The Birobidzhan Affair: A Novel

by Marek Halter

  “Please don’t bring it up with them, Marinotchka,” Nadia begged. “They wouldn’t want that. Pretend you don’t know. We never speak of it here, or anywhere else for that matter. Nobody wants to talk about it, and neither does Metvei. Don’t tell him I told you all that. He’d be furious with me.”

  They were snuggled up close on Marina’s bed. Night had long since fallen. Nadia had brought a small paraffin lamp and some honey cakes with her, but they hadn’t touched them.

  Despite the harrowing and serious nature of what had been said, it was a tender, almost sweet moment. Since Marina’s arrival in Birobidzhan, Nadia had adopted her as if she were the most wonderful big sister she could have hoped for. Marina couldn’t help finding that touching. She’d never had that kind of relationship with a teenager, and despite everything she’d seen and been through, Nadia was still a girl. Barely twenty, she had a lovely freshness about her that Marina envied. She still had that strength of purity and ardent belief in dreams that makes the young invincible. Marina had seen her dreams and her innocence destroyed forever eleven years earlier on an uncomfortable couch at the Kremlin. That moment had been as mortifying as a red-hot branding iron and had brought her to that forlorn place. Like all the other women in the izba, she had her unspeakable story. Like them, she had known for a long time that only silence could get you through those untold personal tragedies. And judging by what Nadia had just shared with her, her own personal drama wasn’t the most horrifying.

  Nadia misinterpreted her silence.

  “I shouldn’t have told you all that, Marinotchka. Living here is not all that bad. You’re going to be happy with us. When spring comes around again, it’s truly magnificent, you’ll see. And there are so many mosquitos that you can’t think of anything but scratching yourself!”

  Humor returned. They nibbled at the cakes, and Marina asked Nadia if she had an admirer.

  “An admirer? And where do you suppose I’d find one. There aren’t any men left around here, not any young men I mean. I’ll have to wait until the war is over or resort to Guita’s strategy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She goes out with the goys. There are more of them than there are of us. Not all the young ones have gone away. You’ll always find guys who like Jewish girls. Personally, I couldn’t.”

  “But why not, if you find a boy you like?”

  “I’m not sure that Guita finds boys she likes. She just says that she’s not going to wait until the war’s over to have some fun. If it takes us ten years to beat the Nazis, she’ll have wasted all her youth for nothing. It drives Grandma Lipa crazy to hear her talk like that! When they have one of their ding-dongs, it feels as if the house is going to fall down around our ears, you’ll see.”

  Nadia buried her face in the pillow next to Marina’s cheek.

  “I want a real Jew, and he has to be as handsome as Metvei,” she added in a whisper.

  “Ah, so that’s it, then! He’s the man you love.”

  “No, don’t say that. You’re insane.”

  “So he’s not for you?”

  “Never, certainly not.”

  “Oh?”

  Nadia propped herself up on one elbow, serious again, studying Marina, her brow knitted.

  “Don’t poke fun at me. You know very well that it isn’t true. Metvei isn’t a boy. He’s a … He’ll want a proper woman.”

  “Like the politruk? Masha whatever-her-name-is?”

  “Zotchenska, no, she’s running after him, not the other way around.”

  Nadia pointed a vengeful finger at Marina’s chest.

  “It’s you he wants, I know he does!”

  “You can’t possibly know that!”

  “I know Metvei. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

  Nadia was right, but Marina didn’t feel very comfortable with the idea. It instantly led to another.

  Casually, innocently, Marina asked, “Do you know the American doctor?”

  “Oh him … Of course. Everybody knows him. He’s been here for a while. Have you met him?”

  “He stopped by the theater a few days ago.”

  “His name makes me laugh, Mr. Doctor Michael Apron.”

  They had great fun repeating his name in American style, trying not to roll their r’s.

  “Your pronunciation is very good!” Marina said, surprised.

  “He taught us a bit of English at the dispensary last year. He was giving women lessons in first aid and nursing if they were interested. I really enjoyed it. I’d love to be a nurse. I helped out a bit last summer. It’s something I’d be good at.”

  “Why didn’t you continue with it?”

  “Metvei doesn’t want me to. I mean, he’d like me to go into nursing, but not with the American.”

  “Oh … ”

  Marina didn’t say any more. There was no point. She stroked Nadia’s cheek. The girl responded by nestling into her.

  “I was sure you’d see Mr. Doctor Michael Apron sooner or later. The men can’t stand him because he’s American, because he never takes anything seriously at our meetings, and because he provides medical care for everyone, goys and Jews alike. He even treats the Chinese on the border. All the women in Birobidzhan love him because he’s gentle and kind and takes very good care of people. Apparently, he’s very, very good with women in labor. Except that now there aren’t any pregnant women anymore.”

  Nadia smiled dreamily.

  “Did he go to the theater especially to see you?”

  “No,” Marina lied. “No, I only saw him for a couple of minutes, that’s all there was to it. I don’t even remember what he looks like.”

  That was partly true and partly a lie, and, like all lies, it was an admission.

  It was true that her encounter with the American had only lasted a few minutes, four or five at most, but she remembered his face perfectly. In fact, she remembered every detail of his appearance, always with the same thrill of surprise and delight.

  Apron had emerged from the shadows of the auditorium and leaped onto the stage in one bound. She had stepped back, knocking over one of the chairs she had brought out for her rehearsal. The bang of the chair as it hit the stage had echoed around the auditorium, rooting them to the spot. They were like two kids caught red-handed. Now that they were standing close, Marina tried to gauge his height. He was so tall that she had to tip her head back to look into his eyes. She stepped back to get a better look at him. Misunderstanding her motive, Apron softly protested. No, there was no need to be afraid. He lifted his hand to tell her to stay where she was. His hand was large and his fingers surprisingly slender. His gesture was conciliatory, if a little comic. Of course she wasn’t afraid of him.

  She was taken aback when he unrolled his newspaper to show her the photograph. Only a moment before, she had assumed it was the Birobidzhaner Stern, but no, this paper was a perfect replica with identical photos, headlines, and articles, except that it was in Russian. The title, Birobidjanskaya Zvezda, was in Cyrillic and still translated as the “Birobidzhan Star.” The American covered Marina’s portrait with his palm.

  “Bad photo. In real life, you just like I imagined.”

  His pronunciation mangled his words, making his speech hesitant and slightly slurred, masking the true meaning of what he was saying. Marina couldn’t think of a reply. It was ridiculous. She found herself unable to do anything but stare at him.

  He must have been in his early thirties. Everything about him seemed foreign. His reddish hair was too long, falling to his shoulders in thick curls. Above the neckline of his wool shirt, his skin was as milky as a woman’s. A vein was throbbing wildly along his neck. His cheeks and chin bristled with uneven patches of stubble, darker than his hair. A hairless scar line zigzagged from his bottom lip down to a point under his chin. His mouth was a bit short and looked a little lost in his big face. Long exposure to the sun, ice, and wind of the taiga had tanned his temples and cheeks. His eyebrows w
ere barely visible, making his huge eyes with their gray and gold tints stand out all the more. Faint wrinkles lined his forehead. His chapka hat had left a tan mark below his hairline. He couldn’t have passed for handsome, certainly not, but that didn’t matter. There was something else about his face and enormous body that attracted attention.

  Something else that attracted Marina’s attention, at least.

  Never before had a man’s presence given her that curious feeling of familiarity and unfamiliarity, strangeness and reassuring well-being. Although she didn’t let her feelings show, she was incapable of acting natural, as if she couldn’t care less.

  Apron stepped to one side. For the time being, he couldn’t seem to think of anything to say either. He simply looked at her, smiling vaguely, as if that were enough. The fine scar tugged at his lip.

  Thinking back, it occurred to Marina that they must have looked ridiculous, both standing stock-still, staring at each other in silence.

  Eventually, Apron rolled up the paper into a tight baton. In the lantern light, the golden down on the back of his hands danced with every move he made. Forcing herself to look away, she bent down to pick up the chair that had fallen over.

  He said, “I am leaving. I not want to disturb.”

  She meant to protest, to say something nice. No doubt she would have managed it eventually if it hadn’t been for a noise in the wings.

  Metvei Levine’s voice called out, “Marina?”

  No sooner had his steps sounded on the stage did he appear. His eyes instantly fell on Apron’s back, widening in surprise.

  “Well, well! Fancy seeing you here, Comrade Doctor.”

  Without turning around, Apron replied.

  “Hi, Comrade Director. Curious. Just curious. I came to see new actress in photo. I not disturb more.”

  Levine moved closer.

  “I thought you were off visiting the dispensary in Pirobraskevaska.”

  “Too much snow to go so far. Truck cannot. Sledge necessary to me, but too far and too long for sledge. And woman sick at Waldheim kolkhoz. Perhaps I go next week?”

  He never took his eyes off Marina the whole time he was talking. His speech was clumsier and his accent thicker than before. All of a sudden, his smile had a mocking, slightly provocative edge to it.

  Levine came and stood beside Marina, explaining, “Comrade Apron came over from America to treat the sick in the oblast. Very brave of him, I’m sure.”

  Apron seemed to detect the mockery in Levine’s tone. He reached out and gently tapped Levine’s shoulder with the end of his newspaper.

  “Not courage, Comrade Director. I Jew of Birobidzhan, now, not true?”

  The American raised his eyebrows, as if he were waiting for an answer. Levine just shook his head. Apron burst out laughing.

  “No, not true? You think not, Levine. American never becomes Russian. But I work on it, I work on it. Even Yiddish. Soon, you will see. … ”

  He was enjoying himself. Shooting a glance at Marina, he pulled a packet of Sviezda out of his shirt pocket, the brand usually smoked by soldiers with the star of the Red Army as its trademark.

  “No smoking on the stage, Comrade Doctor,” said Levine as the American stuck the cardboard tip between his lips.

  The tension between the two men was palpable. Levine’s good looks and self-assurance suddenly seemed artificial beside the powerful, casual American.

  Apron put his matches back in his pocket.

  “Of course, of course! I not light cigarette.”

  He tossed the paper onto the chair and withdrew without a word of goodbye, stepping over the lanterns and jumping down into the auditorium. On reaching the center aisle, he turned to face them.

  “You lucky, Comrade Director. You will do good theatre now.”

  He grabbed his thick sheepskin coat from where he’d left it on a seat and melted into the shadows. Under Stalin’s portrait, a streak of light bounced off the door and the tall silhouette of the American was gone.

  Levine grumbled, “What on earth was he doing here?”

  “He … ”

  Marina motioned to the paper he’d left on the chair. It had unrolled and her photo was visible.

  Levine persisted, “How did he get in?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t hear him come in. I was working.”

  Marina didn’t care much for the look on Levine’s face and wished she could have taken a different tone with him. Her reply was too deferential, too defensive. She picked up the paper.

  “I wasn’t aware that there were two versions of the Birobidzhan Star,” she said. “One in Russian and the other in Yiddish.”

  “There are lots of things about this place that you aren’t yet aware of, Marina Andreyeva. We reverted to using Russian as our official language instead of Yiddish four years ago. Not everyone in Birobidzhan is Jewish. It wouldn’t do you any harm to be aware of that, so don’t forget it.”

  In a flash, all the seductive charm that Levine had worked on Marina since her arrival had gone from his voice. She picked up the big shawl that she had taken off while she was rehearsing and wrapped it around her, smiling calmly. It was the smile of an accomplished actress who is confident of her beauty.

  “You’re quite right, Comrade Director. I have absolutely no idea what goes on here.”

  Levine’s face changed instantly.

  “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to be rude. That American has no business coming here. I don’t like finding him hanging around the theater.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to meet any Americans here. I didn’t know quite what to say to him.”

  “Not Americans plural, American singular. Him, and that’s more than enough.”

  “Has he been here long?”

  “Over a year. I hate having him around, but the decision to keep him on here was justified.”

  “What do you mean ‘keep him on here’? Isn’t he an emigrant like the others?”

  “He came here with the understanding that he would bring aid from the Jews in America and then go home, but all we have is a Jewish dispensary. We don’t have any doctors qualified to perform even the most straightforward operations, or the equipment. The region was too poor to set up a little hospital. The sick were supposed to go to Khabarovsk when it could be arranged. During the first wave of immigration, accidents and diseases were commonplace—deaths too. The immigrants would arrive from the city in a fragile state of health. … It was really hard. The party did what it could, but ultimately it was left up to the Committee to find help.

  “The Jews in America promised to send assistance. It took a while and they didn’t send the medical supplies until the very start of the war. Apron came with the convoy. He was supposed to show the doctors how the equipment worked and then go home, but all our decent doctors had been sent to the front on the Volga. That left only two. One is in Bidzhan, sixty miles away, right on the Chinese border. He can’t be persuaded to come all the way here because he’s needed over there. As for the other, he’s perpetually drunk. Apron offered to transform our dispensary into a little hospital with an operating room and stay until the end of the war. The Birobidzhan Executive Committee discussed his proposal. We forwarded it to the Party Secretariat for the region, which consulted Moscow. Moscow gave the go-ahead, and there you have it. It was a wise decision. … From time to time, you have to be pragmatic and take help where you can, don’t you?”

  Marina gave no reply. The chill of the auditorium made her shiver. Levine noticed. He reached out and pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders.

  “But he’s still American,” he added with a scowl.

  He pulled out a packet of Slava cigarettes with its orange coat of arms and elegant filter. Marina laughed mockingly.

  “I thought smoking was banned on the stage.”

  Levine gave her a wink.

  “Only if you’re American.”

  His old confidence and charm had returned. He lit up, throwing his head back for the first pu
ff. Marina cleared away the few props she had laid out to help her with her exercise.

  Eyeing her keenly, he said, “I wish I could have come earlier and seen you at work. I had an important meeting.”

  “Never mind. You didn’t miss much. Most of it was a pretty poor show. It was only my first attempt. I’ll carry on with it tomorrow.”

  “The American seemed to like it.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know much about acting. Is he a good doctor?”

  “He seems to be. Women swear by him. They’re the ones who get the most attention from him.”

  Levine had tried to pass the remark off as a provocative joke, but his face told its own story.

  Marina smiled, amused. Perhaps in an attempt to tease him back, she asked, “If he’s good at his job, what can anyone have against him? Is it just the fact that he’s an American?”

  “The fact that he’s an American is no laughing matter. America is the most repugnant place on earth. We all know what it’s like and how people live over there.”

  “But he doesn’t live there anymore. He’s here, taking care of the people of Birobidzhan. He did better than just bring equipment, he’s really helping. He even seems to like living here with us.”

  Levine brushed aside her argument with a wave of his hand.

  “That doesn’t mean we can trust him, not a guy like him. It’s a question of personality, of … perzenlekhkeyt, as they say in Yiddish. He comes and goes. We never know where he is. He came in here, despite the fact that the theater is closed, isn’t it? Unless there’s a show on, the premises are open to theater staff only. The guy’s got no right to be here, but he comes in anyway, as if he owns the place. What’s he up to?”

  Planted firmly in the middle of the stage, Levine stared hard at Marina. Once again serious and intense, he had the tone and manner of a man accustomed to winning arguments with his silver tongue.