‘Thank you, Lyudochka. Thank you!’
Yevgenia still hadn’t made her first move. She shook her head and said: ‘No, I just don’t understand. Trotskyism’s old hat. Something must have happened – but what?’
Lyudmila straightened the white pawns. ‘I hardly slept last night. Such a right-thinking, devoted Communist!’
‘You slept very well last night,’ said Yevgenia. ‘I woke up several times and you were always snoring.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Lyudmila angrily. ‘I literally didn’t close my eyes.’
Then, answering the question that was troubling her, she said to her husband: ‘As long as they don’t arrest you! I’m not afraid of anything else. We can sell our possessions, we can move to the dacha. I can teach chemistry in a school.’
‘You won’t be able to keep your dacha,’ said Yevgenia.
‘But don’t you understand that Nikolay’s quite innocent?’ said Viktor. ‘It’s a different way of thinking, another generation.’
They sat there talking over the chess-board, glancing now and again at the pieces and the solitary pawn that had made one move.
‘Zhenya, my dear,’ said Viktor, ‘you’ve acted according to your conscience. Believe me – that’s the highest thing a man can do. I don’t know what life has in store for you, but I’m sure of one thing: you listened to your conscience – and the greatest tragedy of our age is that we don’t listen to our consciences. We don’t say what we think. We feel one thing and do another. Remember Tolstoy’s words about capital punishment? “I can’t remain silent.” But we remained silent in 1937 when thousands of innocent people were executed. Or rather some of us – the best of us – remained silent. Others applauded noisily. And we remained silent during the horrors of general collectivization . . . Yes, we spoke too soon about Socialism – it’s not just a matter of heavy industry. Socialism, first of all, is the right to a conscience. To deprive a man of his conscience is a terrible crime. And if a man has the strength to listen to his conscience and then act on it, he feels a surge of happiness. I’m glad for you – you’ve acted according to your conscience.’
‘That’s enough sermonizing, Vitya,’ said Lyudmila. ‘Stop confusing the poor girl. You’re not the Buddha . . . What’s conscience got to do with it anyway? She’s ruining her life, tormenting a good man – and what good will it do Krymov? He won’t be happy even if they do set him free. And he was doing fine when they separated – she’s got nothing to feel guilty about.’
Yevgenia picked up one of the kings, twirled it around, examined the felt on its base, then put it back again.
‘Who’s talking of happiness, Lyuda?’ she asked. ‘I’m not thinking of happiness.’
Viktor looked at the clock. The dial now looked peaceful, the hands calm and sleepy.
‘The discussion must be in full swing now. They’re abusing me for all they’re worth – but I’m not in the least upset or angry.’
‘I’d punch the whole lot of them in the snout,’ said Lyudmila. ‘They’re quite shameless. First you’re the bright hope of Soviet science, then they’re spitting in your face . . . Zhenya, when are you going to Kuznetsky Most?’
‘About four o’clock.’
‘Well, you must have something to eat first.’
‘What’s for lunch today?’ asked Viktor. He smiled. ‘Ladies, you know what I’d like to ask you?’
‘I know, I know. You want to go and work,’ said Lyudmila as she got up.
‘Anyone else would be banging his head against the wall on a day like this,’ said Yevgenia.
‘It’s not a strength, but a weakness,’ said Viktor. ‘Yesterday I had a long talk about science with Chepyzhin. But I don’t agree with him. Tolstoy was the same. He was tormented by doubts. He didn’t know whether people needed literature. He didn’t know whether people needed the books he wrote.’
‘You know something?’ said Lyudmila. ‘Before talking like that, you should write the War and Peace of physics.’
Viktor felt horribly embarrassed.
‘Yes, Lyuda, yes, you’re quite right. I let my tongue run away with me,’ he muttered. At the same time he gave his wife a look of reproach: ‘Even at a time like this she has to pounce on every slip I make.’
Once again Viktor was left alone. He reread the notes he had made yesterday; at the same time he pondered what had just happened.
Why did he feel more comfortable now that Yevgenia and Lyudmila had left the room? Somehow he had been behaving unnaturally. There had been something false in the way he’d asked Yevgenia for a game of chess, in the way he’d said he wanted to do some work. And Lyudmila must have sensed it; that was the reason for her remark about the Buddha. He himself had been conscious of something wooden in his voice as he made his speech about conscience. He had tried to talk about everyday matters so as not to be thought smug, but that had seemed equally forced and unnatural.
He felt a vague sense of anxiety; something was missing, but he didn’t know what. He kept getting up and walking over to the door to eavesdrop on Lyudmila and Yevgenia.
He hadn’t the slightest wish to know what had been said at the meeting, who had made the most vicious or intolerant speech, what resolution had finally been passed. He would just write a short note to Shishakov, saying that he was ill and wouldn’t be able to come to the Institute for the next few days. After that, things would sort themselves out. He was always ready to be of service in any way that was required . . .
Why, recently, had he felt so afraid of being arrested? He hadn’t done anything that awful. He had talked too much. But not so very much.
Viktor still felt anxious. He kept looking impatiently at the door. Was it that he wanted something to eat? Yes, he’d have to say goodbye to the special store. And to the famous canteen.
There was a quiet ring at the door. Viktor rushed out into the corridor, shouting in the direction of the kitchen, ‘I’ll go, Lyudmila.’
He flung open the door. Marya Ivanovna peered anxiously at him through the gloom.
‘So you’re still here,’ she said quietly. ‘I knew you wouldn’t go.’
Viktor began helping her off with her coat. As his fingers touched the collar, as he felt the warmth from the back of her head and neck, he suddenly realized that he had been waiting for her. That was why he had been watching the door and listening so anxiously.
He knew this from the sense of joy and ease he had felt as soon as he saw her. It must have been her he wanted to meet all the times he had walked back gloomily from the Institute, staring anxiously at the passers-by, studying women’s faces behind the windows of trams and trolley-buses. And when he had got back and asked Lyudmila, ‘Has anyone been round?’, what he had really wanted to know was whether she had been round. Yes, it had been like this for a long time. She had come round, they had talked and joked, she had gone away and he seemed to have forgotten her. She had only come to mind when he was talking to Sokolov or when Lyudmila had passed on her greetings. She seemed to have existed only when he was with her or when he was talking about how charming she was. Sometimes, when he was teasing Lyudmila, he had said that she hadn’t even read Pushkin and Turgenev.
He had been for a walk with her in the park; he had enjoyed looking at her and had liked the way she understood him so quickly and so perfectly. He had been very touched by her childlike attentiveness. Then they had said goodbye and he had stopped thinking about her. He had thought of her again on his way back – only to forget her once more.
Now Viktor felt that she had been with him all the time; that she had only appeared to be absent. She had been with him even when he wasn’t thinking of her. Even when he hadn’t seen her or thought of her, she had still been with him. He had been aware of her absence without realizing it; he hadn’t known that he had constantly and unwittingly been upset by it. Today he understood himself and the people close to him very deeply; now he understood his feelings towards her. He had been glad to see her because this had brought
to an end the constant ache of her absence. Now that she was with him, he felt at ease. He had felt lonely talking to his daughter, talking to his friends, to Chepyzhin, to his wife . . . Seeing Marya Ivanovna had been enough to bring this sense of loneliness to an end.
There was nothing surprising about this discovery; it seemed natural and self-evident. How was it he had failed to understand this a month ago, two months ago, while they were still in Kazan? And of course today, when he had felt her absence particularly strongly, this feeling had broken through to the surface and become conscious.
As it was impossible to hide anything from her, he frowned and said to her there and then: ‘I thought I must be as hungry as a wolf. I kept looking at the door to see if they’d call me for lunch. But what I was really waiting for was Marya Ivanovna.’
Marya Ivanovna didn’t say anything; she just walked straight through as though she hadn’t heard what he said.
They introduced her to Yevgenia and she sat down next to her on the sofa. Viktor looked from Yevgenia to Marya Ivanovna, and then at Lyudmila.
How beautiful the two sisters were! There was something particularly attractive about Lyudmila today. Her face had none of the harshness that often disfigured it. Her large bright eyes looked sad and gentle.
Sensing that Marya Ivanovna was looking at her, Yevgenia straightened her hair.
‘Forgive me saying this, Yevgenia Nikolaevna, but I never imagined that a woman could be so beautiful. I’ve never seen a face like yours.’ Marya Ivanovna blushed as she said this.
‘But look at her hands, Mashenka!’ said Lyudmila. ‘And her neck and her hair!’
‘And her nostrils!’ said Viktor. ‘Her nostrils!’
‘Do you think I’m a horse or something?’ said Yevgenia. ‘As if all that mattered to me.’
‘The horse is off its food,’ said Viktor. It was far from clear what this meant, but they all laughed.
‘Do you want to eat, Vitya?’ asked Lyudmila.
‘No, no,’ he answered. He saw Marya Ivanovna blush. So she had heard what he’d said to her in the hall.
Marya Ivanovna sat there, as thin and grey as a little sparrow. Her forehead was slightly protuberant, she had a hairdo like a village schoolteacher’s, and she wore a woollen dress patched at the elbows. To Viktor every word she spoke seemed full of intelligence, kindness and sensitivity; every movement she made was an embodiment of sweetness and grace.
Instead of talking about the meeting of the Scientific Council, she asked after Nadya. She asked Lyudmila if she could borrow The Magic Mountain. She asked Yevgenia about Vera and her little boy and what news she’d heard from Alexandra Vladimirovna in Kazan.
It took a while for Viktor to realize how unerringly Marya Ivanovna had chosen the right subjects to talk about. It was as though she were affirming that no power in the world could stop people from being people; that even the most powerful State was unable to intrude on a circle of parents, sisters and children; and that her admiration for the people she was sitting with gave her the right to talk not about what had been imposed on them from outside, but about their own inner concerns.
Marya Ivanovna had indeed chosen correctly. The women talked about Nadya and Vera’s little boy and Viktor sat there in silence. He could sense the light inside him burning warmly and evenly, never flickering or growing dim.
Viktor thought Yevgenia had been conquered by Marya Ivanovna’s charm. When Lyudmila and Marya Ivanovna went off to the kitchen, he said thoughtfully: ‘What a charming woman!’
‘Vitka! Vitka!’ said Yevgenia teasingly.
He was quite taken aback. It was over twelve years since anyone had called him that.
‘The young lady’s head over heels in love with you.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘And what do you mean – the young lady? That’s the last thing one can say of her. And she’s Lyudmila’s only friend. She and Marya Ivanovna are very close.’
‘What about you and Marya Ivanovna?’ enquired Yevgenia, her eyes twinkling.
‘I’m being serious,’ said Viktor.
Realizing that he was angry, she looked straight at him, her eyes still full of laughter.
‘You know what, Zhenechka?’ said Viktor. ‘You can go to hell!’
Just then Nadya came in. Still in the hall, she asked quickly: ‘Has Papa gone off to repent?’
She came into the room. Viktor hugged her and gave her a kiss.
Yevgenia looked her up and down; her eyes were quite moist.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘there isn’t a single drop of Slav blood in you. You’re a true Hebrew maiden.’
‘Papa’s genes,’ said Nadya.
‘You know, Nadya, I’ve a weakness for you,’ said Yevgenia. ‘Like Grandmama has for Seryozha.’
‘Don’t worry, Papa, we won’t let you die of hunger,’ said Nadya.
‘What do you mean – we? You and your lieutenant?’ said Viktor. ‘And don’t forget to wash your hands when you come back from school.’
‘Who’s Mama talking to?’
‘Marya Ivanovna.’
‘Do you like Marya Ivanovna?’ asked Yevgenia.
‘I think she’s the best person in the whole world,’ said Nadya. ‘I’d like to marry her.’
‘Very kind, quite angelic?’ asked Yevgenia in the same mocking tone.
‘Don’t you like her, Aunt Zhenya?’
‘I don’t like saints. There’s usually some kind of hysteria underneath,’ said Yevgenia. ‘I’d rather have an outright bitch.’
‘Hysteria?’ repeated Viktor.
‘I was just talking in general, Viktor. I don’t mean her in particular.’
Nadya went out to the kitchen. Yevgenia said to Viktor: ‘Vera had a lieutenant when I was in Stalingrad. And now Nadya’s got one too. Here today and gone tomorrow. They die so easily, Viktor. It’s so sad.’
‘Zhenechka, Zhenevyeva, do you really not like Marya Ivanovna?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Some women seem so accommodating, so ready to sacrifice themselves. They never say, “I’m going to bed with this man because I want to.” Instead they say, “It’s my duty, I pity him, I’m sacrificing myself for him.” It’s of her own free will that a woman like that goes to bed with a man, lives with him, or decides to leave him. But the way she explains it is very different: “I had to, it was my duty, I acted according to my conscience, I made a sacrifice, I renounced him . . .” And she hasn’t made any sacrifice at all – she’s done just as she pleased. The worst of it is that she sincerely believes in this willingness of hers to make sacrifices. I can’t stand women like that. And do you know why . . . ? Because I sometimes think I’m like that myself.’
While they were eating, Marya Ivanovna said to Yevgenia:
‘Let me go with you, Yevgenia Nikolaevna. I have, sadly, got some experience of these matters. And it’s always easier with someone else.’
Yevgenia looked very embarrassed.
‘No, no,’ she said, ‘but thank you very much. There are things one has to do on one’s own, burdens one can never share.’
Lyudmila looked at her sister out of the corner of her eye. As though to prove that she and Marya Ivanovna had no secrets from one another, she said: ‘Mashenka’s got it into her head that you don’t like her.’
Yevgenia didn’t answer.
‘Yes,’ said Marya Ivanovna, ‘I can feel it. But you must forgive me for saying that. It’s stupid of me. What does it matter to you, anyway? Lyudmila should have kept quiet. Now it looks as though I’m forcing myself on you, trying to make you change your mind. Really I just said it without thinking. And anyway . . .’
To her surprise, Yevgenia found herself saying quite sincerely:
‘No, my dear. No. It’s just that I’m very upset. Please forgive me. You’re very kind.’
Then she got up and said: ‘Now, my children – as Mama used to say – it’s time.’
26
There were a lot of people on the stree
t.
‘Are you in a hurry?’ Viktor asked Marya Ivanovna. ‘We could go to the park again.’
‘But people are already coming home from work. I must be back before Pyotr Lavrentyevich.’
Viktor was expecting her to ask him round. Then Sokolov could tell him about the meeting. But she didn’t say anything. He began to wonder if Sokolov was afraid to meet him.
He felt hurt that Marya Ivanovna was in such a hurry. But of course it was only natural. They passed a little square not far from the road leading to the Donskoy Monastery. Suddenly Marya Ivanovna stopped and said: ‘Let’s sit down for a minute. Then I can get the trolleybus.’
They sat there in silence. Viktor could sense that she was very troubled. Her head slightly bent, she looked straight into his eyes.
They remained silent. Her lips were tightly closed, but he seemed able to hear her voice. Everything was quite clear – as though it had already been said. What difference could words make?
Viktor knew that something very serious was happening, that a new imprint lay on his life, that he was entering a time of deep and painful confusion. He didn’t want to make anyone suffer. It would be better if no one knew of their love; perhaps they shouldn’t talk of it even to one another. Or perhaps . . . But they couldn’t conceal what was happening now, they couldn’t hide their present joy and sorrow – and this alone would have deep and inevitable consequences. What was happening depended only on them, but it seemed like a fate they were powerless to oppose. What lay between them was true and natural, they were no more responsible for it than a man is responsible for the light of day – and yet this truth inevitably engendered insincerity, deceit and cruelty towards those dearest to them. It was in their power to avoid deceit and cruelty; all they had to do was renounce this clear and natural light.
One thing was plain: he had lost his peace of mind for ever. Whatever happened, he would never know peace. Whether he hid his love for the woman beside him or whether it became his destiny, he would not know peace. Whether he was with her, feeling guilty, or whether he was apart from her, aching for her, he would have no peace.
Life and Fate Page 84