Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [242]
Worse, perhaps, Nora didn’t approve of America. She disliked American conveniences, which left her with nothing to do all day; she preferred her old routine of waiting in food lines and gossiping with her friends, she told Elayne Kalberman. When Kalberman asked what she and her friends talked about, she said that they discussed freedom and what it would be like to do and say anything they wanted, adding, however, that they really didn’t mind the Soviet way of life. One day, she went into a store to buy a tube of toothpaste and found herself overwhelmed by the number of brands and sizes and became angry when a clerk wasn’t willing to help her choose. Why were there so many kinds of everything? How did New Yorkers stand the crowds of strangers? Why was Central Park so dirty? The one thing she wanted to do was to visit Hollywood, and Rand disappointed her in this; the writer had a deadline to meet for The Ayn Rand Letter and, besides, she lacked the physical stamina to travel or act as a tour guide. “But you are a rich and famous person!” Nora objected. “You can do whatever you want!” Naturally, Rand was indignant. How dare this opinionated woman criticize America and make demands? What had happened to the little sister who had shared her love of Western values?
Worst of all, Nora did not admire Rand’s novels. On the Drobyshevs’ first evening in New York, Rand had proudly presented Nora with copies of all four: taken together, they were the heart of Rand’s life’s achievement, which until now no one in her family had ever seen or read. Rand had fulfilled her youthful promise, in every sense. But she gained no recognition from Nora. With the exception of part of We the Living, Nora did not read any of the books; of We the Living she later said that the little she had read was offensive and contrived. “[My sister] had just artificially constructed everything,” Nora told an interviewer in 1997. “She had made up all of our lives.” Setting aside Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, Nora borrowed or bought a volume by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose more subversive works were unavailable in Russia and who in 1974 would be charged with treason and forced to emigrate, eventually settling in Vermont. Rand hated Solzhenitsyn for his outspoken anti-Western views and his religiosity, and when she discovered that Nora preferred his writing to her own, she demanded that Nora return her books. Nora complied. All told, the little sister pronounced her older sister’s writing to be “fake” and “lacking in talent,” and she paid no more attention to it.
In the second or third week, Fedor, who had a history of heart disease, collapsed with a sudden heart attack. By then, Rand had stopped speaking to her sister. Nora managed to dial 911, and an ambulance took Fedor to Bellevue Hospital, where he underwent successful surgery. Nora called Rand, but Rand did not come, either that day or during the two weeks of her brother-in-law’s hospitalization. After he had been discharged and taken a few days to recuperate, Rand suggested that the pair return to Russia. She did not see them off. She did contact her lawyer, Eugene Winick, to assure herself that Nora would not automatically inherit any of her money when she died. Nora would not, he told her. Nor, as it turned out, did Nora wish to; the younger sister resembled the older in her stubbornness and her propensity to mix anger with contempt. When Nora and Fedor were gone, Rand’s friends discovered