The bread was baked.
January 1942. The sewer system is not working. Everybody gets by as they can. Excrement is thrown from windows.
January 1942. Some days no bread is delivered. People stand in long lines. Some lose consciousness. Some die.
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28 January 1942. There is, apparently, a limit to physical suffering beyond which a person becomes insensitive to everything except one’s own self. Heroism, self-sacrifice, a great feat can be accomplished only by someone who is well-fed or has suffered hunger briefly. But we know starvation which has debased, crushed, and turned us into animals. Those who will come after us and perchance read these lines: don’t judge us too harshly.
February 1942. We haven’t washed in three months. They say that there’s a working public bath somewhere. Men and women wash together there. But such a journey is beyond our strength.
February 1942. Excrement, like ossified geologic shapes, covers every courtyard.
10 February 1942. There are rumors that a road across Lake Ladoga has been cleared and that evacuation has begun anew. It would be so good to get out of Leningrad. Now, when the most difficult time seems behind us, it would be stupid to die.
12 February 1942. Some items are being distributed per ration cards. I got 250 grams of meat. We ate it raw.
14 February 1942. Today, per ration card, I got 75 grams of sunflower-seed oil. For a long time we sniffed it, as if perfume, and relished its golden-yellow color. Finally, after lengthy vacillation, we decided to fry up some bread. Having gotten a frying pan and some kindling, we joyfully fussed about the jerry-rigged stove, anticipating a sumptuous dinner.
Suddenly, with a careless gesture, I knocked the bottle over. The oil gushed out. I screamed in horror and froze. It seemed that it wasn’t oil but my blood pouring to the floor. Dima rushed to scoop up the oil from the floor. He managed to save some twenty to twenty-five grams. I stood all red, fearing even to glance at him.
“It’s OK. Don’t get upset,” he said abruptly. It was a chivalrous and noble thing to do. I shall never forget it.
24February 1942. Only now have I understood the deep wounds inflicted on
my city by the Germans.
In many places, instead of buildings remembered in flashes from my childhood, there now towered ruins. A huge granite building on the corner of Kras-noarmeiskaia Street and Moscow Concourse was ripped apart down to its very foundation. There used to be a boutique here. I would often pop into it in the winter to warm up and buy some trifle.
25February 1942. Today I wandered into one of the streets next to the
Moscow Railway Terminal [i.e., from which trains departed for Moscow].
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The destruction which I saw there shook me deeply. All the buildings had been bombed out. An occasional wall would rise here and there. A [tile] stove was suspended from one of them like a pale blue absurdity. It gently reminded me of recently known warmth and coziness. A pure, dreamy, iridescent, blue snow covered everything. It was unmarked by tracks: neither human, nor beast, nor bird.
A tomb-like silence, like the smell of strong wine, permeated the ruins. Iron beds, twisted into spirals, were strewn about, resembling strange skeletons of ancient unearthed animals. I stood there awhile, lost in thought, then crossed the Terminal Square. It lay before me—an icy, snowbound desert. Only the wind whirled about and, like a homeless dog, licked at my legs.
26 February 1942. I left the apartment and stopped on the street, not having a sense of where to go. . . . After a while I found myself before the Technological Institute. It stood alone, huge amidst the deserted streets. I was a student here once. Its enormous doors once swallowed young people like a hungry mouth. They scattered throughout its numerous corridors, filling the building with full-blooded, boiling life. Now the doors were sternly locked.
Suddenly someone’s halting call reached me. “Elena, is that you?” A middle-aged woman stood before me. Her puffy face seemed familiar.
“You don’t recognize me?” she asked, her unfamiliar expression vanishing with a blink of her long lashes.
“Irina, you?”
“Me, of course. Have I changed a lot?”
“You? Well . . . no. But yes, of course. Like the rest of us,” I mumbled.
Before the war she and I worked together. She was a charming young woman; now you could have given her fifty.
“Ira [diminutive of Irina], are you thinking about evacuation,” I asked, changing the subject.
“Yes.”
“But how?”
“With the Meteorological Institute. I work there now.”
“Could I possibly go with you?”
“Can’t say.” She pensively rubbed the whitish tip of her nose. “I’m on my way to the institute. Come with me, if you like. It’s very near.”
Of course, “I liked.” On the way Irina told me about herself. In January she had given birth to a premature seven-month infant. The baby died after five days. The only food in the hospital was water and vitamins. She spent twenty days there tossing in bed, tormented by hunger and fever. They brought her home nearly dead. And then salvation came: her grandmother died leaving two kilograms of fish-base glue and ration cards as inheritance.
“And where’s your husband?”
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Irina gave a long whistle. “He fled on a plane to Moscow.”
“And what about you?”
“As you see, I’m here. When he took off, I was in the maternity ward.”
“He left you all alone?”
“Yes. And to hell with him. If he were here, I would have dropped dead long ago. He ate everything I had. You know what I mean by ‘everything.’”
Yes, I knew very well. In the entryway I pushed my passport through the small window [to get a building pass], but a dirty hand threw it back at me.
“What about the pass?”
“There’ll be no pass,” came the brief answer.
“Why?”
“Give me a piece of bread, I’ll give you a pass.”
“You’re crazy! Where would I get bread,” I exploded.
“A tiny, little piece, at least,” wailed the doorkeeper with the voice of a beggar.
“Give her a pass immediately, or I’ll complain to the director,” shouted Irina.
A shaggy head protruded from the window and peered sideways at Irina. A pass was flung out shortly after that.
Irina wasn’t very long at the director’s. Coming out she said, “Everything is in order. The director does not object.”
I looked at her like an idiot.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing… you said, the director does not object?”
“Yes.”
Tears welled up in my eyes.
“Forget it,” said Irina, grasping me by the arm. “Let’s go.” We went out into the street. “All the evacuation trains are headed south now,” she said. “Most likely we’ll go to the Caucuses; we’ll warm ourselves in the sun and eat all kinds of fruit.”
“Eat fruit?” I was amazed. It wouldn’t enter my head that somewhere there’s fruit which can be held in one’s hands, smelled, and even eaten.
28 February 1942. Irina lived in a large, handsome apartment house on Mayakovsky Street. The courtyard was flooded with excrement. A narrow path lead to the entrance. The door to the apartment was wide open. It was quiet in the hall. The sound of my steps rolled ahead of me, like a bowling ball. Irina sat, squatting before her makeshift stove, cooking something. A large black sheep’s skin was tied to her back and chest.
“I never take it off. It sort of became part of me,” she said, noticing my stare.
“You need a cat to match your colorful outfit.”
“I had a cat, but I ate it.”
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“What are you co
oking?”
“Carpenter’s glue broth.”
When the broth was ready, she began to eat. Of course, she did not offer me any. The tradition of offering food to your guests had long since vanished in Leningrad. In order to get food off my mind I asked a question. “Why is it so quiet here?”
“Some people have left, others have died. They’re lying about in every room.”
“Who?” I was confused.
“The corpses.”
“Why don’t they remove them?”
“Who? I told the concierge, but he said that they can lie there a long time without smelling, since it’s cold now.”
“Are you alone in this apartment?”
“There’s some guy living at the end of the hallway. Every night he tries to force my door. Probably wants to eat me . . . I sleep with a knife.”
She showed me a large chef’s knife which she pulled from beneath her pillow. We went to the institute, but there was almost nobody there, and nobody knew anything.
2 March 1942. Every day Irina and I go to the institute, so as not to miss the evacuation day. But so far, nothing is known.
9 March 1942. I dropped by [the old apartment on] Moscow Street to grab a few things for the trip. Wistfully, I walked through the rooms. Almost my whole life was spent here, but I’ll never live here again.
My gaze slipped along the bookcase: Bagritskii, Mandelshtam, Pasternak . . .
I chose one of the small volumes and leafed through the pages. Familiar lines came to life beneath my fingers. But they aroused nothing in me now except irritation. I snuffed the lines, slamming the book shut. Photographs tumbled out from somewhere. They fell in a fan-shape on the floor before me. The faces looking up from them seemed alien to me. Was that really me? Dima? Did we really have such fat mugs and smug, feckless eyes? A shiver ran up my spine. No, we would not have understood each other now.
I left the photographs lying on the floor.
29 March 1942. Upon arriving at the institute, we discovered that the convoy was to leave at six that evening. We had four hours to ourselves.
“Let’s run to a bakery and eat our rations to the end of the month,” Irina shouted.
After eating my portion right there at the counter, I ran home.
We went into a frenzy, feverishly stuffing things into sacks, afraid of being late. We had to get to the Finland [railway] Station on foot.
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For the trip I put on Galia’s [a neighbor] knickers from a wardrobe which stood in our room. After all, I couldn’t go with my knees showing. Having put them on, I recalled how indignant I had been quite recently when Dima took a pair of pants that weren’t his. And now I was doing exactly the same thing. The concept of honor had become an empty sound for us.
Finally we left. Left like swine, not saying farewell to our hosts and leaving our room in chaos and filth.
The sky was covered with clouds. One could see the outline of the sun wandering behind them, searching for an opening. Having found one, it would pour onto the street in streams of bright light. The snow would turn to slush; the sled would get stuck. Sometimes it would turn over, spilling all our “junk” along the road.
We’d fuss over it, angry, accusing each other. Finally, all in a lather, we arrived at the station. Irina was already there.
“Come quick. They’re going to feed us,” she said in agitation.
We were given two serving spoons of millet porridge with butter and a hunk of bread. With his plate in his hands, Dima ran around the tables looking for a seat. His frighteningly agitated face was covered with blue streaks. I gave him my chair and ate standing. Having finished the porridge, we scrupulously licked the plates clean. The next feeding was to take place only on the other side of Lake Ladoga.
Chapter Twenty-Five
N. Ianevich, Literary Politics
The chapter of Ianevich’s memoirs from which this selection is taken deals with the Institute of World Literature from the 1930’s through the 1970’s. The selection discloses the intense politicization within the institute during World War II and after as well as the many internal vagaries aggravated by the war. The author’s introspection reveals her intimate knowledge of the workings of this prestigious institute. She notes that she had been employed there practically from its very founding. Originally published as “Institut Mirovoi Liter-atury v 1930-e–1970-e gody” [The Institute of World Literature from the 1930’s to the 1970’s] in Pamiat’. Paris: YMCA Press, 1982.
The first months of the war were horrific. The Germans were rushing toward Moscow. Every night our colleagues stood watch on the roof of our Gorky Museum tossing off incendiary flares. The capital was being evacuated. Children, old people, priceless museum items, paintings and finally whole offices and institutions were moved out. Leonid Ippolitovich Pono-marev, our director, waited in vain for specific directives from his superiors at the Academy and complained that they were more likely concerned with their own safety than with the safety of the institutes. He was confused and overwhelmed by the sudden responsibility for the destiny of the staff and the institute itself. He clearly needed the help of youthful and energetic people. Acting on our own initiative we decided to help him.
In the course of two or three weeks several of our active women organized the evacuation of women with small children as well as of the ill and aged family members of our co-workers. They launched a furious attack on the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences until they received the necessary evacuation authorizations and destination. Then the institute received a directive
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mobilizing everyone, as many as possible, into work brigades for the building of fortifications outside of Moscow. I readily joined this brigade along with Liza Glatman, Olga Kuznetsova, Vera Bezuglova and other co-workers who were capable of handling a shovel. We were sent off with great pomp and speechifying, but no sooner did we get to the outskirts of the city than we were sent back. It was too late, all the approaches had been seized by the Germans. There was no place nor purpose for digging or erecting fortifications.
And on the next day—this was 16 October 1941, the notorious day of wholesale Moscow panic—our institute among many others was ordered to leave the city on foot, since there was no transportation and no point in waiting for any. Thousands of people in silent concentration, having taken with them whatever they could, marched along roads away from what seemed to be a doomed Moscow.
That was a cold autumnal day. The wind whipped pieces of burnt personal and official documents along the streets. The Institute of World Literature column, or what was left of the IWL, presented a sorry sight. Most of the men had been called into the army or had gone into the people’s volunteer corps. Several of them, specifically Mark Serebrianskii, head of the Soviet Literature sector, and Misha Zabludovskii, a specialist in Western Literature, had already been killed. Some of the older scholars declined to leave Moscow (A.K. Dzhivelegov among them). Others, members of the Writer’s Union, managed to leave on the 14th or 15th of October with the Writer’s Union convoy. There were others who could not walk at all due to poor health. Our column, therefore, was made up primarily of women with children or aged parents who had not been evacuated earlier. Anna Arkad’evna Elistratova, even then a renowned specialist on Anglo-American literature, trudged along, short of breath, painfully moving her edematous legs. Her mother and totally decrepit father trudged along with her. Old Leonid Ippolitovich walked with difficulty in the column of the institute which had been entrusted to him. Evgenii Emil’evich Leitneker, the middle-aged and ill co-worker of the Gorky sector also marched with difficulty, carrying a heavy rucksack totally filled with his unfinished manuscript: The Chronicle of Gorky’s Life and Art. Varvara Niko-laevna Lanina, from the same sector, walked along with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Tania. Among the hastily snatched items from their home they were carrying a new, glistening electric iron. Soon it tired
their arms so much that they began dragging it by the cord. Later, of course, they had to part with it entirely.
People quickly began to tire and our younger members began putting the old and infirm on military vehicles which kept passing us. Then they found places for everybody else and by the end of the day all of us were taken care of, including the director who had refused to get on a vehicle until everybody
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else had been provided a place. In this manner we arrived in the city of Gorky [Nizhnii Novgorod] and then by water reached Kazan where we were housed in the university. Finally, in a convoy composed of many academic institutions, we set off for Alma-Ata in Central Asia where the Academy Presidium had assigned us. When it turned out that Alma-Ata was filled beyond capacity, we found refuge in Tashkent.
We were quartered in the building of the Tamara Khanum school of ballet on one of the central streets of the city. In an enormous mirrored hall we spread out crates of manuscripts and articles from our Tolstoy and Pushkin museums which had been sent to Tashkent in our footsteps. We arranged the crates to form small, cell-like rooms which were quickly dubbed “caves;” used anything at hand for curtains, and began to live in them as families or in groups of two or three friends.
From time to time those of us who were stronger were sent by the city council to pick cotton; a group took part in the construction of the North-Tashkent canal, but most of us academic types were utilized as lecturers in hospitals and at the various enterprises and construction sites of the region. For this work Tashkent provided us with minimal room and board.
Most of all, I recall, we suffered from the absence of potatoes—the customary Russian potatoes without which a meal is not a meal with us. But at the Alai farmer’s market, the “belly of Tashkent,” potatoes cost eight rubles a kilo and only those who had money or had managed to bring items for barter could buy them. There were few people like that among us. Once while strolling in the market with Olga Kuznetsova and platonically admiring the colorful rows of fruits and vegetables we spotted our director, Leonid Ippoli-tovich, standing off in a corner holding his hat out with embarrassment. The poor man, he intended to sell or trade it for potatoes, but did it so ineptly that no one understood him. One could think that he was holding it out for alms. We slipped away quietly.
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