The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

Luckily, I belong to the category of “working intelligentsia” and can get into an institution of higher education in the third round. I prepare earnestly for entry in the next year, hoping to obtain permission from the People’s Commissariat of Education to take the competitive examinations at age seventeen instead of eighteen. Simultaneously, taking advantage of Kolia’s absence, occasioned by practical training near Odessa, I hurriedly try to look prettier for my beloved’s arrival. But where should I begin? Of course, the weakest spot is my nose. It is by no means classical in form, and worst of all, covered with freckles. In my dreams I already visualize it as being of white marble, totally irresistible, but the reality is substantially worse. Because of an ignorant and overzealous application of hydrogen peroxide, my nose swelled up, became red, and the skin hung in shreds. And the freckles didn’t even think of disappearing. They sat like firmly hammered copper nails. As it became clear many years later, Kolia [diminutive of Nikolai] did not even notice them.

How quickly the heart beats on this happy early autumn day when the gate will bang and our old dog will bark furiously. Then, he’ll quiet down, and gently squealing, run up to the guest, humbly look at me with his blackthorn

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Chapter Twenty-One

eyes and begin banging the floor in staccato fashion with his tail: “Your waiting is over.”

Father will question him in detail and at length about his training. And I, catching an eager and gentle glance, will run to the kitchen—has the teapot boiled yet?—and, closing my eyes for a minute, press my hands to my chest in an attempt to hold back the exultation racing to the surface.

Mother does not let us go anywhere alone—go with others, she says—and we honestly fulfill the condition: four of us go to the yellowing Kiev parks. My bosom friend Tamara is always with us, the only one initiated into the secret of our love and its silent worshipper. But four is still two plus two. Tamara, laughing and chattering, inevitably drags her companion further away, and we wander over poorly lit paths, becoming intoxicated with the tart smell of wilting grass, of our own closeness. We approach the parapet which separates the pathway from the steep slopes of the old park. For a long, long time we stand silently looking at the lights of Podol and my hand is warmly covered by a youthful, strong hand.

The leaves have fallen, the roads have become slippery and dirty by day, but silvery from hoarfrost in the mornings. We can only meet at our house, but how am I to bear not seeing each other until the free day—Kolia is at the institute during the day and I have classes in the evening. Leaving the lectures, I impatiently look for his broad-shouldered figure. The road from school to the tramline is so disgracefully, unfairly short that our legs, on their own, carry us to the next stop. Later, trying to avoid mother’s inquisitive gaze, I mumble that the tram derailed once more and I missed three cars. Luckily, the trams were always having problems—actually derailing on the steep hills of Kiev or suffering a power outage. Obviously, mother doesn’t believe me—it is not just from the light autumn frost that my cheeks burn, it is not just from tiredness that I lower my guilty and shining eyes.

But winter is coming and with it the unavoidable resolution draws near. With the routine “stream” of students Kolia will graduate from the institute. I know that he must work three years on the construction of the Turksib [railway line], that he is “contracted,” just as all the others in his graduating class. He cannot avoid this—instead of a diploma he would get a card indicating political unreliability.

“I will not leave you for three years, that’s impossible, do you remember Chatskii’s words? You must become my wife now,” he repeats over and over every time we meet. And I, confused and worried, cannot fall asleep for a long time and think, think . . . It’s easy to say, “be my wife” when his kinfolk smilingly ask about “the bride.” But father, more frequently than usual, questions me about my studies. Patting my hair with a contained kindness, he says, looking inquisitively into my face:

Tat’iana Fesenko, Internal Dissenter

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“I am sure, dear girl, that you will not fail us—you know that your mother and I are willing to do anything, just so you can get an education.”

Oh, God, I know this, and herein lies the difficulty of my decision. But I do not hesitate solely because of them. So many times in my mind I have run up the broad steps of the red, colonnaded building [Kiev University], so many times I repeated the lovely word “student.” If I go to the Turksib, I will have none of this and all the years of my parents’ sacrifices will turn out to be unjustified deprivation.