INSCRIPTION ON A PHOTOGRAPH: This is a view from my window. To the left in the distance was the Oak of Mamre, but now there is not even a stump left and one can only point out where it used to stand.
INSCRIPTION ON A PHOTOGRAPH: This is Binyomin. He has puffy cheeks when he is lying down, but when you pick him up he is less of a piglet.
June 2006
L
ETTER FROM
L
UDMILA
U
LITSKAYA TO
E
LENA
K
OSTIOUKOVITCH
Dear Lyalya,
I am sending you a revised section of text, provisionally Part Two. The editing is insanely difficult. The whole vast amount of material crowds in on me, everybody wants to speak, and it’s difficult to decide who to allow up to the surface, who should wait, and who I should just ask to keep quiet. Teresa Vilenskaya is particularly persistent. There have been many Saint Teresas, of Ávila, of Lisieux (who was called “of the Child Jesus,” or “the Little Flower of Jesus”), and the contemporary Mother Teresa of Calcutta who died recently. That is just by the way. My Teresa is alive and well and awaiting the appearance of the Messiah.
Like the other major books, this one is grinding me down. I can’t explain to myself or to you why I ever took it on, knowing in advance how impossible the task would be. Our minds are such that we reject the notion of insoluble problems. If there is a problem there must be a solution. It is only mathematicians who know the redeeming formula that “under the given conditions the problem is insoluble.” Even if there is no solution, it would be good at least to be able to see the problem, to view it from the back, the front, the sides, from above and below. Ah, that is what it is like: it can’t be solved. There are so many such things—original sin; salvation; redemption; why God, if he exists, created evil; and, if he does not exist, what meaning life can have. All questions for good children. While they are little, they ask the questions; and when they grow up, they find a handy answer in a tear-off calendar or a catechism.
I would very much like to know, but no logic provides the answers. Neither does Christianity, or Judaism, or Buddhism. “Reconcile yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, to the fact that many problems have no solution. There are things you just have to learn to live with, and put up with, and not resolve.”
Now something splendid: my grandson Luka has been born. He weighs 3.2 kilograms and is 53 centimeters in height. The threatened snagging of the umbilical cord did not happen and everything went fine, without a Caesarean section. I saw him the day after he came into the world. What a remarkable distance there is in a single generation: you are still standing there, but now there is a new main character, who is concerned solely about physiological matters. You see the magnificence of the event which is the birth of a new infant. It is the formation of a new world, a new cosmic bubble which will reflect everything. He wrinkles his nose, wiggles his fingers, jerks his little feet, and does not yet give a thought to all the nonsense which so preoccupies us: the meaning of life, for example. For him his digestion is the meaning of life. I will send you a photo eventually, when I have learned how to download it from a telephone to a computer.
How are Marusya and Lyova? Have you stopped taking their temperatures? I suspect it was no coincidence that Marusya’s thermometer broke. She wanted you to give up taking her temperature, decide it was always high, and stop taking her to school!
Love,
L.
PART THREE
1. 1976, Vilnius
F
ILES FROM THE ARCHIVE OF THE DISTRICT
KGB D
EPARTMENT
FROM AN OPERATIONAL SURVEILLANCE FILE
DOC. NO. 117/934
STATEMENT
I wish to bring to your attention and request you to take measures in respect of the fact that the woman living in Apartment 6, No. 8 Tilto Street, Teresa Krzysztofowna Benda, is a furious Catholic and brings many people to the apartment block. They assemble regularly like they are having a meeting, pretending to drink tea. While other more deserving people live in small rooms with 12 square meters despite all they did in the war and have been awarded personal pensions, Benda occupies 24 square meters and has a balcony. It is known that her father was a Pole and Polish nationalist and it is unknown how he managed to avoid being punished. He died in 1945 after liberation by the Soviet Army from tuberculosis.
What is more, for eight years she has been paying the rent and communal charges but living who knows where. Not that she has been subletting or speculating with the accommodation. No. But we are fed up with it. I draw to your attention that this disgrace is taking place.
SIGNATURES OF RESIDENTS: illegible
ACTION: Refer to Agent Guskov for investigation
REPORT FROM LIEUTENANT GUSKOV
I have to report that on 11/04 this year an investigation was conducted on the basis of a statement from residents of No. 8 Tilto Street with illegible signatures. The source of the statement was found to be Nikolai Vasilievich Brykin, with whom the appropriate work was conducted. It was confirmed that 4–8 people gather in Benda’s room on Wednesdays and Sundays from 7–9 in the evening. There are invariably two men and the number of women varies. All are Lithuanian and conversation is conducted in the Lithuanian and Polish languages.
In the course of an operational investigation it was established that Teresa Krzysztofowna Benda is a covert nun who took her vows in 1975. Additional information may be obtained from No. 8 Section upon application to the deputy chief of the operational section.
It is believed that on Wednesdays and Sundays, Benda conducts a meeting of evangelical groups in her apartment.
In order to establish the identity of those attending, further operational activity is required.
Benda graduated from Leningrad State University and was directed to work at the Vilnius City Library in the capacity of bibliographer. She worked there from 20 August 1967 to 1 September 1969. A reference from the workplace is attached.
Prophylactic measures are not considered necessary.
Senior Lieutenant Guskov
ACTION: Archive
Major Perevezentsev
FROM SECTION PT-3 TO OPERATIONAL INVESTIGATION SECTION
Report
Section PT-3 encloses copies of 4 (four) letters from Teresa Krzysztofowna Benda to diverse addresses.
LETTER 1
Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna,
The purpose of my letter is to thank you. Your words that “The Gospel is not an icon, its purpose is not to be kissed but to be studied” are going round and round in my head. The fact that even just reading the Gospels in a different language gives additional depth of understanding I can well understand. I have read the Gospels in Polish, Russian, Church Slavonic, Lithuanian, German, and Latin and have always been aware that there were distinctions in the perception of the text. Truly, God speaks to people in different languages, and each language subtly corresponds to the character and characteristics of the people. The German translation of the Gospels is striking for its simplification, by comparison, say, with the Church Slavonic. I can only guess what rich nuances are contained in the Greek and Ancient Hebrew texts. I am thinking of the text of the Old Testament.