We the Living

by Ayn Rand

  ANDREI TAGANOV

  1896-1925

  She wondered whether she had killed him, or the revolution had, or both.

  XVI

  LEO SAT ALONE BY THE FIREPLACE, SMOKING. A cigarette hung limply in his hand, then slipped out of his fingers; he did not notice it. He took another cigarette and held it unlighted for a long time, not noticing it. Then he glanced around for a match, and could not find it, even though the box lay on the arm of his chair. Then he picked up the match box and stared at it, puzzled, for he had forgotten what he wanted.

  He had spoken little in the past two weeks. He had kissed Kira violently, once in a while, too violently, and she had felt his effort, and she had avoided his lips and his arms.

  He had left home often and she had never asked him where he went. He had been drinking too often and too much, and she had not said whether she noticed it. When they had been alone together, they had sat silently, and the silence had spoken to her, louder than any words, of something which was an end. He had been spending the last of their money and she had not questioned him about the future. She had not questioned him about anything, for she had been afraid of the answer she knew: that her fight was lost.

  When Kira came home from the funeral, Leo did not rise to his feet, but sat by the fireplace, not moving. He looked at her with a slow, curious, heavy glance between heavy eyelids.

  Silently, she took off her coat and hung it in her wardrobe. She was taking off her hat when a sound made her turn: Leo was laughing; it was a hard, bitter, brutal laughter.

  She looked at him, her eyes wide: "Leo, what's the matter?"

  He asked her fiercely: "Don't you know?"

  She shook her head.

  "Well, then," he asked, "do you want to know how much I know?"

  "How much . . . you know . . . about what, Leo?"

  "I don't suppose this is a good time to tell you, is it? Right after your lover's funeral?"

  "My . . ."

  He rose and approached her, and stood, his hands in his pockets, looking down at her with the arrogantly contemptuous look she worshipped, with the scornful, drooping smile; but his arched lips moved slowly to form three words: "You little bitch!"

  She stood straight, without moving, her face white. "Leo . . ."

  "Shut up! I don't want to hear a sound out of you! You rotten little . . . I wouldn't mind it, if you were like the rest of us! But you, with your saintly airs, with your heroic speeches, trying to make me walk straight, while you were . . . you were rolling under the first Communist bum who took the trouble to push you!"

  "Leo, who . . ."

  "Shut up! . . . No! I'll give you a chance to speak. I'll give you a chance to answer just one word. Were you Taganov's mistress? Were you? Yes or no?"

  "Yes."

  "All the time I was away?"

  "Yes."

  "And all the time since I came back?"

  "Yes. What else did they tell you, Leo?"

  "What else did you want them to tell me?"

  "Nothing."

  He looked at her; his eyes were suddenly cold, clear, weary.

  "Who told you, Leo?"

  "A friend of yours. Of his. Our dear comrade, Pavel Syerov. He dropped in on his way back from the funeral. He just wanted to congratulate me on the loss of my rival."

  "Was it . . . was it a hard blow to you, Leo?"

  "It was the best piece of news I'd heard since the revolution. We shook hands and had a drink together, Comrade Syerov and I. Drank to you and your lover, and any other lovers you may have. Because, you see, that sets me free."

  "Free . . . from what, Leo?"

  "From a little fool who was my last hold on self-esteem! A little fool I was afraid to face, afraid to hurt! Really, you know, it's funny. You and your Communist hero. I thought he had lied, making a great sacrifice by saving me for you. And he was just tired of you, he probably wanted to get you off his hands, for some other whore. So much for the sublime in the human race."

  "Leo, we don't have to discuss him, do we?"

  "Still love him?"

  "That doesn't make any difference to you--now--does it?"

  "None. None whatever. I won't even ask whether you had ever loved me. That, too, doesn't make any difference. I'd rather think you hadn't. That will make it easier for the future."

  "The future, Leo?"

  "Well, what did you plan it to be?"

  "I . . ."

  "Oh, I know! Get a respectable Soviet job and rot over a Primus and a ration card, and keep holy something in your fool imagination--your spirit or soul or honor--something that never existed, that shouldn't exist, that is the worst of all curses if it ever did exist! Well, I'm through with it. If it's murder--well--I don't see any blood. But I'm going to have champagne, and white bread, and silk shirts, and limousines, and no thoughts of any kind, and long live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!"

  "Leo . . . what . . . are you going to do?"

  "I'm going away."

  "Where?"

  "Sit down."

  He sat down at the table. His one hand lay in the circle of light under the lamp, and she noticed how still and white it was, with a net of blue veins that did not seem alive. She stood, watching it, until one finger moved. Then she sat down. Her face was expressionless. Her eyes were a little wide. He noticed her lashes--little needles of shadow on her cheeks--and the lashes were dry.

  "Citizen Morozov," said Leo, "has left town."

  "Well?"

  "He's left Tonia--he wants no connections that could be investigated. But he's left her a nice little sum of money--oh, quite nice. She's going for a rest and vacation in the Caucasus. She has asked me to go with her. I've accepted the job. Leo Kovalensky, the great gigolo of the U.S.S.R.!"

  "Leo!"

  She stood before him--and he saw terror in her eyes, such naked, raw terror that he opened his mouth, but could not laugh.

  "Leo . . . not that!"

  "She's an old bitch. I know. I like it better that way. She has the money and she wants me. Just a business deal."

  "Leo . . . you . . . like a . . ."

  "Don't bother about the names. You can't think of any as good as the ones I've thought of myself."

  He noticed that the folds of her dress were shivering and that her hands were flung back unnaturally, as if leaning on space, and he asked, rising: "You're not going to be fool enough to faint, are you?"

  She said, drawing her shoulders together: "No, of course not. . . . Sit down. . . . I'm all right. . . ."

  She sat on the edge of the table, her hands clutching it tightly, and she looked at him. His eyes were dead and she turned away, for she felt that those eyes should be closed. She whispered: "Leo . . . if you had been killed in the G.P.U. . . . or if you had sold yourself to some magnificent woman, a foreigner, young and fresh and . . ."

  "I wouldn't sell myself to a magnificent woman, young and fresh. I couldn't. Not yet. In a year--I probably will."

  He rose and looked at her and laughed softly, indifferently: "Really, you know, don't you think it's not for you to express any depths of moral indignation? And since we both are what we are, would you mind telling me just why you kept me on while you had him? Just liked to sleep with me, like all the other females? Or was it my money and his position?"

  Then she rose, and stood very straight, very still, and asked: "Leo, when did you tell her that you'd go with her?"

  "Three days ago."

  "Before you knew anything about Andrei and me?"

  "Yes."

  "While you still thought that I loved you?"

  "Yes."

  "And that made no difference to you?"

  "No."

  "If Syerov had not come here today, you'd still go with her?"

  "Yes. Only then I'd have to face the problem of telling you. He spared me that. That's why I was glad to hear it. Now we can say good-bye without any unnecessary scenes."

  "Leo . . . please listen carefully . . . it's very important . . . plea
se do me a last favor and answer this one question honestly, to the best of your knowledge: if you were to learn suddenly--it doesn't matter how--but if you were to learn that I love you, that I've always loved you, that I've been loyal to you all these years--would you still go with her?"

  "Yes."

  "And . . . if you had to stay with me? If you learned something that . . . that bound you to stay and . . . and to struggle on--would you try it once more?"

  "If I were bound to--well, who knows? I might do what your other lover did. That's also a solution."

  "I see."

  "And why do you ask that? What is there to bind me?"

  She looked straight at him, her face raised to his, and her hair fell back off a very white forehead, and only her lips moved as she answered with the greatest calm of her life: "Nothing, Leo."

  He sat down again and clasped his hands and stretched them out, shrugging: "Well, that's that. Really, I still think you're wonderful. I was afraid of hysterics and a lot of noise. It's ended as it should have ended. . . . I'm leaving in three days. Until then--I can move out of here, if you want me to."

  "No. I'd rather go. Tonight."

  "Why tonight?"

  "I'd rather. I can share Lydia's room, for a while."

  "I haven't much money left, but what there is, I want you to . . ."

  "No."

  "But . . ."

  "Please, don't. I'll take my clothes. That's all I need."

  She was packing a suitcase, her back turned to him, when he asked suddenly: "Aren't you going to say anything? Have you nothing to say?"

  She turned and looked at him calmly, and answered: "Only this, Leo: it was I against a hundred and fifty million people. I lost."

  When she was ready to go, he rose and asked suddenly, involuntarily: "Kira . . . you loved me, once, didn't you?"

  She answered: "When a person dies, one does not stop loving him, does one?"

  "Do you mean Taganov or . . . me?"

  "Does it make any difference, Leo?"

  "No. May I help you to carry the suitcase downstairs?"

  "No, thank you. It's not heavy. Good-bye, Leo."

  He took her hand, and his face moved toward hers, but she shook her head, and he said only: "Good-bye, Kira."

  She walked out into the street, leaning slightly to her left, her right arm pulled down by the weight of the suitcase. A frozen fog hung like cotton over the street, and a lamp post made a sickly, yellow blot spilled in the fog. She straightened her shoulders and walked slowly, and the white earth cracked under her feet, and the line of her chin was parallel with the earth, and the line of her glance parallel with her chin.

  To her family, three silent, startled faces, Kira explained quietly and Galina Petrovna gasped: "But what happened to . . ."

  "Nothing. We're just tired of each other."

  "My poor, dear child! I . . ."

  "Please don't worry about me, Mother. If you'll forgive me the inconvenience, Lydia, it will be only for a little while. I couldn't have found another room for just a few weeks."

  "Why certainly! Why, I'll be only too glad to have you, Kira, after all you've done for us. But why for a few weeks? Where are you going after that?"

  She answered and her voice had the intensity of a maniac's:

  "Abroad."

  On the following morning, Citizen Kira Argounova filed an application for a foreign passport. She had several weeks to wait for an answer.

  Galina Petrovna moaned: "It's insanity, Kira! Sheer insanity! In the first place, they won't give it to you. You have no reasons to show why you want to go abroad, and with your father's social past and all. . . . And even if you do get the passport--then what? No foreign country will admit a Russian and I can't say that I blame them. And if they admit you--what are you going to do? Have you thought of that?"

  "No," said Kira.

  "You have no money. You have no profession. How are you going to live?"

  "I don't know."

  "What will happen to you?"

  "I don't care."

  "But why are you doing it?"

  "I want to get out."

  "But you'll be all alone, lost in a wide world, with not a . . ."

  "I want to get out."

  ". . . with not a single friend to help you, with no aim, no future, no . . ."

  "I want to get out."

  On the evening of his departure, Leo came to say good-bye. Lydia left them alone in her room.

  Leo said: "I couldn't go, Kira, after parting as we did. I wanted to say good-bye and . . . Unless you'd rather . . ."

  She said: "No. I'm glad you came."

  "I wanted to apologize for some of the things I said to you. I had no right to say them. It's not up to me to blame you. Will you forgive me?"

  "It's all right, Leo. I have nothing to forgive."

  "I wanted to tell you that . . . that . . . Well, no, there's nothing to tell you. Only that . . . we have a great deal to . . . remember, haven't we?"

  "Yes, Leo."

  "You'll be better off without me."

  "Don't worry about me, Leo."

  "I'll be back in Petrograd. We'll meet again. We'll meet when years have passed, and years make such a difference, don't they?"

  "Yes, Leo."

  "Then we won't have to be so serious any more. It will be strange to look back, won't it? We'll meet again, Kira. I'll be back."

  "If you're still alive--and if you don't forget."

  It was as if she had kicked a dead animal in the road and saw it jerking in a last convulsion. He whispered: "Kira . . . don't . . ."

  But she knew it was only a last convulsion and she said: "I won't."

  He kissed her and her lips were soft and tender and yielding to his. Then he went.

  She had several weeks to wait.

  In the evenings, Alexander Dimitrievitch came home from work and shook snow off his galoshes in the lobby, and wiped them carefully with a special rag, for the galoshes were new and expensive.

  After dinner, when he had no meeting to attend, he sat in a corner with an unpainted wooden screen frame and worked patiently, pasting match box labels on the frame. He collected the labels and guarded them jealously in a locked box. At night, he spread them cautiously on the table, and moved them slowly into patterns, trying out color combinations. He had a whole panel completed, and he muttered, squinting at it appraisingly: "It's a beauty. A beauty. I bet no one in Petrograd has anything like it. What do you think, Kira, shall I use two yellow ones and a green one in this corner, or just three yellows?"

  She answered quietly: "The green one will be nice, Father."

  Galina Petrovna thundered in, at night, and flung a heavy brief case on a chair in the lobby. She had had a telephone installed, and she tore the receiver off the hook and spoke hurriedly, still removing her gloves, unbuttoning her coat: "Comrade Fedorov? . . . Comrade Argounova speaking. I have an idea for that number in the Living Newspaper, for our next Club show. . . . Now when we present Lord Chamberlain crushing the British Proletariat, we'll have one of the pupils, a good husky one, wearing a red blouse, lie down on the floor and we'll put a table on him--oh, just the front legs--and we'll have the fat one, playing Lord Chamberlain, in a high silk hat, sit at the table and eat steak. . . . Oh, it doesn't have to be a real steak, just papier-mache. . . ."

  Galina Petrovna ate her dinner hurriedly, reading the evening paper. She jumped up, looking at the clock, before she had finished, dabbed a smear of powder on her nose and, seizing her brief case, rushed out again to a Council meeting. On the rare evenings when she stayed at home, she spread books and newspaper clippings over the dining-room table, and sat writing a thesis for her Marxist Club. She asked, raising her head, blinking absent-mindedly: "Kira, do you happen to know, the Paris Commune, what year was that?"

  "Eighteen seventy-one, Mother," Kira answered quietly.

  Lydia worked at night. In the daytime, she practiced the "Internationale" and "You fell as a victim" and the Red Cavalry son
g on her old grand piano that had not been tuned for over a year. When she was asked to play the old classics she loved, she refused flatly, her mouth set in a thin, foolish, stubborn line. But once in a while, she sat down at the piano suddenly and played for hours, fiercely, violently, without stopping between pieces; she played Chopin and Bach and Tchaikovsky, and when her fingers were numb she cried, sobbing aloud in broken hiccoughs, senselessly, monotonously, like a child. Galina Petrovna paid no attention to it, saying: "Just another one of Lydia's fits."

  Kira was lying on her mattress on the floor, when Lydia came home from work. Lydia took a long time to undress and a longer time to whisper endless prayers before the ikons in her corner. Some evenings, she came over to Kira and sat down on the mattress, and shivering in the darkness, in her long white nightgown, her hair falling in a thick braid down her back, whispered confidentially, a ray of the street lamp beyond the window falling on her tired face with swollen eyes and dry little wrinkles in the corners of the mouth, on her dry, knotty hands that did not look young any longer: "I had a vision again, Kira, a call from above. Truly, a prophetic vision, and the voice told me that salvation shall not be long in coming. It is the end of the world and the reign of the Anti-Christ. But Judgment Day is approaching. I know. It has been revealed to me."

  She whispered feverishly, she expected nothing but a peal of laughter from her sister, she was not looking at Kira, she was not certain whether Kira heard it; but she had to talk and she had to think that some human ears were listening.

  "There is an old man, Kira, God's wanderer. I've been to see him. Please don't mention this to anyone, or they'll fire me from the Club. He is the Chosen One of the Lord and he knows. He says it has been predicted in the Scriptures. We are punished for our sins, as Sodom and Gomorrah were punished. But hardships and sorrows are only a trial for the soul of the righteous. Only through suffering and long-bearing patience shall we become worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven."

  Kira said quietly: "I won't tell anyone, Lydia. And now you'd better go to bed, because you're tired and it's so cold here."

  In the daytime, Kira led excursions through the Museum of the Revolution. In the evening, she sat in the dining room and read old books. She spoke seldom. When anyone addressed her, she answered evenly, quietly. Her voice seemed frozen on a single note. Galina Petrovna wished, uncomfortably, to see her angry, at least once; she did not see it. One evening, when Lydia dropped a vase in the silence of the dining room, and it broke with a crash, and Galina Petrovna jumped up with a startled little scream, and Alexander Dimitrievitch shuddered, blinking--Kira raised her head slowly, as if nothing had happened.