Love from
Esther
18. April 1988, Haifa
L
ETTER FROM
E
WA
M
ANUKYAN TO
E
STHER
G
ANTMAN
Sweet Esther,
I am staying here for another week. I have changed my departure date again and it is now 6 May. I have finally hired a car and driver. All the cars here have a mechanical gear change, which I’m not used to. I have been driving automatics for a long time and did not want to take a risk. The country is so small that if you get up early, by four in the afternoon you can have seen half of it. I have been back to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. I only didn’t make it to Eilat. How I like the miniature nature of this land! Everything is within easy reach.
Yes! Your request! One of the best restorers is the neighbor of my Jerusalem friends, Steve and Isabel. I had only to mention it to be invited to his house that very day. Here in Israel every person is a walking novel. They have such improbable histories, such biographies that even mine pales by comparison. When Steve told him I had been conceived in a ghetto, the restorer was overcome with such sympathy that he invited me on Friday evening to his home. As a result I found myself at a real Shabbat for the first time ever. You know all about it, of course, but it made a profound impression on me. I think I have told you that throughout my childhood I always longed to have a real family. There was the refuge, then the orphanage, then life with my mother who totally rejected family values, then life with Eric, which was nothing special, no love or friendship, just a lot of thrashing around in the sack. Then my unsuccessful attempt with Ray when Alex was born. It didn’t even occur to him to cancel his tour! When Grisha came on the scene, I thought at last everything had fallen into place, but what I now foresee is the complete and utter collapse of my family dream!
And here, picture it, was the table with candles and a beautiful Russian woman, past her first youth, who I later discovered had converted to Judaism. She was so big, with large hands, and she moved like a great animal, perhaps a cow, but in a good sense. She slowly turned her head, slowly moved her eyes. She had a great bosom which hung over the table, and she had red hair which was already fading a little. The head of hair she must have had in the past you could tell from her two boys with their fiery ginger mops. Her two girls resembled their father, with fine noses, fine fingers, very miniature. I realized later that Leya is really not much taller than her husband, but Yosef is such a thin, fleshless person, he looks like an elderly angel. I think I mentioned that I brought my love of icons with me from Russia. I suddenly understood why Jews don’t and couldn’t have them. They themselves have such faces they have no need of icons.
Before supper Yosef took me to his workroom. He is very highly skilled. There were books of miniatures, and simple antique prayer books. He said the greater part of his work comes from America now. American Jews buy old Jewish books at auction, have them restored, and then present them to museums. It’s a kind of mitzvah. Yosef is an ex-Muscovite. He graduated from some department of restoration and in Russia restored icons. He lived in a monastery for several years and was presumably Orthodox, but I didn’t care to ask. Isn’t that interesting? He was in prison for three years because icons he restored were smuggled to the West and somebody informed on him. He also met his wife through restoration.
She was an elder in an Orthodox Church and gave him work. He told me all this himself, then smiled and fell silent. I could see a story here fit for a novella. My friends told me afterward that the older boy was from her first marriage. We spoke Russian until we sat down at the table. Leya lit the candles with a prayer—in Hebrew. I was too shy to ask what kind of prayer it was, but even without translation it was clearly some kind of Grace. Anyway, why am I describing things to you which you already know very well?
Then the man of the house broke bread with a prayer and poured wine into a large wine glass. It was the Eucharist, there’s no two ways about it. Then came all kinds of food: two challot under a napkin which Leya had baked herself, fish, some salads, a roast. There was an old Russian lady at the table, Praskovia Ivanovna, Leya’s mother, in a headscarf! Before the meal, she crossed herself and with her wrinkled hand crossed her plate! Shabbat shalom, Christ is risen!
I was consumed with envy. For my whole life this is what I have been yearning for. Half the people with whom I have met on this visit, the doctors, these restorers, another neighbor of my friends who is an English nurse from the hospital, every one of them has an improbable history.
Rita is clearly feeling better. She met me with the words, “Ah, you’re back …” as if I was 15 and had come back from a party in the small hours of the morning. Next week she is being taken back to the home. I will stay here for a few more days.
Love from
Ewa
19. 1988, Haifa
C
ASSETTE SENT BY
R
ITA
K
OWACZ TO
P
AWEŁ
KOCI
SKI
Dear Paweł,
I am sending you this cassette in place of a letter. I can no longer write, my hands no longer do what I tell them. My legs neither. I am altogether lying much like a corpse with only my head working. It is the most dreadful torment which only God could have invented. Now I think He does exist, or more likely the Devil does. At all events, if the existence of the Devil can be regarded as proof of the existence of God, then I acknowledge that this pretty pair exists, although I don’t see any fundamental difference between them. They are the enemies of man. But now for some reason I am alive instead of lying peacefully in the cemetery and not bothering anybody.
You can’t imagine the fuss they made over me, and for some reason brought this old bag of bones back to life. Whatever I ask for they give me. They even bring me millet porridge, but I have one special request they won’t fulfil and that is to let me die. I say that entirely calmly. I often found myself in situations where I was within a hair’s breadth of death, but I wanted to live and fight and I always won. You may not believe it, but I always came out on top, even in the camp. In the end they rehabilitated me, which means I won. Now for me to come out on top means to die when I want to, and I do want to, but they are treating me. You understand, they keep on treating me. The most ridiculous thing about it is that they are even having a bit of success. They drag me to a chair, I slowly move my arms and legs, and that’s called a “positive dynamic.” All I want from this dynamic of theirs is to be able to drag myself to the window, upend myself over the balcony railings and hurtle down. There is a very pretty view and I am increasingly drawn to it.
Apart from you nobody will help me. You loved me when I was young and I loved you for as long as that itch was alive in me. You are my comrade, we come from the same nest, and that is why you are the only person who can and should come to help me. Come and help me. I have never asked anybody for anything. If I could do without someone else’s help I would not ask, but I cannot even get off the bedpan by myself. If we were in the war I would ask you to shoot me but my request is more modest. Come and take me over to the balcony. Is that too much to ask?
Yours,
Rita
20. 1988, Haifa
L
ETTER FROM
R
ITA
K
OWACZ TO
P
AWEŁ
KOCI