Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories - Italo Calvino [64]
‘So long as the enemy before us is the Tsar,’ Virghilij Ossi-povic had said, ‘foolish is the man who would seek the Tsar in his comrade.’ It was an untimely thing to say perhaps, and certainly badly received by the noisy assembly.
Virghilij felt a hand gripping his own; sitting on the floor at his feet was Evghenija Ephrai'movna, knees pulled up in her pleated skirt, hair knotted on her neck and hanging at the two sides of her face like spirals from a tawny coil. One of Evgheni-ja's hands had found its way up Virghilij's boots to encounter the young man's fingers closed in a fist, it had skimmed the back of that fist, as though in a consolatory caress, then dug sharp nails into it scratching slowly until they drew blood. Virghilij realized that there was a precise and stubborn determination guiding the floor of the meeting today, something that had to do with them, the leaders, in person, and that would soon be revealed.
‘Let none of us ever forget, comrades,’ Ignatij Apollonovic, the oldest member of the Committee and with a reputation for being a peacemaker, attempted to calm the waters, ‘what must not be forgotten … in any event, it is only right that you remind us from time to time … although,’ he added, chuckling in his beard, ‘when it comes to reminding us, Count Galitzin and his horses' hoofs are only too reliable …’ He was alluding to the commander of the Imperial Guard who had recently torn one of their protest marches to pieces with a cavalry charge at Maneggio Bridge.
A voice, it wasn't clear where from, interrupted him with: Idealist!’ and Ignatij Apollonovic lost his way. ‘Why's that?’ he asked, disconcerted.
‘Do you think we need do no more than keep the words of our doctrine uppermost in our minds?’ said a tall lanky fellow from another part of the room, a man who had made a name for himself as one of the most militant of recent recruits. You know why our doctrine can't be confused with those of all the other movements?’
Of course we know. Because it's the only doctrine which once it has achieved power cannot be corrupted by power!’ grumbled a shaved head bent over papers, and that was Femja, the one the others called ‘the ideologue’.
‘So why wait till the day we've got power, my lovey-dovey comrades,’ insisted the lanky fellow, ‘to put it into practice?’
‘Here, now!’ the cry was raised from various parts of the room. The Marianzev sisters, known as ‘the three Marias' stepped forward between the benches, chirping ‘Excuse me! Excuse me!’ and catching their long tresses on things. Carrying tablecloths folded over their arms, humming to themselves and pushing aside the boys, it was as if they were laying table for a snack on the veranda of their house in Izmailovo.
What's different about our doctrine is this,’ the lanky fellow went on with his sermon, ‘that the only way to write it is with a sharp blade on the bodies of our beloved leaders!’
There was a mill of people and benches turning over because many in the meeting had got up and rushed forward. The ones who shoved and shouted most were the women: ‘Sit down, little boys! We want to see! Mother of God, what hotheads! We can't see anything at all here!’ and they thrust their school-mistressy faces between the men's backs, short hair under peaked caps lending an air of resolution.
There was only one thing could shake Virghilij's courage, and that was female hostility, even the slightest sign of it. He had got up, sucking the blood from Evghenija's scratches on the back of his hand, and he had scarcely spoken those words: ‘You don't want to kill us already, do you?’ when the door opened and in came a procession of people in white coats pushing trolleys laden with glittering surgical instruments. From that moment on something in the mood of the meeting changed. There was a sharp patter of voices, one hard on another. ‘Of course not… who said anything about killing you? … you're our leaders … with how much we like you and everything… what would we do without you? … there's still a long way to go … we'll always be here beside you…’ and