Veronika had to take the steam tram, then an electric tram, and travel right across the frivolous, elegant part of the city, across its bridges to the outer edge of Vasilevsky Island, where the Nikolai Embankment ended at the 21st Line.
But she was in no hurry to get away. Matvei lived with his lawyer father on Staro-Nevsky, but also rented a room locally—sharp left at the Bekhter Clinic, not far from his own Psychoneurological Institute. The institute was presently in danger of losing its autonomy and was seething with indignation. Matvei had to be on the spot.
When they were safe from police surveillance he took his arm away and stopped steering her. She looked sideways at his bold, self-assured, energetic face, and timidly tucked her neatly gloved hand under his elbow. Afraid of seeming like a mushy schoolgirl, she said quickly, “Tell me, Matvei. …” What she most wanted to ask was who Belenin was (a nom de guerre, obviously).
But it would be wrong to press him too hard. Idle curiosity and superfluous actions had no place in conspiratorial work. And this rule of strict confidentiality within the party, and Matvei’s own uncompromising rigidity, had fused in Veronika’s mind into the single virtue of manly steadfastness. His party did not go in for jokes, for loose talk, for pointless blather, and was very different in this from the decadent and ineffectual milieu in which Veronika had languished till now.
“Tell me … I still don’t really understand …”
“What?” he asked absently, looking straight ahead.
Veronika very much wanted to believe with all her heart, like the rest of them, and as quickly as possible, but doubts would nonetheless arise and multiply, so she asked, and indeed Matvei encouraged her to ask.
“That slogan—‘Convert the present war into civil war.’ “ She was speaking of awesome historical phenomena, but her voice was soft and casual. “Might not that have the opposite effect, and prolong the food crisis? I mean, if the war in its third year threatens the people with physical degeneration, what will happen if it goes on much longer, even as a civil war?”
Matvei listened attentively, then burst out laughing. “As soon as we knock this thieving government and all those scoundrelly Guchkovs and Ryabushinskys off their perches, as soon as the democratic republic is established, there will be no more of these queues, these price increases, every consumer item will appear immediately.”
“But where from?”
“There’s plenty of everything. In Petersburg, right now, there’s plenty. The merchants and industrialists simply keep things hidden till they can rip off their super-profits. This long fence we’re just passing—you couldn’t jump over it. But what’s on the other side? Pretty certainly some sort of warehouse, and that warehouse is most probably full of foodstuffs and other goods, but you can’t get at them. No-o-o,” he said, laughing at her incredulity, “the whole food crisis is caused by the interplay of supply and demand, by speculation. Establish tomorrow a socialist system of distribution, and right away there’ll be enough and to spare for everyone. Hunger will cease the day after the revolution. Everything will appear, sugar, meat, white bread, milk. The people will take everything into their own hands—the existing stocks and the management of the economy—they will organize things according to plan, and an age of abundance, even, will set in. People will start producing all that is needed with such enthusiasm! I’ll go farther; the solution of the food crisis is impossible without socialism, because only then will social production begin to serve not the enrichment of individuals but the interests of all mankind!”
Veronika was not looking where she was going. By now her other hand was holding Matvei’s elbow while she gazed at his rapt expression. She loved hearing about his dreams of the future—though “dreams” was the wrong word. She trembled at the vivid picture of the dream already made flesh. At the sheer power of this man. She must introduce him to her brother—if Sasha was ever transferred to Petersburg. They were sure to take to each other from the start. She could see them together: they were just like each other. Not so much in appearance, in something else, more important.
“And anyway, when we say ‘civil war’ it’s just a manner of speaking. War with whom? How long can a handful of exploiters stand up to the whole united working class? A month or two, perhaps? And then if the proletariat immediately seizes power all over Europe and holds out a hand to us? Just think what power the German proletariat represents!”
“And the war with Germany will end?”
“Certainly it will! Certainly! Once a socialist order is created all wars will cease at once. Surely two socialist countries would never make war on each other? Can you imagine it?”
It was obviously absurd.
“No one can ever force a socialist state to make war! Wars are started by the rulers, not by their people. When the capitalist order ends, human suffering will end with it.”
Heavens, how good it sounded! And what a good thing she had not been too bashful to question him, and could now see for herself how neatly it all fitted in.
Meanwhile: “Here’s your stop, off you go. You’ll come around for the leaflets tomorrow, right? What time?”
He only had to turn left, along Fourth Circle.
“I’ll walk you home,” she said, bending forward.
They walked down the dark, potholed street, toward the park at the other end.
They were silent for a while. Suddenly Matvei stopped. He put one arm around her, and though no look, no movement of his had prepared her for it, began kissing her, greedily, again and again, crushing her lips with his own, forcing her head backward.
Her head scarf slipped back, but she didn’t feel the cold. Nor the bend in her back, nor the prickling.
She just felt happy.
* * *
Let us destroy the decrepit despotism of Nicholas II, let us sweep the filthy scum of landowners and priests from the land of Russia, and oppression will be no more, wars will cease forever. The forward contingents of the International have already entered the blood-drenched arena. Comrades—do not delay! Beware of arriving too late! Long live the Federal Republic of Europe!
—RSDRP
* * *
[35]
The nickname your village inflicts on you is rarely so inoffensive that you would not wish to change it. It is meant to rankle. Those who invent it have suffered in their time and want to see you squirm. From your infancy. Whether you are a boy or a girl, the street watches you closely, peers through its windows, hoping to see you miss your footing or drop what you are carrying, hears you, from over its fences, whimper or invoke high heaven. Whether you are out in the field working or on the road with your cart, it will not lose track of you. If your axle is ungreased, or your horse is unfed, you’re Layabout Lyova or Sasha Slugabed. As for the women, they keep a ten times sharper eye on each other. Leave the kneading trough uncovered, or the oven cloth lying around, sit awkwardly at your spinning wheel, and in no time you’re Slovenly Slava or Mucky Masha, a lazy lump or a fumbling fusspot, you’re not sure which is worse. Someone catches you in the act and flings a name at you, and either it falls away like a lump of dry mud or, carried by the street wind, it hits you right on the cheek and sticks and stings forever. In the cradle, in nursery school, everyone has a nickname but it rarely follows them as they grow up. But if a name is stuck on a grown girl she will wear it when she rocks her grandchildren, if a name is stuck on a grown boy he will carry it as a grandfather. It may even be handed down to your posterity. Blub’s descendants may be Blubbiches, Stodger’s may be Stodgerkins, never mind their real surname. Your surname is for the rural council, the clerk, the draft officer, the zemstvo paramedic. The surname passed on like a worn coin from your great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers indicates your lineage, no more. A nickname alone reveals your true lineaments to your fellow villagers. A single clumsy moment, a single careless mishap—and you are branded for the rest of your days.
It’s true what they say: one thoughtless hour and you’re a fool for life.
It’s the same with the gentry. Take Tsirmant. They started calling him Squire Patches—and however spacious your marble halls later on, however many troikas you own, however much silver you stash away—once you’re Patches you’re Patches forever. No good trying to hobnob with the Princes Volkonsky. There is always something in these thumbnail sketches. Nicknames are never given at random. If a sharp eye has spotted it—it’s a part of you. It’s a lucky villager who is given a not too offensive sobriquet, such as Marrow Bone, meaning he makes a fat living (snarling and snatching, like a dog at a bone), or the Block, meaning he’s strong (but wooden-headed and cross-grained).
Kamenka had chosen to call Elisei Blagodarev Stalky. There was not the slightest hint of an insult in it.
He was already a man of thirty when he first appeared in Kamenka, before the war with Turkey, married Domasha Opolovnikova, and was taken into his father-in-law’s house. His native place was beyond Baikal, although his forebears had not always lived there. He had been given a nickname there too, but had not brought it with him to Kamenka, and had disclosed it to no one. Nor, for that matter, did he ever say anything about his previous life, except perhaps to Domasha occasionally. His sons were told nothing about it by their father. He must have been doing something, lived or wandered around somewhere before he was thirty. Perhaps he had had some setbacks, but he arrived on the river Savala undamaged, and Kamenka had quickly adopted the homeless loner under the name of Stalky.
Here too things had not been easy for Elisei Blagodarev, in a family without men. The years went by, and he and his first son were not given an allotment. He had to begin by buying land with borrowed money, repaying it in installments, then leasing a little more. Only later was he given an allotment for two, then a little more for his second son, Arseni, but by then there were five children, as well as two orphans left by Domasha’s sister, who herself had lived with them until she was married. Elisei had now lived in Kamenka for more than thirty years. He didn’t drink or smoke or covet other people’s property or brawl. He simply pulled his load. But his wagon was so overloaded, and its wheels so clogged, that, straining for dear life, he could not straighten out and pick up speed. Like many others, Elisei was harnessed to a load beyond his strength, and the most vexatious thing of all was that the road was potholed. In spite of it all, he had managed to set up his older son, Adrian, on a farm of his own, at Blue Bushes. And he had preserved his upright figure, the alert poise of his head, and sharp, bright eyes which gazed steadily into the distance and which he screwed up to look at anything nearer, as though it caused him pain. He saw as far and clearly at sixty-six as if he was still a young man and felt that his prime still lay before him.
Arseni Blagodarev’s street name was Moaner. He grew up to be as big and strong as his father, but neither he nor his brother Adrian had their father’s slender grace. Their hair and complexion were somewhat darker, their noses a little broader, their cheekbones rather more prominent, Tambov cheekbones, their lips fuller, and their heads not so neatly poised on their necks. Elisei grumbled sometimes: “You’ve spoiled my bloodline, Domasha.”
Whereas the youngest son had been the image of his father, just as bright and slender (stemlike). He would have been eighteen now, but had drowned in his early teens, watering horses in the pond, and clinging to their tails when his feet couldn’t touch bottom. Both daughters had married away from home, one at Korovainovo, on the Mokraya Panda, the other even farther away, at Inokovka, a stone’s throw from Kirsanov. And so only Arseni was left behind with his parents, and they had been about to give him a holding of his own when along came the war.
Nothing had prepared his father for Arseni’s arrival that day. But from the open cart shed he heard the latch of the farmyard gate click and his heart skipped a beat. Nothing had prepared him until Quacker yapped (the whole village kept its dogs chained until the sheep were brought in for the winter), gave another half-yap, this time of welcome, and was silent, probably frisking around someone. Elisei went into the yard just as he was, saddle in hand (he had been about to hitch up), and realized in a flash.
“Senka! You here?!”
Was he even taller than before? Must be his soldierly bearing. As soon as he lowered his knapsack from his left shoulder to the ground, his father seized him, and pressed his face against his son’s cheek, above the yellow-edged shoulder board with the grenadiers’ insignia—crossed cannons and a fiery shell burst—on it.
His father’s sheepskin hat pushed Arseni’s service cap askew, and the forgotten saddle bumped against him. Mustache and beard prickled Arseni’s face before he could draw back. The fresh smell of wind and hay and leather told him that he was at home, where he belonged.
Neither of them had to stoop. They were almost the same height.
“Papa! You’re straight-backed as ever!”
“Me?” Flinging his arms wide, admiring his son. “I can thresh a sheaf without a flail. Five swings and you’ve got fine flour.”
You could believe him. More like a poplar than an old man. Firm hands gripping Senka’s shoulders. Firm voice. Eyes clear.
“As soon as I get a forkful it’s a sheaf, and while the others are bringing the second, mine’s on the rick. I can’t see any end for me, Senka. I could go and fight right now, if you like, just as well as you can.”
He had not been called up for the war with Japan because of his age. But in the war with Turkey he had won a George Cross. Now Senka had two stripes, and two medals on his chest (were they giving them away more freely?), one a George Cross of his own, all shiny and new, with a clean ribbon—it was a pity to wear it except on special occasions. His father couldn’t resist running his hand over the medals.
“So, so. You’re a pretty good soldier? So why can’t you finish it off without us?”
They embraced again.
That was when Senka’s mother caught sight of them. She hadn’t noticed Senka through the window, and the cottage had a blank wall on the yard side. She must have heard them from the entrance hall, and now she came around the corner of the cottage like a shot. She was much shorter than her husband and her son, but as strong as she had always been. She pushed her husband aside and hugged her son, surrounding him with the smell of stove smoke and the baking oven, and said, or rather breathed voicelessly, “Senka, my love! My little son!”
Better cover him with kisses quickly. He’ll be too shy to bend down again. Kiss him again and again, this gift of God, preserved and restored to you by Our Lady of Kazan for her very own feast day.
His mother’s face was very smooth, with few wrinkles. She was quite unlike his father in build and looks, but her dark eyes were just as clear as his.
All women shed tears on such occasions, but Senka’s mother refrained. She took his cheeks in her hands, looked at him admiringly, without so much as a whimper.
She looked hard, inspecting him closely.
“So you haven’t been wounded, not one single time? Haven’t kept it quiet?”
“No, Mama, I’m in one piece, you can see for yourself.”
“And you aren’t thin in the face either.”
“All the grub we get, Mama, you’ll never see anything like it in the village. And we don’t have all the worries you have, the officers do our thinking for us. You couldn’t ask for anything more.”
His mother laughed with him.
“You’ve come just at the right time, for the festival. Why didn’t you write? Never mind, I’ve got till this evening and all Friday. I’ll get some baking and brewing done, you’ll see.”
Arseni clapped his mama on her plump shoulders. “You’re such workers, both of you, so young!”
His mother gave his father a stern look. “Thank God, we can’t say we haven’t got a man in the house. Some people kill themselves working, or ask for prisoners of war, but we’re all right!”
His father laughed under his fair mustache. “Ask them for an Austrian if you like, and I’ll go off to the war. Look at this milk
sop with his two Georges, and I’ve only got one.”
He was still holding the saddle. But he wasn’t going to saddle up now.
Arseni’s father was fourteen years older than his mother, but even so, he said he’d married too young, a man should hold out till thirty-six. He had scolded Senka, tried to prevent him from marrying at twenty-four. There had been rows. Adrian too had set up on his own, left home too early.
But where was Katya, his own little Katya? His mother hadn’t said, and it wasn’t for Senka to ask.
They went to the rear porch, his father still carrying the saddle, as well as Senka’s knapsack and Senka’s cap, which had landed on the floor.
Through the wide-open door from the hallway onto the porch, no longer on all fours, but upright, though he still had to steady himself with a hand on the lintel, out he toddled, wearing nothing but a little shirt, barefoot, bareheaded, flaxen-haired—
“Se-va-styan!”
He looked goggle-eyed at this stranger. And puffed out his lower lip, just like his daddy.
Come here, let me get hold of you—and up you go!
No, he wasn’t happy about it, he didn’t know this new uncle, he wanted Grandma. “Look how he’s shaking me, look how he’s tossing me around!”
Senka fussed the little boy and set him down.
“Off you go, small fry, you’re a good walker. We’ll get acquainted later, plenty of time for that.”
“He’s run outside! He’ll catch cold! Fenya!”
Out rushed young Fenya, Senka’s orphan cousin. She stood transfixed. Sharp-featured and quick-moving, she had to stand almost on tiptoe to kiss her cousin.
“Hey, you’re quite a young lady!” Arseni declared, and kissed her head, where her hair was parted.
“How you’ve grown in a year! You’ll soon be as big as Katya!”
Where is my Katya? Why hasn’t she come running? Why hasn’t anybody said a word about her?
November 1916 Page 71