All my love, my dear sister. Remember us in your prayers.
Beata
15. December 1987, Boston
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ANUKYAN’S DIARY
For the first time I told Esther yesterday what has been worrying me so much lately, and felt a great sense of relief. I find she is the only person I can talk to about it, especially because there is really nothing to say, nothing specific. While I was choosing my words, trying to talk to her about these things which matter to me so much, I was also getting my thoughts together. Just having her there, silent, was very helpful. I noticed a long time ago that when you are with a clever, positive person, they seem to transmit those qualities to you, too. It works in reverse when I’m talking to Rita. I become aggressive and rather stupid and hate myself. This last time, though, talking to Esther, I finally managed to express my dreadful suspicions.
It really is a very long story. When I met Grisha, Alex was six and I was married to Ray, although our marriage was barely smouldering. Ray’s career was just taking off. He started giving a lot of guest performances and I already knew various women had appeared in his life. He started getting paid a lot, but it was fly-by-night musician’s earnings, no sooner received than spent. I could not give up work, and sat in my laboratory analysing soil and going crazy. And then there was Grisha! What a boy! He fell passionately in love with me. We met in the street, by chance. He saw me and followed me, and it was just what I needed!
At this point Esther raised her eyebrows slightly. She is not, of course, the kind of woman who makes the acquaintance of men in the street, but I told her everything exactly the way it happened. Grisha and I began seeing each other. He was ten years younger than me. Ray is older and always did have problems with sex. I have a suspicion that all the aggression and dynamism and temperament his admirers so love him for is used up in his music and not much is left over for himself. None of that matters now. The point is that Grisha appeared and I was bowled over. Relations with Ray even improved, because now I didn’t give a damn about him.
My clever Esther looked at me in surprise, put her little hand on my arm, and said, “Ewa, what you are talking about I know only from literature. I have to confess, at the risk of losing your respect, that I am hardly an expert. All my life I had only one man, my husband, and I know very little about lovers. My relations with my husband were so full that I never wanted anything more. Go on, but do not rely on my being able to give you any sensible advice in these matters.”
At this I realized I was taking too long to get to the point about what was really disturbing me. “Yes, yes, I have not come to ask for advice about my relations with Grisha. It is something quite different, and much more painful.”
Alex was six when Ray and I divorced by mutual consent. He was not then as rich and famous as he is now, but the court was favorable to me and Alex and I were well provided for. Alex adored his father, and when Grisha and I married, he found it difficult to accept this new man. He kept pointing at objects, a chair, a plate, a cushion, and demanding that Grisha shouldn’t touch anything because it belonged to his Daddy.
A psychologist advised a change of surroundings so we moved to a new apartment. Alex still would not accept Grisha and didn’t want to go to bed in the evening without Daddy, even though Ray had never tucked him up in bed. In short, for two years Alex was very put out and made life difficult for Grisha and me. Then I was taken into hospital for almost a month, and during that time everything came right. I was no longer there and Alex evidently came to feel that he had Grisha, not only me, to protect him. By now Ray had moved to California and saw very little of his son. Alex was hurt and one time refused to meet his father when he did come to Boston. Ray forgot his birthday and Alex was very upset.
For the last three or four years, relations between Alex and Grisha have been excellent. Alex adores Grisha and Grisha spends a lot of time with him. They have many shared interests. What more could I say to Esther? They get on so well without me that I’m jealous.
She did not understand what I was getting at, and I myself was expressing this nightmare suspicion for the first time. At the moment I said it out loud it was as if something broke inside me. I felt sure it was true. Of course, I don’t know how intimate they are, what exactly is going on between them, but it is suddenly quite obvious to me that they are in love with each other.
Alex is fifteen. He gets on splendidly with his classmates, but has no interest whatsoever in girls. I do not know what to do. I am afraid of knowing for sure what at present is just a vague suspicion. I am at my wits’ end trying to foresee various outcomes. What if my suspicions are suddenly confirmed? What should I do? Kill Grisha with my own hands? Have him thrown in prison? Separate from him immediately?
Of course, it is driving me crazy, and on top of the nightmare there is the jealousy, the dreadful sense of humiliation as a woman. I simply couldn’t handle finding out that my husband and son are homosexuals. Anyway, I blurted all that out to her, and then I was shown what true wisdom is: a slightly detached attitude toward life, a long-term view.
Esther extracted from the depths of a cupboard a dark bottle with no label, which had already been started. She set down two large liqueur glasses and said, “Calvados was Isaak’s favorite drink. It has been there since he died. One of his young colleagues from France brought him a very high proof bottle from a farm in Normandy. You see, it doesn’t even have a label—it’s homemade! Isaak never did finish it. He would drink only one glass at a time, in the evening.”
She poured out a dark liquid which looked like brandy and we drank. It managed to be mild and searing at the same time. Then she said very carefully, “We lived through a dreadful war. All our relatives were killed. We saw villages after massacres. We saw piles of corpses gnawed at by animals, which had been hidden under the snow and thawed out after the winter, children who had been shot. I had forbidden myself to recall these things but now I have to say to you, your boy is alive and happy. If everything is as you say, that is a misfortune, for you but not for him. There are many misfortunes about which I know next to nothing. Of course, I see this as a big problem, but your boy is alive and enjoying life. I don’t know anything about these relations. They puzzle and indeed perplex me, but it is all outside my experience, and outside your experience too. For now, leave things as they are. Wait. It is probably difficult now for you to be around Grisha. You need to think things through, but do not be in a hurry. If the situation is really as you think, then it did not start yesterday. Just remember that nobody has died.”
How lucky I am to have Esther!
There was still half the bottle left and I drank it all. Esther put me in a taxi and I left my car at her house. When I got home Grisha and Alex were sitting in front of the television as good as gold, watching a film.
I went straight to bed but felt so chilled and feverish that only Grisha was able to warm me up, using a tried and trusted method.
16. April 1988, Haifa
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