by Ayn Rand
“Really, it’s the best story I’ve ever heard. You see, Commandant Kareyev had sent in his resignation. I presume five years of Strastnoy Island was too much, even for his red nerves. But how would they ever run the place without the Beast? They asked him to stay.”
“Where would they find another fool who’d freeze his blood away for the sake of his duty to the revolution?”
“And this was his condition to the authorities on the mainland: ‘I’ll stay, if you send me a woman; any woman.’ ”
“Just that: any woman.”
“Well, gentlemen, that’s only natural: a good red citizen lets his superiors select his mates. Leaves it to their judgment. All in the line of duty.”
“You can imagine how far a woman must fall to accept such an invitation.”
“And a man to make it.”
Michael Volkontzev stood aside from the others. He did not look at the sea. The ax flashed over his head in a wide silver circle, as he chopped the logs vigorously, rhythmically, without stopping. A lock of black hair rose and fell over his right eye. One of his sleeves was torn, and the muscles of his arm stood out, young and strong. He did not take part in the conversation. But when he was not busy he usually spoke to his fellow convicts, spoke often and long; only the more he spoke, the less they could learn about him. They knew one thing for certain, however: when he spoke, he laughed; he laughed gaily, easily, with an air of mocking, boyish defiance; it was sufficient to know that about him; to know that he was the kind of man who could still laugh like that after two years on Strastnoy Island. He was the only one who could.
The prisoners liked to talk about their past. Their memories were the only future they had. And there were many memories to exchange: memories of the universities where some of them had taught, of the hospitals where others had attended the sick, of the buildings they had designed, of the bridges they had built. There were men of many professions. All of them had been useful and had worked hard in the past. All of them had one thing in common: that the Red State had chosen to discard them and to throw them into jail, for some reason or another, often without reason; perhaps because of some careless word they had uttered somewhere; perhaps simply because they had been too able and had worked too hard.
Michael Volkontzev was the only one among them who would not speak about his past. He would speak about anything under the sun, and often on a subject and at a time when it would have been far safer to remain quiet; he would risk his life drawing caricatures of Commandant Kareyev on the walls of his cell; but he would not speak about his past. No one knew where he had come from or why. They suspected that he had been an engineer at some time in his life, because he was always assigned to any work that required an engineer’s skill, such as repairing the dynamo that operated the wireless high in a room on top of the tower. They could discover nothing else about him.
The boat’s siren roared hoarsely outside. A convict waved his arm in the direction of the sea and announced:
“Gentlemen, salute the first woman on Strastnoy Island!”
Michael raised his head.
“Why all this excitement,” he asked indifferently, “about some cheap tramp?”
Commandant Kareyev had stopped at the entrance to the yard. He walked slowly toward Michael. He stood, watching him silently. Michael did not seem to notice it, but raised his ax and split another log in two. Kareyev said:
“I’m warning you, Volkontzev. I know how little you’re afraid of and how much you like to show it. But you’re not to show it on the subject of that woman. You’re to leave her alone.”
Michael threw his head back and looked at Kareyev innocently.
“Certainly, Commandant,” he said with a charming smile. “She’ll be left alone. Trust my good taste.”
He gathered an armful of logs and walked away, down the steps of the cellar.
The boat’s siren roared again. Commandant Kareyev went to meet it at the landing.
The boat came to the island four times a year. It brought food and new prisoners. There were two convicts aboard, this time. One of them was mumbling prayers and the other one was trying to hold his head high, but it was not convincing, because his lips trembled as he looked at the island.
The woman stood on deck and looked at the island, too. She wore a plain, black coat. It did not look expensive, but it was too plain, and fitted too well, and showed a slim, young body, not the kind that Commandant Kareyev had seen tramping wearily the dark streets of Russian cities. Her hand held her fur collar tightly under her chin. Her hand had long, slender fingers. There was a quiet curiosity in her large, wide eyes, and such an indifferent calm that Commandant Kareyev would not believe she was looking at the island. No one had ever looked at it like that. But she did.
He watched her walking down the gangplank. The fact that her steps were steady, light, assured was astonishing; the fact that she looked like a woman who belonged in exquisite drawing rooms was startling; but the fact that she was beautiful was incredible. There had been some mistake: she was not the woman sent to him.
He bowed curtly. He asked:
“What are you doing here, citizen?”
“Commandant Kareyev?” she inquired. Her voice had a strange, slow, indifferent calm—and a strange foreign accent.
“Yes.”
“I thought you were expecting me.”
“Oh.”
Her cool eyes looked at him as they had looked at his island. She had nothing of the smiling, inviting, professional charm he had expected. She was not smiling. She did not seem to notice his astonishment. She did not seem to find the occasion unusual at all. She said:
“My name is Joan Harding.”
“English?”
“American.”
“What are you doing in Russia?”
She took a letter from her pocket and handed it to him. She said:
“Here is my letter of introduction from the GPU at Nijni Kolimsk.”
He took the letter, but did not open it. He said curtly:
“All right. Come this way, Comrade Harding.”
He walked up the hill, to the monastery, stiff, silent, without offering a hand to help her up the old stone steps, without looking back at her, followed by the eyes of all the men on the landing and by the unusual, long-forgotten sound of French heels.
The room he had prepared for her was a small cube of gray stone. There was a narrow iron cot, a table, a candle on the table, a chair, a small barred window, a stove of red bricks built in the wall. There was nothing to greet her, nothing to show that a human being had been expected to enter that room, only a thin red line of fire trembling in the crack of the stove’s iron door.
“Not very comfortable,” said Commandant Kareyev. “This place wasn’t built for women. It was a monastery—before the revolution. The monks had a law that a woman’s foot could not touch this ground. Woman was sin.”
“You have a better opinion of women, haven’t you, Comrade Kareyev?”
“I’m not afraid of being a sinner.”
She looked at him. She spoke slowly, and he knew she was answering something he had not said:
“The only sin is to miss the things you want most in life. If they’re taken from you, you have to reclaim them—at any price.”
“If this is the price you’re paying for whatever it is you want, it’s pretty high, you know. Sure it’s worth it?”
She shrugged lightly:
“I’ve been accustomed to rather high-priced things.”
“So I notice, Comrade Harding.”
“Call me Joan.”
“It’s a funny name.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“What are you doing in Russia?”
“In the coming months—anything you wish me to do.”
It was not a promise nor an invitation; it was said as an efficient secretary might have said it, and more coldly, more impersonally than that; as one of the guards might have said it, awaiting orders; as if the sound o
f her voice added that the words meant nothing—to him or to her.
He asked:
“How do you happen to be in Russia at all?”
She shrugged lazily. She said:
“Questions are so boring. I’ve answered so many of them at the GPU before they sent me here. The GPU officials were satisfied. I’m sure you never disagree with them, do you?”
He watched her as she took her hat off, and threw it down on the table, and shook her hair. Her hair was short, blond, and stood like a halo over her face. She walked to the table and touched it with her finger. She took out a small lace handkerchief and wiped the dust off the table. She dropped the handkerchief to the floor. He looked at it. He did not pick it up.
He watched her thoughtfully. He turned to go. At the door he stopped and faced her suddenly.
“Do you,” he asked, “whoever you are, understand what you’re here for?”
She looked straight into his eyes, a long, quiet, disconcerting look, and her eyes were mysterious because they were too calm and too open.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “I understand.”
The letter from the GPU said:
Comrade Kareyev,
As per your request, we are sending to you the bearer of this, Comrade Joan Harding. We vouch for her political trustworthiness. Her past reputation will guarantee that she will satisfy the purpose of your request and lighten the burden of your difficult duty on the far outpost of our great proletarian Republic.
With Communistic greetings, Ivan Veriohoff,
Political Commissar
Commandant Kareyev’s bed had a coarse gray blanket, like those on the prisoners’ cots. His cell of damp gray stone looked emptier than theirs; there was a bed, a table, two chairs. A tall glass door, long and narrow like a cathedral window, led to an open gallery outside. The room looked as if a human being had been flung there in a hurry for a short moment: there were rows of old nails on the bare stone walls bearing clothes and arms, wrinkled shirts hanging by one sleeve, old leather jackets, rifles, trousers turned inside out, cartridge belts; there were cigarette butts and ashes on the bare stone floor. The human being had lived there for five years.
There was not a single picture, not a book, not an ashtray. There was a bed because the human being had to sleep; and clothes, because he had to dress; he needed nothing else.
But there was one single object which he did not need, his single answer to any questions people could ask looking at his room, although no one had ever asked them: in a niche where ikons had been now hung, on a rusty nail, Commandant Kareyev’s old Red Army cap.
The unpainted wooden table had been pulled to the center of the room. On the table stood heavy tin dishes and tin cups without saucers; a candle in an old bottle; and no tablecloth.
Commandant Kareyev and Joan Harding were finishing their first dinner together.
She raised a tin jug of cold tea, with a smile that should have accompanied a glass of champagne, and said:
“Your health, Comrade Kareyev.”
He answered brusquely:
“If it’s a hint—you’re wasting your time. No drinks here. Not allowed. And no exceptions.”
“No exceptions and no hints, Comrade Kareyev. But still—your health.”
“Cut the nonsense. You don’t have to drink my health. You don’t have to smile. And you don’t have to lie. You’ll hate me—and you know it. And I know it. But you may not know that I don’t care—so you’re warned in advance.”
“I didn’t know I’ll hate you.”
“You know it now, don’t you?”
“Less than ever.”
“Listen, forget the pretty speeches. That’s not part of your job. If you expect any compliments—you might as well be disappointed right now.”
“I wasn’t expecting any compliments when I took the boat for Strastnoy Island.”
“And I hope you weren’t expecting any sentiment. This is a business deal. That’s all.”
“That’s all, Comrade Kareyev.”
“Did you expect a companion like me?”
“I’ve heard about you.”
“Have you heard what I’m called?”
“The Beast.”
“You may find I deserve the name.”
“You may find I like it.”
“No use telling me about it—if you do. I don’t care what you think of me.”
“Then why warn me about it?”
“Because the boat’s still here. It goes back at dawn. There’s no other for three months.”
She had lighted a cigarette. She held it in two straight fingers, looking at him.
“Were you in the civil war, Comrade Kareyev?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Did you acquire the habit of retreating?”
“No.”
“Neither have I.”
He leaned toward her, his crossed elbows on the table, watching her in the trembling glow of the candle, his eyes narrow, mocking. He said:
“I’ve seen some soldiers overestimate their strength.” She smiled, and reached over and flicked the ashes off her cigarette into his empty plate.
“Good ones,” she answered, “take chances.”
“Listen,” he said impatiently, “you don’t like questions, so I won’t bother you, because I don’t like to talk either. But there’s just one thing I’m going to ask you. That letter from the GPU said you were all right politically, but you don’t look as . . . as you should look at all.”
She blew at the smoke and did not answer. Then she looked at him and shrugged lightly.
“The letter told you about my present. The past is dead. If I’m not thinking of it, why should you?”
“No reason,” he agreed. “Makes no difference.”
A convict, waiting on the Commandant’s table, had removed the dishes, sliding silently out of the room. Joan rose.
“Show me the island,” she said. “I want to get acquainted. I’m staying here for a long time—I hope.”
“I hope you’ll repeat that,” he answered, rising, “three months from today.”
When they walked out, the sky was red behind the monastery towers, a shivering red, as if the light were dying in gasps. The monastery looked silently upon them, with small barred windows like reluctant eyes opened upon a sinful world, guarded by menacing saints of gray stone; cold evening shadows settled in the wrinkles of the saints’ faces cut by reverent hands, stormy winds, and centuries. A thick stone wall encircled the shore, and sentinels walked slowly on the wall, with measured steps, with bayonets red in the sunset, with heads bowed in resignation, watchful and weary like the saints by the windows.
“The prisoners aren’t locked up in their cells here,” Commandant Kareyev explained to her. “They have the freedom to move around. There’s not much space to move in. It’s safe.”
“They get tired of the island, don’t they?”
“They go mad. Not that it matters. It’s the last place they’ll see on earth.”
“And when they die?”
“Well, no room for a cemetery here. But a strong current.”
“Has anyone ever tried to escape?”
“They forget the word when they land here.”
“And yourself?”
He looked at her, without understanding. “Myself?”
“Have you ever tried to escape?”
“From whom?”
“From Commandant Kareyev.”
“Come on. What are you driving at?”
“Are you happy here?”
“No one’s forcing me to stay.”
“I said: are you happy?”
“Who cares about being happy? There’s so much work to be done in the world.”
“Why should it be done?”
“Because it’s one’s duty.”
“To whom?”
“When it’s duty, you don’t ask why and to whom. You don’t ask any questions. When you come up against a thing about which you can’t ask any questio
ns—then you know you’re facing your duty.”
She pointed far out at the darkening sea and asked:
“Do you ever think of what lies there, beyond the coast? Of the places where I came from?”
He answered, shrugging contemptuously:
“The best of that world beyond the coast is right here.”
“And that is?”
“My work.”
He turned and walked back to the monastery. She followed obediently.
They walked down a long corridor where barred windows threw dark crosses on the floor, over the red squares of dying light, and figures of saints writhed on ancient murals. From behind every door furtive eyes watched the stranger. The eyes were eager and contemptuous at once. Commandant Kareyev did not notice them; Joan was braver—she did, and walked on, not caring.
They had reached the foot of the stairs where, at tall windows, a group of prisoners loitered, as if by chance, aimlessly studying the sunset.
Her foot was on the first step when a cry stopped her, the kind of cry she would have heard if the martyrs of the murals had suddenly found voice.
“Frances!”
Michael Volkontzev stood grasping the banister, barring her way. Many people were looking at his face, but his face looked like a thing that should not be seen.
“Frances! What are you doing here?”
The men around them could not understand the question, because of the way his voice sounded—and because he spoke it in English.
Her face was cool and blank and a little astonished—politely, indifferently astonished. She looked straight at him, her eyes calm and open.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, in Russian. “I don’t believe I know you.”
Kareyev stepped between them and seized Michael’s shoulder, asking:
“Do you know her?”
Michael looked at her, at the stairway, at the men around them.
“No,” he muttered. “I was mistaken.”
“I warned you,” said Kareyev angrily, and threw him out of the way, against the wall. Joan turned and walked up the steps. Kareyev followed.
The prisoners watched Michael pressed to the wall, as he had fallen, not moving, not straightening himself, only his eyes watching her go up and his head nodding slowly as if counting each step.
