The room was loud and smoky, filled with tables of hors d-oeuvres and carved melon arrangements, suits and high heels, chatter and laughter. Some of the finest representatives of the New York City literary crowd were standing and giggling in clumps, cocktail glasses in hand. The occasion was the release of Random House's newest "foreign" book, Grey is the Color of Hope, by Irina Ratushinskaya. A very cultured sort of shindig, to be sure; not like those Danielle Steele bashes.
Among the bright and the black of the trendy New York crowd, a few faces stood out in their relative modesty. While not exactly poorly dressed, their clothing was oddly out of fashion. They were obviously foreign, even without their Russian accents. Looking closer, the group seemed rather elderly, and they all had the same tired, hollow look in their eyes. They were not relaxing like the rest of the crowd. The woman the the man with the beard examined the party-goers with uneasy fascination, while the other Russian, the smaller of the two men, just stared at a spot on his shoes.
The guest of honor, Irina Borisovna, recognized them intuitively (it was the eyes) and hurried over to them. "Greetings! Evgenia Semyonovna, Aleksandr Isayevich, Varlam Tikhonovich -- I am so glad, so flattered, so honored that you are here. Indeed, it's a miracle that you could all come. When I put your names down on the guest list, I never dreamed you'd actually be able to make it."
Aleksandr Isayevich kissed her on the cheek and presented her with a large bunch of carnations and tulips. "My dear Irina Borisovna, you look spectacular. And congratulations on your book; it's good to know some are still carrying on the proud tradition of political prisoners."
"We are honored to be here," smiled Evgenia Semyonovna. "Varlam Tikhonovich and I have never seen New York, you know. It's rather operwhelming -- all these people, the food, the buildings, the stores."
"It's quite a change, isn't it," Irina Borisovna agreed, leading them to a table in the corner. "Why don't you all sit down here, and we'll get the waiter to bring you something to eat and drink. Meanwhile," she reached into a bag for three copies of Grey is the Color of Hope, "I'd like to give you all your own copy. Fresh off the presses! I hope you like it, of course, but please tell me what you really think -- your copies would mean so much to me."
Varlam Tikhonovich accepted the brand new hardback gingerly -- there was something a bit too chiny and colorful about the book jacket, something too cheery about the English title. He felt at once slightly uncomfortable to be in such political company, and disturned at this easygoing and extravagant party for memoirs about the Kolyma labor camps, his camps. Perhaps this was not quite the same Lolyma. "I had hoped that you might read some of your newest poems for us today, Irina Borisovna."
"Well, the publishers, you see -- they're the ones who planned this party -- they thought it would be best to focus on just the book for today. Apparently Americans aren't quite to keen on poetry readings at their cocktail parties."
An awkward silence was interrupted by an American, eager to make their acquaintance, introducing himself as a television producer for NBC> His size and his clothes and his shiny white teeth impressed the Russians. He applied himself to Evgenia Semyonovna, smiled wide, and said, "You know, Miss Ginzburg, I've read your memoirs recently, and this idea just kept popping up in my head '' 'Into the Whirlwind, the miniseries.' We have you, the beautiful heroine with the sexy Russian accent. You're unjustly thrown into hard labor camps, become very thin and wear scanty rags, and then you meet the love of your life -- the tall and handsome German doctor, Anton Walter. Of course, we'd have to make some changes: we might want to get rid of that bit where you're a Communist -- audiences would get confused."
"But that isn't..."
"And would you mind if we gave you a different first name? Evgenia, well! I'm sure it's a fine name, but it doesn't really have a romantic ring, and romance is what we're going for here.... I don't suppose your middle name is Natasha?"
""I... I... No, my patronymic is certainly not 'Natasha.' And I didn't really write a love story; I had second thoughts about including Walter in my book at all; I meant to write the memoirs of 'our shared suffering and common shame.'" (1)
The producer was confused. "You went through seventeen years of hunger and cold. You might as well make it into as good a story as you can get. We're talking about your own miniseries here -- royalties, adaptation bonus -- we could probably find an assistant executive producership for you. What are you looking for in this deal?"
"Oh. Ah, yes, I see. That's really very nice. Now, I suppose we could turn something like that into some sort of theme song..." Looking at Evgenia Semyonovna, he got the feeling he wasn't getting through. "Maybe some other project..." The producer noticed an acquaintance across the room and hastily took his leave.
"Well," said Aleksandr Isayevich, "I must say I'm proud of you, Ira. Hunger strikes -- brilliant technique. You really learned my lesson -- protest at every opportunity. I'm only sorry there aren't more of you doing the same."
"Yes, and I'm so proud of you girls with your vegetable garden. Imagine sticking up for each other like that. And refusing to wear nametags -- I would never have dared., And I had so many opportunities to protest the way you did; I remember thinking, while I was working in the hospital, what would happened if I crossed out the words 'History of Illness' on the death certificate and wrote 'History of Murder' instead. 'I, of course, did not have enough spirit for that.' (3) But camps were different back in our day...."
"I'm not sure if any of you really experienced the camps." Varlam Tikhonovich's defiant voice surprised everyone. "This new book is so full of bonding in times of troubles, but 'if tragedy and need brought people together and gave birth to their friendship, then the need was not extreme and the tragedy not great.' (4) Hard labor camps, extreme cold and hunger, can only break the spirit and degrade the individual."
"That wasn't my experience at all. Perhaps for some of the weaker ones, but I think prison was one of the best things that ever happened to me," replied Irina Borisovna, rather indignant.
"Perhaps your camp experience was not real suffering. If you can really enjoy this silly party, these pretty people and fancy cocktails, then maybe you have not known what true suffering is." Varlam Tikhonovich felt that he was speaking from across a canyon, and that the others heard him only distantly.
"Surely, you yourself did not sink to the depths of depravity, even if you were forced to observe others in such a state." Evgania Semyonovna looked concerned. "You must have preserved some minimum of morality."
"Well, I suppose I wouldn't have betrayed other zeks. And I couldn't have become a brigadier and forced others to work, but still..."
Aleksandr Isayevich forgot he was at a party of Americans and small talk, and began speaking louder, more agitated with every sentence: "But that's exactly the point! 'Why is it that out of a clear sky it appears that you would refuse to become either a stoolie or a brigadier -- if it is the case that no one in camp can avoid or sidestep that slippery slope of corruption?' 'Does it mean that you did nonetheless grasp at some branch sticking out? Does it mean that you found a footing on some stone -- and did not slide down any further? And maybe, despite everything, anger is not really the most long-lived feeling there is? Do you not refute your own concept with your character and verses?'" (5) He stopped for breath and then fell silent. The rest of the cocktail party was staring at the dissidents, listening with curiosity.
Irina Borisovna concurred in a more moderate tone. "Well, it is certainly true that you will have to strain all your inner resources to remember that there is [...] another reality,' but if you do that, it is possible to preserve your decency, your identity, your soul." (6)
That assumes that you have innder resources to draw on. Without some sort of inner spiritual core -- I saw so many people, and not only professional criminals, who were capable of simply unspeakable acts...." Evgenia Semyonovna shivered.
"Well, that is certainly trus," Aleksandr Isayevich admitted. "'Perhaps, Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov, as a general rule friendship between people does arise in need and misfortune, even in extreme misfortune too -- but not between such withered and nasty people as we are, given our decades of upbringing?'" (7)
"How can ideological weakness be blamed for all our suffering?"
No one seemed happy. Each was ready to talk to someone else, try the vienna sausages, stop hanging out with this rather opinionated and cantankerous bunch. What were they doing here at this party, anyway? True, they had all been political prisoners in Soviet workcamps. But personality-wise...? They certainly didn't seem to be getting along all that well.
As the four stewed in a temporary silence, a party guest who had been lurking quietly nearby, listening to these Russian dissidents argue, got up the courage to ask them all a question. "S-s-so what are all your reasons for writing what you wrote. I mean, if you all have such different opinions about why you wrote what you wrote, then what was the reason why> I mean, well you know, fame, fortune, artistic inspiration? To pay the bills? Why?"
The dissidents all looked at each other and replied, thoughtfully and only accidentally in unison, "We had to."
"I could have shouted out on the Metro on the way to Lubyanka -- but somehow, I had a vision that I would shout my story to 200 million, not just the 200 on the escalators." (8)
"I wrote everything that happened down in tiny letters, using any means necessary to get them out of the camp. I knew it would all be used later, to tell this story."
"I daily kept every name, fact and place alongside poetry in my memory, 'because just remembering it all to record it later had been the main object of my life throughout those eighteen years.'" (9)
"I tried not to, because I knew it would cause trouble -- I tried denouncing what I had written to the entire Soviet Union, even, but I still couldn't stop writing about it."
Everyone felt a little bit better after that. Varlam Tikhonovich, no longer quite so defensive, asked Irina Borisovna, "We, Evgenia and Aleksandr and I, 'had to' become dissident writers in the most literal sense. No one gave me any option to denounce my 'counter-revolutionary Trotskyite activities' while I was serving my sentence. I didn't have the luxury of deciding to hunger strike -- I was already starving. I think I may be jealous that you had the chance to be uncompromising -- it was a chance, you know, not an absolute right."
Evgenia smiled, and said softly, "But you know, Ira, that you are one of our people, our direct descendent, our daughter. We can't really be bitter because your opportunities are greater than ours."
"You've got to keep up the fight for us, you know. I won't be good for much besides talk shows and lectures, at this age," admitted Aleksandr Isayevich.
It was time for Irina Borisovna to give the sort of speech one makes at new book parties thanking ones editors, translator, publishers, and so forth. She thanked them all very prettily, and then thanked her three special guests, in a suitably sentimental speech: "Thank you for giving me the vocabulary, the inspiration, the consciousness to be a dissident in a Soviet prison camp. I couldn't have done it without you."
(1) Within the Whirlwind, p. 122. (BACK)
(2) Aleksandr Blok, cited in Ginzburg, p. 396. (BACK)
(3) Ginzburg, p. 129. (BACK)
(4) Shalamov, p. 43. (BACK)
(5) Solzhenitsyn, volume 2, p. 623. (BACK)
(6) Ratushinskaya, p. 260. (BACK)
(7) Solzhenitsyn, volume 2, p. 627. (BACK)
(8) Solzhenitsyn, volume 1, p. 18. (BACK)
(9) Ginzburg, p. 417. (BACK)
Anna Rich, "Dissidence: A Children's Story"