But, for the time being, I’m busy with trivial predeparture matters. I bought a suitcase, had my shoes repaired, had trousers made, and finished my dental work. I need to reread my archive and bring it up to date. The time of accumulating knowledge is past; it is time to bring things to fruition.
OCTOBER 2, 1936
Dear friend, I’ve just been listening to a concert performed by Oborin that was broadcast on the radio from Novosibirsk. The headphones are on a long cord, so I can move around the room wearing them, walking from one corner to another. Whenever they broadcast a long concert, I listen and sew at the same time. The whole concert I spent repairing my trousers. My memory carried me back to the past, to those distant years when I first heard these pieces. There is so much sadness in the remote depths of my past. But I don’t wish to dwell on that now, but on something else—on how music has defined our relationship. Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff introduced us to each other. Schumann brought us closer together, and other composers seduced us. It’s rare that I hear a concert that doesn’t bring back such warm memories. Yesterday, I listened to Schubert’s “Der Doppelgänger,” today Oborin played Schubert/Liszt’s “Barcarolle,” Liszt’s “The Hunt” étude, and Schumann’s Carnaval. I listen to broadcasts from Moscow of guest appearances of the Ukraine Opera, that same Kiev opera theater from which I received my musical education in the twelfth row of the balcony for thirty kopecks a ticket.
I recall with gratitude the people who helped awaken my musical tastes, and try to trace that chain of events that alienated me from music. How sad it all is.
It’s so strange that in Moscow I became completely estranged from it, whereas in Biysk I grew close to it again. I don’t think I will ever again abandon it seriously, and for a long time.
It’s hard for me to imagine that we will enter the Main Hall of the Conservatory again … On the very first evening, I’ll buy tickets at the door.
NOVEMBER 16, 1936
… to clarify a few important details. Please obtain the following papers before the day of my arrival:
(1) certificate of your employment
(2) certificate of Genrikh’s employment
(3) certificate from the Housing Committee stating that I lived there from 1923 to 1931
When I arrive, I will submit a request to the NKVD for permission to live in Moscow and to be registered there. I might postpone submitting it until the end of November, when the new Constitution is adopted, but I’m not sure. I was informed that a general amnesty was being planned for that day. Although according to my documents I was released earlier, these circumstances may have bearing on my situation, too.
Send me a postcard when you receive this letter, and let me know your phone number, and the number at Ostozhenka Street. Most likely, the old number, 1-94-13, has been changed to a direct one; and I’ve forgotten Eva’s.
The NKVD told me that they will not delay me even one extra day. It will take a few days for the police to give me a passport. I anticipate that I will be home by the end of the year. It is possible, however, that administrative complications will keep me here for another few weeks. Judging by others’ experience, no one has ever finished the term on the stipulated date.
Well, that’s about all. I sense how hard our correspondence has become for you to maintain, and not only because there isn’t enough time. In general, our communications have grown weaker—six years is a long time. And it has become difficult for me to write you as well. Sometimes I sit over a letter for a long time, and nothing comes of it.
It’s a good thing that the bad recedes into the past.
I kiss you.
—J.
41
Letters from the Willow Chest
War
(1942–1943)
SVERDLOVSK–MOSCOW GENRIKH TO MARUSYA
Checked by the Military Censor
FEBRUARY 3, 1942
My dearest mother! I haven’t heard anything from you for a long time—why? If you only knew how necessary your letters are to me, you would write more often. There’s not a single person here I can share my thoughts and worries with, not a single person from whom I could expect to hear a kind word. And only now have I come to understand how much I need that. Mother, dear, best in the world, I curse the hour when I had to leave Moscow. I so want to be with you, and I could put up with the hardest circumstances if only we could endure them together. My comrades? They’re all good people, to a greater or lesser degree, but living together, seeing the same faces day in and day out, hearing the same things over and over … Well, you understand what I mean.
I’m not eating very well. This is what they feed us: I try to get up as late as I can. After that I eat three and a half ounces of bread and drink boiled water. At one in the afternoon, I go to the dining hall, where I have the midday meal and seven ounces of bread. At seven or eight in the evening, I get seven ounces of bread. Before, we used to get commercial bread, but now it has become hard to find, and you have to stand in line for it just to get eighteen ounces. But what is eighteen ounces for me? Still, I try to keep my spirits up. I received news from Tomsk. Students from my Institute who were evacuated to Tomsk are going to Moscow soon. How we envy them!
Mama, why don’t you tell me anything about yourself? This silence can be interpreted in various ways.
It’s better to write the truth than to keep silent. I understand very well that things are hard for you. If you wish, make inquiries at my Institute about the possibility of my return—but that’s a pipe dream that is not likely to come true. The most difficult thing about my situation is prospects for the future. I’m awaiting a job assignment, which will happen when I graduate from the Institute (mid-July). Either I’ll remain in Sverdlovsk and undertake something important, or I’ll have to go out to the boondocks (Lysva, Chusovaya, Beloretsk). Moreover, there’s no guarantee of being able to work there long. And dreaming about Moscow …
If possible, send me my skating boots, canvas shoes, underwear, and my old suit coat, plus a few shirts. And write me letters, and more often, please, my dear mother! I go to the post office nearly every day and try to find a trace of you—but you’re not there. The post office is rather far away, and it closes early. I don’t always make it in time.
It’s better to write directly to my address than to the post office:
Genrikh Ossetsky
Student Dormitory 1, room 417
Sverdlovsk, 9 Vtuzgorodok, Ural Industrial Institute
* * *
I send you many, many kisses!
Genrikh
P.S. Did you find Jack Rubin?
Checked by the Military Censor
FEBRUARY 8, 1942
Dear Mother,
I have been thinking over what I have lived through during the past week. I feel that during those days I experienced a sharp turnaround. The first three days of February were very difficult, and my mood was dark. The change in diet was just an impetus. I thought about many things during this time, and suddenly there was a breakthrough. It became clear that I had lived my life without achieving anything. Recently, I turned in a design project for machine tooling, and got the highest mark for it; but this didn’t make me happy. I felt indifferent to it. I am now carrying out a special commission for which I’ll be paid and which will count as a design project for the cutting-instrument course. Now the chance to earn a bit of extra money has turned up, but I can’t take advantage of it, because I am under constant pressure with the various design projects I have to submit. There are a lot of them!
My dear mother! It hurts me so much that you don’t tell me anything about yourself, but toss off these postcards that reveal nothing. You don’t answer any of my questions, and it ends up being not a correspondence but an exchange of greetings—nothing more. In all this time, I have received only one letter, dated January 2! I can imagine how tired you are when you come home after work and collapse on the divan. You haven’t told me how you like your new job. Have you really become a person
who just punches in and out at work? I can’t imagine it!
I’ve become used to my new diet here.
Now that my health has recovered a bit, I can inform you: I had Pityriasis rosea, a very uncomfortable rashlike condition. Now I’m completely cured.
In the Ural Worker newspaper, there are often essays by Lyudm. Alex. They are completely without redeeming qualities. And you magnanimously opined that she still had time to learn. It’s too late for her to learn.
That is not at all what I wanted to write you, though. I’m unable to determine my own state of affairs. Perhaps with time everything will become clear. I’m feeling easier in my soul these days, but my situation is uncertain as I have begun to be aware of my own feelings, I have begun to find myself. I don’t know whether you will understand me. My dear mother, I have one dream for which I am willing to sacrifice everything—that is being together with you. Often, when I’m doing something, or making some decision, I ask myself, “What would Mama say?” Although I’ll soon be twenty-six, I sometimes feel like a little son, even helpless, and it’s very pleasant.
Sending you many, many kisses, your Genrikh. Excuse the jumble of thoughts in this letter; but what else could I do? That’s what I’m like now.
Checked by the Military Censor
FEBRUARY 10, 1942
My dear Mother!
Hooray! Today I received your registered letter from February 1 and was very, very glad. It’s the second letter (registered) that I’ve received from you. Soon it will be four months since I left Moscow, but it seems like yesterday. Time flies, and it’s impossible to make up for every hour lost. That’s something I realized only recently. I’m working here at full tilt, and work is one of my few sources of comfort.
Your letter disturbed me. I can so clearly imagine your life, and I wanted so much to be there with you, to lighten your burden at least a little bit. I can see that it is not easy and that it is grounded in your clearly defined character and your enthusiasm. Mama, I want to be there with you! It’s so wonderful how you describe going to the theater and remember things that happened ten, twenty, thirty years ago. But for me, memories hold no interest whatsoever. Everything is in the future. I want to achieve something big and useful, and, to be honest, something that will bring fame and respect, and all that sort of thing. For the country, and for you. It won’t be easy, with my family legacy, but I’ll make it, you’ll see!
Write me and tell me whether you received my birthday telegram on January 23, and the money transfer of a hundred rubles that I sent you on the 20th. Right now I’m snowed under with work from my classes, and I haven’t managed to earn any more money—and, added to that, I have many expenses (paying for the studies, war tax, and repairing my felt winter boots). But I have provided for myself in advance for the next one and a half months. I will help you if I can. My dream is to be able to help you regularly. In a month, I’ll graduate from the theoretical courses of the Institute. Then only the applied part of the course and my thesis will remain to be completed. I’m almost an engineer.
I recently saw Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man at the Red Army Theater. I went there because of the buffet (here they call even the local opera and ballet theater “The Theater of Opera and Buffet”). My hunting expedition was successful. I bought eighteen sandwiches and five buns (the first time since leaving Moscow that I’ve had white bread). I wasn’t accepted into the Military Academy program, for reasons that had nothing to do with me. But I still stand a chance, since there will be a new round of admissions in May. I’m afraid that the academy is not for me. All my life, aviation, the dream of my childhood and youth, has eluded me. The admissions committee didn’t accept Kolya F., either. They refused Egor Gavrilin, and he had to get into the academy, since his studies at the Institute are in an abysmal state. He took only two exams, and he hasn’t even begun his project. The fellow got lazy. But they agreed at least to consider him in the next round of admissions.
It is now one in the morning. I just returned from the post office. All the other fellows have gone to bed, and they certainly foul up the air while they’re sleeping—that’s a result of the diet. I changed my schedule a bit. Now I study until three or four in the morning, get up at eleven or twelve, and eat my midday meal immediately. In that way, I allay my hunger and save time simultaneously. Mother, tell me more about what your day is like. What’s it like at home in the apartment: Is it cold? Is there gas for cooking?
Where is A. Kostromin? What do you hear from Uncle Mikhail? Does he write at all? Whom do you meet with, who are your friends? Write me about what my beloved Moscow looks like. And tell me how things stand with your food supply—I’m very worried about it.
The stipend will be disbursed pending the results of sixteen exams. I passed six of them already, and got four A’s and two B’s. I still need to get good marks on at least three more. It will be hard. I don’t attend lectures, but work only with my books. With few exceptions, the lecturers aren’t well qualified. I’m putting all my efforts into passing the exams early. Write me if you’ve heard any news about Osip Shapir and Sergey Prasolov. Sasha Volkov and Boris Kokin were killed near Leningrad. I was very upset by the news. And one of our students, Zhenya Pochando, received the decoration of Hero of the Soviet Union. Good for him! I bitterly regret that I’m not at the front.
Mother, write me more often. I desperately need your letters.
Send my greetings and a big kiss to Uncle Mikhail and the family. Thank you for the envelopes, by the way.
If you have the chance, send me socks, a darning needle and thread, some underwear, my skating boots and canvas shoes, a few shirts, a suitcase if at all possible, because I have nothing but a gunnysack. And please send me a suit as well. But the most important things are a slide rule, a pencil box, and pencils (drafting pencils—they’re in the desk drawer).
I send you many kisses (8,888 of them), Genrikh
P.S. I didn’t want to write you about it, but I can’t help myself. At the end of December, just by chance, I met my former classmate Amalia Kotenko in town. Do you remember her? You must—she got married to our classmate Tisha Golovanov as soon as she finished the tenth grade. You certainly remember him. He came to our house in the seventh grade and we played chess. He died in the first month of the war. I feel terribly sorry for her. We’ve started to meet each other occasionally. She was such a bright, happy girl, and now her light seems to have gone out. Cursed war. I’m trying to cheer her up a bit; she is “thawing” out bit by bit.
SVERDLOVSK–MOSCOW EGOR GAVRILIN TO MARUSYA
FEBRUARY 15, 1942
Hello, Mrs. Ossetsky!
Genrikh let me read your last letter, and it touched me so deeply I wanted to write you a few warm and friendly lines, not by way of comfort—you are not one of those people who need that—and there’s probably nothing to comfort you for, but simply out of an excess of feeling, as they say. When I read your casual remarks about Moscow, about daily life there, about the working conditions of ordinary people, I get a sense of the reality of war and the front line. Here you don’t feel it at all. People know about it, and talk about it, but nothing more. At first, this seemed strange to me, but, gradually, even we who smelled the gunpowder, on earth and in the sky, out of the corner of our noses, so to speak, got used to it; so it’s not surprising that the people in Sverdlovsk have that reaction.
For this reason, it’s not surprising that the news of missing relatives or abandoned apartments, and many other things that are so natural for us in Moscow, and inevitable in wartime (especially this war), inspire indignation here. And you are absolutely right when you say that we live in a kind of paradise here—only we don’t appreciate it, and, I’m certain, if you were in our place you wouldn’t appreciate it, either. And that’s why you, more than anyone else, can understand why Genrikh is so eager to get to Moscow. We are sitting on pins and needles here, and we are very nervous, and we can’t feel at home. That very Sverdlovskian complacency irritates us, a
s does the fact that, on the very day when Lozovaya was recaptured by our troops, some students—yes, students!—got into a fight in the buffet over a salami sandwich. What does the man in the street here think about on such a day? How to snatch another person’s portion, whoever he might be. But the people who have experienced the war firsthand (and there are many such people here), refugees from Ukraine, Belorussia, Leningrad, Moscow, and the western regions, turn on the morning news as soon as they get up, and after that stand over the Soviet map arguing for the next few hours.
You describe a passage from Peer Gynt—the death of Åse. You are right, Mrs. Ossetsky, that it is perhaps the most powerful part of Ibsen’s play, and Grieg’s music.
Much has been said about a mother’s love, about its power and endurance, by all the great masters of the word—Romain Rolland, Gorky, Chekhov, Maupassant, Nekrasov, Heine, and many others. But this short scene of a mother’s quiet death in the arms of her estranged son, who has come to shut her eyes and to comfort her in her hour of death, surpasses almost everything in its laconicism, its emotional restraint, its power.
Truly, when the war ends, our Soviet Union will become stronger and more cohesive, all the wounds will heal, everything that has been destroyed will be reborn, life will gush forth like a spring, women and girls will find themselves new husbands and lovers—but who will heal the wounds of thousands of mothers? Who will answer for their suffering and irreparable grief? Yes, who besides the mothers themselves can understand their suffering? For it’s impossible to tell it. You are right a hundred times over. Every letter I get from my mother, in which she tries not to show her terrible anguish because she doesn’t want me to worry, enters the tiniest particles of my life and awakens such a storm of indignation and sorrow that I can’t tell where the indignation ends and the sorrow begins. But, reading your letter, I am convinced that all mothers feel the same, or at least very similar, anguish about their sons. The only thing that remains is to hope that all the sons feel the same love and gratitude toward their mothers that Genrikh and I feel.
Jacob's Ladder Page 52
