It was clear that the vision and scope of this small folkloric ensemble and its director were vast, in addressing one of the most forbidden and impenetrable questions of human experience: the fate of the soul after death. The view seemed to be universal in all cultures—the human world, earthly and concrete, is surrounded by great waters, and after death one must undergo a passage through the waters in order to reach the other shore. Nora already saw in her mind how, from backstage, on both the left and on the right, the shores of all these worlds would float into view, and in the center, amid the dark waves of the waters that washed them, a boat full of rowers, a crew, a captain, and a boatswain would be plying its way forth, as described in all world mythologies, in all books of the dead. It could be any river—let it be the Volga.
Then the memory of an event that Nora only knew from her mother’s account rose up from the depths of her past. When she was just four years old, they rented a dacha in Tarusa, on the banks of the Oka River. The summer was hot, and the children splashed in the shallows of the water. Nora wandered a bit too far from shore, beyond the drop-off. Without a sound, she sank to the bottom. When she lost sight of Nora, the little girl she had been playing beach ball with called out to her, and set up a howl when she couldn’t find her. Nora was pulled out of the water and revived with great difficulty. She hadn’t remembered any of this, but she still had a fear of water—which she loved very much in measured quantities, from the faucet. She never learned to swim.
Now, sitting over her books in the library, she could clearly remember this river in Tarusa, and herself, lying on the shore, on an old flannel blanket, which they had used as a stretcher; she saw the four-colored beach ball, and a young man with wet hair leaning over her. Everything matched up: Amalia had told her that the son of the landlady, a medical student, had saved her and administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She associated this distant memory with a recurrent dream she had, also involving water: She was swimming in some terrifying inky moisture, heavier and more viscous than ordinary water, to the shore. The shore was getting closer, but when Nora was already crawling out of the water, she realized that she had swum not to dry land but onto an enormous monster. She was filled with an indescribable horror, which jolted her, panting and drenched in sweat, out of the dream like a cork popping out of a bottle. The stench of her own sweat was awful, but it was in fact the stench of that awful water …
She finished her reading and put the books aside. From the time she had been able to formulate the question of religious belief in her life, her answer had been a flat-out no, and she had considered herself an inveterate materialist. Neither the turbid pantheistic views of her grandmother Marusya, nor the touching, childlike, superstitious faith of Amalia, and even less the bookish pronouncements of her friends, newly converted Christians with ecumenical inclinations, appealed to her in the least. Now, however, after this essentially archaeological reading, she felt that another shore did exist, and, consequently, death—as she had envisioned it, observed it, touched it—did not. Instead, there was something of far greater importance and complexity, something far more fascinating, and music was what affirmed this best of all. Perhaps those primordial yelps and cries that the brilliant director of the folklore ensemble collected, making the rounds of dying villages to record the rasping, quavery voices of already half-dead old women, provided the best evidence of all. In fact, Nora had had the impression that this genius, with the overbearing mien of a provincial actor, with his heavy jaw and tiny eyes drowning in dark folds of skin, was a self-absorbed egotistical crank.
Nora prepared for the meeting, bringing a sheaf of drawings with her. On the turquoise fabric that rose up to the horizon, representing water, was a large, elegant boat with its prow facing the audience. This was where the first scene took place—though there were no scenes in the conventional sense, since the action would unfold without intermissions between scenes and acts. Changing the sets would be a rather formidable task, and Nora decided to employ various lighting effects to accomplish it. Then the ship shed the decorations on its prow, its elegant sails unfurled, its chorus-crew turned into oarsmen, and at the culmination of the extended act, two dark, looming cliffs moved onto the stage—Scylla and Charybdis, say. The ship split into pieces, and the actors came out on the proscenium to sing the thundering finale.
The genius, who was both the artistic director and the choirmaster, studied the sketches for the sets with sullen attention, then requested to see the costume designs. Nora placed a pile of drawings in front of him. The first ones resembled nearly true-to-life folk attire of the Russian north. He shuffled through those without even pausing to take a closer look. The second series, which Nora had dubbed “X-rays,” depicted faded gray smocks, with only minimal differences between the men’s and women’s garments, overlaid with the hastily dashed-off outline of skeletons, corresponding fully to human anatomy. This series of drawings caught his attention, and he tapped them several times with a discolored fingernail, murmuring “um-hmm, good.” In the third group of drawings, which Nora called the “peacock’s tail,” the shape and cut of the traditional peasant costumes—the apronlike sarafan, blouses and vests, the povoinik and kokoshnik headdresses—were preserved, but the usually somber northern colors were replaced with orange-red-lilac and blue-green tints. Pure India, Africa, Mexico … These he immediately pushed aside, then rested his chin on his hand and seemed to reflect on what he had seen.
“You’ve hit on something here. Yes, there’s a great deal in them. Perhaps too much. I’ll need to think about it. But, to be honest, I’m inclined to the most banal, denuded approach—making everything from black broadcloth. So as not to distract the audience.”
He never called back. Tusya, much later, told Nora, “You aimed a bit too high for him.”
Nora was not in the least distraught. While she was exploring these mythical watery spaces, Yurik’s life across the ocean had completely sorted itself out. Martha—wonder of wonders!—wrote Nora weekly letters that arrived in a desultory fashion; it took them a week or even ten days to cover a distance that took ten hours of flying time. Once in a while, Nora called to America from the Central Telephone and Telegraph office. Yurik sounded well. He was going to school, had learned to speak English fairly quickly, and, most important, was playing in the school jazz band. That was all he needed to be happy.
Nora had crossed a new Rubicon, and life continued.
32 From the Willow Chest
Family Correspondence
(1916) MIKHAIL KERNS TO MARUSYA
I. D. Sytin Company
Editorial Offices
The Dawn Weekly Illustrated Journal
48 Tverskaya Street, Moscow
Tel.: 5–48–10
OCTOBER 16
Dear Marusya,
I was very worried when I didn’t hear from you, and only found out today that my worries were not groundless: Jacob has been drafted. I’m sure that my strong and courageous little sister will endure this trial with dignity. I also believe, unconditionally, that everything will turn out well. I know that we will all one day be together again, joyful and proud. Listen, Marusya, you must prove my hopes in your own life. Do not be anxious or afraid. All will be well. I think that your family has already paid its debt to this war—with the death of Genrikh, whom I never met. But I witnessed what a blow it was to Jacob. They are all very talented, your Ossetskys; but Jacob said that Genrikh could have become a truly great thinker. I believe that this war will soon end and we will be together again, and little Genrikh will live up to his name.