Its a genuine problem at last,’ said Oktyabrina. ‘How can I help?’
Vladimir s party waited for an evening when his mother was away at a conference, leaving their apartment free. It was the standard studio type in one of the new prefabricated developments. Vladimir slept in the kitchen; his mother on a convertible sofa in the living-room, which was crammed with mass-produced bric-a-brac and reproductions of cottage landscapes. A glazed bust of a pinkish Lenin on one of the sideboards told its own story amidst the collection of clay elephants. The furniture was protected by maroon slipcovers, a color that gives you a quick headache in remembrance of childhood Sundays visiting relatives.
Everything in the apartment spoke of a sizeable income, even by the intelligentsia’s standards. Vladimir’s mother, a senior inspector of schools, obviously poured most of her salary into furnishings. Her husband had left her when Vladimir was eight, and his name was not mentioned in the apartment.
Vladimir had invited a former classmate and his girl friend along with Gelda and me. He served a sweet wine and sliced bologna and cheese, both of which were sweating greasily when we arrived. The girl friend spilled her first glass of wine over her metallic party dress and suffered thereafter in tongue-tied embarrassment. Her boy friend, Vladimir’s classmate, could not tear himself from the television set. The noise of the set and banality of the program hardly contributed to a party atmosphere.
Oktyabrina tried to play hostess, but it was her first time in the apartment too, and Vladimir was on tenterhooks lest she break something. She found herself sunk in one of the overstuffed armchairs, trying to interest Gelda in the small talk of evening entertaining. Gelda’s irritation put an edge on the general pall. I yearned for a bourbon, or vodka. The wine was impossible.
At one point, I had a few words with Vladimir alone -what he called a ‘man-to-man talk over a glass of good vintage’. ‘All joking aside,’ he said, ‘I don’t know wines very well but I prefer red to white. On graduation night from my Institute I got so sick on white that I had to sleep at a friend’s. Mama wrote his mother a very strong letter about bad influences on me - I had to deliver it to her myself.
Between you and me, I think white’s got some kind of acid
• •» > in it.
Vladimir told me that despite his mother’s severity on certain days, she was full of charity on others. He loved her for her honesty and devotion to him; they read plays together after supper. And oddly, their roles were reversing. Now a lonely lady, Mama needed the release of bossing him more than he was distressed by her strictures.
He refilled my glass, obviously eager to talk. Yes, life was proceeding according to plan, he said. But in spite of everything, he somehow felt trapped.
I do all the right things. Volunteer work with the Pioneers, and I have a medal for helping at the Museum. But somehow everything seems so dull for me. Sometimes I daydream of throwing up everything and going north. To be an explorer or something . . . free and on my own/
It was now clear that Vladimir was what he seemed, an exceedingly tedious young man - ‘as boring as an English Sunday, in the words of a beloved Russian poet. He reminded me of everything I like to forget about my own youth: anxiety, excessive intensity, sweaty concern about making a bad impression or going unnoticed. What could Oktyabrina see in him? I wondered. Where was the heroism — even the charm? As if he’d read my thoughts, the answer followed. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but you were her best friend. My Oktyabrina’s made the whole difference in my life. It’s a miracle, how I met her. But she’s so free about everything - what if she leaves?
Vladimir noticed that his other guests needed attention. He suggested chess, but only his classmate responded. Then he played several records from his collection; current Soviet ballads as exciting as his mother’s furniture. Oktyabrina had given him a recording of the song about finding one’s beloved ‘on a background of our Motherland’s white’.
Vladimir asked Gelda to dance, but she merely picked up a book. Gelda left almost immediately after this. She had to have air , she said. Panic flickered in Oktyabrina’s eyes as Gelda clumped down the stairs and she, Oktyabrina, remained at Vladimir’s side.
Suddenly I too needed air. What really disturbed me in Vladimir was the crucial difference between us: watching him fumbling with Oktyabrina, I realized that he had the sense to embrace something good, instead of pushing it stagily away, as was my tender habit with every girl who showed interest in me. Vladimir was manifestly too young 206 &
for Oktyabrina: wrapped up in his own anxieties, he failed even to notice her ravenous appetite. But it was humiliating to find myself making comparisons about who was more generous to a girl of Oktyabrina’s age.
It was after midnight when I got home. I looked at the empty davenport and realized what a fool I’d been to send Oktyabrina home at night when she’d lived with me in the spring. Suddenly I knew that she was sleeping with Vladimir. I telephoned my embassy friend. Irritated by the hour, she refused my suggestion of a nightcap. Life was as empty as it had ever been. I went for a walk, wondering what force in life had delivered me to where I was, the ancient streets of comatose Moscow, empty except for rugged snowclearing crews.
22
Oktyabrina appeared at the apartment early the next morning. With a wry smile, she handed me a packet of aspirin. She took two herself with a large glass of tea.
Then she made her first casual mention of getting a job. By the end of the morning, she was talking about little else. It was not, she assured me, that Vladimir was pressing her. Still, she wouldn’t deny that her enlightenment had come through his example. He worked and was a far better man for it. And although he treated her like a princess, she couldn’t help feeling somehow . . . lowly next to him. While he toiled nobly all day, she queued for worms.
Tn all honesty,’ she declared in her all-honesty voice, T won’t be comfortable at his side until I’m a person who earns his deep respect. I can’t expect to live my life through him, sort of begging and borrowing from the dignity he’s achieved for himself. I certainly can’t expect to be presented to his mother.
By the next day, she was spouting what Russians call
newspaper talk’. Where she’d learned it was a small mystery, for she never read a newspaper; her attitude towards journalism had been made clear. Still, her message was the State’s message: she must become a useful member of society. And the key to this, as the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism ordained, as the Bolshevik ethic had posited for fifty odd years, was honest labor.
‘In our socialist land, one must give his labor to society, then society will take care of the rest. It’s the only way to be genuinely happy. I see that now. A person not only becomes depraved but frightfully alienated, actually lost , when he ... oh for goodness sake, Zhoseph. Explaining something ethical to you is like asking a cow not to mess the stalls. Stop smirking.’
Stop smirking yourself. I’ve always been dead serious about work - welcome to the sufferers’ circle.’
‘Shall I continue? This is important to more than me.’
‘You don’t know how right you are.’
Where was I? ... A person becomes not only depraved but frightfully alienated, actually lost , unless he’s solidly rooted in honest toil. There’s still time for me to cast off my old, corrupted w T ays and find a shining purpose in life. . . . I’ve discussed the whole problem with Vladik.’