Only a little while ago she had been living in Kuibyshev. She had been about to go to the front to visit Novikov; the bond between them seemed as necessary, as inevitable, as Fate itself. Yevgenia had been horrified at the idea that she was bound to him for ever, separated for ever from Krymov… There had been moments when everything about Novikov had seemed alien to her. His hopes, his worries, his circle of friends had nothing whatsoever in common with hers. There was something absurd about the idea of her pouring out tea at his table, receiving his friends, talking to the wives of colonels and generals.
She remembered Novikov's indifference towards Chekhov's 'The Bishop' and 'A Boring Story'. He preferred the tendentious novels of a Dreiser or a Feuchtwanger. But now that she knew her separation from Novikov was final, she felt a surge of tenderness; she thought many times of his obedient readiness to agree with everything she said. Then she felt overwhelmed by grief – would his hands never again touch her shoulders, would she really never see his face again?
Never before had she met such an unusual combination of shy kindness and rough strength. She was so drawn to him – he was so free of harshness and fanaticism, there was such a special, wise, peasant kindness in him. But as soon as she thought this, Yevgenia felt the presence of something dark and unclean. How had the NKVD found out what Krymov had said about Trotsky? Everything that tied her to Krymov was so desperately serious; it had been impossible to draw a line through their life together.
She would follow Krymov. What did it matter if he didn't forgive her – she deserved his never-ending reproaches. She knew that he needed her, that in prison he thought of her all the time.
Novikov would find the inner strength to get over their separation. But she had no idea what she needed for her own peace of mind. The knowledge that he no longer loved her, that he had calmly forgiven her? The knowledge that he was quite inconsolable, that he still loved her and would never forgive her? And was it easier to believe they had separated for ever, or to trust that one day they would be reunited?
What suffering she had caused everyone close to her. Could she really have done all this not for other people, but for herself, to gratify her own whims? Was she just a neurotic intellectual?
That evening, when they were all sitting at table, Yevgenia suddenly looked at her sister and asked: 'Do you know what I am?'
'You?' asked Lyudmila in surprise.
'Yes, me,' said Yevgenia. Then she explained: 'I'm a small dog of female gender.'
'A bitch?' said Nadya gaily.
'Precisely,' said Yevgenia.
They all burst out laughing – though they knew very well that Yevgenia was not joking.
'You know,' said Yevgenia, 'an admirer of mine in Kuibyshev, Limonov, once gave me a definition of middle-aged love. He said it was a spiritual vitamin deficiency. A man lives for a long time with his wife and develops a kind of spiritual hunger – he's like a cow deprived of salt, or an Arctic explorer who's gone without vegetables for years on end. A man with a forceful, strong-willed wife begins to long for a meek, gentle soul, someone timid and submissive.'
'This Limonov of yours sounds a fool,' said Lyudmila.
'What if a man needs several different vitamins – , , and D?' asked Nadya.
Later, as they were about to go to bed, Viktor said:
'Zhenevyeva, we often make fun of intellectuals for their doubts, their split personalities, their Hamlet-like indecisiveness. When I was young I despised that side of myself. Now, though, I've changed my mind: humanity owes many great books and great discoveries to people who were indecisive and full of doubts; they have achieved at least as much as the simpletons who never hesitate. And when it comes to the crunch, they too are prepared to go to the stake; they stand just as firm under fire as the people who are always strong-willed and resolute.'
'Thank you, Vitenka,' said Yevgenia. 'Are you thinking of the small female dog?'
'Precisely,' said Viktor.
He wanted to say something that would please Yevgenia.
'I was looking again at your painting, Zhenechka. I like it because of the feeling in it. Avant-garde art is nothing but novelty and audacity; there's no God in any of it.'
'You can say that again!' said Lyudmila. 'Green men, blue huts… It's totally cut off from reality.'
'Listen, Milka,' said Yevgenia. 'Matisse once said, "If I use green, that doesn't mean I'm about to paint some grass; if I use blue, that doesn't mean I'm painting a sky." Colour is simply an expression of the inner world of the artist.'
Viktor had wanted to please Yevgenia, but he couldn't help adding mockingly:
'Eckerman, on the other hand, said: "If Goethe were God, if he had created the world, he too would have made the grass green and the sky blue." Those words mean a lot to me. After all, I'm not entirely a stranger to the material God formed the world from… Though of course I also know that there are no paints or colours, only atoms and the void between them.'
Such conversations were rare, however. Usually they talked either about the war or about the Public Prosecutor.
It was a difficult time. Yevgenia's leave was coming to an end; soon she would have to return to Kuibyshev.
She dreaded having to explain herself to her boss. She had gone off to Moscow without saying a word; day after day she had hung around prisons and written petitions to the Public Prosecutor and the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs.
Yevgenia had always been terrified of official institutions and of having to write official requests; even the need to renew her passport had been enough to give her insomnia. Recently, though, her whole life seemed to have been made up of meetings with policemen, difficulties with passports and residence permits, statements and petitions addressed to the Public Prosecutor…
There was a deathly calm in Lyudmila's house. Viktor no longer went out to work; he just sat in his room for hours on end. Lyudmila came back from the special store looking angry and upset – the other wives no longer even said hello to her.
Yevgenia was very conscious of Viktor's nervousness. If the phone rang, he shuddered and rushed to pick up the receiver. While they were talking during meals, he often interrupted with a sudden: 'Sh! Sh! I think there's someone at the door.' He would go out into the hall and come back again with an embarrassed smile. The two sisters were well aware of the reason for this constant anxiety.
'That's how you develop persecution mania,' said Lyudmila. 'The psychiatric hospitals were full of people like that in 1937.'
In view of Viktor's constant apprehension, Yevgenia was particularly touched by the way he treated her. Once he even said: 'Remember, Zhenevyeva, I don't care in the least what anyone thinks of the fact that someone living in my house is trying to help a person who's been arrested. Do you understand? You must look on this as your own home.'
Yevgenia enjoyed talking to Nadya in the evenings.
'You're too clever for your own good,' she said once. 'You don't sound a bit like a young girl; you sound more like a member of a society for former political prisoners.'
'Future political prisoners,' said Viktor. 'I suppose you talk politics with your lieutenant too.'
'And what of it?' asked Nadya.
'You should stick to kissing,' said Yevgenia.
'That's what I was going to say myself,' said Viktor. 'It's less dangerous.'
Nadya was drawn to dangerous subjects; one moment she'd suddenly ask about Bukharin, the next she'd ask whether it was true that Lenin had thought highly of Trotsky and hadn't wanted to see Stalin during the last months of his life. Had he really written a testament that Stalin had kept secret?
When they were alone together, Yevgenia avoided asking Nadya about Lieutenant Lomov. Nevertheless, she soon knew more about him and Nadya's relationship with him than Lyudmila did – from listening to Nadya talk about politics, about the war, about conversations she'd had with her friends, about the poetry of Mandelstam and Akhmatova.