Мария Степанова - In Memory of Memory

All war films look the same if you take away their captions: a dead man lies on the ground and it could be Donetsk, Phnom Penh, or Aleppo. We are simply presented with the face of misfortune, which is always the same, a hole that can open up in any place. Children’s photos are also all the same (the smile, the teddy bear, the little dress), as are fashion shots (monochrome backdrop, taken looking up from below, arms outstretched), or old photographs (mustache, buttons, eyes; puffed sleeves, hat, and lips). All that remains of The Iliad is a catalog of ships.

When I watch the homemade cinefilm of the Ascher family, skiing in 1934, the dark ski tracks in the snow and the lit-up window, the film is just a conduit for the preexisting knowledge of what happened back then to people who looked like them. Dust to dust, ashen snow to ashen snow, the collective fate of the unlucky ones: the trajectory is so very clear that any diversion from it shocks, like a divine apparition. Half an hour’s internet research tells me that both parents and children, with their skis and boats, belonged to the small number of those who survived. They left in 1939, settled in Palestine, then moved to America. They managed to escape the common fate. It’s a shame that the people in the film don’t yet know that their film has a happy end. None of the rents in the fabric suggest it.

My grandmother was barely eighteen. My grandfather Leonid (Lyonya) was older than her by four years. They met at a party of architecture students at a dacha, but they only married after a few years: Lyolya’s mother, Sarra Ginzburg, insisted that she finished her degree in medicine first, and wouldn’t allow Lyolya to drop her studies.

1.

November 25, 1934. On a lined sheet of exercise paper.

Moscow, 27 Krasin Street, apartment 33.

To Leonid Gurevich

A tear, my darling, a single tear, has turned all my thinking on its head. A tiny, tiny tear rolled out of your eye and conquered everything. It defeated all my stupid doubts, my fear, shame, everything that stood in the way of your happiness.

That little point of shining light seemed to enchant me, it filled me with a real and bright happiness.

You know, my love, I never imagined that the suffering and grief of another could give me so much happiness. Now I understand your desire to see my tears, and I forgive you for all the suffering you forced me to endure.

I’ve never felt such blessedness. To see a person who is endlessly dear to you suffering terribly, simply to avoid causing you suffering, to feel how dear and necessary you are to that person — my darling, that is happiness!

It’s both a painful and blessed feeling. A special joy, one I don’t fully understand.

Really, I can’t even quite explain to myself how I felt at the moment when that magic jewel of a tear — a single tear for all your months of suffering — forced me to finally overturn my inner self. I’ve never had to watch people suffer, I’ve always felt as if it’s only me who suffers so deeply, but how can what I feel be compared to the depths of your suffering? It can’t! Only now I’ve realized what it means to feel, only now I’ve realized where what is called “desire” resides. I didn’t see you for a day and I was heartbroken, I didn’t know where to put myself, but I didn’t ring you or tell you how my heart was feeling. I was held back by my doubts, my fear, I thought it would divide us, I thought that I shouldn’t be in the grip of my desires to such an extent, I thought… I couldn’t stop thinking… But I’m used to being reserved, not giving in to impetuosity, and my reserve saved me.

Still, you, my darling, you are impetuous in your passion, and today I realized what it has cost you to keep your desire under control. And my own sufferings seemed so little in comparison, and I even had the brief fleeting thought that perhaps I’m not worthy of you.

I don’t want you to think that my feelings are shallower than yours, or that I’m more superficial. That isn’t the case. Please don’t misunderstand me. But you seem so much finer in your feelings, so much finer… No, that can’t be right! I can’t have you think that you love me more than I love you! That would be a lie!

But you’re spoiled, you’ve never had to deal with difficulties, or withstand your desires. And I’ve always had to do it. You’re egotistical, you think only of yourself, and most of all you have never had to choose between two things, both equally desired, even if they are loved very differently, and share between them what you are desperate to give up to only one.

Think about it, my little boy, think how hard it is to love like that, and maybe my suffering will give you even more spirit for the fight, for the wait.

I didn’t want to tell you all this, I didn’t want to cause you pain, not on my account. I’ll admit it…

But today was enough to convince me.

I have always put my own needs second. Recently I decided to live a little, for myself, without taking anyone else into account. But I have realized that this is a mistake, a cruel mistake, or perhaps an insubstantial dream, because living just for myself and making my beloved suffer — well I just can’t do it! I realized today that I no longer exist as an individual, I have merged with you, I am dissolving into you, and I had already decided, my darling, to be all yours, but when I came home I met mother, all agitated and upset, and felt a huge pain, a burning pain in my heart. I had decided, but mother’s troubled, suffering expression said, “You must wait.”

How could I forget her, even for a moment?

Mother has seen so little happiness, she’s known such hard times, she has endured so very much on my account and she is still suffering and I don’t think I can hurt her even more. I’m her only family. I’ve got you. Your mother still has a husband, but mine has no one. For me she gave up her chance of happiness as a young woman and sacrificed her whole life and because of me she didn’t remarry and brought me up all by herself. Quite alone.

I know what it cost her. I can feel just what a sacrifice it was, I just know, although mother has never ever spoken of it, not even a hint or a faint gesture. Oh, she’s a rock! All her suffering and pain will be buried with her, not a single soul will guess how she suffered. To suffer so and to hide it — only she could do that.

My darling, mother is so frightened of losing me, and has been since I grew up, not even losing me, just letting me go into the world naive and unprepared, she considers me a child, and the idea that I could get married before becoming an educated, independent woman causes her so much pain. She doesn’t speak of it, occasionally she hints at it in jest, but I know, I know that if that happened it would be the last straw for her.

So you see, I’m in such pain too, but I can’t do what I read in your eyes today. How complicated it all is! Harder than you could ever know!

A long time ago, when mother destroyed her own life for me, when she turned down her beloved at my request, I made a promise on father’s grave: I promised that I would make her no less of a sacrifice in my turn.

That time has come. I’m telling you to wait, my darling, just as mother once said to her own beloved, “Let’s wait until Lyolya is quite grown up.”

Please don’t tell me that I don’t understand how difficult it all is. I understand it only too well…

I sent you that letter because otherwise I would have had to send today’s letter. I didn’t realize how deep your suffering was.