Red Star Tales

by Yvonne Howell

  First published in Russian: 1908

  Translation by Anindita Bannerjee

  NIKOLAI FYODOROV

  1906

  ONE EVENING IN 2217

  I

  It was three o’clock. Matte lenses on the streets lit up, competing with the innumerable multicolored windows overhead. Above them, the bright winter day was dying, and the sun’s rays sparkled gold and red on the flowery frost covering the city’s glass roof. It looked as though fiery rubies, bright emeralds, dusky, lazy amethysts, and millions of other precious stones were flashing overhead in the aluminum net’s dark web.

  Many of the people standing in the self-mobile looked up; the leaves of the palm and magnolia trees along Nevsky Prospect appeared dark, like bits of black velvet in a sea of fading luminescence.

  The sparks from the light in the glass flickered and died. The mournful bell rang three forlorn, soft peals. The pneumatic landed noisily on the corner of Liteyny Prospect, and in two minutes motley throngs of passengers poured down its stairs and up out of street elevators, crowding into the self-mobile.

  A woman who was still young, though she’d lost the first bloom of youth, stood on the self-mobile’s second landing. Deep in thought, she bit her full lower lip with white, even teeth and furrowed her delicate, velvety brows. A kind of haze covered her face and clouded her blue eyes. She did not notice how she crossed Liteyny, Troitskaya Street, and the park on the Fontanka, did not notice how everyone else standing around her was looking up at the news bulletin, flaming in red letters above the crowd and announcing that the eruption in Greenland continued, despite an intense struggle to keep it in check.

  “It’s terrible, how weak humanity still is,” said a tall, broad-shouldered lad near her.

  “But this eruption is extraordinary.”

  “Basically, something bad’s going on all over,” muttered a heavyset chiliarch as he lit a long cigarette. The red light reflected from his hooked nose, pursed lips, and bulging eyes.

  “You think so?” asked a woman wearing a doctor’s armband.

  “No need to think about it. Just listen, and you’ll hear the rumble of an approaching eruption, only it won’t be like the one in Greenland. It’ll be a sight worse.”

  As if in answer to these words, something rumbled deep in the earth below their feet. It slowly moved past and went silent, like a huge sigh heaved by an enormous breast.

  “That was a truck,” said the woman quickly, as if hurrying to explain it.

  “Not everything is that easy to explain,” the chiliarch countered, and walked over to board the self-mobile.

  The girl had already reached Catherine Street by the time she noticed that she’d passed her stop. She didn’t feel like going back. She’d been caught, body and soul, in some kind of web, a sticky, heavy web that slowly constricted more and more tightly around her, like a viper’s coils.

  II

  The girl got off the self-mobile and walked to the cathedral. She loved this “ancient corner.” It seemed to her that shadows of the past lived here, of people who would never return. She loved these little bushes; the flower gardens laid out according to how they looked in old pictures, hundreds of years ago; the newspaper kiosk, sporting announcements printed in clumsy old-timey letters; the tiny fountain with its thin, naïve jets of water arcing, then splashing gently back into the round basin… Only the high, grey roof hanging overhead spoiled the illusion.

  There were not many people here today, only a tall old man with a long black beard, and two boys. One of them particularly attracted her attention. He was thin, frail, with big blue eyes and straight blonde hair. He was probably imagining that he was a defender of the truth from bygone days, a student or a revolutionary, as he looked secretively into his small, red notebook. He looked to be no older than fifteen. The girl smiled in spite of herself as she looked at him.

  Then she closed her eyes and leaned back onto the hard, uncomfortable back of the bench. She could vaguely hear the distant murmur of the self-mobile’s passengers, combined with the splashing of the fountain. She felt as though she were surrounded by a huge crowd of hushed people. Timid and oppressed, with pounding hearts and anxious spirits, they’d gathered here to raise the red banner of freedom for the first time. She could hear their voices, strained and harsh with tears, she could see their naïve faces, beaming with faith and inspiration.

  No one passing and looking at the girl, at her full, healthy face, at her hands folded together, at the musculature detectable even through her clothes, her pretty legs crossed one over the other, at her slender figure – no one would realize that she had travelled into the past, into the mysterious distance.

  Then the girl imagined the ringing of the big bell rolling out like thick, viscous waves, settling from above onto the hard, cold earth, and it seemed to her that all she needed to do was turn around to see the red flame of wax candles, the censer’s thick smoke, women in long, dark dresses with their heads bowed, and weighty male figures in leather boots, thick, rough suits, and white, starched collars. The service was ending, and crowds of people were streaming out the cathedral doors and dispersing into the streets, dimly lit with electric and gas street-lamps. And all of them were going home… to their own home… their own home… their own home…

  Silently, the girl repeated these three strange words to herself, and she became sadder than she’d been all day. She caught her breath raggedly, and her breast heaved and subsided in short bursts. The soft material rustled in annoyance.

  III

  Only yesterday she had taken her turn with Karpov.

  She was a strange girl, for sure. What attracted and amused others repelled her; what to them seemed plain, simple, and natural would produce a whirlwind in her pretty head, a whole storm of strange and incomprehensible thoughts, an oppressive aching in her soul… How the boys and girls she knew would laugh, laugh with their whole souls if she told them her thoughts. Most of them would not understand her, and she would hear, of course, the same advice from all sides: “Go to a doctor.”

  She wanted a family, an old-fashioned family shut off in its own circle, tightly and indivisibly bound together, the kind of loving family one could only read about in historical novels. She looked at the strong, self-satisfied guys with hard muscles and smiling eyes whom she met at work, on the streets, in the theaters, at meetings and picnics, and she insisted despondently, “No, he’s not right. And he’s not right… him either…” The ease with which these fellows went from woman to woman, changing their affections, was almost an insult to her, it wounded her deeply.

  Like the miser in the old story, she wanted to gather up whoever she’d fall in love with and hide him, take him away from everyone else so that he was hers alone. She wanted him to love only her, for his whole entire life… And so passed the years.

  Her girlfriends laughed at her: “You have a heart of stone.” The boys she had turned down considered her stupid and abnormal, and little by little stopped paying attention to her.

  One day, in the spring, when a fresh, scented wind was blowing in through the open roof panels and you could hear the affectionate rustling of the trees’ shining leaves, she was at the university, watching Karpov’s dissertation defense. Though young, the scholar had already managed to acquire a multitude of admirers.

  The topic of his dissertation was “The Institution of the Family in Pre-Reform Europe.” It was magnificently written, and along with brilliant scientific erudition, its author also displayed significant talent in his clear, almost tangible descriptions of the family, that ancient, closed cell that was the basis of past governments, the way a honeycomb is for a beehive.

  Once he’d been granted the title of Doctor of History and left the stage, holding his head high, the hall erupted into applause. It made the metallic covering of the walls and ceiling shake, and took a long time to die down. Women and girls threw Karpov bouquets of fresh, aromatic lily-of-the-valley.

  Aglaya – that was the girl’s nam
e – was already twenty-six. Twice the stern, dry chiliarch Krag had looked at Aglaya’s slender figure and said, “You’re avoiding your duty to society.”

  Not many people liked Krag, because she had such a one-track mind, an austerity, a fanatical devotion to her god, Society. Young, lazy, addle-pated women would gossip that she was aiming for District Representative. The night before Karpov’s defense, Krag had found Aglaya after work, stared directly at her with glass-hard eyes, and said, “Even if you don’t have anything you’re especially interested in, no talents or predilections, you still have to register, at least. If you take everything you need from society, you must give what you can back to it. It’s improper and immoral to shirk your duty.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Aglaya.

  “There’s nothing to think about. It’s crystal clear. This seems to be some new disease. When I was young, girls didn’t think so much. I think the people who want that special compulsory law are right.”

  So now, going down the steps at the university, gripped by a cool spring wind that made her nostrils flare and her breath to come deeply and freely from her chest, Aglaya made up her mind. The very next day she went to the building where Karpov lived.

  It was difficult for her to do this, and she blushed when she asked the superintendent of the house, “Does Karpov take applications?”

  The superintendent smiled in spite of himself and answered, “Yes he does. Wednesdays from two to three.”

  Four days until the next Wednesday. Aglaya spent them in a fever, a hundred times deciding not to go and then changing her mind. Five minutes before she left her room she was not yet certain that she would go. But she went.

  More than twenty women and girls were already sitting in his bright, beflowered waiting room when she arrived, and each minute brought new ones. Some were obviously embarrassed and sat with their eyes down, hands folded. Others chatted in an undertone. The room was so crowded that there did not seem to be enough places for everyone who wanted to register with this striking celebrity, and the elevators kept bringing them up in in ones, twos, and threes.

  Around two-thirty Karpov came out, wearing soft house clothes and slippers. Women had already spoiled him enough, but evidently, even he was embarrassed by today’s flood: he stopped short, disconcerted.

  There were over fifty candidates. Karpov went to the middle of the room, offered a general bow to everyone present, and ran his eyes over faces and figures. There were no absolutely ugly ones. Everyone had her work number sewed on her shoulder, as always. Karpov pulled out a small book with gilt edges and a tiny pencil, noted down several numbers, cast a last gaze over all the candidates, and bowed again, to everyone and no one. Then he left by the same door through which he’d come.

  Aglaya did not want to speak with anyone. Burning with shame, she jumped to the self-mobile’s first landing. Impatient with its slowness, she got off and shoved her way through the crowd to her apartment, leaving a trail of annoyed glances in her wake.

  When Krag again confronted her several days later, “You still haven’t registered?” she answered furiously, with a nervous quiver in her voice, “I’ve registered, I’ve registered, leave me alone now, I beg you.”

  IV

  Yesterday morning she’d been informed that today would be her turn with Karpov. She had expected this, yet she had also thought that it would be a very long time before she was called, which had calmed her down somewhat. The news hit her like an electric shock. Her arms and legs felt paralyzed and her head spun in a frenzy. That evening, when she washed and dressed, she was trembling.

  Her knock on Karpov’s door was barely audible. He was home and answered lazily, “Come in.”

  It was midnight, the hour she’d been assigned to visit him…

  V

  Now, remembering that whole evening moment by moment, she felt like burying her face in her hands and sobbing loudly, shrieking until her whole body shook.

  The plaintive sound of the electric bell wafted down from the roof, and a pneumatic halted briefly, then roared onward. The humming of the crowd on the self-mobile faded as the crowd grew smaller.

  It seemed to Aglaya that yesterday she had lost the dearest, the best thing in life, and that it could not be returned. She raised her eyes, as if searching the dark night sky for silent stars, but overhead all she saw was the cold, apathetic grey roof hanging over her. It seemed to Aglaya that it was pressing down on her brain, her thoughts.

  Aglaya turned her gaze back to the street. The red letters of the bulletins faded and then glowed back again, bringing news from all corners of the earth:

  “Pneumatic crash near Madrid. Eleven dead.”

  “Elections in the Tokyo region. Kamagawa won by 389 votes.”

  “The eruption in Greenland continues. Four divisions have been mobilized.”

  Aglaya read these announcements, but the meanings behind the blood red letters of the words escaped her. She looked to the right, to see the cold green letters of the evening programs:

  “First auditorium. A lecture by Lyubavina on the earth’s crust.”

  “Second auditorium. An aromatic concert.”

  “Third auditorium. A lecture by Karpov...”

  This name hit Aglaya like a hammer and she jumped up, wanting to run away – but where could she go?

  Today she wanted to be far away from people, from these self-satisfied, happy, laughing people, as monotonous as mannequins. But it would be even worse to go back to her own room, clean, light, and filled with loneliness; to be alone with herself would be the worst of all. She decided to visit Lyuba, the new friend she had become close to in the last couple months. Nevsky Prospect was empty. Only a few windows were still lit, and it was as though someone had poured an even white light over the cold, gleaming facades, and they’d frozen. Ribbons of self-mobiles flowed both ways along the buildings. There were only a few people sitting and standing in the self-mobiles, exchanging the occasional words that rang out dully in the empty street.

  Aglaya boarded a self-mobile, sat down, and closed her eyes again.

  VI

  This time, she didn’t go past her stop. She got out at building nine, walked into the entrance, and pressed the button to number twenty-seven. The answer appeared instantaneously: “I’m home. Who is it?” She answered and again the letters lit up: “Come in.”

  Aglaya got into the elevator and went up to the eighth floor. She took a few steps down the corridor and then knocked at number twenty-seven.

  “Come in,” answered Lyuba.

  “Are you alone?” asked Aglaya, having difficulty trying to make out the objects in the room, which was lit only by a heater.

  “Yes,” Lyuba replied, getting up off the couch to greet her.

  The variegated matte-glass panels of the heater threw pale shades and colors onto the walls and floor. The window curtain was up, and the weak light from the street fell in, barely delineating the window-frame.

  “Can we close the curtain?” asked Aglaya, her finger already on the black button.

  “Of course,” Lyuba replied.

  Aglaya pressed the button, and the heavy curtain lowered and covered the window, which looked cold and empty, like a dead man’s eye.

  “That’s better. Being outside is bothering me today.”

  “I’ve just been lying here, dreaming,” said Lyuba, after Aglaya had taken off her sweater and gloves.

  “About what?”

  “Oh, I don’t even know myself. Today was the aromatic concert with my favorite numbers: Vyaznikov’s “May Night,” Wallace’s “Storm,” Poletti’s “Romeo and Juliette.” But I didn’t want to leave my room. That “May Night” is so marvelous, you remember? It begins with the delicate scent of a fresh meadow. Then the thick, warm aroma of violets, and the smell of thick green leaves, and then the forest smells, spicy, with a hint of decay... You seem to be walking through the thick woods hand-in-hand with your beloved... and then the sharp, fresh scent of lily-of-the-valley, w
afting through the air like a gossamer fabric, it’s a scent that makes you breathe more broadly and freely. At that point I want to just shout for joy! And then roses, regal and in full bloom... the dawn sparkles in the dew on the roses... It’s so marvelous!” Lyuba put her hands behind her head and gazed dreamily into the heater’s colored glass panels.

  “Why aren’t you going?” asked Aglaya, waiting the answer with such dread that it seemed as though her fate was hanging in the balance.

  “I didn’t want to. Can’t be bothered... And lately I’ve had a lot of unpleasant things happening to me,” Lyuba answered, then fell silent, looking intently at the heater’s colored glass.

  VII

  “What kind of things?” asked Aglaya, to break the silence.

  “Oh, the usual. Everything’s falling apart again. I’m so unhappy, Aglaya, so miserable!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “This week I was at Eichenwald’s, Kurbatov’s, and Eisen’s. Nothing but rejections… Although I did get in with Eisen, but not for a year and a half. And he’s a musician. I don’t really like musicians, I have no desire for my child to be a musician. Why am I so unattractive, so ugly? Why do I have such a long nose? I’m sure that every one of them sees my nose first and that scares them off.”

  “Lyuba, you’re not as ugly as you think you are.”

  “Oh, you can’t console me, I know better.”