't let in on secrets!"

  "When did you decide that?" Lydia gasped.

  "About eight years ago," said Kira.

  "But Kira! What will you do?" Maria Petrovna gasped.

  "I'll be an engineer."

  "Frankly," said Victor, annoyed, "I do not believe that engineering is a profession for women."

  "Kira," Alexander Dimitrievitch said timidly, "you've never liked the Communists and here you select such a modern favorite profession of theirs--a woman engineer!"

  "Are you going to build for the Red State?" asked Victor.

  "I'm going to build because I want to build."

  "But Kira!" Lydia stared at her, bewildered. "That will mean dirt, and iron, and rust, and blow-torches, and filthy, sweaty men and no feminine company to help you."

  "That's why I'll like it."

  "It is not at all a cultured profession for a woman," said Galina Petrovna.

  "It's the only profession," said Kira, "for which I don't have to learn any lies. Steel is steel. Most of the other sciences are someone's guess, and someone's wish, and many people's lies."

  "What you lack," said Lydia, "are the things of the spirit."

  "Frankly," said Victor, "your attitude is slightly anti-social, Kira. You select a profession merely because you want it, without giving a thought to the fact that, as a woman, you would be much more useful to society in a more feminine capacity. And we all have our duty to society to consider."

  "Exactly to whom is it that you owe a duty, Victor?"

  "To society."

  "What is society?"

  "If I may say it, Kira, this is a childish question."

  "But," said Kira, her eyes dangerously gentle and wide, "I don't understand it. To whom is it that I owe a duty? To your neighbor next door? Or to the militia-man on the corner? Or to the clerk in the cooperative? Or to the old man I saw in line, third from the door, with an old basket and a woman's hat?"

  "Society, Kira, is a stupendous whole."

  "If you write a whole line of zeroes, it's still--nothing."

  "Child," said Vasili Ivanovitch, "what are you doing in Soviet Russia?"

  "That," said Kira, "is what I'm wondering about."

  "Let her go t
o the Institute," said Vasili Ivanovitch.

  "I'll have to," Galina Petrovna agreed bitterly. "You can't argue with her."

  "She always gets her way," said Lydia resentfully. "I don't see how she does it."

  Kira bent over the fire to blow at the dying flame. For one moment, as a bright tongue leaped up, a red glow tore her face out of the darkness. Her face was like that of a blacksmith bending over his forge.

  "I fear for your future, Kira," said Victor. "It's time to get reconciled to life. You won't get far with those ideas of yours."

  "That," said Kira, "depends on what direction I want to go."

  III

  TWO HANDS HELD A LITTLE BOOK BOUND in gray burlap. They were dry and calloused. They had seen many years of labor in the oil and the heat and the grease of roaring machines. The wrinkles were encrusted in black on a skin stiff with the dust of years. There were black tips on the cracked fingernails. One finger wore a tarnished ring with an imitation emerald.

  The office had bare walls. They had served as towel to many a dirty hand, for traces left by five fingers zigzagged across the faded paint. In the old house now nationalized for government offices, it had been a washroom. The sink was removed; but a rusty outline with glaring nailholes still drew its picture on the wall, and two broken pipes hung out, like the bowels of the wounded building.

  The window had an iron grate and broken panes which a spider had tried to mend. It faced a bare wall with red bricks losing the last scabs of paint which had been the advertisement of a hair-restorer.

  The official sat at his desk. The desk had a blotter torn in one corner and a half-dry inkstand. The official wore a khaki suit and glasses.

  Like two silent judges presiding behind their spokesman, two pictures flanked his head. They had no frames; four thumbtacks nailed each to the wall. One was of Lenin, the other of Karl Marx. Red letters above them said: IN UNION LIES OUR STRENGTH.

  Head high, Kira Argounova stood before the desk.

  She was there to receive her labor book. Every citizen over sixteen had to have a labor book and was ordered to carry it at all times. It had to be presented and stamped when he found employment or left it; when he moved into an apartment or out of one; when he enrolled at a school, got a bread card or was married. The new Soviet passport was more than a passport: it was a citizen's permit to live. It was called "Labor Book," for labor and life were considered synonymous.