The Birobidzhan Affair: A Novel

by Marek Halter

  They turned down another narrower street lined with log constructions. Some of them were brightly painted. Others, though recent, showed signs of dampness, with patches of blackened wood. Others again stood unfinished. They had no roofs, and their rafters rose into the blue sky like the legs of giant insects. Here and there, the workshops of small businesses could be spotted behind thick half-drawn blinds. All the signs were in Russian and Yiddish.

  “You’ll find everything you need at the big market,” Nadia said. “It’s my favorite place in Birobidzhan. Although it’s just a hangar with an enormous roof, it’s a real treat when everyone is there selling and bartering. It’s not so good in winter, obviously. The farm people don’t come as often this time of year. It’s not easy in the snow with the sleighs. Here we are, we’re home. … ”

  The main dacha was one that had been built by the first immigrants in the early thirties. That was why it had been designated as temporary accommodations for newcomers.

  “But you know what temporary means. I’ve been here for two years and I’ve got no idea how much longer I’ll be here. Every time I talk to Metvei about it he says, ‘Why do you want to leave? It’s just the place for a young woman. … ’ I suppose they’ll leave me here until I get married! You might have more luck.”

  In Birobidzhan, as in Moscow and any other town in the Soviet Union, most people lived in communal housing. However, the dachas that had been specially built for communal life were better designed than the massacred bourgeois apartment blocks that had been turned into henhouses with the sole aim of cramming in as many families as possible. Opening onto either side of a wide main corridor, the rooms were spacious. Each room had the same little dormer window, a storage bed, a table, and some shelves. The shared kitchen, the only room with electricity, was equipped with several fireplaces, a long table, and some benches. Marina noticed the embers in two large samovars glowing red. Heavy painted cupboards sagged under the weight of the crockery, while the walls were decorated with pictures cut out of magazines. The inevitable portrait of Joseph Vissarionovich hung just below the ceiling between two beams. Its position took away much of the power of his stare.

  Nadia couldn’t stand still. She grabbed Marina’s hand and pulled her to the other end of the corridor, making a face.

  “Before we go any further, I’m going to show you something you’re not going to like,” she said.

  It was the shared bathroom. There wasn’t a sink or bathtub in sight. A zinc tub fixed on a stand was supposed to serve as a shower. You were meant to fill the tub with hot water and wait for it to filter out through a pink rubber pipe. The wooden floor was spongy and swollen from icy moisture. Old mirrors hung on the wall.

  “It’s okay in the summer, but for now … you’ll do what we do. We all keep a basin of water in our rooms for everyday use, and when we want to feel nice and clean, we go to the bathhouse. For us girls, it’s on Fridays, on the eve of the Sabbath, although nobody observes the Sabbath around here. It’s great to be in an all-female setting, and some of the women are experts in the art of massage. I’m sure you’ll love it. … ”

  Marina had to hold out for a few more hours before she could collapse onto her bed.

  It was the first proper bed that she’d slept in for two weeks, a warm, motionless woolen nest enveloped in silence.

  She felt overwhelmed. Nadia had bustled around her, getting her room ready, even if there had really been very little to do. A few of the other tenants, all women, had come to meet her. Bringing her tea and cookies, they had asked her where she had come from and why. Nadia had answered their questions for her and told them in great detail about her arrival at the station. The women had kissed Marina. Far from being intimidated by the fact that she was an actress, they were delighted to hear it. They had nothing but praise for their theater, saying it was the finest building in Birobidzhan. She would see it for herself the next day, and plenty of other things besides. It was the beginning of a whole new life.

  “Welcome to Birobidzhan! God bless you! If you need us, just give us a shout. We all have to help one another around here. That’s what we’re here for. It’s not easy at first, but you get used to it, you’ll see. It’s not as bad as all that. In these hellish times we’re living in, you can thank the big man upstairs who sent you here, my girl. Plenty of people are much worse off!”

  And not one of them had suspected that Marina Andreyeva Gousseiev wasn’t Jewish. It was as if the very fact that she was there was as good a proof as any that she was one of them. She was turning into a different person.

  “The big man upstairs who sent you here … ” If the woman had known!

  Joseph Vissarionovich’s face came back to haunt her. Not the tender young face in the photograph that had made her go to pieces in the station refreshment room, but the real face with its pock-marked cheeks that she had fondled on that November night back in 1932. The memory of that face had never left her, but it didn’t have quite hold the same power to terrify her as it had at the station.

  It was as if the cold and vastness of Siberia that were crippling the dacha and the town were already rubbing off on her. She felt as if she had reached the end of her ordeal by burying herself in this tiny alien fledgling town.

  That was Birobidzhan.

  It was both her prison and her only hope of a new life, as a Jewess.

  “Don’t you think this is the most marvelous theater in the world Marina Andreyeva?”

  Metvei Levine’s voice echoed around the arches. Dressed in black, he tapped his boots on the stage. His V-neck sweater accentuated his svelte physique and symmetrical features.

  “You’re going to love it. This theater has a soul, a soul that’s going to keep growing stronger and stronger.”

  Marina looked at him, fascinated. Levine’s brand of good looks was almost too perfect. He used them to his advantage with the practiced art of a man who has long been aware of his power.

  Barely an hour earlier, in the winter wonderland of the newly broken day, Nadia had accompanied Marina to the theater. The building was more modern than she had expected, with a very geometrical façade. Two narrow metal-framed glass borders ran along its high rectangular pediment. On its ridge, above the shallow curve of a balcony, was a sign in big red letters in Cyrillic and Yiddish reading STATE JEWISH THEATRE.

  Concrete columns painted dazzling white framed its central porch. On either side, the picture windows of the two perfectly proportioned wings looked out onto the vast snowy promenade between the theater and the river. The long main body of the theater stretched out behind the exquisitely simple façade, incorporating the auditorium and storerooms. That was where Nadia had taken Marina, around the side of the building. The actors’ quarters could be reached through a red side door. Nadia had given the bell pull a tug.

  Without waiting to see whether the door opened, she had run off in the direction of the main street, crying, “You can’t know how glad I am that you’ve come, Marinotchka, and so is Metvei! You’ll see.”

  A few seconds later, Levine himself had opened the door. He had laughed at the sight of her all wrapped up, the big rainbow blanket that the women on the train had given her thrown over her coat and hat.

  “Marina Andreyeva! Who could possibly recognize you under all those layers? It’s not as cold as all that. You’ll soon get used to it, like the rest of us.”

  He had greeted her effusively, asking how she was settling in at the communal dacha. Did she have everything she needed in her room? Was she feeling at home there? Had the women given her a warm welcome? She mustn’t be afraid to ask Nadia for help.

  “Although she seems quite the little lady, she’s still just a child, but charming and full of beans! You can count on her every bit as much as you can on me.”

  As for sorting out the administrative side of her arrival in Birobidzhan, she needn’t worry about that. Everything would be fine. It was just a formality. What’s more, he would go along and see the commissar with her later.
He was entitled to have a say in the Committee’s decision as director of the theater.

  Marina had thanked him. She had found Levine’s emphatic attention as overwhelming as the heat of the theater, the deep sleep she had fallen into the previous night, and the novelty of it all. How long had it been since she had slept anywhere that dark and silent? On waking, she had felt as though she’d been carried off to an unfamiliar, mysterious world. Every single one of her old gestures and habits would have to be relearned.

  Levine had guessed and understood. He had helped her to take off the blanket and coat, then steadied her elbow while she was slipping out of her felt boots. Marina had noticed how hot his long delicate fingers were as he gripped her arm, even through all her layers.

  “People always find it strange when they first arrive in Birobidzhan, particularly from the city. We’ve all been through it. It must be even more of a shock coming from Moscow. This is a real province and not even one of Chekhov’s creation. But we’re building a new world, aren’t we? And it’s all thanks to him.”

  He had pointed at the gigantic photo of Stalin pinned up behind his desk. Marina had gently freed herself from his grip. The room had been furnished with care and decorated in the same style as most powerful men’s offices in the Soviet Union. Red Army propaganda posters and banners embroidered with coats of arms and Yiddish script hung alongside photographs of productions. The photos featured Metvei Levine in costume and makeup, either alone or with other actors, performing or taking a bow. Marina could not have failed to notice such a strange face as Mikhoels’s in makeup and costume in one of the shots. The picture must have been taken when Levine was about ten years younger.

  Levine had picked up on her surprise.

  “I’ve known Solomon Mikhoels for a very long time. He was my teacher. This theater wouldn’t be what it is today without him.”

  “I didn’t realize that you performed alongside your employees.”

  “To direct a theater like this one, you have to be able to do everything: act, direct, and even write and adapt plays. That’s what our famed forefathers did, isn’t it?”

  Levine glowed with pride.

  “I should point out that our troupe is currently sadly diminished. What’s more, it’ll be another few days before you get to meet our acting comrades. They’re on tour in Khabarovsk. Our responsibilities include putting on shows in the region’s towns. And it’s good for Birobidzhan. … ”

  He poured them each a glass of boiling hot tea from an electric samovar.

  “The electricity fairy comes all the way to our theater, as you can see. Unfortunately, not everywhere in Birobidzhan is lucky enough to have her. Would you be so kind as to follow me? Bring your glass with you. It’s about time you saw the heart of our little marvel.”

  They had whisked through the lobby, dressing rooms, stage, and costume designers’ workshops and weaved their way through the usual muddle of the wings, before finally entering the stagehouse. Levine pushed the lever of a large dimmer switch. Two spotlights illuminated the pale stage floor.

  “We use spotlights but respect tradition if necessary. Sometimes we make do with candlelight.”

  He showed her the glass candleholders lined up along the front of the stage against the semidarkness of the auditorium. It was bigger than Marina had imagined. On stage right, a suspended platform extended the stage. Levine had explained that sometimes musicians sat there “between heaven and earth, as it should be with music!”

  In Italian style, a purple drape hanging from the fly system blocked the stage loft from view. The wings were hidden behind two narrow curtains that fell in ample folds. Levine had pushed the lever of a second dimmer. An enormous pendant chandelier had lit up the auditorium.

  The auditorium was a long oblong with rounded corners. Rows of wooden seating were arranged in tiers on either side of the center aisle. Instead of a balcony, there was a gangway with a decorative guardrail. Long lines of Hebrew characters stood out against a blood-red background. Above that, frescoes were painted on the walls. The trompe l’oeil was made up of vivid and realistic images depicting the first waves of immigration to Birobidzhan, dances, and the clearing of forests. These scenes were illustrated alongside the faces of the fathers of Yiddish theater, including Abraham Goldfaden, Mendele Mocher Seforim, Sholem Aleichem, and Isaac Leib Peretz. Marina hadn’t come across any of them before. A tall portrait of Stalin hung right at the back above the entrance in the golden glow of a small lamp.

  Levine bent down and put his glass on the stage. Facing the auditorium, he repeated, “This place has a soul. … Do you feel it, Marina Andreyeva? Listen. … ”

  Still crouching down, his face tense, he broke off. There was nothing but a cold silence and that slightly acrid smell of damp dust so common in empty theaters.

  Levine slowly rose to stand.

  “A theater is more than just bricks and mortar and its actors’ flesh and blood. It has a vibrant heart and soul. This one has a soul reaching back through the thousands of years of our history.”

  He was talking in a low voice, taking care to enunciate every word, making small, smooth gestures with his right hand as he spoke. Marina remained silent.

  “Of course you’re speechless, you weren’t expecting this, were you? Who would believe there could be such a gem tucked away here among the izbas and wolves of the taiga? It’s modeled on an old theater in Warsaw. … But it needs more than just a soul, Marina Andreyeva. You’re a godsend! Five years ago, the troupe consisted of twenty actors, half a dozen musicians, an artistic director, and about thirty technicians and admin workers. Now I’m down to three actresses. One of them doesn’t even have two years’ experience, and the other two have been acting for too long. I have to write useless adaptations for plays that we put on time and again … when we could be trying out such marvelous and ambitious ideas. After all, isn’t Birobidzhan the future of Yiddish theater?”

  “Comrade Director … —”

  “No, please, I beg of you! Please don’t call me ‘Comrade Director,’ whatever you do.”

  He stepped closer to her, hands outstretched, bowing his head. It was a theatrical gesture. Marina stepped back toward the front of the stage.

  “I want you to know the truth, Comrade Levine. Nadia told me that I owe you for persuading the politruk to let me get off the train.”

  “Forget Masha Zotchenska. She’s irrelevant.”

  “I don’t speak Yiddish. I learned the only words I know very recently, on the train. The children of the poor people they’ve sent to Khabarovsk taught me.”

  She had said it loud and clear. Her voice echoed around the empty stage, sounding harsher than she had intended. Levine didn’t look surprised.

  “Well, you’re not the first person to arrive here without much Yiddish. You’ll just have to work a bit harder if you want to read the old texts, but these days we don’t perform in Yiddish as often. … ”

  “I thought … ”

  “Times have changed, Marina Andreyeva. You’ll understand better when you know our history.”

  “But most importantly, I haven’t performed in front of an audience in a while. It’s been about ten years, to tell the truth. For a long time, right up until the war, I worked mostly for Mosfilm. Last summer, Comrade Kamianov, the director of the Art Theatre, cast me in the role of Ophelia, but the production was cancelled at the last minute because it wasn’t authorized. … ”

  Levine held up his hand to interrupt her.

  “Mikhoels has sent you here, that’s enough for me.”

  “I’ve never worked with Mikhoels. He was just being kind.”

  “So you’ve never performed any of the plays in our repertoire then?”

  Marina simply shook her head. Levine looked at her, his eyebrows drawn together, his hands clasped in front of his mouth. The light from the spotlights shone in his black pupils. He had an intense gaze. Marina turned away slightly.

  How long had it been since she had been held up to
that kind of male scrutiny? She knew what he was seeing. The anguish of the past few weeks, together with the endless days on the train, the erratic meals, the sleepless nights, and the cold and loneliness hadn’t done much for her looks. That morning, she hadn’t recognized her own face in the mirror Nadia had lent her. Who was that pale thirty-year-old woman with big dark rings under her eyes, faint lines on her forehead, and a bitter mouth? A woman who had forgotten her beauty and powers of seduction.

  She stood up straight, checked that the barrette holding her chignon was in place with her fingertips, and found it in herself to give a wry smile.

  “Not everything that comes from Moscow is a godsend.”

  Levine nodded, amused.

  “For me, it’s enough that in this case the godsend came via Solomon Mikhoels. He’s seen you perform. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Comrade … ”

  “Call me Metvei, please, and let me read you what Solomon has written about you.”

  He pulled Mikhoels’s letter out of his pants pocket.

  Dear Comrade Director of MAT in Birobidzhan, my dearest Metvei,

  If conditions allow at your beautiful theater in Birobidzhan in such hard times, I’d be most grateful to you if you could take on the rare pearl I’m sending you. Marina Andreyeva Gousseiev, as she is known, is an unusual character. She knows no more about Yiddish theatre than a goy. I fear that her ignorance about Jews, and even the sweet balm of Judaism, may be even harder to understand. The God of Moses has neglected her education somewhat. However, by way of compensation, he has given her all the qualities and gifts that ought to be expected of an actress. With a little more work, and I know you work hard, my dear Metvei, I don’t doubt that Comrade Gousseieva will be able to show our community some of the great emotions that our highly respected Yiddish theatre is known for. … ”

  At a loss for words, Marina only just managed to hold back the tears. Where did Mikhoels’s goodness come from? Why had he masked his lie behind such a flood of compliments? Had Kapler and Kamianov really convinced him that she had talent?