by Victor Serge
“You must telegraph to Moscow at once,” said Xenia resolutely. “Have your League telegraph this afternoon. That you stand guarantee for Rublev, that you proclaim his innocence. Rublev belongs to science!”
Professor Passereau sighed deeply. The door opened, a visiting card was handed to him on a tray. He looked at his watch and said: “Ask the gentleman to wait for a moment …” Whatever be the tragedies that convulse distant lands, we have our usual obligations. The intervention of the visiting card gave him back all his eloquence.
“Mademoiselle, never doubt that I … I am more moved than I can express … But please note that I have met Rublev, whom I respect, only once in my life, at a reception … How can I stand guarantee for him in such a complex situation? That he is a scientist of great ability, I do not doubt, and, like you, I hope with all my heart that he will be preserved to science … For the justice of your country I have a respect which is absolute … I believe in the goodness of men, even in our age … If Rublev — I state it purely as a hypothesis — is guilty to any degree, the magnanimity of the Chief of your Party will, I am sure, leave him every hope of escaping punishment … Personally, my most fervent wishes accompany him, and you too, mademoiselle — I share your emotion, but I really do not see what I could do … I have made it a principle never to interfere in the internal affairs of your country, it is a matter of conscience with me … The League Committee meets only once a month, the date of the next meeting is the twenty-seventh, three weeks hence, and I have no power to call a meeting earlier, since I am only vice-president … Furthermore, the League has, properly speaking, but one object — to fight fascism. A proposal to take a step contrary to our by-laws, even coming from me, would be likely to arouse the most intense objection … If we insisted, we might well open a breach in the heart of an organization which has, nevertheless, a noble mission to accomplish. Our present campaigns in favor of Carlos Prestes, Thaelmann, the persecuted Jews, might thereby suffer. You follow me, mademoiselle?”
“I am afraid I do!” said Xenia brutally. “So you refuse to take any steps?”
“I am extremely sorry, mademoiselle — but you greatly overestimate my influence … Believe me … Come, consider the situation! What could I do?”
Xenia’s clear eyes looked at him coldly.
“And the execution of a Rublev will not rob you of any sleep, I take it?”
Professor Passereau answered sadly:
“You are most unjust, mademoiselle. But, old man that I am, I understand you …”
She did not look at him again, did not give him her hand. She was walking down the middle-class street; her face was set. No one passed. “His science is vile, his instruments are vile, his brown study is vile! And Kiril Rublev is lost, we are all lost, there is no way out any more, no way out!”
In the editorial office of a weekly which was almost extreme Left, another professor, a man of thirty-five, listened to her as if her news moved him to profound grief. Was he not going to tear his hair, wring his hands? He did nothing of the sort. He had never heard of Rublev, but these Russian catastrophes haunted him day and night. “They are Shakespearean tragedies … Mademoiselle, I have cried my indignation in this very paper. ‘Mercy!’ I cried, ‘in the name of our love and devotion to the Russian Revolution.’ I was not heard, I aroused reactions which must likewise be accepted in good faith, I tendered my resignation to our managing committee … Today, the political situation makes it impossible for such an article to appear. We represent the average opinion of an audience which belongs to numerous parties; the ministerial crisis, of which the papers have not yet got wind, imperils all our work of the last few years … A conflict with the Communists at this moment might have the most disastrous results … And should we save Dublev?”
“Rublev,” Xenia corrected.
“Yes, Rublev — should we save him? My unfortunate experience does not permit me to believe so … I really cannot see how … At most, I could try calling on your ambassador at once and expressing my concern to him …”
“At least do that,” murmured Xenia, completely discouraged, for she was thinking: “They won’t do anything, no one will do anything, they don’t even understand …” She felt like beating her head against the wall … She swept through several other editorial offices, so hastily, borne along by such a desperate and exasperated grief, that later she had only a confused memory of where she had gone. An old intellectual with a soiled necktie became almost rude in the presence of her insistence. “Well then, go and see the Trotskyists!
We have our sources of information, our minds are made up. All revolutions have produced traitors, who may appear to be, who may in fact be, admirable personally. I admit it. All revolutions have committed great injustices in particular cases. You have to take them by and large!” He picked up a paper cutter and hacked furiously at the wrapping of a morning paper. “Our task, here, is to fight reaction!” Somewhere else, an old lady with a carelessly powdered, lined face was so touched that she called Xenia “my dear child.” “If I really had any influence with the editor, my dear child, ah, believe me, I … In any case I will try to slip in a paragraph emphasizing the importance of your friend’s work — Uplev, did you say, or Rulev? Here, write it down for me, clearly. A musician, you said? Ah, a historian, yes, yes, a historian …” The old lady wrapped a faded silk scarf around her throat. “What days we live in, my dear child! It is frightening to think of it!” She leaned forward, sincerely moved: “Tell me — excuse me if I am indiscreet — but a woman — are you in love with Kiril Rublev? Such a beautiful name, Kiril …”
“No, no, I’m not in love with him,” said Xenia, in great distress and finding it as difficult to restrain her tears as her anger.
For no reason, she stopped in front of an American book and stationery shop in the Avenue de l’Opéra. Photographic cutouts of pretty little nudes posed above ash trays, not far from maps of partitioned Czechoslovakia. The books had a well-to-do look. They raised great problems, they were idiotic. The Mystery of the Moonless Night, The Masked Stranger, Pity Poor Women! It all emanated the luxurious futility of well-fed, well-bathed, well-perfumed people who wanted to expose themselves to a little shudder of fear or pity before going to sleep in silk sheets. Is it possible that this present age goes on, without their ever learning fear and pity in their own flesh, in their own nerves? In another white-and-gilt display, sea horses in an aquarium promised luck to the purchasers of jewels. Luck in love, luck in business, with our brooches, rings, necklaces — the latest thing — the astral sea horse. She must flee! Xenia rested at the other end of Paris, on a bench, in a gray landscape of hospital windows and chalky walls. Every few minutes the monstrous thunder of a train crossing a bridge penetrated to the depths of her nerves. Home again, dead tired — where had she been, how could she sleep? The next morning she had to overcome a feeling of nausea as she dressed, her hands trembled when she rouged her lips, she got down after Madame Delaporte had come in, sat at her usual table without noticing the curious and pitying looks that greeted her, put her chin in her hands, stared at the Boulevard Raspail … Madame Delaporte herself came and touched her on the shoulder: “Telephone, mademoiselle … No better?” — “Oh yes,” said Xenia, “it’s nothing …” In the telephone booth a man’s voice, velvety and assured, a voice like doom, spoke in Russian:
“Krantz speaking … I am aware of all your … imprudent and criminal proceedings … I insist that you cease them immediately … Do you understand? The consequences can be serious, and not only for yourself …”
Xenia hung up without answering. Willi, First Secretary of the Embassy, entered the café — gray raglan overcoat, immaculate felt hat, the well-dressed man, English style; just the type for ash trays decorated with naked women, a copy of Esquire, yellow pigskin gloves, she’d like to throw them all in his face at once, the climber! Fake gentleman, fake Communist, fake diplomat, fake, fake! He took off his hat, bowed: “Xenia Vassilievna, I have a telegram for you �
�” While she opened the blue envelope, he watched her attentively. Tired, nervous, resolved. He must be careful.
The telegram was from Popov:
MOTHER ILL WE BOTH BEG YOU RETURN IMMEDIATELY…
“I have reserved a place for you on Wednesday’s plane …”
“I am not going,” said Xenia.
Without being asked, he sat down at the other side of her table. Leaning toward one another, they looked like a pair of lovers who had quarreled and were making up. Madame Delaporte understood it all now.
“Krantz has instructed me to tell you, Xenia Vassilievna, that you must go home … You have been most imprudent, Xenia Vassilievna, allow me to tell you so, as your friend … We all belong to the Party …”
It was not the thing to say. Willi began again:
“Krantz is a fine sort … He’s worried about you. Worried about your father … You are seriously compromising your father … He’s an old man, your father … And you can do nothing here, you will get nowhere, absolutely nowhere … You’re up against a blank wall.”
That was more like it. Xenia’s white face lost a little of its hardness.
“Between ourselves, I believe that when you get back you will be arrested … But it will not be serious, Krantz will intervene, he has promised me … Your father can stand guarantee for you … You have no need to be afraid.”
That reference to being afraid had worked … Xenia said:
“You think I am afraid?”
“Not in the least! I am talking to you as a comrade, as a friend …”
“I will go back when I have done what I have to do. Tell that to Krantz. Tell him that if Rublev is shot, I will go through the streets protesting … That I will write to every paper …”
“There will be no trial, Xenia Vassilievna, we have received information on the subject. We are not issuing a denial, as we consider that the sooner that unfortunate announcement is forgotten, the better. Krantz does not even know if Rublev has really been arrested. If he has been, the publicity you might stir up for him could only harm him … And it horrifies me to hear you say such things. It is not like you. You are incapable of treason. You will say nothing to anyone, no matter what happens. To whom would you protest? To this hostile world around us? To this bourgeois Paris, to these fascist papers which caluminate us? To the Trotskyist agents of the fascists? What more could you accomplish than to stir up a little counterrevolutionary scandal for the delectation of a few anti-Soviet publications? Xenia Vassilievna, I promise to forget what you have said. Here is your ticket. The plane leaves Le Bourget at 9:45 A.M. Wednesday. I shall be there. Have you money?”
“Yes.”
It was not true, Xenia was uneasily aware. When she had paid her hotel bill she would have almost nothing left. She pushed away the ticket: “Take it, if you don’t want me to tear it up in front of you.” Willi calmly put it into his wallet. “Think it over, Xenia Vassilievna, I shall come back to see you tomorrow morning.” Madame Delaporte was disappointed when they parted with no sign of affection. “She must be terribly jealous, Russian women are tigresses once they get started …” — “Either tigresses or profligates — none of these foreigners have any sense of decency …” Through the curtains Xenia observed that before Willi got into his Chrysler he looked toward the head of the boulevard, where a beige overcoat was strolling up and down. Already shadowed. They will force me to go. They stop at nothing. To hell with them! But …
She counted what money she had left. Three hundred francs. Should she go to the Foreign Commerce Bureau? They would refuse her an advance. Would they even let her go? Could she sell her wrist watch, her Leica? She packed her suitcase, put a pair of pajamas and some odds and ends in her brief case, and set off down the Rue Vavin without looking back — she was sure she was being followed. And at the Luxembourg she caught a glimpse of the beige overcoat, fifty yards behind her. “Now I am a traitor too, like Rublev … And my father is a traitor because I am his daughter …” How could she rise above this flood of thoughts, this shame, this indignation, this anger? It was exactly like the ice breaking up on the Neva: the enormous floes, like shattered stars, must collide and battle and destroy one another until the moment when they would disappear under the quiet sea swell. She must undergo her thought, follow it to its uttermost limits, until the unforeseeable but inevitable moment when all would be over, one way or another. The moment will come, can it come, can it fail to come? It seemed to Xenia that her torture would never end. But what would end, then? Life? Would they shoot me? Why? What have I done? What has Rublev done? A terrible possibility. Stay here? Without money? Look for work? What work? Where could she live? Why live? Children were sailing boats in the great circular fountain. In this French world, life is as calm and insipid as children’s games, people live only for themselves! To live for myself — how ridiculous! Expelled from the Party, I could no longer look a worker in the face, I could explain nothing to anyone, no one would understand. Willi, the beast, had just said: “Well, I grant you — perhaps they are crimes, we know nothing about it. Our duty is to trust, with our eyes shut. Because there is nothing else for either of us to do. To accuse, to protest, never results in anything but serving the enemy. I would rather be shot by mistake myself. Neither the crimes nor the mistakes alter our duty …” It is true. On his lips they are parroted phrases, because he will always manage to risk nothing. But they are true. What would Rublev himself do, what would he say? The faintest shadow of treason would never enter his mind …
At the St.-Michel subway station Xenia shook off the detective in the beige overcoat. She wandered on through Paris, stopping sometimes to look at her reflection in shopwindows: bedraggled silhouette, rumpled jacket, pale face and sunken eyes — it was not in order to feel sorry for herself, but to see that she was ugly, I want to be ugly, I must be ugly! The women she passed — self-centered, carefully dressed, pleased because they had chosen some hideous bauble to dangle from the lapel of a tailored jacket or the neck of a bodice — were merely human animals satisfied to breathe, but the sight of them made her want to stop living … At nightfall Xenia found herself on the edge of a brightly lit square. She was exhausted from walking. Cascades of electric light flowed over the dome of a huge movie theater, the flood of barbaric brilliance surrounded two enormous faces, joined in the most meaningless of kisses, as revolting in their beatitude as in their utter anonymity. The other corner of the square, flaming with red and gold, sent a love song pouring frantically out of loudspeakers, to an accompaniment of little strident cries and clicking heels. For Xenia the whole effect resolved itself into a long and insistent caterwauling whose human intonation made it a thing of shame. Men and women were drinking at the bar, and they suggested strange insects, cruel to their own kind, collected in an overheated vivarium. Between these two conflagrations — the theater and the café — a wide street mounted into a darkness starred with signs: HOTEL, HOTEL, HOTEL. Xenia started up it, turned in at the first door, and asked for a room for the night. The little old bespectacled man whom she woke from a drowse seemed inseparable from the keyboard and the counter between which his tobacco-reeking person was wedged. “It will be fifteen francs,” he said, laying his cloudy spectacles on the paper he had been reading. His staring rabbit eyes blinked. “Funny, I don’t recognize you. Could you be Paula, from the Passage Clichy? Don’t you always go to the Hotel du Morbihan? You’re a foreigner? Just a minute …” He stooped, disappeared, popped out from under a board, disappeared again down the corridor … And the proprietor himself appeared, his shirt sleeves rolled up, exposing thick butcher’s arms. He seemed to be surrounded by a greasy fog. He looked Xenia over, as if he were going to sell her, hunted for something under the counter, finally said: “All right, fill out the form. Have you your papers?” Xenia held out her diplomatic passport. “Alone? Right … I’ll give you Number 11, it’ll be thirty francs, the bathroom is right next door …” Huge, bull-necked, he preceded Xenia up the stairs, swinging a bunch of keys
between his fat fingers. Cold, dimly lighted by two shaded lamps set on two night tables, Room No. 11 reminded Xenia of a detective story. In that corner over there was the ironbound chest in which the murdered girl’s body was found, cut up in pieces. The corner smelled of phenol. After she put out the lamps, the blue neon signs in the street filled the room from mirror to ceiling with luminous arabesques. Among them Xenia quickly discovered visions familiar to her childhood: the wolf, the fish, the witch’s spinning wheel, the profile of Ivan the Terrible, the enchanted tree. She was so tired from thinking and walking that she went to sleep immediately. The murdered girl timidly raised the lid of the chest, stood up, stretched her bruised limbs. “Don’t be afraid,” Xenia said to her, “I know we are innocent.” She had hair like a naiad’s, and calm eyes like wild daisies. “We’ll read the story of the Golden Fish together, listen to that music …” Xenia took her into her bed to warm her … Downstairs, behind the desk, the proprietor of the Two Moons Hotel was conversing by telephone with Monsieur Lambert, assistant police commissioner of the district.
Life begins anew every morning. Too young to despair, Xenia felt that she had shaken off her nightmare. If there was no trial, Rublev would live. It was impossible that they should kill him — he was so great, so simple, so pure, and Popov knew it, the Chief must know it. Xenia felt happy, she dressed, she looked in the mirror and found herself pretty again. But where did I think the murder chest was yesterday? She was glad she had not felt afraid. There was a little knock, she opened the door. A broad-shouldered figure, a broad, sad face appeared in the half-light of the hall. Neither familiar nor unfamiliar, a vague fleshy face. The visitor introduced himself, in a thick, velvety voice:
“Krantz.”
He entered, looked the room over, took in everything. Xenia covered up the unmade bed.