the Soviet Union, Kostya went on TV in the name of “simple laborers” and applauded that “just act” and condemned the “traitor.” I wonder what Kostya’s up to now, and what camp he joined in the days of perestroika.
A P RIL 2 7 . My Kaluga childhood must have seemed too happy and cloudless because my family tried not to tell us the bad things, first of all, to protect our childlike innocence, and secondly, because they were afraid to. No one could be certain that the bad times wouldn’t return.
Grandmother got letters occasionally from Siberia and wept when she read them. The letters were from her brother, who had been sent to Siberia when the NEP (New Economic Policy, a return to capitalism, instituted by Lenin in 1921) was attacked. He was exiled for nothing: for working and showing initiative. In exile he married out of despair, unhappily, and had children and lived in dire straits. I saw him once not long before his death. I remember a tall, thin man with a sad face, who said only a few words at the dinner table. The fate of Grandmother’s brother was always a painful spot for the family, but there wasn’t much they could do for him. He was so mired in his lost life.
No one in our family died in the Stalinist camps and prisons, but that tragedy did befall someone close to us, the wife of Father’s brother. When she was twelve, her father was arrested. He was the director of a large Soviet institution, a nobleman who had accepted the Revolution and served it loyally. It destroyed him. In the infamous year of 1937, the height of the
Great Terror, he was shot, but his family thought he was alive in the camps and waited for his return for many years. In 1940 my aunt wrote a poem—she was only fifteen.
It is evening, it is so quiet here, I am alone with an open book.
I recall at midnight everything that seemed to be forgotten.
And unconsciously poetry on my lips, that strange, sorrowful Esenin.
One lamp is lit, and grim shadows stir in the corners.
In the sky, clear outlines of rooftops, the jangle of trolleys dies out in the distance,
And once again un-Moscow-like silence, with only a sad violin playing.
Somewhere beyond the mountains my forgotten father lives.
The distant image comes to my eyes, the violin sings sadly and softly.
Those agitating and tender sounds give rise in my dreams
To him strong, bold, sitting casually with a cigarette in his handsome hands.
My father, beloved tenderly and bitterly, with his piercing eyes.
The familiar image blurs, do you ever think of us at all?
In the sky, clear outlines of rooftops, the jangle of trolleys dies out in the distance,
And once again the un-Moscow-like silence, the violin grieving and weeping.
But he couldn’t miss them since he had been dead for several years by then. After the Twentieth Congress of the party (when Khrushchev revealed the crimes of the Stalin regime) he was posthumously rehabilitated and reinstated in the party. It’s amazing what this so-called triumph of justice did for the family. My aunt and her mother became even more fervent Communists, and the death of their father and husband became a mere historical error. My aunt was also a militant atheist, but in the last years she saw more, either because she became wiser with age or because the truth that came pouring out from all sides at us had its effect. Now she is a believer but doesn’t attend church because she is ailing and housebound. She still writes poetry; one poem is dedicated to her parents.
Their trespasses will be forgiven, they will reap what they sowed,
For their cares and worries and hearts they gave to us.
For their suffering in this life, for their dreams in vain,
For their love of their homeland, forgive them, Lord, forgive. And I pray meekly that you forgive me, too, for everything, And for my wrongdoing, dear God, I repent so bitterly.
Many believe that the rebirth of our country will come from the repentance of every individual.
APRIL 3 0. In his Essays Montaigne quoted in Latin, “So man must always wait for his very last day, and no one can be called happy before his death and funeral service.” In other words, even at the very end of your life things may happen that could turn you from a happy person to the most miserable and vice versa.
I’ve often wondered if my grandparents could be called happy. Probably. All their adult, conscious life they lived in difficult and sometimes tragic times. Yet they remained alive and died natural deaths at an old age in their beds. They did not outlive their sons. Their sons did not die at war or in the camps. They did not pay for the right to survive the horrible Stalin years with treachery or denunciations, like the many people who were forced to slander others when it was a question of life and death. The Lord gave them strong faith in atheistic times. Their faith must have helped them maintain their sense of dignity and love of life in their modest and often impoverished and unnoticed existence. God gave my grandfather many talents and at the same time protected him from the desire to show off those talents, thereby saving him. That is the tragic paradox of twentieth-century Russia.
CHAPTER TEN
Every Psycho Has a Program
Whatever you like will drive you crazy.
—Russian folk saying
MAY 2. A friend of ours has an amusing theory: Everything that goes beyond elementary needs is a deviation from the norm. For instance, a woman’s desire to cook delicious food is normal, but the desire to dress well and be attractive is unnatural. He himself is a mass of extremes—total asceticism in life except for gastronomic refinement, economizing on every ruble but buying antique rarities for enormous sums. In his daily life he is very eccentric. I once went to his place and found the following scene: He was walking around in shorts (it was winter) in a chilly room. A canary was perched on a lamp, with newspapers spread beneath it since the bird’s behavior was not very civilized. The room, which he had just acquired by trading with his brother, was remarkably furnished: a narrow camp bed, a simple wooden table and chairs from the fifties, and lots of camping equipment hanging on the walls. The bookshelves, which took up half the room, were filled with rare editions. There was also a painting by a famous eighteenth-century artist. With no curtains the window showed the black night, and the small
pane was open to let in a stream of icy air. He walked around energetically from time to time, to keep from freezing. Fortunately the teakettle whistled, and I was saved from a cold grave. The kitchen was warm, and he put lots of good food on the table. Rene Georgievich (the name alone is priceless) ate silently and with great concentration, embodying one of his theories: Cooking is a special art worthy of great respect; therefore, consuming food should be done wholeheartedly and undistractedly. From time to time we did exchange a few remarks about the food’s quality.
Back in his room (I meekly asked him to close the window) we talked about everything under the sun. The man has an incredible quality: He emancipates your brain. We talked about the most varied things, and he always found his own twist on them. He has a phenomenal memory, especially about books. In the good old days he would have made a marvelous used- book store owner and would have been famous all over Moscow. Nothing is right in our society. It doesn’t value original and unusual people. He has good reason not to go into the used- book business now. It’s a slippery business, and you can get into trouble fast. By the way, Rene Georgievich is a professor. He teaches at an institute, but I think he would give up everything for his books. He dresses very bizarrely, as if he wanted to shock, but it’s just that he’s truly more comfortable that way. He’s not so bad now, but he wore the same coat for twenty years and in summer went around in funny sweatpants and carrying a woman’s shopping bag. Of course, none of that is important, and the charm of his mind and personality makes you forget his eccentricities. My knowledge of literature and painting comes