Uncle Avenir took a deep breath. “Nowadays January ninth is a red-letter day in the calendar, but January fifth you can’t even mention in a whisper.”
He heaved another sigh.
“And then there was the low trick they played pretending that they opened fire on us because the demonstration was organized by supporters of Kaledin. What did we have to do with Kaledin? I ask you. Some people can’t understand the idea of opposition within their own ranks. Who are these people who walk among us, speak our language, and demand what they call freedom? We must at all costs disown them, connect them with the enemy outside, and then we can comfortably open fire on them.”
The silence in the darkness was more tense and meaningful than ever.
The old wire mattress creaked as Innokenty pulled himself up against the bedboard.
“What happened inside the Tauride?”
“On the eve of the Epiphany?” Uncle Avenir took a deep breath. “The mob, the okhlos,* was in full cry. . . . Deafening three-fingered whistles. . . . Filthy language drowned the speeches. They banged their rifle butts on the floor, with or without reason. They were on guard duty, you see. Guarding whom, against what? So-called soldiers and sailors, half of them drunk, spewing in the refreshment room, snoring on sofas, spitting out the husks of their sunflower seeds all over the foyer. Put yourself in the place of a deputy, an educated man, and tell me what you would do with that filthy rabble. A tap on the shoulder or a quiet telling-off would be blatant counterrevolution! An insult to sacred mob rule! Besides, they were wearing crossed machine-gun belts over their tunics. They had grenades and Mausers at their belts. In the hall where the Constituent Assembly met, they sat with rifles even among the general public, stood in the passageways rifles in hand, leveled them at speakers as though they were targets on the range. Somebody would be talking about some sort of democratic peace and the nationalization of the land, and twenty muzzles would be trained on him, foresights and backsights in alignment. If they killed him, it wouldn’t even cost them an apology! Bring on the next one! Sitting there with their rifles aimed at the speaker’s mouth! That’s all you need to know about them. That’s what they were like when they took over Russia, that’s what they always had been, and that’s what they’ll be as long as they live. They may change in some respects but not in essentials. Then there was Sverdlov, snatching the bell from the senior deputy’s hand, shoving him aside, refusing to let him declare the assembly open. Lewin sat in the government box laughing up his sleeve, reveling in it all. As for People’s Commissar Karelin, one of the Left SRs, he was roaring his head off! He didn’t have the wit to realize what he was letting himself in for! In six months’ time his own gang would be snuffed out! You know the rest . . . you’ve seen it at the cinema. The cloth-headed commissar with the cudgel, Drubber Dubenko, sent his boys to declare the superfluous assembly closed. The dry-land sailors with their cartridge belts and pistols rose to catch the chairman’s eye. . . .”
“Including my father?”
“Yes, including your father. The great Civil War hero. Almost at the very time when your mother . . . gave in to him. They loved smacking their lips over delicately nurtured young ladies from good homes. That was the most mouthwatering prize the Revolution had to offer them.”
Innokenty’s brow, ears, cheeks, and neck were burning. He was on fire, as though he himself had taken part in some vile act.
His uncle pressed a hand on his knee, leaned closer and asked, “Have you never felt the truth of the saying that the sins of the parents are visited on the children? And that you must cleanse yourself of them?”
* * *
* Okhlos: Greek word for mob.
Chapter 62
Two Sons-in-Law
THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR’S FIRST WIFE had gone through the Civil War with him. She was a proficient machine-gunner; her life was regulated by the latest instructions from her Party cell. She could never have raised the house of Makarygin to its present level of prosperity. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how, if she had not died giving birth to Klara, she could have adjusted to the intricate twists and turns of the times.
Alevtina Nikanorovna, Makarygin’s present wife, on the other hand, had transformed the family’s life, enriching and filling with new sap what had been a stunted and parched existence. She had no very clear conception of class distinctions, and political instruction had taken up very little of her time. What she knew for certain was that a respectable family cannot thrive without good cooking and an abundance of good quality bed and table linen. And that as the family consolidates its position, such important outward signs of prosperity as silver, cut glass, and fine carpets must make their appearance. Alevtina Nikanorovna’s great talent was for acquiring these things without great expense, never missing a good buy—at closed auctions, in the private shops for employees in the procuratorial and judicial system, in commission shops, or in the flea markets of “newly incorporated territories.” She made special journeys to Lvov and Riga when no one could get there without a pass and when old ladies were only too glad to sell their heavy tablecloths and their dinner services for a song. She became a great expert on glassware. She did not collect the glass now produced by the state Glass Combine, warped in its passage through relays of indifferent hands, but old-fashioned crystal that somehow preserved the character of its creator and sparkled with his craftsmanship. A great deal of it had been confiscated by court order in the twenties and thirties and sold later to a privileged few.
That evening, as always, the table was beautifully laid and the food so plentiful that the two very young Bashkir maids, the Makarygins’ own and another borrowed from the neighbors for the party, could hardly keep up with the rapid succession of dishes. Both girls were from the same village, Chekmagush, and had left school together the summer before. Their faces, tense and flushed from the heat of the kitchen, showed awareness of the importance of the occasion and eagerness to please. They were satisfied with their position and hoped that not by next spring but by the one after they would have earned enough and bought the right clothes to find husbands in the city instead of going back to the kolkhoz. Alevtina Nikanorovna, a fine figure of a woman whom no one would call old, watched the servants with approval.
What particularly preoccupied the hostess was the last-minute change of plan. It was to have been a party for the youngsters. The only older people present were to be members of the family. Makarygin had given a banquet for his colleagues two days earlier and this time had invited only the Serb Dushan Radovich, an old friend of his from the Civil War and subsequently a professor in the long-abolished Institute of Red Professors. Apart from him, a humble girlhood friend of the prosecutor’s wife, in Moscow on a shopping expedition from the rural district where her husband was a minor Party official, had been allowed to attend. But then, quite unexpectedly, Major General Slovuta, also a prosecutor and a very important man in the service, had arrived back from the Far East (where he was involved in the sensational trial of the Japanese officers accused of planning bacteriological warfare), and it was impossible not to invite him. But now, in Slovuta’s presence, they felt ashamed of those semilegal guests, the prosecutor’s old friend and the friend of his wife’s youth, both hardly friends anymore. Slovuta might think that the Makarygins entertained riffraff. This thought was complicating and poisoning Alevtina Nikanorovna’s evening. She seated her old friend, who was miserable because she was married to a nitwit, as far from Slovuta as possible, and made her talk quietly and attack her food less greedily. At the same time, the hostess was gratified that her friend tried every dish, asked for recipes, and was enchanted in turn by the tableware and the guests.
It was for Slovuta’s sake that they had invited Innokenty so pressingly, insisting that he should come in his diplomatic uniform, with the gold braid, and so, together with their other son-in-law, the celebrated writer Nikolai Galakhov, make the occasion no ordinary one. But to his father-in-law’s annoyance, the diplomat had arrived late, when
supper was over and the young people had drifted away to dance.
Innokenty had reluctantly given in and put on that accursed uniform. On the way there, he had felt like a lost soul. But staying at home was just as impossible. There was nowhere he could bear to be. And yet, when he entered, sour faced, an apartment full of people, of animated chatter, laughter, and color, he felt that this was the one place in which he could not possibly be arrested and quickly recovered his equilibrium, indeed felt more relaxed than usual. He eagerly drank what was poured out for him, eagerly helped himself from one dish and another; for twenty-four hours he had scarcely been able to swallow, but now his appetite was happily roused.
His high spirits mollified his father-in-law and made conversation easier at the “distinguished” end of the table, where Makarygin had been desperately maneuvering to prevent Radovich from firing off some provocative remark, to keep Slovuta happy, and to make sure Galakhov was not bored. Now, lowering his rich bass voice, he began jokingly reproving Innokenty for not gladdening his old age with grandchildren.
“What do you think of him and his wife?” he grumbled. “Here they are, a well-matched couple, a ram and a ewe—and what do they do, they just live for themselves, get fat, not a care in the world. They’ve got it made! And they burn the candle at both ends! Ask this young dog, and he’ll tell you he’s an Epicurean. Am I right, Innokenty? Own up, now, you’re a follower of Epicurus, aren’t you?
It was impossible, even as a joke, to call a member of the All-Union Communist Party a Young Hegelian, a Neo-Kantian, a subjectivist, an agnostic, or—God forbid—a revisionist. But “Epicurean” sounded so inoffensive that it couldn’t possibly affect a man’s claim to be an orthodox Marxist.
Radovich, who knew and cherished every detail in the biographies of the Founding Fathers, seized his opportunity to contribute.
“Well, Epicurus was a good man, a materialist. Karl Marx himself wrote a dissertation on Epicurus.”
Radovich was wearing a threadbare semimilitary tunic, and his skin was dark parchment stretched over a blocky head. (He had never left the house without his Budenny helmet until just recently, when the militia started pulling him over.)
Innokenty warmed to the theme and looked challengingly at these unsuspecting people. What a bold step it was, to intervene in a struggle between Titans! At that moment he saw himself as the darling of the gods. For Makarygin, and even for Slovuta, both of whom might have aroused his contempt at any other time, he felt a sort of affection, because they were fellow men and also contributors to his present safety.
“Epicurus?” He accepted the challenge, eyes twinkling. “Yes, I’m his follower; I don’t deny it. But it may surprise you to learn that ‘epicurean’ is one of those words which are wrongly understood in common usage. When people want to say that someone has an inordinate appetite for life, is sensual, lustful, or even just a hog, they say, ‘He’s an epicurean.’ No, wait a minute, I’m serious about this!” He cut short their protests, excitedly waving the empty tall-stemmed wineglass he held in his thin, sensitive fingers. “In fact, Epicurus is just the opposite of our general conception of him. He most certainly does not incite us to take part in orgies. Among the three main evils that prevent men from being happy, Epicurus includes insatiable desires! You didn’t know that, did you? He says that in reality man needs very little, and for that very reason his happiness is not at fate’s mercy! He frees man from fear of fate’s blows, and that makes Epicurus a great optimist!”
“You do surprise me!” Galakhov said, and took out a leather-bound notebook complete with white ivory pencil. In spite of his resounding fame, Galakhov behaved like one of the boys and went in for winking and backslapping. His graying blond hair made a picturesque contrast to his swarthy, rather fleshy features.
“Quick, give him another drink,” Slovuta said to Makarygin, pointing to Innokenty’s empty glass, “or he’ll talk our heads off.”
His father-in-law filled his glass, and once more Innokenty drank with enjoyment. At that moment he almost felt himself that Epicurus’s philosophy was worth adopting.
Slovuta, whose face was puffy but not that of an old man, treated Makarygin with a certain condescension (his promotion to colonel general had already been approved) but was delighted to make Galakhov’s acquaintance. He pictured himself later that evening making another visit he had in mind and casually announcing that an hour ago he had been having a few drinks with Kolya Galakhov, who had told him. . . . But Galakhov, too, had arrived late and, for once, said nothing at all; no doubt his mind was on his next novel. Concluding that there was nothing to be gotten from the celebrity, Slovuta was ready to leave.
Makarygin, however, urged him to stay a bit longer and persuaded him that they “must worship at the altar of tobacco,” by which he meant the collection he kept in his study. He himself smoked Bulgarian pipe tobacco, which he got through a friend, and made do with cigars in the evening. But he liked to impress his guests by regaling them with different blends in turn.
The door to his study was right behind them. Their host opened it and invited Slovuta and his sons-in-law to step inside. The sons-in-law, however, made excuses and left the older men to their own company. Makarygin, more afraid than ever that Dushan would let his tongue run away with him, stood aside to let Slovuta enter and wagged a warning finger at the Serb in the doorway.
The brothers-in-law were left by themselves at the deserted end of the table. They were at that happy age (Galakhov was the older by a few years) at which, though still considered young, they were no longer dragged off to dance, and they could indulge in men’s talk among the half-empty bottles to the accompaniment of music somewhere in the background.
A week ago, in fact, Galakhov had conceived the idea of writing about the imperialist conspiracy and the struggle of Soviet diplomats for peace, not a novel this time but a play, which would make it easier for him to avoid all the unfamiliar details of locale and dress. This was an excellent opportunity to interview his brother-in-law, simultaneously noting the characteristics of a typical Soviet diplomat and extracting detailed information about life in the West, where the whole action of the play was to take place but where Galakhov himself had been only very briefly, at one of the “progressive” congresses. Galakhov realized that it wasn’t quite the thing to be writing about a way of life of which you knew nothing, but in recent years he had found that life abroad or some hoary historical theme or even fantasy about the inhabitants of the moon yielded more easily to his pen than the real life all around him, where every path lay through a minefield of taboos.
The servants were rattling tea things. The hostess looked about her and, with Slovuta out of the way, no longer tried to keep her old friend’s voice down as she insisted that even in the Zarechensky raion there were good medical facilities, good doctors, and that the children of Party activists were separated from the rest in early infancy and assured of an uninterrupted supply of milk and unstinted penicillin injections.
Music reached them from a record player in the next room and the metallic boom of a television set from the room beyond.
Bright-eyed and confident after his triumphant defense of Epicurus, Innokenty assented.
“It’s the privilege of writers to interrogate. Like investigating officers, endlessly questioning people about their crimes.”
“What we look for in a man is not his crimes but his virtues, his positive characteristics.”
“Then the demands of your work are at odds with those of your conscience. You say you want to write a book about diplomats?”
Galakhov smiled.
“Say what you like, Ink, these things need more thought than a New Year interview. You need to stock up with material in advance. And you can’t start questioning just any diplomat. It’s my good luck we’re related.”
“And your choice shows how perceptive you are. A diplomat who wasn’t a relative would tell you a load of nonsense. There are things we need to hide, you know.”
They looked into each other’s eyes.
“I realize that. But I won’t be trying to show that side of your work. I’m not—”
“Aha! What mainly interests you, then, is embassy life, our daily routine, what goes on at receptions, the presentation of credentials, and all that. . . .”
“No, I want to go deeper than that. I want to show how certain things are refracted in the minds of Soviet diplomats.”
“Refracted, eh. . . . Right, I’ve got it. And I’ll tell you all about it before the evening’s out. But you tell me something first. What about the war? Have you given up writing about it? Have you exhausted the subject?”
Galakhov shook his head. “It can never be exhausted.”
“Yes, that war was your good luck. Where else would you have found your conflicts and tragedies?”
Innokenty was still smiling.
The writer’s brow clouded over.
“The war theme,” he said, “is engraved on my heart.”
“And you’ve created masterpieces in that genre!”
“And I daresay it will be with me forever. I will keep returning to it as long as I live.”
“Perhaps it would be better not to?”
“I must! Because the war stirs noble emotions in men’s souls. . . .”
“It does, I agree. But what does all this war literature come down to? How to take up battle stations, how to carry out a saturation bombardment, ‘we’ll never forget, never forgive,’ an officer’s command is law to his subordinates. But all that is much better put in army regulations. Oh, yes, and you also show what difficulty the wretched officers have in locating anything on a map.”
In the First Circle Page 61
