We the Living

by Ayn Rand

And suddenly Kira wanted to scream and to hurl herself at the stand, and to grab these thin, glittering legs and hang on with her teeth as to an anchor, and be carried away with them into their world which was possible somewhere, which was now here, close, within hearing of a cry for help.

  But she only swayed a little and closed her eyes.

  The demonstration stopped. It stood, knocking heels together to keep warm, listening to speeches. There were many speeches. The comrade woman of the British Trade Unions spoke. A hoarse interpreter bellowed her words into the Square red and khaki with heads packed tightly together.

  "This is a thrilling sight. We were sent here by England's workers to see for ourselves and to tell the world the truth about the great experiment you are conducting. We shall tell them that we saw the great masses of Russian toilers in a free and magnificent expression of loyalty to the Soviet Government."

  For one insane second, Kira wondered if she could tear through the crowd, rush up to that woman and yell to her, to England's workers, to the world, the truth they were seeking. But she thought of Leo at home, marble pale, coughing. It was Leo against the truth to a world which would not listen. Leo won.

  At five P.M. a glittering limousine whisked the delegates away and the demonstration broke up. It was growing dark. Kira had time for a lecture at the Institute.

  The cold, badly lighted auditoriums were a tonic to her, with the charts, drafts and prints on the walls, showing beams and girders and cross sections that looked precise, impersonal and unsullied. For a short hour, even though her stomach throbbed with hunger, she could remember that she was to be a builder who would build aluminum bridges and towers of steel and glass; and that there was a future.

  After the lecture, hurrying out through dim corridors, she met Comrade Sonia.

  "Ah, Comrade Argounova," said Comrade Sonia. "We haven't seen you for a long time. Not so active in your studies any more, are you? And as to social activity--why, you're the most privately individualistic student we've got."

  "I . . ." Kira began.

  "None of my business, Comrade Argounova, I know, none of my business. I was just thinking of things one hears nowadays about things the Party may do about students who are not social-minded. Don't give it a thought."

  "I . . . you see . . ." Kira knew it wiser to explain. "I'm working and I'm very active socially in our Marxist Club."

  "So? You are, are you? We know you bourgeois. All you're active for is to keep your measly jobs. You're not fooling anyone."

  When Kira entered the room, Marisha jumped up like a spring unwinding: "Citizen Argounova! You keep your damn cat in your own room or I'll wring her neck!"

  "My cat? What cat? I have no cat."

  "Well, who's done this? Your boy friend?" Marisha was pointing to a puddle in the middle of her room. "And what's that? An elephant?" She raged as a meow and a pair of gray, furry ears emerged from under a chair.

  "It's not my cat," said Kira.

  "Where's she come from, then?"

  "How do I know?"

  "You never know anything!"

  Kira did not answer and went to her room. She heard Marisha in the little hall off the lobby, pounding at the partition that separated them from the other tenants. She heard her yelling: "Hey, you there! Your God-damn cat's torn a board loose and here she is, crapping all over the place! You take her away or I'll gut her alive and report you to the Upravdom!"

  Leo was not at home. The room was dark, cold as a cellar. Kira switched on the light. The bed was not made; the blanket was on the floor. She lighted the "Bourgeoise," blowing at the damp logs, her eyes swelling. The pipes were leaking. She hung a tin can on a wire to catch the dripping soot.

  She pumped the Primus. It would not light; its tubes were clogged again. She searched all over the room for the special wire cleaner. She could not find it. She knocked at the door.

  "Citizen Lavrova, have you taken my Primus cleaner again?" There was no answer. She flung the door open. "Citizen Lavrova, have you taken my Primus cleaner?"

  "Aw, hell," said Marisha. "Stingy, aren't you, of a little Primus cleaner? Here it is."

  "How many times do I have to ask you, Citizen Lavrova, not to touch any of my things in my absence?"

  "What are you gonna to do about it? Report me?"

  Kira took the Primus cleaner and slammed the door.

  She was peeling potatoes when Leo came in.

  "Oh," he said, "you're home?"

  "Yes. Where have you been, Leo?"

  "Any of your business?"

  She did not answer. His shoulders were drooping and his lips were blue. She knew where he had been; and that he had not succeeded.

  She went on peeling the potatoes. He stood with his hands extended to the "Bourgeoise," his lips twisted with pain. He coughed. Then he turned abruptly and said: "Same thing. You know. Since eight this morning. No opening. No job. No work."

  "It's all right, Leo. We don't have to worry."

  "No? We don't, do we? You're enjoying it, aren't you, to see me living off you? You're glad to remind me that I don't have to worry while you're working yourself into a scarecrow of a martyr?"

  "Leo!"

  "Well, I don't want to see you work! I don't want to see you cook! I don't . . . Oh, Kira!" He seized her and put his head on her shoulder, and buried his face in her neck, over the blue flame of the Primus. "Kira, you forgive me, don't you?"

  She patted his hair with her cheek, for her hands were sticky with potato peelings. "Of course. . . . Dearest. . . . Why don't you lie down and rest? Dinner will be ready in just a little while."

  "Why don't you let me help you?"

  "Now there's an argument that we've closed long ago."

  He bent down to her, lifting her chin. She whispered, shuddering a little: "Don't, Leo. Don't kiss me--here." She held out her dirty hands over the Primus.

  He did not kiss her. A bitter little smile of understanding jerked one corner of his mouth. He walked to the bed and fell down.

  He lay so still, his head thrown back, one arm hanging to the floor, that she felt uncomfortable. Once in a while, she called softly: "Leo," just to see him open his eyes. Then she wished she hadn't called: she did not want his eyes to stay open, watching her fixedly. She--who had so carefully closed the door between them so that he might not see her as she did not want to be seen--she stood before him now, bent over a Primus, in an aura of kerosene and onion smell, her hands slimy with raw mud, her hair hanging down in sticky strands over a nose shiny without powder, her eyes and nostrils red on a white face, her body sagging limply under a filthy apron she had no time to wash, her movements heavy and slurred, not the sharp play of muscles, but the slothful fall of limbs pushed by a weariness beyond control.

  And when dinner was ready and they sat facing each other across the table, she thought with a pain which would not become a habit, that he--whom she wanted to face, looking young, erect, vibrant with all of her worship--he now looked into eyes swollen with smoke and at a pale mouth that smiled an effort she could not hide.

  They had millet, potatoes, and onions fried in linseed oil. She was so hungry that her arms were limp. But she could not touch the millet. She felt suddenly an uncontrollable revulsion, a hatred that could let her starve rather than swallow one more spoonful of the bitter stuff she had eaten, it seemed, all her life. She wondered dully whether there was a place on earth where one could eat without being sick of every mouthful; a place where eggs and butter and sugar were not a sublime ideal longed for agonizingly, never attained.

  She washed the dishes in cold water, grease floating over the pan. Then she pulled on her felt boots. "I have to go out, Leo," she said with resignation. "It's the Marxist Club night. Social activity, you know."

  He did not answer; he did not look at her as she went out.

  The Marxist Club held its sessions in the library of the "House of the Peasant." The library was like all the other rooms in the building except that it had more posters and fewer books; and t
he books were lined on shelves, instead of being stacked in tall columns ready for shipping.

  The girl in the leather jacket was chairman of the Club; the employees of the "House of the Peasant" were members. The Club was dedicated to "political self-education" and the study of "historical revolutionary philosophy"; it met twice a week; one member read a thesis he had prepared, the others discussed it.

  It was Kira's turn. She read her thesis on "Marxism and Leninism."

  "Leninism is Marxism adapted to Russian reality. Karl Marx, the great founder of Communism, believed that Socialism was to be the logical outcome of Capitalism in a country of highly developed Industrialism and with a proletariat attuned to a high degree of class-consciousness. But our great leader, Comrade Lenin, proved that . . ."

  She had copied her thesis, barely changing the words, from the "ABC of Communism," a book whose study was compulsory in every school in the country. She knew that all her listeners had read it, that they had also read her thesis, time and time again, in every editorial of every newspaper for the last six years. They sat around her, hunched, legs stretched out limply, shivering in their overcoats. They knew she was there for the same reason they were. The girl in the leather jacket presided, yawning once in a while.

  When Kira finished, a few hands clapped drowsily.

  "Who desires to make comments, comrades?" the chairman inquired.

  A young girl with a very round face and forlorn eyes, said lisping, showing eagerly her active interest: "I think it was a very nice thesis, and very valuable and instructive, because it was very nice and clear and explained a valuable new theory."A consumptive and intellectual young man with blue eyelids and a pince-nez, said in the professional manner of a scientist: "I would make the following criticism, Comrade Argounova: when you speak of the fact that Comrade Lenin allowed a place for the peasant beside the industrial worker in the scheme of Communism, you should specify that it is a poor peasant, not just any kind of a peasant, because it is well known that there are rich peasants in the villages, who are hostile to Leninism."

  Kira knew that she had to argue and defend her thesis; she knew that the consumptive young man had to argue to show his activity; she knew that he was no more interested in the discussion than she was, that his blue eyelids were weary with sleeplessness, that he clasped his thin hands nervously, not daring to glance at his wristwatch, not daring to let his thoughts wander to the home and its cares that awaited him somewhere.

  She said dully: "When I mention the peasant beside the worker in Comrade Lenin's theory, it is to be taken for granted that I mean the poor peasant, as no other has a place in Communism."

  The young man said drowsily: "Yes, but I think we should be scientifically methodical and say: poor peasant."

  The chairman said: "I agree with the last speaker. The thesis should be corrected to read: poor peasant. Any other comments, comrades?"

  There were none.

  "We shall thank Comrade Argounova for her valuable work," said the chairman. "Our next meeting will be devoted to a thesis by Comrade Leskov on 'Marxism and Collectivism.' I now declare this meeting closed."

  With a convulsive jerk and a clatter of chairs, they rushed out of the library, down the dark stairs, into the dark streets. They had done their duty. The evening--or what was left of it--belonged to them now.

  Kira walked fast and listened to her own footsteps, listened blankly, without thought; she could think now, but after so many hours of such a tremendous effort not to think, not to think, to remember only not to think, thoughts seemed slow to return; she knew only that her steps were beating, fast, firm, precise, until their strength and their hope rose to her body, to her heart, to the throbbing haze in her temples. She threw her head back, as if she were resting, swimming on her back, close under a clear black sky, with stars at the tip of her nose, and roof tops with snow clean in the frozen starlight like white virgin mountain peaks.

  Then she swung forward with the sharp, light movements of Kira Argounova's body and she whispered to herself, as she had talked to herself often in the last two months: "Well, it's war. It's war. You don't give up, do you, Kira? It's not dangerous so long as you don't give up. And the harder it gets the happier you should be that you can stand it. That's it. The harder--the happier. It's war. You're a good soldier, Kira Argounova."

  When Leo put his arms around her and whispered into her hair: "Oh, yes, yes, Kira. Tonight. Please!" she knew that she could not refuse any longer. Her body, suddenly limp again, cried for nothing but sleep, an endless sleep. It horrified her, that reluctant surrender, numb, lifeless, without response.

  He held her body close to his, and his skin was warm under the cold blanket. His skin was warm, and soothing, and she closed her eyes.

  "What's the matter, Kira?"

  She smiled and forced all of her last strength into her lips in the hollow of his collar bone, into her arms locked around his body. Her arms relaxed and one hand slipped, soft and weak, over the edge of the bed. She jerked her eyes open, she loved him, she wanted him, she wanted to want him--she screamed to herself almost aloud. He was kissing her body, but she was thinking of what they thought of her thesis, of Tina and the girl in the leather jacket, of the probable reduction of staffs--and suddenly she was seized with revulsion for his soft, hungry lips, because something in her, or of her, or around her was too unworthy of him. But she could keep awake a little while longer and she stiffened her body as for an ordeal, all her thoughts of love reduced to a tortured hurry to get it over with.

  It was past midnight and she did not know whether she had been asleep or not. Leo breathed painfully on the pillow beside her, his forehead clammy with cold perspiration. In the haze of her mind, one thought stood out clearly: the apron. That apron of hers was filthy; it was loathsome; she could not let Leo see her wearing it another day; not another day.

  She crawled out of bed and slipped her coat over her nightgown; it was too cold and she was too tired to dress. She put the pan of cold water on the bathroom floor, and fell down by its side and crammed the apron, the soap and her hands into a liquid that felt like acid.

  She did not know whether she was quite awake and she did not care. She knew only that the big yellow grease spot wouldn't come off, and she rubbed, and she rubbed, and she rubbed, with the dry, acrid, yellow soap, with her nails, with her knuckles, soap suds on the fur cuffs of her coat, huddled on the floor, her breasts panting against the tin edge of the pan, her hair falling down, down into the suds, beyond the narrow crack of the bathroom door a tall blue window sparkling with frost, her knuckles raw, the skin rubbed off, beyond the bedroom door someone in Marisha's room playing "John Gray" on a piano with a missing key, the pain growing in her back, the soap suds brown and greasy over purple hands.

  They saved the money for many months and on a Sunday evening they bought two tickets to see "Bajadere," advertised as the "latest sensation of Vienna, Berlin and Paris."

  They sat, solemn, erect, reverent as at a church service, Kira a little paler than usual in her gray silk dress, Leo trying not to cough, and they listened to the wantonest operetta from over there, from abroad.

  It was very gay nonsense. It was like a glance straight through the snow and the flags, through the border, into the heart of that other world. There were colored lights, and spangles, and crystal goblets, and a real foreign bar with a dull glass archway where a green light moved slowly upward, preceding every entrance--a real foreign elevator. There were women in shimmering satin from a place where fashions existed, and people dancing a funny foreign dance called "Shimmy," and a woman who did not sing, but barked words out, spitting them contemptuously at the audience, in a flat, hoarse voice that trailed suddenly into a husky moan--and a music that laughed defiantly, panting, gasping, hitting one's ears and throat and breath, an impudent, drunken music, like the challenge of a triumphant gaiety, like the "Song of Broken Glass," a promise that existed somewhere, that was, that could be.

  The public laughed, a
nd applauded, and laughed. When the lights went on after the final curtain, in the procession of cheerful grins down the aisles many noticed with astonishment a girl in a gray silk dress, who sat in an emptying row, bent over, her face in her hands, sobbing.

  XVI

  AT FIRST THERE WERE WHISPERS.

  Students gathered in groups in dark corners and jerked their heads nervously at every approaching newcomer, and in their whispers one heard the words: "The Purge."

  In lines at co-operatives and in tramways people asked: "Have you heard about the Purge?"

  In the columns of Pravda there appeared many mentions of the deplorable state of Red colleges and of the coming Purge.

  And then, at the end of the winter semester, in the Technological Institute, in the University and in all the institutes of higher education, there appeared a large notice with huge letters in red pencil: THE PURGE

  The notice directed all students to call at the office, receive questionnaires, fill them out promptly, have their Upravdom certify to the truth of the answers and return them to the Purging Committee. The schools of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics were to be cleaned of all socially undesirable persons. Those found socially undesirable were to be expelled, never to be admitted to any college again.

  Newspapers roared over the country like trumpets: "Science is a weapon of the class struggle! Proletarian schools are for the Proletariat! We shall not educate our class enemies!"

  There were those who were careful not to let these trumpets be heard too loudly across the border.

  Kira received her questionnaire at the Institute, and Leo--his at the University. They sat silently at their dinner table, filling out the answers. They did not each much dinner that night. When they signed the questionnaires, they knew they had signed the death warrant of their future; but they did not say it aloud and they did not look at each other.

  The main questions were:

  Who were your parents?

  What was your father's occupation prior to the year 1917?

  What was your father's occupation from the year 1917 to the year 1921?