I know for a fact that none of this would have come about if you had not prayed for me.
Dear Brother Daniel, Brazil is a Catholic country and Steve’s parents are devout Catholics, but how different their Catholicism is from ours! It seems to me that they differ from us more even than devout Jews differ from Israeli Christians.
I really want to talk to you about this, because there are some questions I am afraid even to raise. Come and see us because, after all, I, too, am your spiritual daughter even though I live in Brazil.
Love from
Dina
21. 1978, Zichron Yaakov
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ETTER FROM
O
LGA
R
EZNIK TO
D
ANIEL
S
TEIN
Greatly respected Father Daniel,
This letter comes to you from a woman from Odessa whom you do not know. My name is Olga Isaakovna Reznik. I have been living in Zichron Yaakov for five years with the family of my son David, his Russian wife, Vera, and their children. In Israel everything was well with us until David began to have heart trouble and it was decided he needed a heart operation. During the operation, he died and was resuscitated. Vera is a very good wife and mother, and relations between her and her mother-in-law could not be better. God sent me Vera. She is more than a daughter.
While David was having his operation Vera closed the door and prayed. She prayed so fervently that I could feel it in my head. It was like a strong wind blowing. It was 3 o’clock, and later they said that it was at 3 o’clock that his heart stopped and the doctors started to resuscitate him. I believe, I am certain, it was not the doctors who managed to do that. She prayed to Jesus Christ and the Mother of God whom I have never before been much bothered about, but I know that day Christ saved my son through Vera’s prayers. I know that and now I want to be baptized, because I believe in Him, no matter what the Jews say or think. I asked Vera to take me to a priest. She promised, but then refused. That is, it was not Vera who refused but the Orthodox priest she goes to. He said he does not baptize Jews. Then I asked her to find me a Jewish priest, because I heard that such do exist. She told me about you but said you are a Catholic priest. It is absolutely all the same to me, although it would be better to have an Orthodox one in order to be the same as Vera, but where is one to be found? So I’m asking you, greatly respected Father Daniel, to come to us and baptize me. I have been unable to leave the house for two years already because I have a bad leg.
I very much hope you will not refuse my request, because I am old and am so grateful to Him for doing that and there is nothing else I have to give other than being baptized.
David is angry with me and says I have gone crazy, but my heart tells me I need to do this. David leaves for work at 7:30 in the morning and gets back no earlier than 6:00, so please come when it suits you but during working hours so that he does not know what I am up to. I am 81 years old, almost blind, and cannot read any Gospels, but Vera reads to me, and there is nothing there saying there is any difference between Catholics and Orthodox. I look forward to your visit. Let me know when you are coming and I will cook something good.
Till we meet,
Olga Isaakovna Reznik
22. March 1989, Berkeley
L
ETTER FROM
E
WA
M
ANUKYAN TO
E
STHER
G
ANTMAN
Dear Esther,
They say that statistically Americans undergo a major change in their lives every seven years, either of their job, their apartment, or their marriage partner. The first two have happened to me simultaneously, changing the place where I live and losing my job. I am looking for work. I have sent my résumé to various places and there is one job I would very much like. It is a splendid park with a small research center and soil science laboratory.
I used to think nowhere could beat Boston and Cape Cod, but California is better, or at least, certainly not worse. We have rented a wonderful house with a view of San Francisco Bay. I can’t tear myself away from the window. If I don’t find a job I shall just sit and look out the window. Things could be worse. On top of his day job, Grisha has received an offer to be a consultant to some firm and is pleased. In material terms everything is simply brilliant.
Alex is very happy and has finally decided to go to film school in Los Angeles. He has even abandoned his Greeks and now is inseparable from his camera. He is making some film of his own in which the main heroes are dogs and their owners. As a result, we almost constantly have three dogs and their young owners jumping around in our house. One is a very funny Chinese boy and the second is a stunningly handsome Mexican. They are all very sweet, but it is a purely male alliance in which the sole female is a bitch called Gilda. I have almost gotten used to the all-male scenery although I haven’t given up hope that some sex-bomb girl will appear and turn Alex’s head. He is 18; at his age Grisha had ploughed his way through half the girls in his class.
Grisha and Alex are still very sweet on each other, and I am grateful to you for putting a halt to my psychosis. It has to be said that seeing a psychotherapist is helping me regain my mental composure, too, but if all these friendships with boys came to an end and he found himself—I was going to say a “nice” girl, but then thought just any girl—my suspicions would dissolve like a bad dream.
Writing a letter is far more important than talking on the telephone. It is quite a different matter. I told you briefly how I found Rita during my last trip to Israel. She is now visited almost every day by a new friend she met at the hospital. She is a dismal Englishwoman called Agnessa, a nurse, without a hint of charm, a small mouth, and large teeth. She has lured mother into some Christian sect, which baffles me utterly. Agnessa has a good effect on her though. They talk together about religion and I find that weird. I remember only too well how furious she was when I started going to church in Warsaw. Agnessa is not Catholic but some kind of Protestant, and that seems to have clicked with my mother. At the same time I can’t stop worrying. As you know, I am a religious person and formally a Catholic, but the disorder of my life gets in the way of my everyday practice. I pray only once in a blue moon, and as for reciting the rosary, well, no thanks. The fact that my Rita has suddenly started reading the Gospel puts me in a curious position. If I really am a Christian I should be glad that my godless Communist mother has been converted, but instead I am puzzled and even rather cross. It’s as if I want to keep her off my turf. At least she hasn’t converted to Catholicism. I would find that completely intolerable.
On the other hand, I can see that my mother is a wholly religious type. Her faith in Communism was stronger than mine in the Lord Jesus Christ. I understand that both those things are quite alien to you, but you do remember her when she was young. You are the only person with any recollection of my mythical father. Can you explain it? It’s enough to send me straight to the psychoanalyst to try to make sense of an incomprehensible situation.
I have not yet had a chance to meet anybody here, but one of the advantages of working in a university is that there is a social life of sorts, concerts, receptions, and we are constantly receiving invitations. There is a very pleasant family, also from the university, living in the house next door. He is a professor of theology from Russia and his wife is an American, a historian who writes about the workers’ movement. We are even getting on Russian terms with them and drop in on each other for a glass of tea. They have a lovely 15-year-old daughter and I am pinning my hopes on her. Perhaps she will take a shine to Alex.