David Bezmozgis - The Free World

Among the papers, at the bottom of a box, he came upon the stack of letters that his uncle had sent from the front. They were yellowed, brittle with age, and carried the scent of loss and the past. For that reason they seemed hallowed, but also because Alec knew that these were his father’s dearest possessions. Alec leafed through them carefully, unfolded them, and regretted that he would never understand what they said. The only thing he could decipher were the dates, which his uncle had written in Roman numerals at the top of each letter. His father had filed them chronologically, beginning with the first correspondence from the summer of 1941. Alec counted more than sixty letters in total, ending in late December of 1942. This final letter was composed in Russian and in another hand.

29 December 1942

Dear Comrade Krasnansky,

I am still entirely under the influence of the great tragedy which today befell you and your loved ones. I am here undertaking the sad task to tell you that your brother Reuven was killed by a German bomb near the zemlyanka where we live. Just by chance he went out and at that very instant a Messerschmitt flew past. It dropped two bombs and one bomb exploded near your brother. In the time we tried to help him and carry him away from there, he died. We buried him in the same place where the bomb hit.

It is a terrible task to tell you this, but I see it as my duty to him and to you. I know what it is like when one sits and waits for a letter from the front. Together with this letter I am also sending 336 rubles and some photographs we found in your brother’s pocket. You will be surprised that I am writing to you since we do not know each other well. My name is Chaim Obadya and I was a student in Riga at the 2nd Grunt School.

This is all I can tell you about this sad end. Take hope, my friend. You, too, are a soldier and understand that this is war and many of our friends, brothers, and loved ones have already fallen. We don’t know what any moment will bring us. It is possible that many more will meet the same fate as your beloved brother. But we will go forward and find our compensation in the struggle against dark reactionary fascism.

I would like to thank my agent, Ira Silverberg, and my editors at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Lorin Stein and Eric Chinski.

Excerpts from the novel appeared in The New Yorker and The Walrus, and I am grateful to Deborah Treisman and Jared Bland, respectively, for their editorial contributions.

Lucia Piccinni, John Montesano, and Giorgio Bandiera helped with the Italian translation, Esther Frank with Yiddish, and Detlef Karthaus with Esperanto.

Rosalba Galata and Susan Davis provided information about HIAS and JDC, and Enid Wurtman offered her expertise on the Soviet emigration process. Any errors of fact remaining in the novel are mine.

Nell Freudenberger, Wyatt Mason, and Anna Shternshis read early drafts of the manuscript, and I am indebted to them for their insights.

I am grateful to the many people who shared their recollections of the period, particularly Sara Bezmozgis, Alexander and Musia Mozeson, Lev Milner, Michael Vilinsky, Seva and Irina Yelenbaugen, Hirsh and Stella Vivat, Lev and Elena Aleinikov, and David and Emma Tsimerman.

I offer my enduring gratitude to Simon Friedman (1935–2003) and to Zebulon Sharf (1915–2008), whose story is intimately connected with that of his brother, Mordecai Sharf (1913–1942).

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council provided financial assistance, and the MacDowell Colony offered its hospitality: this book would have been much harder to complete without their help.

DAVID BEZMOZGISa writer and filmmaker, was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1973. His first book, Natasha and Other Stories, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Canada and Caribbean Region) and the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction; it was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. Bezmozgis’ first feature film, Victoria Day, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2010, he was named one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40.” Bezmozgis lives in Toronto.

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David Bezmozgis was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1973. His first book, Natasha and Other Stories, won a regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was a 2004 New York Times Notable Book. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. In 2010, he was named one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40.” For more information, visit his website at www.bezmozgis.com.