Although I paid her well, and I am usually too sour to acknowledge people I pay, the more I think about the help she gave this book, the more grateful I am to Fr. Yolande Korb at the Academy. This research assistant and interpreter beyond dreams took me to Ullstein Bilderdienst and to several other places, got me whatever library books I wanted, etcetera. She was also very patient with my stumbling confusion (I was on narcotic painkillers the entire time she knew me, thanks to a broken pelvis).
The photographic archives of Ullstein Bilderdienst in Berlin proved to be as rich as the Nibelungen hoard. I hereby express my gratitude to that establishment, without which I would never have seen quite so many images of the Condor Legion, Operation Zitadelle, Hilde Benjamin, Fredrich Paulus, Kurt Gerstein, and various German tanks; nor certainly would I have known such splendors as the eyelashes of Lisca Malbran.
Dr. Gudrun Fritsch, curator at the Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum in Berlin, put up with my poor spoken German and gave me useful references and advice for “Woman with Dead Child.”
Mr. Thomas Melle, also of Berlin, very kindly and exactly corrected quite a number of mis-Germanisms, mainly of syntax but once or twice of personality as well. He also gathered a heavy load of books about Hilde Benjamin for me when I couldn’t carry much myself, thanks to a broken pelvis. I am extremely grateful to him.
I appreciate the last-minute help of Nina Bouis; whose advice about vruchka versus ruchka I ultimately followed.
(Now that I have written the previous paragraph, I hereby double and triple it, for Thomas has since read the entire manuscript, patiently saving me from many more of my multifarious ignorances. Thank you so much, my friend.)
Chris Chang of Film Comment magazine in New York was very helpful with Roman Karmen contacts and references. He also caught two inconsistencies in my draft of “The White Nights of Leningrad.” Among other favors, he introduced me to University of Chicago film expert Yuri Tsivian, who gave me his views on the professional accomplishments of Roman Karmen, and I have accordingly quoted this verbatim in “Far and Wide My Country Stretches.”
Mr. Heinz Riedel Lehmann of Berlin told me some interesting stories about Paulus in his Soviet captivity; bits of these found their way into this book. In Berkeley, Kara Platoni, whom I hired to do some research on Elena Konstantinovskaya, was very efficient and nice; through her I certainly ought to thank Alan Mercer, editor of the DSCH Journal.
Jean Stein was her usual altruistic self with books and introductions.
David M. Golden was extremely generous with his books, his knowledge about Judaism and the Holocaust, and his time. He even found me three excellent German translators, who were all a pleasure to work with and whom I’d like to thank here: Pastor Andreas Pielhoop, Elsmarie Hau and Tracey Bigelow, the last of whom put me in contact with Sergi Mineyev, whose rapid translation from the Russian of some selections in Khentova’s biography of Shostakovich saved me much worry and strain.
Meagan Atiyeh said nice things about the stories and encouraged me to keep working on them. I have the happiest memories of our time together. When she praised the stories, that meant the world to me. She kept me company in several European venues. I wish I could better express how kind and calm and steady she was, how pleasant it was for me to rush off another story to her, to share with her my latest Stalinist verbal tic, to search with her for old German newspapers or new Russian books. She will always be special to me.
Mandy Aftel, Jenny Ankeny, Amel Boussoualim, Moira Brown, Kate Danaher, Jake Dickinson, Takako Kawai, Paula Keyth, Mayumi Kobana, Mechelle Lee, William Linne, Larry McCafferey, Shannon Mullen, Lori Nelson, Ben Pax, Terrie Petree, Vanessa Renwick, Tom Robinson, Deborah Triesman and Becky Wilson were very supportive, both to this book and to me, during a difficult time.
I would like to thank Paul Slovak, Susan Golomb, Amira Pierce, Kim Goldstein and Sabine Hrechdakian for their work on Europe Central. And I am very lucky that Carla Bolte is the designer for this book. This fine, gentle, intelligent woman has also been a patient friend and confidante for a number of years. Carla, thank you so much for caring about me.
Lizzy Kate Gray expertly advised me on some matters of musical terminology and instrumentation connected with the Shostakovich stories. I will always be grateful to her for the times we listened together to the selections I was studying of the Seventh, the Eighth, the Fourteenth, Opus 110 and the Preludes and Fugues. Her father Gary and I had a nice chat about the pitch of World War II airplanes.
ALSO BY WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN
You Bright and Risen Angels
The Rainbow Stories
The Ice-Shirt
Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs
Whores for Gloria
Fathers and Crows
Butterfly Stories
The Rifles
An Afghanistan Picture Show
The Atlas
The Royal Family
Argall
Rising Up and Rising Down
Copyright
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. ■ Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) ■ Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England ■ Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) ■ Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) ■ Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India ■ Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) ■ Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in 2005 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © William T. Vollmann, 2005
All rights reserved
Portions of this work first appeared in Conjunctions, Grand Street, Film Comment, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader, edited by William T. Vollmann, Larry McCaffery, and Michael Hemmingson (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005).
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Vollmann, William T.
Europe central / by William T. Vollmann. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-11819-1
1. Germany—Social life and customs—Fiction. 2. Soviet Union—Social life and customs—Fiction. I. Title.