At one time, the large apartment building on Bolshoi Kiselny Lane had been home to eminent doctors and lawyers. But after the revolution, they had been turned out of the building, and new tenants had been moved in—ten families to each apartment.
In the old days, if people shared a house, they would have had something in common: a similar lifestyle, a similar level of education, or similar income. But now, academics lived cheek by jowl with alcoholics, policemen with petty thieves, and aristocratic old ladies with staunch young communists.
Galina’s apartment was no better or worse than any of the others. For the most part, the residents got along, but the cramped conditions and differences in opinions would invariably end in rows.
Who had trampled dirt from the street all over the entrance hall? Who had been splitting firewood in the bathroom and cracked the floor tiles? Who had hung up their washing in the kitchen out of turn? While tenants had individual washing lines, the nails in the walls were shared by all, and it was strictly forbidden to break the rota.
On Sunday morning, Galina went to Klim and Kitty’s house to pick them up, and they took a horse-cab to her house. All the way there, she felt horribly anxious, and despite herself, she kept noticing omens: church bells were ringing, which was lucky; but then a flock of crows flew up from a fence—a bad sign. She felt sick at heart, thinking of what Klim might say when he saw how wretchedly she lived. What if Tata blurted something out? What if the other tenants started a row and disgraced her in Klim’s eyes forever?
Klim noticed how nervous she was. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “The main thing is for the girls to enjoy themselves.”
She smiled gratefully in answer. It was incredible how he could always guess exactly what she was feeling and thinking.
After paying the cab driver, they entered a stairwell plastered with old announcements and went up to the second floor.
The marble staircase had survived ten years of Soviet rule, but the wooden rails had long since been taken off the banisters—they had been used for firewood in 1918. Here and there, plaster was peeling off the walls, and the doors were disfigured by a rash of doorplates, bells, and wires.
“Just a minute,” Galina said as she dug in her handbag for the key.
Kitty looked at the rows of electric doorbells in amazement. “Why do you have so many?”
“We all have our own doorbells,” explained Galina. “They all play different notes, so we know straight away who has a visitor.”
The door opened suddenly and out came one of Galina’s cotenants, Mitrofanych, an archive assistant. He greeted the visitors and set off downstairs, glancing up over his shoulder as he went. Klim and Kitty had clearly made quite an impression on him.
They entered a dark corridor hung with washing. From within the apartment, they could hear the whirr of a sewing machine.
“Sasha, you can heat up that meat rissole,” a female voice came from the kitchen. “It’s on the saucer under the cloth.”
They walked along the corridor past a row of trunks. Galina told her guests that some of the residents in the apartment had domestic helpers who had come in to Moscow from the countryside. In the daytime, they did the housework, and at night, they slept on these trunks.
“Please, come in,” said Galina, throwing open the door to her room. “Make yourselves at home.”
She had done what she could to brighten up her room. The walls were hung with decorated birdhouses and little cages that contained toy airplanes instead of birds. There was a lamp made of carefully assembled bits of glass, and instead of a divan, a garden bench stood in the corner of the room with a brightly colored mattress made of a patchwork of scraps. This was where Galina slept. Tata slept in the wardrobe under the clothes, but the guests did not have to know that.
Kitty looked spellbound at the wardrobe, which was decorated with pink-nosed white rabbits.
“They’re so pretty!” she said.
“My daughter painted them,” Galina said proudly.
“Where is she?”
“Here I am!”
Tata was standing in the doorway, looking like a child from an orphanage in her blue school smock and the ugly knitted cardigan.
Tata was holding an old ginger cat in her arms, Pussinboots, a wretched, communally owned creature who was fed by each of the tenants in turn.
For a second or two, Tata stared at her guests without saying a word. Galina tensed inside. What would happen now? But all went well. Tata greeted the visitors and, ignoring Klim, walked straight up to his daughter.
“What’s your name? Kitty? That won’t do. We’ll have to think up a new revolutionary name for you. My name is Traktorina, but you can call me Tata for short. Would you like to stroke Pussinboots? “
“Yes, please!” said Kitty, delighted.
“She’s called Tatyana,” said Galina with irritation, but Klim paid no attention to Tata’s fibs.
“Let them play,” he said.
“Who’s that?” asked Kitty, pointing at a portrait of Lenin that was hung above the desk. “Is it your father?”
Tata gaped at her. “He’s not my father. Or rather, he’s everybody’s father, not just mine. He’s the leader of the workers of the world!”
Kitty looked puzzled. “That’s my daddy, right there.” She pointed at Klim. “But I don’t know that man.”
“What?” Tata was lost for words. “But that’s… that’s…”
“Why do your servants sleep on trunks?” asked Kitty, suddenly. “In our house, Kapitolina sleeps on a sack of money. If you jump on it, you can hear it rustling.”
Tata looked slowly from Kitty to Klim. “Mother!” she said in dismay. “Can I talk to you in private?”
Galina took Tata out into the corridor.
“Who are these people?” Tata hissed angrily at her mother. “Why have you brought them here? They have servants who sleep on sacks of money!”
Galina put her hand over Tata’s mouth. “Quiet, for pity’s sake! It’s nonsense about the sacks. Kitty’s making it up!”
“Really? And why doesn’t she know who Lenin is?”
“They’ve only just come here from China. If Uncle Klim had told Kitty about Lenin, she might have said something in public, and it could have got them arrested.”
Tata looked thoughtful. She knew all about the outrages committed by the Chinese police.
“All right,” she agreed at last. “Let’s go back in.”
Tata taught Kitty to play political exiles—they perched on the windowsill and pretended they were on their way to Siberia. The cactus plants were the gendarmes who were standing guard over them.
Galina poured Klim some tea and got out some biscuits bought at a ridiculously high price from one of the other tenants. Everything seemed to be going well.
“I expect you’re at the Lubyanka now and again, are you?” asked Klim suddenly in English.
Galina stopped with her teacup halfway to her mouth. “What makes you say that?”
Klim pointed to a letter stuck behind the wire for the light switch. “OGPU Trade Union. Overdue membership fees: final notice.”
Galina’s hands began to shake. That fool of a girl Tata! Galina had told her a hundred times to hide the mail.
There was no point in denying it now.
“I don’t tell them anything bad about you,” she said hurriedly. “You can see my reports if you like. I don’t—”
Klim shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’ve nothing to hide. But could I ask you a favor? I want to know if the OGPU has a file on a woman called Nina Kupina.”
“Who’s that?” Galina frowned.
“A friend of mine.”
“Very well. I can find out.”