An usher who heard her, chuckled.
Sometimes the door bell rang and the Upravdom came in to remind them of the house meeting of all tenants on an urgent matter. He said: “No exceptions, citizens. Social duty comes above all. Every tenant gotta attend the meeting.”
Then Kira and Leo filed into the largest room of the house, a long, bare room with one electric bulb in the ceiling, in the apartment of a street-car conductor who had offered it graciously for the social duty. Tenants came bringing their own chairs and sat chewing sunflower seeds. Those who brought no chairs sat on the floor and chewed sunflower seeds.
“Seeing as how I’m the Upravdom,” said the Upravdom, “I declare this meeting of the tenants of the house Number — on Sergievskaia Street open. On the order of the day is the question as regards the chimneys. Now, comrade citizens, seeing as how we are all responsible citizens and conscious of the proper class consciousness, we gotta understand that this ain’t the old days when we had landlords and didn’t care what happened to the house we lived in. Now this is different, comrades. Owing to the new régime and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and seeing as how the chimneys are clogged, we gotta do something about it, seeing as how we’re the owners of the house. Now if the chimneys are clogged, we’ll have the house full of smoke, and if we have the house full of smoke, it’s sloppy, and if we’re sloppy, that’s not true proletarian discipline. And so, comrade citizens ...”
Housewives fidgeted nervously, sniffing the odor of burning food. A fat man in a red shirt was twiddling his thumbs. A young man with a mouth hanging open, was scratching his head.
“... and the special assessment will be divided in proportion to the.... Is that you, Comrade Kira Argounova, trying to sneak out? Well, you better don’t. You know what we think of people that sabotage their social duties.... And the special assessment will be divided in proportion to the social standing of the tenants. The workers pay three per cent and the Free Professions ten, and the Private Traders and unemployed — the rest. Who’s for — raise your hands.... Comrade secretary, count the citizens’ hands.... Who’s against — raise your hands.... Comrade Michliuk, you can’t raise your hand for and against on the one and same proposition....”
Victor’s visit was unexpected and inexplicable.
He stretched his hands to the “Bourgeoise,” rubbed them energetically, smiled cheerfully at Kira and Leo.
“Just passing by and thought I’d drop in.... It’s a charming place you have here. Irina’s been telling me about it.... She’s fine, thank you.... No, Mother’s not so well. The doctor said there’s nothing he can do if we don’t send her south. And who can think of affording a trip these days? ... Been busy at the Institute. Re-elected to Students’ Council.... Do you read poetry? Just read some verses by a woman. Exquisite delicacy of feeling.... Yes, it’s a lovely place you have here. Pre-revolutionary luxury.... You two are quite the bourgeois, aren’t you. Two huge rooms like these. No trouble with the Domicile Norm? We’ve had two tenants forced upon us last week. One’s a Communist. Father’s just gritting his teeth. Irina has to share her room with Acia, and they fight like dogs.... What can one do? People have to have a roof over their heads.... Yes, Petrograd is an overcrowded city, Petrograd certainly is.”
She came in, a red bandana on her hair, streaks of powder on her nose, a bundle tied in a white sheet in her hand, one black stocking hanging out of the bundle. She asked: “Where’s that drawing room?”
Kira asked, startled: “What do you want, citizen?”
The girl did not answer. She opened the first door she saw, which led to the tenant’s room. She slammed it shut. She opened the other door and walked into the drawing room.
“That’s it,” she said. “You can get your ‘Bourgeoise’ out — and your dishes and other trash. I have my own.”
“What do you want, citizen?” Kira repeated.
“Oh, yes,” said the girl. “Here.”
She handed to Kira a crumpled scrap of paper with a big official stamp. It was an order from the Gilotdel, giving Citizen Marina Lavrova the right to occupy the room known as “drawing room” in apartment Number 22, house Number — on Sergievskaia Street; it requested the present occupants to vacate the room immediately, removing only “personal effects of immediate necessity.”
“Why, it’s impossible!” Kira gasped.
The girl laughed. “Get going, citizen, get going.”
“Listen, you. Get out of here peacefully. You won’t get this room.”
“No? Who’s going to stop me? You?”
She walked to a chair, saw Kira’s apron on it, threw it to the floor and put her bundle on the chair.
Slamming the door behind her, Kira raced up the stairs, three floors up, to the Upravdom’s apartment, and stood panting, knocking at the door ferociously.
The Upravdom opened the door and listened to her story, frowning.
“Order from the Gilotdel?” he said. “That’s funny they didn’t notify me. That’s irregular. I’ll put the citizen in her proper place.”
“Comrade Upravdom, you know very well it’s against the law. Citizen Kovalensky and I are not married. We’re entitled to separate rooms.”
“You sure are.”
Kira had been paid for a month of lessons the day before. She took the little roll of bills from her pocket and, without looking at it, without counting, thrust it all into the Upravdom’s hand.
“Comrade Upravdom, I’m not in the habit of begging for help, but please, oh! please, get her out. It would ... it would simply mean the end for us.”
The Upravdom slipped the bills into his pocket furtively, then looked straight at Kira, openly and innocently, as if nothing had happened. “Don’t you worry, Citizen Argounova. We know our duty. We’ll fix the lady. We’ll throw her out on her behind in the gutter where she belongs.”
He slammed his hat over one ear and followed Kira downstairs.
“Look here, citizen, what’s all this about?” the Upravdom asked sternly.
Citizen Marina Lavrova had taken her coat off and opened her bundle. She wore a tailored white shirt, an old skirt, a necklace of imitation pearls, and slippers with very high heels. She had piled underwear, books and a teapot in a jumble on the table.
“How do you do, Comrade Upravdom?” she smiled pleasantly. “We might as well get acquainted.”
She took a little wallet from her pocket and handed it to him, open, showing a little card. It was a membership card of the Communist Union of Youth — the Komsomol.
“Oh,” said the Upravdom. “Oh.” He turned to Kira: “What do you want, citizen? You have two rooms and you want a toiling girl to be thrown out on the streets? The time is past for bourgeois privileges, citizen. People like you had better watch their step.”
Kira and Leo appealed the case in the People’s Court.
They sat in a bare room that smelt of sweat and of an unswept floor. Lenin and Karl Marx, without frames, bigger than life-size, looked at them from the wall. A cotton strip said: “Proletarians of the wo ...” The rest was not to be seen, for the end of the strip had become untacked and swayed, curled like a snake, in a draft.
The president magistrate yawned and asked Kira: “What’s your social position, citizen?”
“Student.”
“Employed?”
“No.”
“Member of a Trade Union?”
“No.”
The Upravdom testified that although Citizen Argounova and Citizen Kovalensky were not in the state of legal matrimony, their relations were those of “sexual intimacy,” there being only one bed in their rooms, of which, he, the Upravdom, had made certain, and which made them for all purposes “same as married,” and the Domicile Norm allowed but one room to a married couple, as the Comrade Judge well knew; furthermore, “the room known as drawing room” together with their bedroom gave the citizens in question three square feet of living space over the prescribed norm; furthermore, the citizens in question had been, of late, quite irregular about their rent.