“Sovietland?” She gave him a sidelong look. “Is that an actual place?”
“Certainly. Sovietland has all sorts of marvelous things. Fresh new department stores with gramophones and vacuum cleaners. Cafés for the workers, where payments are made strictly on the honor system.”
“Sounds like a wonderful place to live,” she said.
“Patience, Florence. Patience.”
“It’s no wonder so many people who come to the Soviet Union return disappointed,” she said. “First they read that baloney, then they go back to America and write all sorts of slander about the U.S.S.R.”
Leon grinned innocently, expecting nothing less than this very reaction. He turned his palms out at his sides. “Okay. So let those ligners tell their lies.”
—
“He’s truly something else,” Essie said, tossing off her shoes and falling backward onto Florence’s bed. For a moment, Florence thought she was talking about Leon, but then Essie said, “The way he speaks, it’s like he’s talking…right to you.”
It was past midnight. Florence pointed to the door to remind Essie that they weren’t alone, that she had neighbors on every side.
“At least you’ve got your own four walls,” Essie said. “Try living with twenty-eight others on a dormitory floor.” She gathered her dress and pulled it up over her head. Florence unrolled a stocking and held one leg in a pose in front of the mirror before unrolling the other one.
“It’s all the rest of it,” Florence said, “the handkerchief waving and fainting spells. Everyone trying to outdo each other with the clapping when he speaks. I can do without it.” From the wardrobe Florence removed a set of sheets along with a spare nightgown and handed them to Essie.
“But that isn’t Stalin’s fault,” Essie objected. “He doesn’t want the adulation. He ridicules it in all his own speeches. He makes fun of people who idolize him instead of getting on with their work.”
“I’m not disagreeing,” Florence said, taking the sheets back and spreading them on the bed. She was annoyed at Essie’s inability to perform simple tasks while talking.
“And anyway,” Essie pursued, “he knows perfectly well that it isn’t ‘Stalin the man’ they’re celebrating—it’s what he represents, the Party and everything that’s been done for the people—the way the whole country has been united.”
A clean, starched odor rose up from the linens as they turned over the comforter. They sidled into the narrow bed, toe to head, like jacks on a playing card. Essie giggled in the darkness as Florence grabbed hold of the cold flesh of her foot. “Oh no you don’t, not without socks.”
“My shoes were soaked through,” Essie protested.
“It’s not the cold! Your little piggies are sharp as clamshells.” Florence turned on the shaded lamp and slid out. From a locked drawer in her desk where she kept dollars and valuables, she removed a small sewing bag, then laid Essie’s dimpled toes across her lap. “No one sees my feet in the winter,” Essie said.
“No one sees your bloomers, either. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear clean ones.”
Essie winced but kept her mouth shut while Florence went on clipping with terrifying concentration.
“I can’t find a pair of good scissors in any of the stores,” Essie said defensively. “And I’ve looked too. Not even embroidery scissors. All I can find is fabric shears; the girls at the dorm use them, but I’m afraid to. They say the hairdressers’ union works some deal under the table to get all the scissors first, so there’s none left for anyone else.”
“You can get a pair at the Torgsin shops. They take foreign currency, you know that.”
“I can’t squander my dollars on vanity, Florie.”
Florence stopped cutting and looked up. “Suit yourself. I’ve always said: there’s no such thing as a Plain Jane, only a Cheap Jane.”
“And I think it’s a bit unfair,” Essie said, “that we can buy imported goods at those stores, but no one else can.”
But Florence had been down this road of reasoning and knew where it led. “What’s so unfair about it?” she said now. “The country needs foreign currency, and I need nail clippers. All I’m saying is, the Party Committees have their special shops, and so do the Kremlin doctors, and so on down the line. We aren’t the only ones.” She laid down her scissors. “These people’s labor is valuable to the state. Maybe they don’t have time to stand in lines. Our labor is special too, Essie. We should take pride in it, not turn ourselves into aesthetes.”
“I think you mean ascetics.”
“Whatever.” Florence was aware that there was, perhaps, a capitalist strand in the fabric of her logic. Still, she felt justified in her reasoning. The work she was doing was valuable, and important. Why shouldn’t it entitle her to an occasional bar of chocolate?
“I guess you’re right,” Essie intoned sleepily and settled back on her pillow. Florence turned off the light and the two lay in bed quietly, kneading each other’s tired feet. From Essie’s side of the bed came a hum Florence recognized as the swaying, Gypsyish melody of “Ochi Chornye.” “Black and burning eyes,” Essie hummed. “Black as midnight skies…”
Softly, Florence joined her, “Burn-with-passion eyes, how you hypnotize.”
“I’m in love with you, I’m afra-yd of you!” they sang in unison. “Day that I met you, made me sad and blue.”
Then Essie was quiet, and Florence knew why.
“Whose black eyes were you singing about?”
From Essie’s side came more silence. But in the tension of her instep, Florence got her answer. Encouragingly, she said, “You danced well together.”
“He made it easy; any girl would have looked good dancing with him.”
“Mr. Dragged Up sure can drag a hoof, even if he’s a little full of himself.”
“Why full of himself?” said Essie, sitting up slightly.
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe a little mouthy, is all I mean.”
“That’s funny. He asked me if he’d said something that upset you.”
“He asked you?”
“He might have asked you to dance, Florie, if he thought you’d’ve let him.” Essie’s toes seemed to be at a kind of stiff attention again. “Do you like him?”
“Oh, please, Essie.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing’s wrong with him. I’m not saying he’s bad-looking.” Florence was suddenly unsure if she was admitting that Leon was attractive to hide the fact that she thought he was. “He’s just not my type.”
“What’s your type?”
“Not American, for starters.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t….It just seems silly for me, you know, to have come all the way here just to…”
“To what?”
“To get all keyed up about some guy from across the East River.”
If hurt or relief flickered on Essie’s face, the darkness hid it. After a while, Florence felt Essie curling herself toward the wall.
“?’Night, Essie.”
“?’Night,” she heard in return, and lay staring into the darkness for some time before falling asleep.