The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine

by Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Isaac Babel

  Clearly, these women were not dangerous, but nevertheless, rules had to be followed when it came to visits. A permit was required before I could visit my mother, to be issued by both the French and German authorities. I remember going from office to office, taking the necessary steps to obtain the right to visit my mother—visits that lasted only a few minutes. I was allowed to come and see her twice a week, if my memory serves me correctly. My mother, flanked by two policemen, would be brought to a gate. I was behind another gate, accompanied by another policeman. The two gates were separated by a kind of ditch across which we spoke. Sometimes we were permitted to embrace and kiss each other, a favor for which I had obtained authorization in a special section of the police.

  This went on for a few weeks, settling into a routine. Then one day, at the very beginning of the visit, my mother said to me very quickly in Russian, “The others have been freed. If you dont get me out right away, I will perish.” The guard cut her off after these few words. But I had understood perfectly.

  I looked for help, but there was none. I spoke with people. They were all afraid. I went to the French authorities. I saw the mayor. I attempted without success to see the Prefet, the highest administrator of the whole area (department). However, I did meet the official doorkeeper (huissier) of this august personage, and was so dazzled by the gold braids of his uniform that I mistook him for the Prefet himself. Each of these officials said that he was powerless, that the problem stemmed from the larger problems between Germany and the Soviet Union.

  Then I met a man who had helped me at the jail. Sometimes we had waited together to see our respective relatives—his wife had been arrested for black-market chicken trading. We used to talk, and one day he noticed that I was distraught and crying. “Only the Germans can solve your problem,” he told me. Then he wrote out on a piece of paper the name of the head of the local Kommandantur, saying that this person was an older career officer. “You must go to the Kommandant of our town. He is a decent man, and you have a chance.”

  The German Kommandant happened to be of old French ancestry and was married to an Englishwoman. His name, I recall, was Du Barry. Everyone advised me against going to see him, saying it was much too dangerous. So I went alone.

  It was a brilliant summer day. Birds were singing, and drops of water from a garden hose were playing on the windowpanes of the officers’ receiving rooms. How I managed to get inside the Kommandants office, I cannot remember. But I imagine that each soldier of whom I asked directions was too startled to do anything but give them to me. And then, there he stood inside his chamber. Huge maps with small flags covered the walls. I can still see his uniform, his medals, and his aide, whom he dismissed after taking a look at me, the petitioner.

  He came forward from behind his desk and astonished me with some words of welcome in French. I told him that my mother was innocent, that I had no one else, and that he had to let her go. Two days later, on July 16, the day before my twelfth birthday, my mother walked into the courtyard of our small house. The weather was beautiful. I was standing outside chatting with a few of the neighbors. She opened the gate and walked in with a smile, as if everything were normal. We all stood transfixed, before moving toward her. I remember the sensation of being in a slow-motion picture, before I started experiencing enormous relief and joy. I did not feel surprised, because in my heart I knew that she had to return for us to have the chance to survive.

  How did it happen that she was released? Kommandant Du Barry had summoned her, interviewed her, and could not have failed to be surprised by her refined and completely fluent German. She had acquired it many years before, thanks to the ministrations of a Prussian Kinderfraulein, a most energetic mentor in my grandfather s household. Kommandant Du Barry made my mother promise not to escape, asked her to come every day to the Kommandantur to sign her name in a register, and then let her go. She gave him her word of honor, and every day until the German army fled in tatters and panic, she came in to sign.

  But why was my mother not released with the other Russian ladies? Why was she and none of the others kept in jail, clearly destined to go somewhere else where they would process her and her case? It was because the other prisoners were emigre Russian Whites, whereas she was Red. She was the wife of Isaac E. Babel, the well-known Soviet writer and a Jew. Although I was born in Paris, I was his daughter, and therefore I was Red, too. By the time the historical and political events I am describing took place, my mother had already lived in Paris for over fifteen years. But she had always kept her Soviet passport, which had to be periodically renewed. Each visit to the Soviet Embassy was such an ordeal that she had let her papers expire, a fact which created more obstacles for her, and even more complications for her husband.

  And why did she keep her Soviet nationality? She had very little choice. She could have applied for a Nansen passport.* [The Nansen passport was devised in 1922 by a High Commission for Refugees under the League of Nations headed by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen. This passport, which was provided to all Russians claiming emigre status, certified the holder’s identity and category of statelessness. It was officially adopted in France in 1924, the same year France formally recognized the Soviet Union.] But as the wife of the writer Isaac Babel, she was dependent on the money he sent from Russia to support us, while she lived in Paris, ostensibly temporarily to study art. She could not very easily sever all her ties with the Soviet Union without bringing severe harm to her husband. And like so many others, she could not renounce forever the possibility of returning one day to Russia.

  My first official encounter with the Soviet authorities had taken place with my father years before. When he came to Paris in 1932 and met me for the first time (I was three years old), he took me to the Soviet Embassy and had my name entered into his passport, making me de facto a Soviet citizen. It was undoubtedly a cautious political move on his part. But on the other hand, we also knew, from the hundreds of letters he sent to his relatives abroad, that he harbored the utopian dream of having his whole family around him back in Russia. Yet he had been instrumental in obtaining exit visas for his mother, his sister, and his wife. I believe that this dream was anchored in some reality until Gorky’s death in 1936. After that time, my fathers repeated calls for us to join him in Moscow were no doubt for the benefit of a very vigilant censorship. There were clearly various hypotheses as to why he registered me as a Soviet citizen. Still, for many years, my mother resented this step he had taken on my behalf.

  While I was growing up during the 1930s, we belonged neither to the White emigre group, most of whom were Russian Orthodox, nor to the Reds—the Communist colony in Paris. There was a social ambiguity in this position, and also a moral challenge for my mother. The Whites knew who she was, and that her husband had been celebrated by the hated regime. So they were not always comfortable with her. The Reds knew of Evgenia Borisovnas feelings of detestation for them, and certainly did not expect her to join them even socially. Nonetheless, a large part of our daily experience was Russian: language, stories, recollections of the Gronfeins’ family life in Kiev before the Revolution, Russian customs and foods.

  My mother also had to explain my fathers absence to me. The main reason she gave was that, as a writer, Babel could not separate himself from his land and native language, which were indispensable tools for his creative art. She convinced me of the nobility of his beliefs, and made sure that I felt love and respect for him and his commitment to his writing. It was only much later in my life that I was able to look at this idealized image of my father with a more critical eye.

  In addition to our Russian world, there was the indisputable fact that we lived in France. I have always felt comfortable in both worlds, although there were many differences between my classmates and myself. First of all, besides French, I could speak another language incomprehensible to them. This alone marked me as being different. Moreover, when I was asked at the beginning of each school year about what were my parents’ profession
s, I answered, “Both of my parents are artists. My father a writer, and my mother a painter.” This also drew attention, as well as the fact that I had a cosmopolitan education. As early as I can remember, I heard about literature, painting, exhibits, geography, and travels to faraway countries from my mother s conversations with her friends. Among them were Alexandra Exter, who painted set designs for the Ballets Russes, the sculptor Constantin Brancusi, the writer Joseph Kessel, and many others. My mother often took me to visit artists in their ateliers, where I could see them painting, sculpting, and creating various objets d’art. I began my formal schooling at the age of seven, which was the custom in Russia, but considered very late in France. I never read stories for little girls, but started out with real literature. My first two books were Uncle Toms Cabin in a French version for children and the classic Lettres de mon moulin by Alphonse Daudet. I received no religious education, following my fathers orders. I studied neither Judaism nor Catholicism, and did not go to church on Sundays. I envied my classmates, with their pretty dresses and flowers going to Mass.

  My ignorance of religion could be a danger at times, when our Jewish identity had to be kept a secret. Once, during the war, a Russian lady came to visit my mother in Niort on Easter Sunday. On seeing me, she gave the customary Russian Orthodox Easter greeting, “Christ is risen.” Puzzled but polite, I answered, “Thank you very much, the same to you,” rather than “He has risen indeed,” the customary reply which all Russian Orthodox children would know by heart. My mother blanched, and the lady looked embarrassed, but did not say a word. From such near-catastrophic incidents, I learned early the importance of the meaning of words.

  I also understood that Russia was a warm, creative, unique country, whose people had deep feelings and lofty sentiments—peasants as well as nobles. But from the political conversations I overheard at home, I knew before many others that the Russian Revolution of 1917 had degenerated into something monstrous, that the Bolshevik regime was not a temporary stage leading to a magnificent future, and that millions of people were being deceived. Many others, including my father, I believe, remained optimistic, especially in the early years of Soviet rule.

  Although I received a partial Russian education and have lived for many years in the United States, I remain also French. The culture of France and its language are integral to my sense of self. I believe that the country of ones childhood education puts its stamp upon a person forever. The first alphabet, the first childrens songs and rhymes, the first counting and adding two plus two, ones first prejudices and loyalties, all make one a member of that culture, like it or not.

  All of these contradictions illustrate what I have known throughout my entire life—that there was never anything simple about being the daughter of Isaac Babel. My father was similarly filled with many contradictions, which are apparent in his stories and books. Perhaps his future biographer will explore further the many inconsistencies that marked his brief life. I do believe, however, that these countervailing themes endowed his fiction with a resonance and richness, thereby creating literature of the highest order.

  The Yellow Star

  There is a story about which I have always felt uncomfortable, because I never tried to find out enough to bring it to a proper closure. Like the first section of this memoir, “The Arrest of My Mother,” it deals with my childhood.

  It happened during the time when the German authorities decreed that all French citizens of Jewish ancestry had to declare themselves officially and to wear a Yellow Star. French Jewry has traditionally been one of the most assimilated Jewish groups in Western Europe. Prominent Jewish families have been French for many generations, and they certainly could never imagine that there could ever be any persecution organized against them. They considered, at least at the beginning, that having to register with the authorities was just one of the many troublesome inconveniences of the war.

  My mother, however, had gone through the Civil War, the Revolution, and the implementation of the Soviet regime, and felt otherwise. She was quite distrustful of such a political decree. She considered that having a Soviet passport was already quite enough of a handicap, so she never “declared” us. Neither she nor I ever wore a Yellow Star. It is amazing now to think that we were never denounced, a common enough occurrence in those days.

  At that time, we were living in Niort. One of the towns “local glories” was the celebrated writer Ernest Perochon,*[ Ernest Perochon, 1885-1942, French writer, winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1920 for his novel Nine. He lived in Niort from 1921 until his death]. who had once received the Prix Goncourt, Frances most prestigious literary prize. I mention him because his family owned a large beautiful house, and rented a few of the rooms to an elderly lady who had come from Paris because of the war. Her name was Madame Lazareff. She was the widow of a banker, and therefore had the money to rent space in one of the towns most important residences. We knew that she had a son who had disappeared. But nobody knew, including Madame Lazareff herself, what had become of him. Was he a prisoner? Was he hiding somewhere? No one knew.

  When the decree of the Yellow Star came, Madame Lazareff, of course, began to wear hers. I should mention that she was very friendly with my mother, all the more so since she was also of Russian origin.

  One spring afternoon—probably in 1942—Madame Lazareff was having tea with us. We were living in a little house at the end of a courtyard, behind a larger house. Someone rang the bell and I went to open the gate. I found myself in front of two French policemen. I was told, “We understand that there is a Madame Babel here.” In those days, whenever you saw the police, especially when they entered your home, your knees started to buckle. And then they said, “We have come for Madame Lazareff. We were told that she is here.” And indeed she was right there. They told her, “You have been reported for not wearing your Yellow Star. And we can see that its true. You aren’t wearing it.” Madame Lazareff, who was smaller than I was as a child, and dressed in her usual mourning black, answered, “Yes, yes. I am wearing it, but its on my coat.”

  “Well,” they said, “thats not enough. You’re supposed to have it on every garment.”

  They didn’t let her return to her place. They just took her away, and no one ever saw her again. How long did she survive? Did she die on the train? In a concentration camp? Surely, given her frailty, she must have perished very quickly.

  Just before the policemen left, I opened my big mouth and told them, “You are really des oiseaux de malheur” (messengers of grief). Then one of them asked my mother, “Is this your daughter? How old is she?”

  “She is twelve,” my mother answered.

  “You are lucky,” he replied. “If she were a year older, we would take her also.”

  And how could they have known that Madame Lazareff was having tea with my mother? That son of hers had a wife and daughter, who occasionally came to visit from Paris. I remember his wifes elegance and beauty, but do not recall whether she was Jewish. The daughter was a few years older than I was, very pretty with copper curls. A spoiled city girl, clearly from a rich family. I remember that she talked about nothing but boys—she was really boy crazy, which seemed completely stupid to me. But then, she really was stupid, or at least very naive. We learned later that she had been the one who had sent the policemen over to our house. It was during one of her visits to Niort to see her grandmother. The policemen arrived at the house of Ernest Perochon and she was the one who answered the door. They demanded, “Where is Madame Lazareff?” In those days, any fifteen-year-old facing that situation would have said, “I really don’t know. Let me find someone else to help you.”

  “And who is Madame Babel?” they continued, after she had informed them. “And where is Madame Babel?” And so they came to us.

  This incident, so fraught with danger and so common then, still makes me shudder. And I have never felt that the story was quite over. Charles de Gaulle, of course, came back from London in 1944, when Paris was barely liberated. Many poli
tical dissidents (resistants) who had fled occupied France soon followed as well. One of them was a journalist named Pierre Lazareff. Born in France of parents of Russian origin, he had spent the war years as the head of the War Information Office in the United States. He returned to Paris in September 1944 and became the publisher of one of the leading postwar newspapers born out of the Resistance movement, called France-Soir.

  I have always wondered if he was the mysterious son of the old lady that we had known in Niort. For many years afterward, I was tempted

  to contact him to find out. But, if my intuition was correct, how could I possibly tell him that his own daughter had been the instrument of his mothers death? Perhaps if Madame Lazareff had been warned, she would have had time to hide somewhere. Such a conversation would only have been terribly upsetting to both of us. And so I never went to see him.

  The End of the War

  As the liberation of Paris approached in the summer of 1944, clouds of planes passed over our heads with a deafening noise, occasionally dropping a bomb, perhaps on some local railroad. We did not know whether those planes were going toward their destinations or coming back from them. But even after the retreat of the German army from France, the war was still not over for us. Food rationing continued for at least two more years. War was still being fought over large parts of Europe. The chronic shortages, the hunger and disease continued. But the immediate and constant danger and fear were gone, and that changed everything. What began as a trickle turned into an enormous movement of displaced persons—people going home, people looking for people, survivors released from concentration camps or prisoner of war camps wandered in search of their families. Sometimes a person who had disappeared reappeared, amazingly.

  My mother and I had little choice except to stay in the provincial town where we had spent over four years and where we had survived the Nazi occupation. We were homeless, penniless, and displaced. We had not yet been able to get into contact with anyone. The few valuables which my mother had taken with us in the fall of 1939 when we fled Paris had been sold—some jewelry, the last gifts from her father which had been saved during the Revolution, a good stamp collection, a fur coat. Some old friends from Paris and Brussels managed to send us some money, when they could figure a way to do so. There were times when we ate very frugally indeed.