Jacob's Ladder

by Ludmila Ulitskaya

  By November 1, I will have written a chronicle of events, and I’ll work on an exhibit the whole next month. I like this cooperation with American consultants. We have a lot to learn from them in the area of production organization. But I’ll be freed up after November. I’m lagging behind in my reading these days—I want to read literature, economics, mathematics, and other things. Interacting with colleagues is terribly interesting. People of my status.

  What about your article on Gogol, and why was he being commemorated? Was it an anniversary of some sort?

  I want to emphasize again that you don’t have to be a staff member—independent literary work is sufficient. Vigilyansky doesn’t have a regular position. Try to get admitted to the Writers’ Union, get involved with the activities of the House of Printing. They have a wonderful library there, where you can even borrow books to take home, and they have a good dining hall.

  Marusya, I beg you to buy and send me a Handbook of Labor in the USSR. You will most likely find it in the store at the Communist Academy, which used to be located on Mokhovaya, opposite the university.

  I kiss you, my dearest one. Soon I’ll be sending you some extra money, so that you may eat well. J.

  FEBRUARY 7, 1933

  Two years have gone by, and it is eight months since the last time I saw you. Your visit, despite all the joy it brought me, left me with a feeling of sadness and bitterness. There is a crack, a fissure between us that seems to be growing wider. Only one thing will heal this fissure: you must come here again! For a week, for three days, for three hours. It is so important: looking at each other, touching each other … Marusya, a marriage will not survive on postage stamps alone. Come! I’m not only summoning you because I long for my beloved wife and girlfriend. Every life has some sort of foundation on which it stands, grows, from which it feeds. You are my soil, my foundation. But there is a sense of alienation emanating from your letters. And mere letters will not allow us to overcome this alienation. Sometimes I get the feeling that you either read only superficially the long letters I write, or you don’t read them at all. Our correspondence is becoming chaotic, and keeps missing the mark.

  Marusya, my love! Please come to me!

  APRIL 18, 1933

  My next postal money transfer will be delayed by several days. The book is nearing the end, but I can’t seem to finish it. Don’t be alarmed about my authorship: the book is truly a collective publication. I wrote to the publisher to make sure that the actual part of the work of each author was stipulated for each under collective conditions. I have learned something through this work. Several useful technical conventions have taken shape, and many new themes have suggested themselves, so work has played a big role. It can’t come out under my own name, of course, and perhaps I don’t even want that. One should write in solitude, not as part of a crowd. But the collective is on very amiable terms. There are several people with whom a serious discussion is possible. I hope that the publisher pays as they have promised to. I await with certainty good news from you. I kiss you, my friend. J.

  APRIL 20, 1933

  Your constant refrain—that the GTO physical-culture badge (“Readiness for Labor and Defense”) carries weight, and we can’t do without it—makes me wary. If you think carefully about it, this preoccupation with physical culture is really a replacement for culture, a substitute. You know that I have exercised and practiced gymnastics my whole life, and I believe that one must stay in good physical condition if one is to live a full life; but it isn’t valuable in itself. Thinking this way is understandable in an adolescent, but you could analyze the situation more deeply: why are efforts made to promote mass physical culture instead of intellectual culture?

  I often read in your letters: “Why am I going through all this? I’m a proletarian,” etc. I can’t write you about this in detail—we need to have a long talk about it—but this phrase is absolutely meaningless. Think about it. The question is much deeper and more serious … You need another label for your unhappiness. Neither you nor I belong to the proletariat. We come from the professional class, the class of master craftsmen—this is not our achievement, nor is it our fault. Of course, if you want to represent yourself as a proletarian, that is your prerogative. But you are an actress, an artist, a bohemian of sorts, an intellectual—and there is more truth in this than there is in your desire to be a proletarian. Nadezhda Krupskaya is not a proletarian, either. Teachers and specialists are crucially necessary to the government, and the proletariat can’t move forward without specialists. But I love you, Marusya, despite whatever social portrait you choose for yourself. With what joy I would speak to you on this subject, hour upon hour. I kiss you, my dearest little friend. J.

  SEPTEMBER 1, 1933

  Dear friend, it’s a pity you didn’t accept the job offer at the toy magazine. You’re making a mistake. It’s applied, not pure, journalism. Whether you stayed involved in production would depend on you alone. Moreover, you would have a lot of free time there. You would be able to read and write. Working at some newspaper would be journalism without a particular subject; but a magazine with a very narrow application would be very much in keeping with your principles. Think about it, and weigh all the pros and cons again in your mind. I’m certain you’re making a mistake. But the main thing is that you need time for thinking and reading. Otherwise, nothing will come of it. Writing insignificant, random articles doesn’t add up to real authorship. If you work at a magazine, you’ll be expected to do something bigger—a series of stories or a book.

  A small circle of like-minded people, with broad interests, has taken shape here. Two more new comrades, besides Lavretsky and Dementiev, have joined. At our last meeting we discussed Mikhail Zoshchenko, and there was a doctor with some very interesting ideas about aging as loss. Our gatherings continue; we present papers, and occasionally small communiqués. It livens up our routine existence.

  SEPTEMBER 25, 1933

  Dear Marusya, things are close to completion. There is just a bit of time to wait. About myself I can say the same things I said in previous letters. I finished my work on the museum. I translated tons of technical literature, and I can truly say that I have become highly qualified. The collection of articles about labor under conditions of modern mechanized production has also been submitted to a publishing house. I am healthy, energetic; I am studying history and mathematics. I practice gymnastics every day, and take a cold sponge bath. Between studies, I listen to marvelous ancient Cossack songs. My thoughts circle around folklore—it is an extremely undervalued source, and it contains great riches. No one studies it now! But it needs to be systematically studied and recorded.

  All my anxiety concerns you and Genrikh. As soon as I return, I will immediately appeal to secure a reversal of my case. I would be disinclined to do this, but for Genrikh’s sake I’ll make the rounds of all those organizations. I hope the relatives won’t deprive you of support. As soon as I get out, I’ll take care of all the debts. I kiss you, sweet dear friends. Your Jacob.

  (An unsent letter, expropriated during the search and arrest of Jacob Ossetsky on October 14, 1933.)

  OCTOBER 14, 1933

  With each month, with each day, the end of my term, and my release, gets nearer. Only twelve weeks remain from my three-year term. I am summing up everything in my mind. I am making plans for the future. I wrote several letters to colleagues, and I have asked them to describe the current situation. I have broadened my skills significantly. I am able to do serious translation work, as well as publishing. My participation in the organization of the STP museum has given me new qualifications. I didn’t achieve terribly much during these two and a half years, but I haven’t lost any of my former knowledge, either. I’ve followed all the scholarly journals—Russian, German, and English—that I could find in the library. I couldn’t find any in French, but I’ve been able to keep up the level of my French through those two books by Anatole France that you sent me along with your disappointed critique. I truly long for music
, and I haven’t lost the hope of finding some work in Moscow connected to music, in addition to my basic professional pursuits.

  Dear Marusya! I am full of faith and hope that we can recover that fullness we knew with one another during the time of our marriage. Believe me, I am not given to complaining, but my only source of regret is that I have caused you and Genrikh so much difficulty. On the other hand, thanks to my exile, characteristics have shown themselves in Genrikh that afford me real joy. I never expected such courage, dedication, and self-sacrifice from him. His going to work in the Metro Construction Project is also evidence of the seriousness of his attitude to life. It is already not only a boyish enthusiasm and revolutionary romanticism, familiar to us from our own youth, but a real presence and involvement on the construction site. He is deeper than I imagined him to be two years ago. This is truly the path of intellectual labor of the proletariat: the Workers’ University, the technical college, and I’m certain he’ll enter an institute with a good engineering program. And your affairs will improve, Marusya, I’m sure of it. Think—only eighty-four days left! And we will live happily ever after, forever and ever!

  39

  Yurik Comes Home

  (EARLY 2000)

  Nora recognized the chirping little voice immediately—she could have picked it out of a thousand others. It was Martha. As shapeless as a hayrick, as kind as a St. Bernard, with a voice like a windup toy.

  “Nora! So glad I managed to get through to you. Come over as soon as you can. Yurik is on drugs; he’s in a terrible state. Vitya and I don’t know what to do about him.” Martha spoke in English, but Nora understood every word she said.

  “Where is he now?”

  “In New York. He was here. Just left. He came to get money. He looks awful. It must be heroin or something like that. Hard drugs. Vitya is crying. He told me to call you. Please come as soon as you can!”

  Tengiz was drowsing on the couch. He woke up and looked at her in alarm.

  Vitya was crying? Unbelievable. Nora immediately dialed the last phone number she had for Yurik. It was Tom Drew’s place, where she hadn’t been able to reach him. But the stars were so kindly disposed toward her that Yurik had just stopped over at Tom’s.

  Without asking any diplomatic questions, Nora laid it all out for him: “Yurik, listen to me. Martha called me and told me you’re on drugs. Listen carefully. This is what we’re going to do. Here, in Moscow, there’s a clinic. It’s private, a very good one. The doctors are good friends of mine. I’ve already made arrangements. They’ll get you out of this. No withdrawal—you won’t have to suffer. You’re going to be fine. I’m coming to get you, very soon, as soon as I buy the tickets. I have a visa already. There’s just one thing you have to do—be careful. Be very, very careful. Stay strong until I get there. Don’t give up. Maybe you should live with your father for the time being?… All right, all right, I understand. I’ll let you know when I have the ticket. In the meantime, stay in touch with me yourself. Please.”

  Of course, there was no clinic where she had good doctor friends; but within three days, she had found one.

  Nora didn’t even ask him whether he wanted to return to Moscow or to escape the trap of addiction. They had never entertained the thought of his return until now. Nora had visited him once a year—she couldn’t manage more than that. During her last visit, Marina, with whom she always stayed when she was in New York, had remarked that things seemed to be somewhat amiss with her son—his behavior was erratic, questionable. At that time, Nora had not wanted to hear it. She just shrugged it off, saying, “You just don’t know him. He has always been a bit … different. Off in his own world.” What had she done? She was the one who had sent him there.

  Marina just nodded. She didn’t try to explain to her friend that she was living in another time, in another country. In America, the rules of the game were different; there were other problems, other perils.

  “I’ll come with you. All right?” Tengiz said.

  “Thank you,” Nora said. She was glad.

  But they weren’t able to fly together. Tengiz made his visa arrangements in Tbilisi, and flew to New York three days later. Nora, as usual, stayed with Marina, who was rattled by all of this. She had long ago realized what was going on.

  Marina Chipkovskaya’s children, who had all been born in America and didn’t speak Russian, were not thrilled about her mother’s strange guests from Moscow. Her mother’s friends, even the ones who lived here, émigrés, spoke English poorly, were not terribly successful, and generally irritated them. They didn’t try to hide this. When she was still a child, her daughter had asked Marina, “Why do Russians have such bad teeth and greasy hair?”

  Marina could have answered this question, but she chose to remain silent; there would have been just too much to explain, about how every culture has its own habits: Americans change their T-shirts twice a day and wash every time they come near a shower. But a Russian, from one generation to the next, washed once a week in the bathhouse, on Saturdays, and changed his underwear at the same time. Many of them lived in communal housing, where there was no bathroom at all. And she would also have had to talk about how every shabbily dressed Russian child at their age read as many books in a year as she and her brother were likely to read in a lifetime. And how every decent Russian adult knew as many poems by heart as a professor of philology in this country had ever known.

  Marina said none of this to her children, because she wanted them to be 100 percent American, so that the cloying air of the immigrant would disperse as quickly as possible, in the first generation. Those newly arrived from Russia fell into two categories: the ones who taught their children Russian, so that they could read Pushkin and Tolstoy in the original and wouldn’t lose touch with Russian culture; and the others, like Marina, who did not. What held true for both groups was that emigration brought enormous losses in social status, and very few were able to achieve the positions they had occupied in their homeland.

  Vitya Chebotarev was one of the few who had managed to adjust painlessly to his new country. In Russia he had been an original, a unique talent, with no status whatsoever, and such he remained in America. Moreover, he had been overtaken by luck in the form of Martha, who had taken Varvara Vasilievna’s place in running his household, and at the same time had become his truest friend, and later his wife.

  In New York, it was some time before Nora could find her son. For two days, Tom answered the phone and told her Yurik wasn’t there. On the third day, Yurik called her himself, and went over to Marina’s apartment. Nora had prepared herself for the meeting with her son—she had to keep herself in check, not cast blame or reproach, suppress the horror that welled up in her. Yurik looked terrible. He was bedraggled and seemed very, very weary. They hugged. A stench of old clothes, rotting teeth, and death clung to him.

  “Tired, old man?” Nora said.

  Yurik looked at his mother in surprise. “Yes, that’s exactly it. Tired.”

  “Well, I got here in time, then. We’ll discuss everything later; it will all work out. Let’s go into the city. We’ll grab something to eat and buy our tickets.”

  “I can’t buy a ticket, Mama. I lost my documents. I’m never getting out of here. It’s the end for me.”

  His eyes were so full of despair that Nora felt she was being turned inside out. He understood everything. There was no hiding, and nothing more to hide.

  “I didn’t come here to bury you. I came to pull you out. But you have to help me—I can’t pull it off without your help. Let’s do it this way: you forget about yourself for a while, and help me save my son. All right?” Nora spoke quietly, calmly, in a voice that was almost steely, but inside she was howling and keening, being torn to bits.

  “Mama, I told you, I don’t have any ID. I lost everything—my green card and my driver’s license.”

  So he didn’t remember how they had gone last time to the Russian Embassy to get him a new passport. In order to do this, they had had to
file a report with the police about the theft of the old one, and to have new photographs made. It hadn’t been difficult. In the Russian Embassy, Nora had stood in line, and they submitted the application together. The passport was supposed to be ready within the month. Then Nora flew back home. Six months had passed since then. She realized he didn’t remember, but she asked, just in case, “And your Russian passport?”

  “My what?”

  “We applied for one last time I was here. Did you lose it again?”

  “No, I completely forgot about it.”

  Nora called the embassy. The passport had been ready for a long time, but it was only valid for him to be able to buy tickets to fly back to Moscow. Which was just what they needed.

  They went together to pick up the passport. Tengiz was flying in on the same day, and Yurik promised to go with Nora to meet him at the airport. But suddenly he started hurrying nervously, claiming that he had urgent matters to attend to. He asked her for twenty dollars, and promised to come to Marina’s in the evening.

  Nora met Tengiz and took him to Marina’s. The entire rescue operation was not at all to Marina’s liking, but their long friendship bound her to the obligation of offering Nora and Tengiz refuge. Yurik didn’t call that evening; he called the evening of the following day. When he showed up, he hugged Tengiz, and they ritually clapped each other on the back. And then Yurik immediately hurried off somewhere—on business. He asked his mother for another twenty. Nora gave him the money, realizing he needed it for a “fix.” Everyone understood the situation. Nora said that she would buy the tickets the next day, for the following day.

  “I’d rather wait a week,” Yurik said.

  But Nora objected. “No, Yurik. You wrap it up today. I’m buying tickets for the next flight. This is an urgent matter.”