“Oh, nonsense.”
“Leo, you’re playing with fire. Why bring such a present for all the Communists to see?”
“That’s exactly why.”
“But they know that a regular private trader couldn’t afford gifts like this.”
“Oh, stop being foolish!”
“Take that thing back and exchange it.”
“I won’t.”
“Then I’m not going to the party.”
“Kira ...”
“Leo, please!”
“Oh, very well!”
He seized the vase and flung it to the floor. It burst into glittering splinters. She gasped. He laughed: “Well, come on. You can buy them something else on our way there.”
She stood looking at the splinters. She said dully: “Leo, all that money ...”
“Will you ever forget that word? Can’t we live without thinking of it all the time?”
“But you promised to save. We’ll need it. Things may not last as they are.”
“Oh, nonsense! We have plenty of time to start saving.”
“But don’t you know what they mean, all those hundreds, there, on the floor? Don’t you remember it’s your life that you’re gambling for every one of those rubles?”
“Certainly, I remember. That’s just what I do remember. How do I know I have a future? Why save? I may never need it. I’ve trembled over money long enough. Can’t I throw it away if I want to — while I can?”
“All right, Leo. Come on. We’ll be late.”
“Come on. Stop frowning. You look too lovely to frown.”
In the Dunaev dining room, a bunch of asters stood in a bowl on the table, and a bunch of daisies on the buffet, and a bunch of nasturtiums on an upright piano. The piano had been borrowed from the tenants; long streaks remained on the parquet, following its trail from the door.
Victor wore a modest dark suit and a modest expression of youthful happiness. He shook hands and smiled and bowed graciously, acknowledging congratulations. Marisha wore a purple woolen dress, and a white rose on her shoulder. She looked bewildered; she watched Victor’s movements with a timid, incredulous pride; she blushed and nodded hastily to the compliments of guests, and shook hands without knowing whose hands they were, her eyes vague, roving, searching for Victor.
The guests shuffled in, and muttered best wishes, and settled down uncomfortably. The friends of the family were strained, suspicious and cautiously, elaborately polite to the Party members. The Party members were awkward, uncertain and helplessly polite to the friends of Victor’s bourgeois past. The guests did not sound quite natural in their loud assurances of happiness, when they looked at the silent, stooped figure of Vasili Ivanovitch with a quiet, anguished question frozen in his eyes; at Irina in her best patched dress, with her jerky movements and her strident voice of unnatural gaiety.
Little Acia wore a pink bow on a stiff strand of hair, that kept slipping toward her nose. She giggled, once in a while, glancing up at a guest, biting her knuckles. She stared at Marisha with insolent curiosity. She snooped around the table that displayed the wedding gifts, an odd assortment of objects: a bronze clock, a China ashtray in the shape of a skull, a new Primus, a complete set of Lenin’s works in red paper covers. Irina watched her closely, to drag her away in time from the buffet and the dishes of pastry.
Galina Petrovna followed Victor persistently, patting him on the shoulder, repeating: “I’m so happy, so happy, my dear boy!” The muscles of Victor’s face were fixed in a wide grin, over his sparkling white teeth; he did not have to smile; he merely turned his head to her and nodded without a change of expression.
When Victor escaped from her, Galina Petrovna patted Vasili Ivanovitch’s shoulder, repeating: “I’m so happy, so happy, Vasili. You have a son to be proud of.” Vasili Ivanovitch nodded as if he had not heard.
When Kira entered, the first person she saw, standing alone by a window, was Andrei.
She stopped short at the door. His eyes met hers and moved slowly to the man who held her arm. Leo smiled faintly, contemptuously.
Kira walked straight to Andrei; she looked graceful, erect, supremely confident, in her regal black gown; she extended her hand, saying aloud: “Good evening, Andrei. I’m so glad to see you.”
His eyes told her silently that he understood, that he would be cautious, while he shook her hand with a friendly, impersonal smile.
Leo approached them slowly, indifferently. He bowed to Andrei and asked, his voice courteous, his smile insolent: “So you’re a friend of Victor’s, too?”
“As yourself,” Andrei answered.
Kira walked on, without hurry, to congratulate Victor and Marisha. She nodded to acquaintances, and smiled, and talked to Irina. She knew that the eyes of the man by the window were following her; she did not turn to look at him.
She had talked to many guests before she approached Andrei again, as if by chance; Leo was busy listening to Lydia at the other end of the room.
Andrei whispered eagerly: “Victor has always been inviting me. This is the first time that I’ve accepted. I knew you’d be here. Kira, it has been three weeks ...”
“I know. I’m sorry, Andrei. But I couldn’t. I’ll explain later. I’m glad to see you — if you’re careful.”
“I’ll be careful. What a lovely dress, Kira. New?”
“Oh ... yes. It’s a present from Mother.”
“Kira, do you always go to parties with him?”
“Do you mean Leo?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you don’t presume to dictate the friends with whom I may ...”
“Kira!” He was startled by the icy firmness of her voice; he was apologizing: “Kira, I’m sorry. Of course I didn’t mean ... Forgive me. I know I have no right to say ... But you see, I’ve always disliked him.”
She smiled gaily, as if nothing had happened, and leaning into the shadow of the window niche, pressed his fingers swiftly.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered and, moving away from him, turned, shaking her hair, throwing at him through the tousled locks a glance of such warm, sparkling understanding that he caught his breath, thrilled by the secret they were guarding together, among strangers, for the first time.
Vasili Ivanovitch sat alone in a corner, under a lamp, and the light of a rose satin shade made his white hair pink. He looked at the shuffling feet, at the military boots of young Communists, at the blue fog of smoke streaks that billowed halfway up to the ceiling, in soft, round waves, like a heavy, transparent mixture boiling slowly, at a gold cross on a black velvet ribbon around Lydia’s throat, a bright spark piercing the fog across the room.
Kira approached and sat down beside him. He patted her hand, and said nothing, and knew that she knew. Then he said, as if she had followed his unspoken thoughts: “... I wouldn’t mind so much if he loved her. But he doesn’t.... Kira, you know, when he was a little boy with such big black eyes, I used to look at my customers, those ladies that were like paintings of empresses, and I wondered which one of them was the mother of the little beauty, growing up somewhere, who, some day, would be my daughter, too.... Have you met Marisha’s parents, Kira?”
Galina Petrovna had cornered Leo; she was saying enthusiastically: “... so glad you’re successful, Leo. I’ve always said that a brilliant young man, like you, would have no trouble at all. That dress of Kira’s is magnificent. I’m so happy to see what good care you take of my little girl....”
Victor sat on the arm of a chair occupied by red-headed Rita Eksler. He leaned close to her, holding his cigarette to light the one at her lips. Rita had just divorced her third husband; she narrowed her eyes under the long red bangs and whispered confidential advice. They were laughing softly.