The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia

by Svetlana Grobman

  “What do you think he’ll do now?” I ask again.

  “It’s not our business,” Mother says, still not looking at me.

  “I’m just wondering ...”

  “Don’t. It’s not for children to talk about things like that,” my aunt says.

  “And don’t you say anything in school,” Mother echoes her sister—her hands fiercely polishing the dinner plates, as if trying to turn the faded ceramic into fine China.

  “Why? What can happen?” I say.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”

  “In Stalin’s times, people got arrested for saying small things. Jokes even. And this is not a small thing, Sveta. This is the government,” Grandma says, taking off her apron and wiping her hands with it. Then she hangs the apron on a hook by the sink and continues, lowering her voice,

  “There was this man on the first floor, who …”

  I have heard this story before. The man she is talking about —a pilot with several medals for bravery during the last war—lived in my grandparents’ building just before I was born. One day, he got drunk and started shouting that nobody cares about those who “prolivat krov za nashu rodinu” (shed blood for our country).

  The man’s drinking buddies heard this, and one of them even egged him on. Later, some people claimed that this provocateur was an informer, although it is entirely possible that the other drinkers, as soon as they sobered up, rushed to inform on their “friend” for fear of being accused of being his collaborators. One way or another, the former hero was arrested and, two days later, people in black came for his wife. Their teenage son also disappeared—nobody knew where or why.

  As if the men in the room have overheard Grandma’s story, their conversation turns to Stalin’s day, too, although instead of the ill-fated pilot, they talk about someone called Ekhil Ulitsky.

  “Let him rot in hell!” My father hits the table with his fist, and the wine glasses protest with melodic tinkling. “So many people reported that scoundrel!”

  “Yeah … You can never be too careful,” my uncle says and knocks back another shot.

  “Always cunning!” Father continues. “Starts with a joke, offers a drink, and then flings out something political. And some drunken dummy nods, ‘Yeah, life is not fair.’ Or tells a joke himself. And in a day or two, that dummy is gone. Vanished into thin air.”

  This is no news for me either. In the eleven years after Stalin’s death and Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s Great Purges, cases like this have been surfacing one after another. People were arrested for talking politics or telling political jokes, for complaining about the injustice of life or for being late for work, for being talented or successful—too talented and too successful in the opinion of those who envied them. And that is not counting thousands of military commanders, writers, scientists, artists, and other prominent people who were arrested for no discernible reason at all.

  In all cases, the story was always the same. In the wee hours of the morning, a loud knock on the door let the victims know that their life as they knew it was over. Disheveled and vulnerable, they opened the door to secret policemen dressed in black leather who marched into their apartments and conducted thorough searches: pulled out drawers, knocked books off shelves, and turned mattresses upside down—looking for compromising materials. In the end, no matter what the result of the search, the accused, still trying to button their shirts and adjust their clothes with shaking hands, were taken away in a van called a black crow.

  As they were leaving their apartments, they would mumble to their loved ones that this must be a mistake and they would be released as soon as it was cleared up. Their spouses or parents would start writing to the authorities, even Stalin himself, about the innocence of the accused—only to be arrested themselves. And more often than not, all of them would disappear for good—first tortured and branded vragi naroda (enemies of the state), and later shot in prison or buried in Siberian gulags.

  They vanished as if they never existed. New people replaced them at work and moved into their apartments—often the same people who informed on them in the first place—and life continued as if nothing had happened. As for the children of the accused, they were put into orphanages, where their caregivers taught them to love their Motherland (and especially their Father Stalin) and hate the vragi naroda, the parents they had lost.

  “Did you hear what happens to those who talk too much?” Grandma says. “You should ...”

  Grandma is always the same. Stalin died when I was a baby, and it has been years since Khrushchev denounced his cult of personality and the terror Stalin inflicted on our country. Everybody knows that!

  “Stalin is dead,” I interrupt my grandmother. “Things like that will never happen again. That was all Stalin’s fault. Khrushchev said so.”

  “Exactly. And where is he now?” my cousin Sima chimes in.

  “Girls, I don’t want you to talk about this,” Mother says, and her bow-shaped lips turn into a narrow line. “Berezhennogo bog berezhet.” (God saves those who are careful, a Russian proverb.)

  The next day in school, as soon as I plop down onto my student bench and look in front of me, I notice an empty space on the wall behind the teacher’s table where Khrushchev’s portrait used to hang. I turn to my neighbor on the right, Polina Grusheva, a busybody and well-known class gossip, and see that her gaze is also fixed on the empty space on the wall. I expect her to say something about the sudden change, but she lowers her eyes and says nothing. In fact, none of the students or teachers comments on the glaring spot, and neither do I, as if we experience a mysterious case of mass blindness and do not notice the exposed patch of peeling plaster that is a shade or two lighter than the rest of the wall.

  Several weeks later, during a school break, my parents send me to stay with my grandparents. As soon as Grandpa and I find ourselves alone, I say: “That man you were talking about with my father and Uncle Abraham, Ekhil Ulitsky, does he still live around here?”

  “Did you girls eavesdrop on us?” Grandfather raises his eyebrows. “I guess we have to be careful around you!” He smiles, but a shadow falls over his brow. “No, he doesn’t. Somebody informed on him, too, so he got deported to Birobidzhan” (a remote area on the border with China where Stalin planned to exile all Soviet Jews).

  “Who did?”

  “Other informers, I guess.”

  “Why did they deport him to Birobidzhan? Dad says that they only sent Jews there.”

  “That’s right. But he was a Jew.”

  I stare at my grandfather. A Jew informer?!

  “Rats are everywhere, bubala,” he says, answering my unspoken question. “Saving their skin at the expense of others. He didn’t save his skin, though. People said that he got sick there and needed medicine. Well, Stalin sent many Jewish doctors to Birobidzhan, but not the medicine.”

  “Did he die?”

  “Yes, he did, that dog,” Grandpa says, and the hostility in his voice takes me aback. Should I stop asking? But when will I get another chance?

  “Grandpa, Mother said that when Stalin died, people cried as though he were their true father. Why?”

  “With all that propaganda, they believed that he was. The newspapers, the radio, all of them called him the Father of the Nation, Coryphaeus of Science, and whatnot,” Grandfather says, his voice oozing with sarcasm. “He was our Generalissimus, too (the highest Soviet military rank awarded only to Stalin). He won the war!” Here Grandfather pauses.

  “Stupid people. He couldn’t care less whether they lived or died, but they charged the Germans shouting ‘For Motherland, for Stalin!’ Tjfu!” He spits with disgust.

  “Did you cry, Grandpa?”

  “Me?! Surely not! He tried to starve us in the Ukraine, you know. And then that camp in Siberia… Three years out of my life!”

  “You were in a prison camp? When?!” What else do I not know about my grandfather?

  “Shortly after the war,” he says. �
��I worked on the railroad weighing freight cars. Somebody stole equipment from one car, and my boss blamed me.”

  “Why you?”

  “I was the only Jew in his team, and he was a real anti-Semite. Besides, he may have stolen the stuff himself and needed an easy scapegoat,” Grandfather says.

  “Did you tell them that you didn’t steal anything?”

  “Yes, I did. But who’d believe a Jew in those days?”

  “Was it terrible in the camp, Grandpa?” I say, picturing my grandfather in the striped clothes of a German concentration camp inmate, and a chill runs up my spine.

  “Let’s not talk about that now, bubala. It was a long time ago and … Hell, I made it! Had only one arm broken and several teeth.”

  I peek at Grandfather’s silver-plated front teeth, dimly glimmering between his narrow lips.

  “No, I was happy when that devil Stalin died,” he says, catching my glance. Then a sly smile lightens his face, “Well, net gorya bez dobra.” (Even bad luck can bring something good, Russian proverb.) One good thing came out of that camp. I met your Uncle Abraham there and brought him to Moscow.”

  This is how my aunt met her husband! I had no idea!

  “Why was he there?” I ask.

  “Well, he’s from Poland, you know,” Grandfather says. “When the Germans occupied the country, some Poles retreated to our territory. They thought they’d be welcomed here, but far from it. Stalin didn’t trust even his own people, let alone foreigners. Who cared that the Germans had killed everybody in Abraham’s family? As far as our authorities were concerned, he couldn’t be trusted. So they sent him to Siberia.”

  “You never told me this before, Grandpa,” I say. “Why?”

  “You were too young. Still are,” Grandfather smiles and his face ripples with wrinkles. “But, I think I’d better tell you these things now, before it’s too late. Right?”

  “Right,” I say, uncertain of his meaning.

  “Listen bubala,” Grandfather says, putting his heavy hands on my shoulders and pulling me closer. “Our life’s been hard. Wars, pogroms, not much education. Your life must be better. You just need to study and make good grades.” Then he winks at me, “Who knows, you may be a famous musician one day!”

  “I don’t think so,” I sigh.

  “A doctor, like your mother?”

  “I’m afraid of blood, Grandpa.”

  “Well, then … then you should go to America and make a success of yourself!”

  To America? Nobody I know has gone even to socialist Bulgaria, and it is less than 2,000 kilometers away. America is on the other side of the world! Going there is like flying to the moon. Besides, America is a rotten capitalist country, while our country is the best country in the world.

  I try to shrug off my grandfathers’ hands. “Only traitors leave their Motherland!”

  “Who told you that?” he says, not letting me go.

  “Everybody! My teachers, for one.”

  He pulls me so close that I can see the tiny red veins in his eyes.

  “Don’t believe them, bubala. They don’t know anything.”

  I twitch harder. What does he mean? Of course they know! They are teachers!

  “How do you know?” I say. “You didn’t go to America!”

  “No, I didn’t … didn’t have the guts,” Grandfather says. “I should have, though …” Abruptly, he takes his hands off my shoulders, and I stumble backwards, almost falling. He does not seem to notice but turns away from me and, as if pleading with somebody, whispers, “Let them go ...”

  Who are you talking to? I want to ask, staring at his stooped back. But my grandfather keeps whispering and bowing toward the empty wall, and I do not dare to interrupt him.

  At home, I say to my mother, “You don’t think that America is better than our country, do you?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Grandfather said that he wants me to go there. Can you imagine? Like I’m a traitor or something!”

  Mother gives me a long look—her gaze impenetrable, like a pond covered with duckweed.

  “Your grandfather is a wise man.”

  “He’s not educated. He said that himself!” I say, feeling bad for criticizing my grandfather, yet still upset with his words.

  “Education is one thing. Wisdom is another. Some people have education, but not wisdom,” Mother sighs. “Believe me, that’s not good either.”

  What is she talking about? And what does it have to do with my question?

  “Mom,” I say, attempting to direct the conversation my way, “you wouldn’t go to America, would you?” But Mother busies herself with never-ending domestic chores, and my question hangs in the air unanswered.

  In the end, Grandfather’s prediction that not much would change after Khrushchev’s hasty retirement proves to be true. As before, our country heads toward a “wonderful” communist future at the expense of our not-so-wonderful present. As before, the state media sing the praises of our never-successful five-year economic plans, and as before, our “wise” Communist Party presides over all aspects of our lives.

  The only discernible change takes place in school. One day, when I enter my classroom and look at the spot where Khrushchev’s portrait used to hang, I see a portrait of a man with coal-black bushy eyebrows, flabby features, and a triumphantly important expression. This is Khrushchev’s replacement, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, our new leader.

  Neither the teachers nor the students comment on Brezhnev’s arrival in our classroom. We are used to seeing images of government leaders everywhere, and it is only natural to us that our new head of government has claimed his rightful place next to the portrait of Lenin, so both of them can follow our educational progress from the wall. Also, as Stalin himself liked to say, “Les rubyat, shchepki letyat” (chips fly when you cut down trees, Russian proverb) or, in other words, we must dispose of those who divert us away from our extraordinary goals.

  A true change—for me anyway—occurs next summer. It has nothing to do with our government but with my grandfather’s death. I am in a summer camp when he dies, and my relatives bury him without me. When I come back to Moscow, he is gone, and all I have left of him are faded black-and-white pictures in the family photo album: my grandfather surrounded by people I never met. Grandma and he are side by side, looking into the camera with strained and alienated eyes, and another photo of Grandfather alone, with a sad smile, as if saying, “We are all disposable.”

  Grandfather

  Yet unlike Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders whose portraits rotate through the empty spots on Moscow’s walls, my grandfather will never be disposable to me, and his place in my heart will never be filled. In my mind’s eye, I will always see him winking at me or hear him singing, and eventually I will follow his wish and immigrate to America.

  On the chess board of history my grandfather may have been only a pawn, but for me he remains the greatest of chess grandmasters, greater than Tigran Petrosian or the American Bobby Fisher. Not only because I loved him, but also because, like them, he was never tricked by false maneuvers. He saw things clearly—as they were—and several moves ahead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  BABI YAR

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Mother says, and a smile spreads across her face like ripples in water.

  “It sure is,” Dad echoes, also breaking into a wide grin and lovingly caressing our new shkaf (wardrobe)—a polished dark-oak affair with two doors and a large, top-to-bottom mirror.

  My sister Tanya dashes to our new acquisition and pulls both doors wide open. One side of the wardrobe is divided into six horizontal sections; the other, with a cross-beam at the top, is for hanging clothes.

  “I want my own shelf,” Tanya announces loudly, like a prospector filing a mining claim.

  “We’ll see about that,” Mother says, visibly pleased by the immense possibilities our new furniture gives her in organizing our meager possessions.

  I take several steps for
ward and carefully close the doors—Tanya is so rough with everything, she can break this beauty even before we start using it. For a time, I, too, admire its shiny surface and the broad pattern of the wood. Our botany teacher says that it is possible to find out how old a tree is by its rings and layers, maybe even where it grew and what the weather was like while it stood in all its splendor somewhere in the woods before an ax brought it down.

  Behind me, I hear Mother chat with our neighbor Klavdia Davidovna, who drops in attracted by the commotion “for just a second.” Mom tells Klavdia Davidovna how long she had to wait in line for a chance to buy the wardrobe, and how much she wanted to buy a dining table to match it but could not afford it.

  “Not even a bedside table,” Mother sighs. “They are so expensive, you know.” Klavdia Davidovna sighs, too, “Too bad, dear,” although the only sentiment I detect in her voice is jealous satisfaction.

  I turn my attention to the mirrored side of the wardrobe. I step back and look at my reflection in its silvery surface, and my heart sinks. The girl looking at me is gangly, with dark, slightly wavy hair, a swarthy complexion, and a very prominent nose. I stare at my reflection, grief-stricken—surely I must stand out among my light-haired, light-skinned, small-nosed peers. I look so-o-o Jewish. Being unattractive is bad enough, but being unattractive and so typically Jewish definitely quadruples my bad luck. Of course, with the exception of my mother and cousin Sima, all my relatives stand out.

  “Mom, why doesn’t Sima look like us?”

  Both Mother and Klavdia Davidovna turn to me in surprise.

  “Why should she?” Mother says. “She’s not our daughter.” And Klavdia Davidovna who has no interest in our family affairs quickly reports, “I have things to do,” and retires to her room.

  “But she’s your sister’s daughter,” I insist. “Aunt Raya looks Jewish, Roma (Sima’s half-brother) looks Jewish, but Sima doesn’t. She’s blond and her eyes are blue. Why?”