“I can! I love you.”
She wondered how strange it was to feel a man’s lips that were not Leo’s.
She was saying: “Yes ... for a long time ... but I didn’t know that you, too ...” and she felt his hands and his mouth, and she wondered whether this was joy or torture to him and how strong his arms were. She hoped it would be quick.
The street light beyond the window made a white square and a black cross on the wall above the bed. Against the white square, she could see his face on the pillow; he did not move. Her arm, stretched limply against his naked body, felt no movement but the beating of his heart.
She threw the blanket off, and sat up, crossing her arms over her breasts, her hands clutching her bare shoulders.
“Andrei, I’m going home.”
“Kira! Not now. Not tonight.”
“I have to go.”
“I want you here. Till morning.”
“I have to go. There’s ... there’s my family.... Andrei, we’ll have to keep this very secret.”
“Kira, will you marry me?”
She did not answer. He felt her trembling. He pulled her down and tucked the blanket under her chin.
“Kira, why does that frighten you?”
“Andrei ... Andrei ... I can’t....”
“I love you.”
“Andrei ... there’s my family. You’re a Communist. You know what they are. You must understand. They’ve suffered so much. If I marry you — it would be too much for them. Or if they learn — about this. We can spare them. Does it ... does it make any difference to us?”
“No. Not if you want it that way.”
“Andrei!”
“Yes, Kira?”
“You’ll do anything I want?”
“Anything.”
“I want only one thing: secrecy. Complete secrecy. You promise?”
“Yes.”
“You see ... with me — there’s my family. With you — there’s the Party. I’m not ... I’m not the kind of a ... mistress your Party would approve. So it’s better ... You see, it’s a dangerous thing we’re doing. A very dangerous thing. I want to try not to let it ... not to let it break our lives.”
“Break our lives? Kira!” He was laughing happily, pressing her hand to his lips.
“It’s better if no one — not a soul anywhere — knows this, but you and I.”
“No, Kira, I promise, no one will know but you and I.”
“And now I’ll go.”
“No. Please don’t go tonight. Just tonight. You can explain to them somehow — make up a reason. But stay. I can’t let you go.... Please, Kira.... Just to see you here when I awaken.... Good night ... Kira....”
She lay very still for a very long time, until he was asleep. Then she slipped noiselessly out of bed and, holding her breath, her bare feet soundless on the cold floor, she dressed hurriedly. He did not hear her open the door and slip out.
There was a wind whistling down the long, empty streets and a sky like pencil lead. She walked very fast. She knew there was something she had to escape and she tried to hurry. The dead, dark glass panes were watching her, following her, rows and rows of them, on guard along her way. She walked faster. Her steps beat too loudly and the houses of the whole city threw echoes back at her, echoes screaming something. She walked faster. The wind whirled her coat, raising it high over her knees, hurling it between her legs. She walked faster. She passed the poster of a worker with a red banner; the worker was laughing.
Suddenly she was running, like a shivering streak between dark shop windows and lamp posts, her coat whistling, her steps beating like a machine gun, her legs flashing and blending, like the spokes of a wheel, into one circle of motion carrying her forward. She was running or flying or being rocketed through space by something outside her body, and she knew it was all right, everything was all right if only she could run faster and faster and faster.
She came panting up the stairs. At the door, she stopped. She stopped and stood looking at the door knob, panting. And suddenly she knew that she could not go in; that she could not take her body into Leo’s room, into his bed, close to his body. She ran her finger tips over the door, feeling it, caressing it uncertainly, for she could come no closer to him.
She sat down on the steps. She felt as if she could hear him — somewhere behind that door — sleeping, breathing with effort. She sat there for a long time, her eyes empty.
When she turned her head and saw that the square of the window on the landing was a dark, bright blue which was not night any longer, she got up, took her key and went in. Leo was asleep. She sat by the window, gathered into a tight huddle. He would not know what time she had come home.
Leo was leaving for the south.
His bag was packed. His ticket was bought. His place was reserved in a private sanatorium in Yalta and a month paid for in advance.
She had explained about the money: “You see, when I wrote to your aunt in Berlin, I also wrote to my uncle in Budapest. Oh, yes, I have an uncle in Budapest. You’ve never heard him mentioned because ... you see ... there’s a family quarrel behind it — and he left Russia before the war, and my father forbade us ever to mention his name. But he’s not a bad fellow, and he always liked me, so I wrote him, and that’s what he sent, and he said he’d help me as long as I need it. But please don’t ever mention it to my family, because Father would — you understand.”
She wondered dimly how simple and easy it was to lie.
To Andrei, she had mentioned her starving family. She did not have to ask: he gave her his whole monthly salary and told her to leave him only what she could spare. She had expected it, but it was not an easy moment when she saw the bills in her hand; then, she remembered the comrade commissar and why one aristocrat could die in the face of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics — and she kept most of the money, with a hard, bright smile.
It had not been easy to convince Leo to go. He said he would not let her — or her uncle — keep him. He said it tenderly and he said it furiously. It took many hours and many evenings. “Leo — your money or my money or anyone’s money — does it really matter? Who made it matter? But you want to live. I want you to live. So much is still possible to us. You love me. Don’t you love me enough to live for me? I know it will be hard. Six months. All winter. I’ll miss you. But we can do it.... Leo, I love you. I love you. I love you. So much is still possible!”
She won.
His train was to leave at eight-fifteen in the evening. At nine, she would meet Andrei; she had asked him to take her to the opening of a new cabaret.
Leo was silent when they left their room, and in the cab on the way to the station. She went into the car with him to see the wooden bench on which he was to sleep for many nights; she had brought a pillow for him and a warm plaid blanket. Then, they stepped out again and waited on the platform by the car. They had nothing to say.
When the first bell rang, Leo said: “Please, Kira, don’t let’s have any nonsense when the train starts. I won’t look out of the window. No waving, or running after the train, or anything like that.”
“No, Leo.”
She looked at a poster on a steel pillar; it promised a huge orchestra, foreign fox-trots and delicious food at the grand opening of the new cabaret, at nine o’clock tonight. She said, wondering, bewildered, a little frightened, as if realizing it for the first time: “Leo ... at nine o’clock tonight ... you won’t be here any more.”