“Oh, well,” she tore the cover off swiftly, “tell them you’ve used the cover for a revolutionary poster.”
Alone with Kira for a moment, before leaving, Irina looked at her earnestly, curiously, almost timidly, and whispered: “Are you ... happy?”
Kira said indifferently: “I’m happy.”
Kira seldom spoke of what she thought; and more seldom — of what she felt. There was a man, however, for whom she made an exception, both exceptions. She made other exceptions for him as well, and wondered dimly why she made them. Communists awakened fear in her, a fear of her own degradation if she associated, talked or even looked at them; a fear not of their guns, their jails, their secret, watchful eyes — but of something behind their furrowed foreheads, something they had — or, perhaps, it was something they didn’t have, which made her feel as if she were alone in the presence of a beast, its jaws gaping; whom she could never force to understand. But she smiled confidently up at Andrei Taganov; and pressed tightly against the wall of an empty auditorium at the Institute, her eyes radiant, her smile timid and trusting, like a child appealing to a guiding hand, she said: “I’m happy, Andrei.”
He had not seen her for many weeks. He smiled warmly, quietly, looking down into her eager eyes. “I’ve missed you, Kira.”
“I’ve missed you, Andrei. I ... I’ve been busy.”
“I didn’t want to call on you. I thought you would prefer it if I never called at your house.”
“You see ...” Then she stopped. She could not tell him. She could not bring him to her new home — to Leo’s home. Andrei could be dangerous; he was a member of the G.P.U.; he had a duty to fulfill; it was best not to tempt that duty. So she said only: “Yes, Andrei, I’d rather you would never call ... at my house.”
“I won’t. But will you be more regular about your lectures? So that I can see you once in a while — and hear you say that you’re happy? I like to hear that.”
“Andrei, have you ever been happy?”
“I’ve never been unhappy.”
“Is that enough?”
“Well, I always know what I want. And when you know what you want — you go toward it. Sometimes you go very fast, and sometimes only an inch a year. Perhaps you feel happier when you go fast. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten the difference long ago, because it really doesn’t matter, so long as you move.”
“And if you want something toward which you can’t move?”
“I never did.”
“And if — on your way — you find a barrier that you don’t want to break?”
“I never have.”
She remembered suddenly: “Andrei, you haven’t even asked me why I’m happy.”
“Does it make any difference — so long as you are?”
He held her two hands, thin and trusting, in his five strong fingers.
The first signs of spring in Petrograd were tears and smiles: the men smiled, the houses dropped the tears. High on the roofs, the snow was melting, gray with city dust like dirty cotton, brittle and shining like wet sugar, and twinkling drops dripped slowly, trickled in little gurgling brooks from the mouths of drain pipes, and across the sidewalks, and into the gutters, rocking gently cigarette stubs and sunflower-seed shells. Men walked out of the houses and breathed deeply, and smiled, and did not know why they smiled, until they looked up and saw that above the roofs the sky was a feeble, hesitant, incredulous blue, a very pale blue, as if a painter had washed the color off his brush in a huge tub of water, and the water held only a drop of a promise.
Icy mush crunched under galoshes and the sun made white sparks in the black rubber toes; sleigh-runners grunted, cutting brown ridges; a voice yelled: “Saccharine, citizens!”; drops tapped the sidewalks steadily, persistently, like a soft, distant machine gun; a voice yelled: “Violets, citizens!”
Pavel Syerov bought a pair of new boots. He blinked in the sun down at Comrade Sonia and bought her a hot, shiny cabbage cake from a woman on a corner. She chewed it, smiling. She said: “At three o’clock — giving lecture at the Komsomol on ‘Our drive on the NEP front.’ At five o’clock — giving talk at the Club of the Rabfac, on ‘Proletarian Women and Illiteracy.’ At seven — discussion at the Party Club on ‘Spirit of the Collective.’ Why don’t you drop in at nine? Seems I never see you.”
He said: “Sonia, old pal, can’t take up your valuable time. People like you and me have no private life but that of our class duty.”
Lines stood at the doors of shoe stores; the trade unions were giving out cards for the purchase of galoshes.
Maria Petrovna stayed in bed most of the day and watched the sun on the glass of a closed window, and hid her handkerchiefs from the sight of all.
Comrade Lenin had had a second stroke and had lost his power of speech. Pravda said: “... no higher sacrifice to the cause of the Proletariat than a leader burning out his will, health and body in the superhuman effort of the responsibility placed upon his shoulders by the Workers and Peasants.”
Victor invited three Communist students to his room and they discussed the future of Proletarian Electrification. He let them out through the back door to avoid Vasili Ivanovitch.
England had treacherous designs on the Republic of Workers and Peasants. Teaching of English was prohibited in schools.
Acia had to study German, sniveling over the difference of “der,” “die,” “das,” trying to remember what it was that our German class brothers had done at Rapallo.
The boss at the Gossizdat said: “The city proletariat is marching tomorrow in a demonstration of protest against France’s policy in the Ruhr. I expect all our employees to take part, Comrade Kovalensky.”
Leo said: “I’ll stay in bed. I’m having a headache — tomorrow.”
Vasili Ivanovitch sold the shade off the lamp in the drawing room; he kept the lamp because it was the last one.
In the dark, warm evenings, churches overflowed with bowed heads, incense and candle light. Lydia prayed for Holy Russia and for the dull fear in her heart.
Andrei took Kira to the Marinsky Theater and they saw Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty” ballet. He left her at the house on Moika and she took a tramway to her other home. A light snow melted on her face, like rain.
Leo asked: “How’s your Communist boy friend?”
She asked: “Have you been lonely?”
He brushed the hair off her forehead and looked at her lips, in the deliberate tension of refusing himself a kiss. He answered: “I would like to say no. But you know it’s yes.”
His warm lips gathered the cold spring rain off hers.
The year 1923, like any other, had a spring.
XII
KIRA HAD WAITED IN LINE for three hours to get the bread at the Institute Co-operative. It was dark when she stepped down from the tramway, her loaf pressed tightly under her arm. At distant corners, lanterns made snakes of light wiggle in black puddles. She walked straight ahead, her shoes splashing through the water, kicking little icicles that clinked like glass. When she turned the corner of her street, a hurrying shadow whistled to her in the darkness.
“Allo!” called Irina’s voice. “And whom do I remind you of when I say that?”
“Irina! What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Just left your house. Waited for you for an hour. Had given up hope.”
“Well, come on back.”
“No,” said Irina, “maybe it’s better if I tell you here. I ... well, I came to tell you something. And ... well, maybe Leo won’t like it, and he’s home, and ...” Irina hesitated, which was unusual for her.
“What is it?”
“Kira, how’s ... how’re your finances?”