Galina’s parents encouraged her to read books in which the idea of freedom was lauded to the skies; her own life, however, proceeded according to a strict and unvarying schedule from the moment she greeted her parents each morning to the moment she lay down to sleep at night in the position considered most conducive to healthy breathing.
When Galina turned sixteen, her mother made her a wardrobe of new clothes and started taking her daughter out to social engagements to make the acquaintance of important gentlemen with stout figures and gleaming bald heads. The family had run up debts, and Galina’s parents were hoping to arrange a good marriage for her.
“You’ll find her a very obliging girl,” Galina’s mother would assure them.
Galina had a keen instinct for what was required of her and generally lived up to her parents’ expectations, whether it was a question of achieving good grades at school or disappearing into her room when she was not wanted.
If she fell short in any way, her father would hiss in her ear, “You’re in for it this evening.” Later, he would thrash her with a dog leash.
Her mother was given to periodic fits of rage, during which she would often pick up the first thing she could lay her hands on and hurl it at her daughter. The scar on Galina’s neck had been caused by a pair of red-hot curling irons—the story about the fire was her own invention.
One day, Galina’s mother had invited over to the house a revolutionary, Comrade Alov, who was under surveillance by the Tsarist police. He was twelve years older than Galina and wore a ridiculous pince-nez on a greasy ribbon. The cook took one look at him and dubbed him the Stick.
Comrade Alov’s passionate speeches had a profound effect on Galina. He spoke of how, in the present cruel age, the country needed not men and women but “superhumans” free of the doubt, fear, and petty vices of ordinary mortals. This, he argued, was the only way to retain dignity and not to demean oneself before those in power.
Whenever Alov was invited to dinner by Galina’s mother, he would criticize his hostess for her sentimental books and deplore her husband’s desire to live “as well as the next man.”
“We only live once on this earth,” Alov said passionately. “And look at how you’re wasting your lives! Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Is that really all you want—to be narrow-minded, bourgeois conformists?”
“Oh, dear, I am ashamed,” Galina’s mother sighed, dabbing away a tear with a scented handkerchief.
“Hear, hear! Spoken like a true man!” her father exclaimed and scribbled down phrases from Alov’s speech in the special notebook he used to note down words of wisdom.
A romance grew up between Galina and Alov, but when her parents found out, they threatened to take their daughter’s young man to the police. Alov was not the son-in-law they had been hoping for.
He took Galina away with him to Paris, where the Bolshevik party had assigned him to go, and that was the last time she saw her parents. Many years later, she found out that they had died of hunger during the civil war.
Galina did everything Alov asked or even hinted, cooking and cleaning for him, typing out his articles and translating materials from English and French into Russian. Alov had no intention of marrying Galina, so he informed her that she was an emancipated woman and that marriage was a bourgeois institution, unthinkable for one who held his convictions.
In 1914, war broke out. As a foreigner, Alov was not required to sign up, but he went to the front nevertheless as a volunteer to spread revolutionary propaganda among the French troops.
Galina was convinced that he would be killed. Soon after Alov had come back for a few days’ leave, she found herself pregnant and resolved to keep the child. Seven months later, her daughter Tata was born.
But despite Galina’s fears, Alov survived the war. He was gassed in the trenches, and as a result, suffered periodical attacks of a mysterious, dreadful sickness that would leave him doubled up with pain, struggling for breath. He took to wearing amber beads on his wrist, saying that they helped when he had an attack.
Early in 1919, Alov returned to Moscow with his “family,” found work with the political police, and was given a room in the ancient Select Hotel, which was now horribly dirty and run-down.
The revolution had rid the country not only of exploitation but also of all creature comforts: everyday essentials—screws for spectacles, costume hooks and eyes, or nail scissors—had become unattainable luxuries. But Galina did not complain: what was a little discomfort when they were fighting for a bright future for all mankind?
She was desperate to believe that their efforts would not be in vain. She wanted to think that soon she would have her own divan covered by a plaid blanket and her own painted porcelain cup from which to drink hot chocolate, a private kitchen and sink, and her own lavatory where she could leave the commode without worrying that it would be stolen by her neighbors.
But week followed week, year followed year, and nothing changed.
Galina was a useful addition to Alov’s life; not only did she carry out his every wish without a word of complaint but she was also able to take care of herself. But little Tata and her screaming got on his nerves. The three of them were all cooped up together in one small room where there was nowhere to hide from the baby’s cries. He would shoot accusing glances at Galina as if to say, “Because you took it into your head to have a baby, now we all have to suffer!”
The neighbors would knock on the wall and shout, “Keep your little pest quiet!”
Galina, flushed and hectic, would often slap Tata, which only made the little girl cry louder.
“Are you a complete fool, woman?” Alov would hiss miserably.
He would go out for a cigarette, and Galina would hug Tata and cry bitterly, “Forgive me, please, for God’s sake!”
Alov had been charged with keeping an eye on what the foreign press was writing about the USSR. He carried out his work so well that finally he was given a room in an apartment on Bolshoi Kiselny Lane.
“We need to have a serious talk,” he told Galina when he received the official warrant.
He began by thanking her profusely for having been such a faithful comrade and for her devoted work in the fight for communism.
Galina listened, wondering where all this was leading.
At last, Alov drew himself up and, unable to meet her eye, informed her that he was marrying an actress.
Galina was speechless. She could not imagine how Alov could have fallen in love with another woman, still less decide to get married. After all, he had always told her he was against marriage.
“I would like to do the right thing by you,” added Alov, “so I am proposing that you and Tata take my new room. After all, I’m much in debt to you.”
“But what about you?” blurted out Galina, still reeling from the shock. “They’ll take away the room at the Select Hotel now, won’t they?”
“I’ll manage. Don’t worry.”
So, Galina and her daughter moved into Bolshoi Kiselny Lane, and Alov moved in with a friend, an OGPU agent, who had extra living space. Galina did not know whether to be pleased about her new situation or to weep with the humiliation of it all.
True to his word, Alov married his actress, and Galina decided to have a look at her rival.
This rising star was called Dunya Odesskaya. She had no permanent job and found work here and there as an understudy in the theaters. She was a pretty girl with huge, watery eyes and short blonde curls but had no talent to speak of. Galina wondered if while at the front, Alov might have received a serious blow to the head that had affected his judgment.
Tata soon forgot all about her father, who never even showed his face in Bolshoi Kiselny Lane, and Galina had made up the story about the commissar who had died in the fire so that Tata would not feel that her father had abandoned her.