Living My Life - Emma Goldman [296]
And our dear, splendid Fanya, radiant with life and love, unswerving in her consecration to her ideals, touchingly feminine, yet resolute as a lioness in defence of her young, of indomitable will, she had fought to the last breath. She would not go submissively to her doom. She resisted and had to be carried bodily to the place of execution by the knights of the Communist State. Rebel to the last, Fanya had pitted her enfeebled strength against the monster for a moment and then was dragged into eternity as the hideous silence in the Cheka cellar was rent once more by her shrieks above the sudden pistol-shots.
I had reached the end. I could bear it no longer. In the dark I groped my way to Sasha to beg him to leave Russia, by whatever means. “I am ready, my dear, to go with you, in any way,” I whispered, “only far away from the woe, the blood, the tears, the stalking death.”
Sasha was planning to go to the Polish frontier, to arrange for our leaving by that route. I was afraid to let him go alone in his present condition, his nerves shattered by the fearful shock of recent events. On the other hand, it would arouse suspicion if both of us should disappear from our quarters at the same time. Sasha realized the danger and consented to wait another week or two. The idea was for him to proceed to Minsk; I was to follow when he should have made the necessary arrangements. [...]
In the midst of the packing the long-expected letter from Germany arrived. It contained an invitation for Sasha, Schapiro, and me to attend the Anarchist Congress that was to take place in Berlin at Christmas. It sent me spinning round the room, weeping and laughing at the same time. “We shan’t have to hide and cheat and resort to false papers, Sasha,” I cried in glee; “we shan’t have to sneak out like thieves in the night!” But Sasha did not seem elated over it. “Ridiculous,” he retorted, “you don’t mean that our Berlin comrades can exert any influence over Chicherin, the Communist Party, or the Cheka! Moreover, I have no intention of applying to them for anything. I’ve already told you that.” I knew from experience that it was useless to argue with my stubborn pal when he was angry. I would wait for a more propitious time. The new hope held out by the letter had reawakened my objections to leaving secretly the land that had known the glory and the defeat of the great “October.”
I sought out Angelica. She had told me that she would help us secure the consent of the Soviet authorities to leave the country. She herself was planning to go abroad to regain her health in some quiet spot. She, too, had reached the spiritual breaking-point, though she would not admit it even to herself. Dear Angelica immediately offered to get the necessary application blanks, and she would go to Chicherin and even to Lenin, if need be, to vouch for Sasha and me. “No, dear Angelica,” I protested, “you shall do nothing of the kind.” I knew what it meant to leave such security. We would not have anyone endangered for us, nor did we care to have the benediction of Lenin. I informed Angelica that all I wanted of her was to help quicken action if passports were to be granted at all.
In the space in the application reserved for the promise of loyalty and the signature of two party members vouching for the applicant I wrote: “As an anarchist I have never pledged loyalty to any government, much less can I do it to the R.S.F.S.R., which claims to be Socialist and revolutionary. I consider it an insult to my past to ask anyone to stand the consequences of anything I may say or do. I therefore refuse to have anyone vouch for me.”
Angelica was considerably perturbed by my declaration. She feared it might spoil our chances of securing permission to leave the country. “Either we go out without any strings attached to us, or we will find another