520
PARTISAN REVIEW
of the road, of the hour in the cab, of the approaching house (of
death - for if he's been killed
I'll
die). I'm afraid to hear.
Moscow . Blackness . You can enter the city with a pass. I have
one, not the right one at all, but it doesn't matter. (It's for the return
trip to Theodosia: I'm the wife of an ensign.) I call a cabby: the
workman has of course vanished. I ride . The cabby talks , I drift, the
pavement bumps along. People with lanterns approach three
times . -"Pass!"-I proffer my pass . They give it back without look–
ing. The first bell . It's about 5:30. It's gotten lighter. (Or does it only
seem so?) Empty streets - emptied of habitants . I don't recognize the
road, I don't know it (we're taking a detour) - the feeling is that time
is to the left , like a thought sometimes is in the brain. We're headed
somewhere
through
someplace, and for some reason there's the smell
of hay. (Maybe, I think, this is - Haymarket Square and that's why
there's-hay?) The outposts rumble slightly: someone will not sur–
render.
Not a thought-about the children. If S. is no longer, then
neither am I, and neither are they . Alya won't live without me , she
won't want to , won't be able to. As I won't without S .
• • •
The Church of Boris and Gleb. Ours, the one in Povarskaia.
*
We turn into a side street, ours - Boris and Gleb Lane . The white
house of the church secondary school- I always called it "Voliere": a
connecting gallery and children's voices. And on the left , the old–
fashioned green house standing at attention (a town governor once
lived there and policemen stood in front.) Yet another house. And
ours.
The steps opposite two trees. I get down. I take my things
down . Detaching themselves from the gates, two men in half–
uniform approach. "We're the house security guard. What can we do
for you?" - "I'm so and so and I live here ." "We don't have orders to
let anyone in at night. -"Then please call the maid from apt. 3."
(Thought: now, now, now they'll say it. They live here and they
know everything.)
-"We're not your servants."-"I'll
pay ."
They go . I wait. I'm not alive. I am legs on which I stand,
hands with which I hold the suitcases (I didn't set them down after
all). And I can't hear my heart.
If
not for the call of the cabby I
'There's another one on Arbat Square . -
M.
T.
r
..
I
