The Birobidzhan Affair: A Novel

by Marek Halter

  “You’re mistaken, Yaroslav. The play hasn’t been banned. … ”

  “ … But we’re not going to perform it in Yiddish.”

  Anna had finished Levine’s sentence for him. He nodded, throwing his arms up in the air, as if powerless to do anything about it.

  “There was nothing I could do.”

  “I could feel it in my bones,” Anna murmured. “I knew they wouldn’t let us perform in Yiddish. Didn’t I tell you, Marina?”

  “They made the decision over in Khabarovsk, did they?” Yaroslav growled.

  “After the success we had there this winter?” Guita Koplevna chimed in. “What a disgrace!”

  “No, it wasn’t them,” Levine cut in sharply. “Comrade Priobine was just passing on orders from Moscow.”

  Levine pulled a piece of paper out of the inside pocket of his jacket. He unfolded it for them and pointed to the stamp of the Central Committee Department of Culture.

  Yaroslav sniggered.

  “Ungehert! Ungehert! … I don’t believe I’m hearing this! Is it possible that the great Stalin has forgotten that he himself wanted Birobidzhan to be the land of Yiddish, the language of the Jewish people of Europe? Heaven help us! What’s written on the pediment of our theater? State Jewish Theatre, and it’s written in Yiddish! Under whose authority was that? Only the whole politburo’s! Why, Kaganovich came to tell us in person!”

  “That’s enough, Yaroslav. Don’t think the rules don’t apply to you. We’re going to perform the play in Russian and that’s the end of it.”

  “In that case, you’re going to have to explain what on earth the point of this new Russian play is, Comrade Levine,” said Guita Koplevna quietly before scurrying off into the wings.

  The others hesitated for a second before following suit. Levine stepped forward to stop Marina.

  “Hold on a minute, please. I want to talk to you.”

  Marina watched the others go. Levine sighed.

  “I’m as disappointed as they are. I know how they feel. But they’re old and stubborn and don’t want to see that there are times when … ”

  He broke off, shrugging.

  “But I know what they’re like. They’ll sulk over it, but in the end they’ll perform in Russian. … It’s you I feel most sorry for. You’ve worked so hard toward performing the part in Yiddish. What a shame. … ”

  “As far as I’m concerned, it was time well spent, but the decision is going to come as a shock to the others, the inhabitants of Birobidzhan. They’ve been so looking forward to seeing the play.”

  “I know, but what can I do about it?”

  There was a noise in the wings. Two women, engaged as stagehands-cum-lighting-technicians, emerged.

  “Have you finished, Comrade Director? Can we switch off the spotlights?”

  Levine said yes and signaled to Marina to follow him.

  “Let’s go to my office.”

  He led Marina through the corridors without a word. She tried to gauge his mood. What did Levine want with her? Why this tête-à-tête? Had he found out about her and Apron?

  She knew him well enough by now to know how much he liked playing cat and mouse. A spasm of fear shot through her.

  Once in his office, Levine busied himself with his samovar, offered her tea, invited her to sit down in one of the armchairs but remained standing himself, gently rolling his scalding hot glass between his palms.

  “They had another piece of news for me at Khabarovsk, Marina Andreyeva. I have to go to Moscow after the May festival. The Central Committee wants me to take on some new responsibilities at the Department of Culture. It’s a step up from directing in this theater. I don’t know exactly what yet. … They might be putting me in charge of a region.”

  “Oh … Many congratulations, Metvei! I’m so happy for you! I suppose you’ve been hoping for this for a long time.”

  Levine nodded, looking very pleased with himself. Then he became serious again, and a bit stiff. Eventually he mustered up the courage to pull up a chair and sit down beside Marina.

  “There’s something else, Marina. … Something I’ve been thinking about for weeks and, after what’s been decided today, I think it’s time for me … well, for me to be frank. You might be taken aback, but it’s not so surprising.”

  “Metvei … ”

  Relieved, Marina raised her eyebrows in a mute question.

  “I’ve been watching you at work for weeks. After reading Mikhoels’s letter, I thought you’d be up to the job, but what I’m seeing is really something else. You’ve given my adaptation of Tevye, the dialogues and the role I’d rewritten, a whole new dimension that I didn’t even imagine was there. It’s amazing.”

  “Metvei, I … I’m really touched by your compliment, but you exaggerate. With the help of Yaroslav, Anna, and the others, I’m just beginning to soak up a tradition that I didn’t know anything about. … ”

  “Listen to me, Marina! You’re a great actress. Together we could create something new, totally new, in a way that nobody has ever dreamed of, not even Mikhoels. We can rethink the tradition of Jewish theatre, just that, breathe modernity into it, the breath of the future socialist. Realism is at the heart of the Jewish tradition, but that tradition confines it to nostalgia. You and I can invent tomorrow’s theatre. Not here, of course, but in Moscow. I need an actress like you, and you need me to give you scripts that are worthy of you. … ”

  Caught unawares, Marina was speechless. Barely understanding what Levine was driving at, she thought of Apron. So Metvei knows nothing, then? she thought to herself. He really doesn’t know anything? But she wasn’t convinced.

  Levine took her glass and put it down on the ground, then seized hold of her hands and squeezed them in his, bringing them to his lips to kiss her fingers.

  “Metvei … ”

  “I’m talking about work and the theatre, Marina Andreyeva, when I really want to talk about something else. Something that is related but goes deeper, deep inside me, like the invisible hulk of an iceberg, a burning hot iceberg. I’m talking about love, Marina Andreyeva. I want you to be my wife, Marina. I want to marry you.”

  Levine went down on one knee as if he were onstage. He lifted his handsome face toward her, shaking his thick hair back off his temples.

  “I’m asking for your hand in marriage, Marina Andreyeva Gousseiev.”

  “Metvei … I … I’m sorry … I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything, not now. My proposal seems crazy to you, I know. You haven’t had time to think about who I am. Perhaps you haven’t dared? But speaking for myself, I’ll say it again: I’ve had eyes only for you since the moment you stepped down onto the platform at Birobidzhan station. I knew right away. It was engraved on my heart.”

  He murmured the words into her fingers as he held them pressed to his lips. Lifting his face, he straightened up in one move, his mouth seeking Marina’s lips. She instinctively jerked back, turning her face away, but not before Levine’s breath brushed across her lips.

  “No, Metvei.”

  Levine’s hands closed more tightly around her fingers, his lips sought out her neck. Marina huddled in the corner of the armchair, pushing him back hard. Her knee struck Levine’s hip. He stood up, his cheeks bright red, his hair untidy.

  “Forgive me … ”

  He withdrew to his desk, smoothing his hair back into place. Without looking her in the eye, he muttered, “I’m sorry. … It’s just that I’ve been dreaming about you for so long!”

  Marina stood up while Levine leaned back against his desk and closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. When he opened them again, the redness had gone from his cheeks and his expression was cold and dry.

  “I don’t expect you to give me an answer now, Marina. I’m not even asking you to give me an answer before I leave for Moscow. I’m a patient man, but think it over while I’m away. Imagine what life would be like with me, and without me. The war looks set to drag on for a while yet, but we’ll
have peace again someday. There’ll still be the new socialist world to build. And together … ”

  Levine made an expansive gesture as if to suggest that the world were at his fingertips.

  Marina remained dumbstruck. Levine dropped his head slightly, clasped his hands together, and studied her face.

  “Are you wondering about Masha Zotchenska? I won’t lie to you, but what’s between Masha and me doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just the product of life here, boredom and solitude. After all, we are men and women, aren’t we? Zotchenska has no illusions about it either. I know she has no plans for the future.”

  Levine raised his head and looked into Marina’s eyes with a funny smile.

  “I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  There was silence, a touch of embarrassment. Marina kept quiet. Levine went to move closer but thought better of it and went around to the other side of his desk instead. His handsome face seemed drained of all the emotions that had so recently surfaced. The menace that Marina had feared for so long suddenly shot into his blazing eyes and throbbing voice, and a little quiver hardened his lips.

  “Think about your life, Marina, about how you got here and how you could get out of this place. And then allow me to give you a word of advice, about the American. Rumors are going around. … Be more careful. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from him. … ”

  “Metvei … ”

  “The Committee only tolerates the American because Birobidzhan needs a doctor and nobody else knows how to use his equipment yet, but that won’t last. They don’t trust him. He’s a double-crosser. I’m sure he’s spying on us. One of these days, I’m going to find out what he’s hiding. … As I said, I’m a patient man, patient in everything. That’s how you get what you want. Think about what I’ve just offered you, Marina. Just think what you could become with me. Make the right choice.”

  Marina didn’t tell anybody about Levine’s proposal. She didn’t tell Bielke or Grandma Lipa, and she certainly didn’t confide in Nadia, still less in Apron.

  There would have been so much explaining to do.

  But she spent many a sleepless night going over every word Levine had said and every nuance of his body language.

  Often, at the very beginning of their relationship, Michael and she had talked about Levine and the threat he posed. Apron had said, “I know his type. He’s a snake and he wants you. He’ll be cunning enough to wait until the right moment.”

  Apron was right, more than ever. Especially since it was now clear that Levine suspected that she was seeing Apron and would probably make inquiries about her as soon as he arrived in Moscow. On his return, he would know everything and, most importantly, what she was running from.

  Strangely enough, ironically even, she found that thought reassuring. Metvei Levine was a born apparatchik, part of the communist machine. His ambition to progress up the echelons of power, and the Party, knew no bounds. If need be, he would renounce his Jewish roots, the work of his predecessors, and the hope of a Jewish homeland, Birobidzhan, in his pursuit of power.

  Metvei was attracted to her. Perhaps he even genuinely admired her work. However, for him, she was just a means to win his superiors’ favor. When he found out that she was branded an infamous enemy of Stalin, he would forget all about her. He would avoid her like a garment infected with a deadly disease.

  Until that day, she had only to be patient.

  Her task was made even easier since, in the days that followed, Levine had to grapple with the consequences of the Party’s shocking decision. Nobody could believe that, for the first time since the birth of Birobidzhan, the MAT play performed on May 7 would not contain a single word of Yiddish.

  Everywhere people reacted with consternation, whether it was in the Jewish dachas, the little workshops, the shops, or the farms. Groups came to protest in front of the theater. Levine had to confirm the unthinkable. He showed a calm that, in many people’s eyes, bordered on indifference. Zotchenska and two or three Committee members came to back him up. The next day, the Birobidjanskaya Zvezda published the order issued by the Central Committee Department of Culture, accompanied by a few remarks from Secretary Priobine. A time of war was no occasion for defending the cultural origins of any particular people, but rather the values uniting the proletariat all around the world in their fight against fascism. There was no more pressing or glorious battle. Wasn’t that the thrust of Comrade Stalin’s words embroidered on the Birobidzhan banner?

  The just cause of proletarian internationalism is the sole unifying cause of all proletarians everywhere.

  Everyone saw where he or she stood. The protests stopped.

  Gloomy and disgruntled, Yaroslav, Vera, Guita, and Anna traipsed back onstage for a few rehearsals in Russian. Their sessions soon lapsed into provocative buffoonery. At the end of their tethers, Yaroslav and Vera kept breaking off and launching into ridiculous tirades in Russian peppered with Yiddish. That would have them all in stitches, but it did nothing to detract from their sadness.

  In the end, Vera Koplevna said to Levine’s face that the rehearsals were pointless. There was no longer any need for Marina to polish up her lines in Yiddish and, as for the rest of them, they all had their parts. That was quite enough. They might as well get on with completing the costumes and sets that still needed finishing off.

  Levine readily agreed, happy enough to escape the now tiresome business of rehearsals. The scenes where he and Marina were supposed to exchange promises of love and bids for affection had lost their spontaneity. In Russian, their lines became laden with double meaning, and their awkward performance attracted barbed remarks from the older actors.

  Then, as if nature had finally decided to lift their spirits, spring suddenly arrived. One day at the end of April, just before dusk, the sky covered over with the kind of thick ashen clouds that usually heralded more snow. This time, though, all that fell was a few mushy clumps of slush. At dawn, a southerly wind picked up, blowing in from the far-off plains of China. It was a warm, oppressive, nonstop wind, as stifling as the air in an overheated room. It rushed down hills, skimmed over frozen streams, rivers, and waterways, whistled through battered forests, and slammed dacha shutters and gates.

  It lasted one, two, three days. The snow started to crunch more dully underfoot and stick to the soles of boots. The air was thick with dank muted odors, the vinegary scent of old birch bark. Smoke from houses pitched toward the ground and stoves didn’t draw properly. Then the wind broke up the thick clouds, the sun appeared between cotton wool puffs scuttling northward, and the wind dropped before dying away altogether. The sun remained, the nights produced only mild frosts, and the debacle—the ice break-up season—began.

  Invisible at first, it softened the still hidden ground of the taiga with thousands of rivulets that emerged, sparkling and bubbling, on the banks. Everywhere, in the pools, rivers, and streams alike, whiplike cracks rang out. The ice gave way and was pulled down into the turbulent currents.

  Birobidzhan was crisscrossed from end to end with a huge network of liquid mirrors. Here and there, on the slopes, the taiga reappeared, black and murky, like a night of earth creeping over the landscape. In the forests, the snow slid off branches in wet whispers. Birds once again streaked across the sky. At dusk, a mist hung over the tucks and folds of Birobidzhan like the breath of a body coming back to life. Within a week, the gray water of the Bira and Bidzhan with its amethyst tints had swollen the never-ending bends of the Amur River. Frothing and foaming, it started to slosh between the banks, hollowing them out, forming new branches, carrying away islets and making the river impassable for a month or two. For the first time, Marina saw the dark muddy earth of the streets of Birobidzhan. Gardens reappeared, izbas regained their color, and everything seemed bigger, more spread out. Everywhere, unfinished buildings ceased to be nonsensical shapes, becoming walls, gables, or parts of rafters.

  Instead of hiding in the theater, one day Marina and Apron met in a fisherman’s h
ut that Michael had found by the Bira, out of town. The temperature wasn’t much above zero, but Apron had brought along some of the thick bivouac blankets that he took on his expeditions. Snuggling up underneath them, kissing and stroking each other, was like a game. The softened sand of the bank made a soft bed, the sound of the river went to their heads. From time to time, they felt huge chunks of ice carried along by the current bump against the bank. For a few hours, it was easy for them to believe they were alone in the world, freewheeling on a fragment of the planet.

  Before they parted, Apron announced that he would be leaving Birobidzhan at dawn to visit some of the hamlets and kolkhozy on the border, Marsino, Pompeyevka, some farms out in the marshes on the Bidzhan, families that he hadn’t been able to reach all winter.

  “Does that mean you’re going to miss the festival?”

  “No, I’ll be back in time, I promise. But I have to go there. Those poor people haven’t seen a doctor since, when was it? November perhaps? There was a pregnant woman in Bidzhan. I wonder what’s become of her and the baby, I have to know.”

  “Well, it’s probably better for us not to see each other at the moment in any case.”

  “Is it? Why is that?”

  Marina flopped flat on her back and listened to the river for a moment. Under the covers, she could feel Apron’s hot body against her side, but the cold was already gripping her temples. She hesitated. If she was going to tell the truth, now was the time.

  She made do with wrapping her arms around Apron, burying her mouth in his neck and whispering, “I think Metvei suspects something, about us.”

  Apron held her tight against his chest and laughed.

  “Of course Levine suspects!”

  Again Marina hesitated. Why didn’t she admit that Levine had asked her to marry him and that he suspected Michael of being a spy? Why keep that from him?

  For whatever reason, she kept silent, kissing him gently, seeking the heat of his body. She wished she could put it out of her mind, but she couldn’t escape from the truth that was boring into her breast.

  Levine was a snake, but he might be right.