The Birobidzhan Affair: A Novel
Page 39
In the days that followed, the war in Korea was all over the front pages of every newspaper, and Marina Andreyeva Gousseiev disappeared as if by magic from articles on the HUAC’s investigations. Sam summoned me to New York for a long talk with Wechsler and himself. There was no longer any question of me leaving the New York Post, and I was given a few months off to write my book. Sam suggested a title: The Birobidzhan Affair.
I was still in New York when I received an invitation to an evening of Yiddish theatre on July 17, at Maurice Schwartz’s prestigious Art Theatre at Irving Palace. The program promised a medley of texts adapted from Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye the Milkman and Tevye and His Daughters, put together under the promising title of Fiddler on the Roof. Marina Andreyeva Gousseiev’s name was written in big letters across the top of the invitation.
Shirley joined me. Hand in hand, we watched the marvelous performance with T. C. beside us. He was so nervous that he couldn’t sit still. Not only did Marina have a dazzling aura of truth and simplicity about her, but I couldn’t for the life of me spot the thousands of details I had admired during the Committee hearings in her voice and in her fascinating repertoire of gestures and expressions. Try as I might, I couldn’t work out how she had managed to get her beauty back. Everything was eclipsed by the grace of her art alone.
And it was that evening, after the laughter, the hugs and kisses, the flowers, and the congratulatory “Mazel tovs,” that I first heard the newspaper sellers calling out names that were new to my ears. The FBI and Chief Investigator Cohn had just arrested Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Notes
[1] In Russian, the female patronymic name only ends with an A if her first name isn’t followed by her father’s name, hence Marina Andreyeva Gousseiev, but Marina Gousseieva. In the novel, the Americans systematically use the version without the A ending.
[2] Soviet collective farms.
[3] Who am I? I am a poet / What do I do? I write. / How do I live? I live … (La Bohème, Puccini — Translation: Decca Peggie Cochrane, G. Ricordi & Co. edition)
[4] When it comes to dreams and visions and castles in the air, / I’ve the soul of a millionaire … (Ibid.)
[5] The central administrative department of the Soviet Union, established in the 1930s, responsible for maintaining prisons and forced labor camps.
[6] Approximately two-thirds of a mile
[7] Doctor Zhivago, translation.
[8] Yiddish for musicians.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Originally published in France as L'INCONNUE DE BIROBIDJAN
Translated from French by Anna Declerck
Copyright © 2012 by Editions Robert Laffont, S.A., Paris
English translation © 2012 by Editions Robert Laffont
978-1-4804-5501-6
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