“Can I see him?”
“No. Not a chance. No visitors allowed to that bunch.”
“But then ...”
“But then you go home and stay there. And don’t worry. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”
“I have a friend who has connections, I think, who could ...”
“You keep your mouth shut and don’t drag no connections into this. Sit still for two or three days.”
“That long!”
“Well, that’s not as long as never seeing him again. And don’t worry, we’ll keep him locked up for you — with no women around.”
He got off the desk, and grinned. Then his lips fell into a straight line; he towered over Kira, looking straight into her eyes, and his eyes were not gay. He said: “When you get him back, keep your claws on him. If you haven’t any — grow some. He’s not an easy stud. And don’t try to leave the country. You’re in this Soviet Russia; you may hate it, and you may choke, but in Soviet Russia you’ll stay. I think you have the claws for him. Watch him. His father loved him.”
Kira extended her hand. It disappeared in Stepan Timoshenko’s tanned fist.
At the door she turned and asked softly: “Why are you doing this?”
He was not looking at her; he was looking out the window. He answered: “I’ve gone through the war in the Baltic Fleet. Admiral Kovalensky was blinded in service in the Baltic Fleet. He was not the worst commander we had.... Get out of here!”
Lydia said: “She twists on her mattress all night long. You’d think we had mice in the house. I can’t sleep.”
Galina Petrovna said: “I believe you’re a student, Kira Alexandrovna? Or am I mistaken? You haven’t been at the Institute for three days. Victor said so. Would you condescend to inform us what kind of new foolishness is this that’s come over you?”
Alexander Dimitrievitch said nothing. He awakened with a start, for he had dozed off, a half-filled saccharine tube in his hand.
Kira said nothing.
Galina Petrovna said: “Look at those circles under her eyes. No respectable girl looks like that.”
“I knew it!” Lydia yelled. “I knew it! She’s put eight saccharine crystals into that tube again!”
On the evening of the fourth day, the door bell rang.
Kira did not raise her eyes from the saccharine tube. Lydia, curious about every ringing bell, went to open the door.
Kira heard a voice asking: “Is Kira at home?”
Then the saccharine tube clattered to the floor, breaking into splinters, and Kira was at the anteroom doorway, her hand at her throat.
He smiled, the corners of his lips drooping arrogantly. “Good evening, Kira,” he said calmly.
“Good evening, Leo.”
Lydia stared at them.
Kira stood at the door, her eyes holding his, her lips paralyzed. Galina Petrovna and Alexander Dimitrievitch stopped counting the saccharine.
Leo said: “Get your coat, Kira, and come on.”
She said: “Yes, Leo,” and took her coat off the hanger on the wall, moving like a somnambulist.
Lydia coughed discreetly. Leo looked at her. His glance brought a warm, wistful smile to Lydia’s lips; it always did that to women; yet there was nothing in his eyes except that when he glanced at a woman his eyes told her that he was a man and she was a woman and he remembered it.
Lydia gathered courage to disregard the lack of an introduction; but she did not know how to start and she gazed helplessly at the handsomest male ever to appear in their anteroom, and she threw bluntly the question that was on her mind: “Where do you come from?”
“From jail,” Leo answered with a courteous smile.
Kira had buttoned her coat. Her eyes were fixed on him, as if she did not know that others were present. He took her arm with the gesture of an owner, and they were gone.
“Well, of all the unmannered ...” Galina Petrovna gasped, jumping up. But the door was closed.
To the sleigh driver outside, Leo gave an address.
“Where is that?” he repeated her question, his lips in her fur collar, as the sleigh jerked forward. “That’s my home.... Yes, I got it back. They had it sealed since my father’s arrest.”
“When did you ...”
“This afternoon. Went to the Institute to get your address; then — home and made a fire in the fireplace. It was like a grave, hadn’t been heated for two months. It will be warm for us by now.”
The door they entered bore the red seal of the G.P.U. The seal had been broken; two red scabs of wax remained, parting to let them enter.
They walked through a dark drawing room. The fireplace blazed, throwing a red glow on their feet and over their reflection in the mirror of a parquet floor. The apartment had been searched. There were papers strewn over the parquet, and overturned chairs. There were crystal vases on malachite stands; one vase was broken; the splinters sparkled on the floor in the darkness, little red flames dancing and winking through them, as if live coals had rolled out of the fireplace.
In Leo’s bedroom, a light was burning, a single lamp with a silver shade, over a black onyx fireplace. A last blue flame quivered on dying coals and made a purple glow on the silver bedspread.
Leo threw his coat in a corner. He unbuttoned her coat and took it off; without a word, he unbuttoned her dress; she stood still and let him undress her.
He whispered into the little warm hollow under her chin: “It was torture. Waiting. Three days — and three nights.”
He threw her across the bed. The purple glow quivered over her body. He did not undress. He did not turn out the light.
Kira looked at the ceiling; it was a silvery white far away. Light was coming in through the gray satin curtains. She sat up in bed, her breasts stiff in the cold. She said: “I think it’s already tomorrow.”
Leo was asleep, his head thrown back, one arm hanging over the edge of the bed. Her stockings were on the floor, her dress — on a bed post. Leo’s eyelashes moved slowly; he looked up and said: “Good morning, Kira.”
She stretched her arms and crossed them behind her head, and threw her head back, shaking the hair off her face, and said: “I don’t think my family will like it. I think they’ll throw me out.”
“You’re staying here.”
“I’ll go to say good-bye.”
“Why go back at all?”
“I suppose I must tell them something.”
“Well, go. But don’t take long. I want you here.”
They stood like three pillars, towering and silent, at the dining-room table. They had the red, puffed eyes of a sleepless night. Kira stood facing them, leaning against the door, indifferent and patient.
“Well?” said Galina Petrovna.
“Well what?” said Kira.
“You won’t tell us again that you were at Irina’s.”
“No.”
Galina Petrovna straightened her shoulders and her faded flannel bathrobe. “I don’t know how far your foolish innocence can go. But do you realize that people might think that ...”
“Certainly, I’ve slept with him.”
The cry came from Lydia.
Galina Petrovna opened her mouth and closed it.
Alexander Dimitrievitch opened his mouth and it remained open.
Galina Petrovna’s arm pointed at the door. “You’ll leave my house,” she said. “And you’ll never come back.”
“All right,” said Kira.
“How could you? A daughter of mine! How can you stand there and stare at us? Have you no conception of the shame, the disgrace, the depraved ...”
“We won’t discuss that,” said Kira.
“Did you stop to think it was a mortal sin? ... Eighteen years old and a man from jail! ... And the Church ... for centuries ... for your fathers and grandfathers ... all our Saints have told us that no sin is lower! You hear about those things, but God, my own daughter! ... The Saints who, for our sins ...”