At the beginning of 1931, he arrived at his place of exile, and began to work in the STP planning department. This was better than any outcome he could have envisioned.
In the first letter he sent his wife from Stalingrad, Jacob reminded her that his first detention took place in 1913 in the Chelyabinsk guardhouse, and lasted fifteen days, which he now remembered as a happy period in his life. He asked her to keep her spirits up, not to languish, and to be strong for the sake of their son.
But things grew ever more complicated with their son. When Genrikh found out about his father’s arrest—they had taken him from work, and informed Marusya twenty-four hours later—fifteen-year-old Genrikh, who had returned in the evening from his aviation club, listened to what his mother told him, turned pale, and slumped over. His jaw tight and his mouth compressed, he sighed deeply and said quietly, “A wrecker. I knew it.”
He swept from the table all the teacups that had been sitting there since breakfast. He went to his father’s desk, where there were two neatly stacked piles of books and two piles of paper, one blank and one covered with neat handwriting, and threw them off, too. After that, he went to the bookshelves and started to fling all the books, which had been carefully arranged by subject, onto the floor, shouting at the top of his lungs the word that was uppermost in his mind: “Wrecker! Wrecker!”
Marusya sat in the armchair, pressing her hands to her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. This was a genuine paroxysm of rage, and she had no idea how to stop it. When he had thrown to the floor every object he could lay his hands on, Genrikh collapsed onto the divan and began to howl. Several minutes passed. Marusya sat beside her son, and stroked his shoulders.
“Leave me alone! Leave me alone! You don’t understand what this means. I’ll never be admitted anywhere now! I’m the son of an enemy of the people! For always!”
His tears flowed thick and fast; his shoulders heaved. He thrashed around and kicked his legs and arms, just as he had done in childhood. Marusya did what she had always done—she went to the buffet and took a piece of chocolate from a bag she had hidden there, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. He didn’t spit it out, but didn’t calm down, either. After thrashing and heaving for a long time, he fell asleep in his father’s bed.
What has he done, what has he done? Marusya cried soundlessly. He’s ruined everything! What will become of us?
38 First Exile
Stalingrad Tractor Plant
(1931–1933)
Jacob, it was likely, bore up under the misfortune that had struck him better than his family did. He knew how to begin again from scratch, but he took his entire previous life, his various interests and initiatives, with him into his new existence. Twelve large cities were now closed to him. He was transferred by omnipotent powers to the city on the Volga, where an enormous plant was being built according to an American design. He was appointed to work in the planning department. Though this wasn’t particularly interesting to him, his knowledge of English improved his position. Within a week, he had received a tiny room in the director’s office, where he translated American technical documentation. Two dozen girls hastily trained in the English language were not able to cope with the technical terminology. Jacob himself sometimes had to consult his American colleagues, of whom there were still quite a few in 1931.
Jacob liked the Americans. They were, for the most part, athletic fellows who dressed neatly and elegantly, and worked with gusto. In addition to the organization of production, their free time was also organized in a particular way—they had separate dining rooms, a restaurant, clubs, concerts for employees, and day care for the children. “As regards social achievements, the capitalists are ahead of us,” Jacob was forced to admit. Or was all of this specially staged for propaganda purposes? One got the impression that their scientific organization of labor extended to social life and the life of the community as well.
Jacob was not the only one who observed these things. Soon he became acquainted with other exiles, working in different branches of general construction, specialists like him who had been sent to the STP for political mistakes and an erroneous worldview. All of them were more or less Marxists, more or less socialists, more or less communists, but their thinking was out of step, and the divergences in their opinions and views led to interesting discussions about nuances and details. They initially met just by chance, but later began to go out of their way to gather over tea. Within a few months, their meetings had turned into informal seminars at which they presented papers and read lectures. They exchanged opinions, feeling in no way guilty about it.
In November 1931, Jacob’s son came to visit him. In the time during which they had not seen each other, Genrikh had grown half a head taller, his shoulders had become broader, and he had become a young man instead of an adolescent. Marusya did not come—she was burdened with work, ill health, a bad mood. They had a lively correspondence, according to an established scheme: they wrote letters every five days, beginning from the first day of the month, but no fewer than six letters a month; plus postcards, which didn’t count, and, if necessary, telegrams.
Genrikh rarely wrote to his father.
Jacob received official permission to show his son the plant, and on one of the first days of Genrikh’s stay, he took him around. The first thing Jacob did was to show Genrikh the American blueprint for the plant and explain the most unique aspect of it: it was conceived as a modular structure. Genrikh was thrilled. It was like his construction set! He recognized the similarity to his first toy, which had afforded him so much creative joy in his childhood. This entire plant was built as though some giant were putting it together out of blocks, only the blocks were much larger and more varied than the ones in his construction set. Jacob showed him on the scale model how the individual blocks were joined together, and how the same blocks could result in various structures. Genrikh observed the model, enchanted, a thought brewing in his head. Jacob enjoyed watching the eagerness in his son’s eyes and the thought processes that the muscles of his face betrayed.
“Dad, it seems like each block is a letter, and when you put them together they form words, and even whole sentences?”
“That’s a good way of looking at it, son,” Jacob said happily.
Genrikh nodded solemnly—it wasn’t often that his father praised him—and continued to think out loud. “I think that the whole world can be rebuilt out of letters just like this—now, that would be a real construction set!”
Jacob looked at his son attentively: thereb was certainly the germ of a serious thought in there, but in essence it was completely infantile. He needed a lot of polishing, a lot of polishing. STALINGRAD–MOSCOW JACOB TO GENRIKH (LETTER TO GENRIKH PRIOR TO HIS VISIT IN NOVEMBER)
MARCH 1931
Dear Genrikh, I met a person here that it would be good for you to get to know. You can’t imagine all the professions that are represented in our factory. Altogether, there are 170! Would you imagine, for example, that there is a toy specialist? It turns out there is. A master craftsman who makes scale models for our museum. A superb worker who knows how to do metalworking, woodworking, as well as working with cardboard—everything that’s needed. He is a joiner, a metalworker, an electrician, and a bookbinder. A master of all trades. His workshop is also like a play workshop—a little twenty-square-foot storeroom under the stairs. He has a tiny workbench, and his materials are stored on shelves suspended from the ceiling. He speaks quietly, thoughtfully. It’s pleasant to have dealings with him. He always works alone, in silence.