Belousov, unable to conceal his feelings for Marusya, watched the sixteen-year-old girl like a child staring at candy. Though Marusya pretended to be angry, she was really flirting with him, always flirting. Several times, she went with Belousov to the theater, and felt uncomfortable and disproportionately small next to him. At six feet six inches, he was twice her size. When he took her by the arm, she yanked it away and advised him to bring a collar and a leash next time—that would make it easier for them to walk together. His excessive height inspired mockery in the Kerns, who were all rather small in stature. He was embarrassed by his height, his long thin hands, which stuck too far out of the sleeves of his shirts, and his enormous boots, which were specially made for him by an Armenian cobbler who charged him for one and a half pairs instead of just one. Ivan turned red, then bunched up his handkerchief in his sweaty hands and rubbed his forehead and his prominent nose, with its large nostrils. To all appearances a mild-mannered, gentle, awkward fellow.
Meanwhile, Ivan Belousov was a genuine revolutionary, one of the few Bolsheviks in Kiev who knew how to write leaflets. The first one he wrote was about the death of Tolstoy, very cocky and self-assured, summoning people to band together “under the banner of the Social Democratic Labor Party, to struggle for the overthrow of the government of robbers and thieves, against the violence and tyranny of the Tsar’s henchmen, against the deadly etc. evils and of the disintegrating bourgeois-capitalist system.” Tolstoy would hardly have approved.
At first, Marusya didn’t see him as a real activist. In the fall of 1913, however, when Kiev was reeling from the Beilis Affair, he brought her a leaflet from the RSDRP with a call to protest against the oppression of the non-Russian peoples of Russia, and to strengthen the international union of workers of all nationalities, and informed her that he was the author of the text. That was the moment when Marusya began to regard him with seriousness and respect. But nothing more. She was already eternally, as she thought then, bound to Jacob.
At about this time, Ivan Belousov was expelled from the university, became a member of the Kiev committee of the RSDRP, and ran a propaganda study circle to which he invited Marusya. He was no longer comically in love with her, although he still blushed and bunched up his handkerchief in her presence. She visited this semi-underground gathering several times, but her enthusiasm for the Froebel movement outweighed her interest in revolutionary politics.
Shortly before the start of World War I, Ivan disappeared. Marusya didn’t think about him anymore. Twenty years later, in 1935, when she attended the courses on the history of the Communist Party for journalists, in the Institute of the Red Professorate, she met him again. The lecturer, a large bald man in a gray service jacket, was one Comrade Belousov, a professor.
He began his first lecture with a quote from Lenin: “You can only become a communist when you have enriched your memory with the entire wealth of knowledge accumulated by humanity.” He went on to discuss Marx and Engels, whose ideas Marusya knew already but now listened to attentively. Ivan spoke distinctly, clearly, with careful diction. The only thing lacking in him was artistry, and Marusya had something to compare him to: she had attended lectures by some world-class pedagogues at the Froebel Institute.
After the lecture, Marusya approached Professor Belousov—not to renew their acquaintance, but to ask him about the program of study. And to get a good look at him … and … just because …
“Marusya? How did you end up here?” He blushed, took his crumpled handkerchief out of his pocket, and mopped his brow.
There he was, Ivan Belousov himself. It could not have been said that she liked him in his new guise; rather, he interested her. He walked her home. From the Strastnoy Monastery they walked along the boulevards to the Nikitsky Gates, then turned toward home. He didn’t hunch over to talk to her, as he had before. On the contrary, Marusya strained her long, graceful neck to look up at him, and it seemed to her that he was looking down at her tenderly. They said goodbye at the entrance to her building. From then on, they renewed their friendship and saw each other regularly. Talked about things. Discussed politics. Marusya valued his proletarian rootedness in life—that which was lacking in her.
At the beginning of March, Marusya’s cousin Asya Smolkina, whom she rarely saw, called her and asked whether she could drop by for a minute. It was inopportune, but Asya said she was already in the neighborhood, and Marusya had to agree. Among her many cousins, Asya had a reputation as the kindest and the stupidest. It is likely that these two qualities share a common core; but perhaps people who are intelligent and unkind yoke them together only to justify the absence of goodness in themselves. Be that as it may, Asya showed up, both good and stupid. Since childhood, she had looked up to Marusya, extolling her many talents, authentic and imaginary; her beauty, which had faded somewhat by now; her intelligence; her education; and, of late, the bitterness of her lot. But, for all her admiration of Marusya, she held Jacob in even higher esteem.
Her relatives didn’t appreciate the selfless and unquestioning help that Asya bestowed on all of them, distant and close, without exception. They took her empathy and altruism for granted. Only once had Asya received a sign of gratitude for her invisible exploits and deeds—lancing abscesses, giving injections, preparing poultices, and administering enemas to old ladies on their deathbeds. Her whole life, Asya had remembered how Jacob, after returning to Kiev from Kharkov during a three-day furlough, came to her house with a bouquet of flowers, a nearly forgotten sign of gratitude, kissed her hand, which was desiccated from constant exposure to alcohol (the hand of a surgical nurse), and thanked her for saving his son’s life, and his wife’s breasts, with her healing arts. But where had he managed to get hold of flowers during the harsh privations of 1916?
“My goodness, Jacob, what do you mean? You’re exaggerating. I’m only glad I could help,” Asya murmured, feeling as though she had received a decoration. From that moment on, she had considered him to be the noblest person she had ever met in her life.
During the rare celebrations when all the relatives got together, Asya usually sat at the far end of the table and devoured Jacob with her eyes, unaware that the other cousins were winking at one another and exchanging glances at her expense. She didn’t consider her raptures over Jacob to be anything like being in love, because since childhood she had been certain that no man would ever marry her, and that it wasn’t even worth dreaming about. The best thing she could do was to serve all the people who surrounded her, without exception. The notion of people who were “near and dear” was unknown to her. She did not suspect that she had taken a kind of monastic vow, and she didn’t even know she was making sacrifices. Well, is that not what others would call stupid?
She entered Marusya’s house, smiling her bland, foolish smile. She had tender hairs on her upper lip that promised to become more mannish with the years. Her close-set eyes shone. When she smiled more broadly, her long mouth opened to reveal perfect, white, evenly spaced teeth that looked as if they had been intended for someone else. In her hands she was holding a paper bag with pastries. Marusya boiled the teakettle on a hot plate she had in the room—she tried to avoid going into the communal kitchen if she could help it. Drinking tea and eating éclairs, they discussed the relatives. Marusya didn’t mention Jacob. When Asya asked what news she had of him, Marusya told her about the eczema, which had grown worse. Asya opened her arms wide in a gesture of surprise, exclaiming: “Really? But what a coincidence! Vera’s Annechka also has eczema.”