Rafael Yglesias - The Work Is Innocent

“I mean,” Mark said. “I’m no Stalinist. I don’t say that Solzhenitsyn is wrong about the Soviet Union.”

“You’re not saying that?”

“Well, I mean, in specifics, no. But the effect in the United States is to play into the hands of the pigs. It just becomes anti-Communist propaganda.”

“I don’t think he’s so accurate,” Leo said.

“Mark or Solzhenitsyn?” Richard asked, but nobody enjoyed the remark. Richard hurried on. “What isn’t he accurate about?”

“Well, I mean that comic-book portrait of Stalin—”

“That is a silly part,” Betty conceded.

“Is it?” Richard said. “Is it sillier than Tolstoy’s portraits of Tsar Alexander or Napoleon?” Leo made a face and Richard’s voice rose, cracking and hurried. “Come on. You can’t tell me that any great novelist did better. Balzac on Napoleon? Or Fouché? They’re all romanticized.”

“That’s absurd,” Leo said.

“Anyway, that’s not the point,” Betty said, worried by an impending scene between the two brothers. “Take One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. You don’t think that’s distorted?”

Leo shrugged. He looked oppressed, as if the argument was contemptible. Richard was enraged by his attitude. “I don’t know,” Leo said. “How can we know? But it doesn’t matter because he gives no analysis of why it has happened, and the effect is—”

“Oh, Leo—” Betty said desperately.

“The effect is one of, on the one hand, making people feel that it is the result of socialism and, on the other hand, of being totally defeatist. He never says that there’s anything that can be done about it.”

“That’s not true,” Richard yelled, but his mother held their attention by repeating three times, “Leo, that’s wrong.”

Leo, aggrieved, said, “ How is it wrong, huh?”

Again Richard started a sentence, “The whole point of The First Circle—”

“The ending of The First Circle,” Betty said, nodding at Richard. “Those men decide to die in Siberia rather than go on helping Stalin’s experiments.”

“That’s defeatist!”

“What are you talking about—” Richard talked to the ceiling. He was only glanced at and shushed like a barking dog.

“If you are going to broaden that word, which I really don’t think you understand”—Betty closed her eyes and sharpened her tone when Leo groaned at this—”to include any act that involves death, then Che is defeatist.”

“No, no.” Leo bounced his right leg up and down nervously. “I’m saying it’s defeatist because it’s put in romantic terms. You go off passively, martyred, refusing to co-operate. That’s not struggle. That’s not what Che—”

“You’re just being a fool.” Richard was amazed he had said it. For the first time his voice was confident and unhurried. But the effect frightened him. Leo had jumped up.

“Look, I’m not going in for this. You two can just go on making up your little theories.” Richard watched him leave and for a moment was sorry. His mother looked at Mark with embarrassment, but when she turned to him, he saw that she was upset.

“Now please do me a favor, Mom,” Richard said. It was pouring out of him. “Don’t make me feel bad. He said I was absurd. I said he was a fool.”

“I’m not angry at you,” she said quickly. She convinced him. “I was sorry he was so upset by it. That’s all.”

“Okay,” he said, ready to go on, but he felt tears along with the words and that scared him into silence.

Richard was apprehensive of Leo from then on, sure that a resolution of their spat would come at dinner. But there was the usual exchange of literary gossip, followed by Leo’s enthusiastic questions about gardening and the local people. Everyone had forgotten the argument—Aaron and Louise weren’t aware there had been one—except for Richard.

His father, once they had settled in the living room, tried to extract information about what the Movement was doing, but Mark and Leo evaded all his questions and confirmed Richard’s fear that Leo planned to join many of his friends in the underground. The prospect made him timid and uneasy. It would mean Leo’s death. Eventually.

He started thinking of how he would react and found himself on the lawn surrounded by reporters, making a proud speech. He was jolted out of it by shame at such egotism. He looked around as if he had just peed. How absurd, he thought, if I’m heartless, it’s no use being embarrassed.

The next day, after lunch, Mark and Leo said they were going for a walk in the woods. Richard went along. They stopped in a clearing and Leo cut off a branch to whittle. Mark produced the throwing knives and stood fifteen feet away from a young skinny pine. “If you hit it,” Richard said, meaning to be friendly, “you might chop it down.”

Mark smiled without taking his eyes off the tree. He held himself carefully and balanced the knife on his fingertips, gestured twice toward the tree, and finally snapped his wrist, releasing it. He missed everything.

Richard tried to suppress a laugh. But Mark took the failure well. He laughed and said, “Not very impressive.”

“Try a bigger tree,” Richard said, no longer awed by this revolutionary training. He looked at the knives lying on the ground and he couldn’t resist a romantic act. He picked one up and, spotting a larch, he turned to face it. He had planned to prepare the throw carefully, but was too embarrassed by Mark’s observation to wait. He released it without calculation.

“All right! Check it out!” Richard skipped happily toward the tree. His knife had notched a small square of bark off and remained embedded in the wood. He was surprised by the milky sap that oozed out over the tip of the blade. He couldn’t pull the knife out of the tree and he called Mark over to help.

Mark pulled it out without complimenting Richard on his accuracy. Richard considered that a grave sin and it rankled all day. Mark continued throwing with little success. Richard felt an airy contempt for his lack of skill and he waited until he judged that Mark’s disappointment had peaked before he threw again. The thud of the blade hitting and the vibration of the handle while it settled into the wood were perfect re-creations of the Hollywood ideal. Leo said, “Good, Richie. How are you doing it?”

“I don’t know. I just keep thinking of the Buddhist thing. You know, aim without aiming.” That sounded foolish, Richard thought, and his embarrassment was mixed with his pleasure at Leo’s notice of his skill.

“I know,” Mark said. “That’s my problem. I’m too self-conscious.”

“What do you mean?” Leo asked. He picked up a knife.

“You know,” Richard said, glad that Mark had understood him. “It has to be a part of you. I mean that sounds silly, but. You can’t worry that it’s going to work. Just let it go.”

“Yeah, well,” Leo said, not concealing his amusement. “I mean like which end do you hold?”

A discussion of Richard’s and Mark’s methods removed any chance of success. For an hour they failed to land a blade in the tree and then began to miss everything, eventually losing a knife in the forest’s undergrowth.

Richard was convinced by this childish and delightful adventure that Mark and Leo weren’t going underground. It was just cowboy fantasies. He got to like Mark but was disturbed that Mark treated him casually. He found himself waiting eagerly to be alone with him to talk. But his stomach fluttered nervously when they were, and he was afraid that he would be unable to break the paralyzing fear of humiliation. They were in the kitchen, the rest of the house asleep, Mark reading the Times. Richard had a sense of déjà vu, confusing Mark with John. Was this the beginning of a neurotic cycle? He was afraid of not earning older men’s respect and chased after them like a puppy. It disgusted him. I’m a latent homosexual. I have a shattered ego.