Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag (27 page)
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Authors: Orlando Figes
BOOK: Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag
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Whether it was because I was tired yesterday or I slept on the wrong side I don’t know, but right up until morning I dreamed that I had
gone to see you, in conditions as they are now, and in my dream everything was so very real – all the people, gestures, words. They were not just familiar, but exactly as I had seen them. I woke up with a terrible longing.
gone to see you, in conditions as they are now, and in my dream everything was so very real – all the people, gestures, words. They were not just familiar, but exactly as I had seen them. I woke up with a terrible longing.
Sveta’s anxiety may have been connected to the fact that at this point she had shelved her plans to visit Lev that year. On 2 April Lev had written to warn her that he had decided to apply for a transfer to the Volga–Don canal to work as an electrician on the nearly finished building site:
I’d like to follow in the footsteps of the beard [Aleksandr Semenov, who had successfully applied for a transfer to the Volga–Don]. Pros: 1. It will earn a reduction of a year. 2. The work will be more interesting, and my brain needs that. 3. It’s in the south. Cons: 1. There’s not much time left on the building phase. 2. What would happen to me then? Where would I be sent? 3. The journey. Overall it can’t be worse there for my health than it is here. But issues of a different order are worrying me more – whether we’ll be able to see each other this year and my reluctance to leave G. Ya. [Strelkov] here all by himself.
Lev wanted Sveta to approve his plan for a transfer. ‘The final word is yours,’ he wrote three days later. He was ‘very pleased’ when she gave it the ‘go-ahead’. But that jeopardized their summer plans for a meeting. On 25 April, Lev told Sveta that she should give up any plans of ‘special expeditions’ to the North until he had heard from the authorities. ‘Decisions like this can drag on for months,’ he wrote, ‘so there’s no point waiting to hear anything.’
If anything does happen, I’ll let you know by telegram – or rather somebody will let you know, since I won’t have the time, it’s usually a matter of hours rather than days from notification to departure. Because of your stubbornness [over sending parcels] … I’ve accumulated some dead weight – a wardrobe of clothes – which I’ll give
to Ant. Mikh. [Iushkevich, a fellow prisoner and invalid], or try to send back to you beforehand, either through the Litvinenkos or by some other means. Perhaps – and at your discretion – it would be best to ‘re-supply’ them to Oleg. I will try to take some books with me, if it looks like that’s possible. And I’ll ask if the rest (not all of them of course, but only the most important ones) can be forwarded to me – either directly or through you. Don’t organize any special expeditions, Svet, just do whatever is convenient for you, because it’s really difficult to guess what will happen. Let’s hope for the best.
to Ant. Mikh. [Iushkevich, a fellow prisoner and invalid], or try to send back to you beforehand, either through the Litvinenkos or by some other means. Perhaps – and at your discretion – it would be best to ‘re-supply’ them to Oleg. I will try to take some books with me, if it looks like that’s possible. And I’ll ask if the rest (not all of them of course, but only the most important ones) can be forwarded to me – either directly or through you. Don’t organize any special expeditions, Svet, just do whatever is convenient for you, because it’s really difficult to guess what will happen. Let’s hope for the best.
With Lev hoping for a transfer south, Sveta planned to join a touring group on a camping holiday in Tuva, Siberia, during the summer. She was looking forward to a holiday but worried that she would not have the time to visit him. ‘My conscience has been troubling me,’ she confessed on 22 June. ‘Why am I itching to go to Tuva when I need to be with you?’ The Siberian trip would take a month, her entire holiday, whereas a vacation in the Caucasus, where she had gone the previous year, would give her time to travel to Pechora at the end. A week later the camping trip fell through, leaving Sveta free to visit Lev, who by this time had learned that there was ‘no need for labour on the Volga–Don [canal]’, nor on any of the other building sites, such as the Khakovka hydroelectric power station in Ukraine, where he would have liked to be transferred. Sveta shared his disappointment, but she was pleased that she could come to see him now. She wrote on the evening of 29 June:
Levi, I really want to go to sleep, but even more than that I want to tell you right away that my fate has been decided, though not as you proposed – that option never even entered my head. So as not to hold things up, I’m not going to go to Tuva, it’s settled, and I’m relieved because I’ll be nearer to you.
Lev was genuinely disappointed that she was giving up a vacation. ‘Don’t think I’m glad you’re not going to Tuva,’ he replied on 7 July.
There might have been one evening, when I’d just found out your plans for Tuva, when I was a little bit low – I’ll admit to that. But then afterwards it was quite the reverse – I always wanted you to have the holiday and was ashamed that I could have thought about it any other way.
Sveta now proceeded with her plans for Pechora. She would come in August, following a trip to the Caucasus, when again, as in 1950, she got a four-day extension to her holiday allowing her to travel to Pechora before her return to work. ‘My darling Lev,’ she wrote on 15 July,
I received permission from the director yesterday for the four extra days, so if nothing goes wrong, everything will work out fine. The travel voucher is for seven days. I’ll be home on the 9th–10th, which means I’ll be with you on the 13th or 14th, and be back at work on the 20th.
Sveta arrived in Pechora on 15 August and stayed, it seems, with the Arvanitopulos, where she received this note from Lev:
Welcome, Sveta. While we congratulate ourselves, this time maybe less joyful than the last. First of all, for almost a month now they’ve been allowing meetings only in the central guard-house and not in the guard-house of the colony, that is not ‘at ours’, like last year and not the way it was for I. S. [Lileev, Nikolai’s father] and Litv[inenko]. So it’s unlikely we’ll be able to say everything we’d like, what with the compulsory attendance of one of them [a guard]. All the more reason, therefore, not to ask for more than one meeting, especially since your time is so limited and you have to be back by the 20th, as you warned. Do you really have to go tomorrow if there has been no change to the dates of your leave? Maybe take B. G. [Arvanitopulo] with you; he might be of help in getting the meeting moved to our guard-house, and since there’s only going to be one, perhaps getting it extended to more than 2 hours. But I’m not very hopeful about it. Restrictions have now been tightened here, generally
speaking. And you won’t recognize a single person charged with carrying them out. So, Svete, be prepared for the worst and try not to get upset in front of them. Take no notice of them. In any event you’ll be able to tell me about your trip and also about my aunts, Uncle N., E. A. [Aunt Katya] and A[leksandr Ivanov], and all the others, including Alik …
speaking. And you won’t recognize a single person charged with carrying them out. So, Svete, be prepared for the worst and try not to get upset in front of them. Take no notice of them. In any event you’ll be able to tell me about your trip and also about my aunts, Uncle N., E. A. [Aunt Katya] and A[leksandr Ivanov], and all the others, including Alik …
Lev had made toys for Sveta to take back for the children of family and friends before the start of the school year on 1 September:
Incidentally, about the three trinkets – you might want to give them to Alka for the beginning of the school year (or whenever’s best), to Alenka [Semashko, Nina’s eleven-year-old daughter] for her birthday, and the third as you see fit (or in case you lose one along the way). I’m afraid they only look well-made, and in truth I feel self-conscious about their being shown to someone who can tell. Although you won’t notice anything without my explanations, there are enough flaws in each one that they’d never be accepted by the Quality Control Department. They’re suitable as toys for children, however – only you have to give them with the condition that they won’t cry if they lose them.
Sveta must have succeeded in getting to see Lev more than once, because she was still in Pechora (though no longer with the Arvanitopulos, it appears) when she received this on the 17th:
Good morning, Svetlye.
Don’t forget to drop in on B. G. [Arvanitopulo] while he’s at home – a courtesy visit, among other things. I forgot to pass on K. S.’s
46
request yesterday, if there’s any condensed milk in the local
shops and you have the time to drop in, would you buy about 4 tins and bring them with you when you come to see me? I’m asking because it’s difficult for him to pass on the message any other way. Maybe you could even ask Viktor to buy them and then you’ll just need to bring them with you.
46
request yesterday, if there’s any condensed milk in the local
shops and you have the time to drop in, would you buy about 4 tins and bring them with you when you come to see me? I’m asking because it’s difficult for him to pass on the message any other way. Maybe you could even ask Viktor to buy them and then you’ll just need to bring them with you.
But it doesn’t matter if you’re not able to.
Well, Sveta, that’s all for now. L.
Later that day a note came by hand with confirmation of a meeting arranged for that evening: ‘Well, all right, Sveta – after seven. (They do a check at 7.) It’s possible to arrive at 7 and wait. I hope everything is going to be all right.’
Sveta left the next morning. Lev had given her a bunch of flowers grown on the allotment to take home. She was back in Moscow three days later:
So I’m home, Levi. The people on the train were fine, although it was a crush – well, the more the merrier – and somehow we all managed to get some sleep … We arrived at about 1 o’clock. I ran home to take a shower; then I had some lunch and was asleep by 4 o’clock. I got up at 8 but haven’t really woken up since then and soon I’m going to bed again. I found two of your latest letters and one from Oleg, which is a cry from the depths and addressed to you … Not a single person had flowers on the train, of course. I carried mine all the way home, although I couldn’t put them in water while I was travelling – they partly had to go on the side luggage rack and partly on the floor just under the seat … Well, Levi, that’s all for now. Look after yourself.
The day after she left, Lev wrote to her:
My dear Svetin, it always seems so much bleaker without you when I have to get up at an ungodly hour; just now I went to switch over the substations, and I can see and hear you everywhere. There was a fair amount of work to do today and I did it all as though in my
sleep. Tomorrow I’m on duty on my own, so it will be hard for me to write and even harder not to be thinking about you. But I’m feeling fine, all the same, my darling.
sleep. Tomorrow I’m on duty on my own, so it will be hard for me to write and even harder not to be thinking about you. But I’m feeling fine, all the same, my darling.
As before, Lev was buoyed by Sveta’s visit. ‘I’ve felt fine over the last few days,’ he wrote on 23 August. ‘The work is easy and I’m not being annoyed by anything, and if I do growl from time to time it’s only for form’s sake and not out of annoyance.’
Sveta, by contrast, found herself deflated after her return. ‘It’s been exactly a week since I arrived home and just as long since my last letter to you,’ she wrote on the 28th.
The Moscow climate is having a bad effect on me. First, it’s stuffy everywhere – in the cinema, at work, in the underground, on the train, on the tram. Second, all I want to do is sleep. Third, my head is somehow empty. It’s unlikely that the climate is to blame for that one. What is to blame, if not the head itself, is the fact that I’m tormenting it with impossible questions. Even on the train back, everything was gnawing at me: what should I do – say a firm ‘no’ [to a new research project at the institute] and put paid to my ‘scientific’ career? Or try to summon up the strength to do it? I know I have to try, but I can’t see any realistic chance … So I’m walking around every day with a headache and full of apathy for the work going on at the laboratory.
Sveta was feeling so discouraged that she even thought of giving up photography. ‘What a wretched person you are, Sveta,’ Lev replied on 12 September, ‘always looking for something else to scold yourself about.’
I haven’t seen any recent products, of course, and they may well be bad. But if they turn out to be good, you still won’t be pleased –you’ll say it’s an accident and that the next photographs are bound to be poor. Anyway, I’m hoping that you’re not going to neglect photography and that I’ll get some samples of your work. I would
prefer to have pictures where you’re in the passive mode [being photographed] – those you’ll have the least use for, so, you see, my selfishness is moving contrary to your own interests [to take the photos] here – but I like your other work as well. You can send your pictures to me without fear – I won’t show them to anybody, even if they turn out well … I want them to be just for me.
prefer to have pictures where you’re in the passive mode [being photographed] – those you’ll have the least use for, so, you see, my selfishness is moving contrary to your own interests [to take the photos] here – but I like your other work as well. You can send your pictures to me without fear – I won’t show them to anybody, even if they turn out well … I want them to be just for me.
That autumn, Sveta worked long hours, writing up reports for the All-Union State Standards (which monitored the quality of manufactured goods), inspecting factories in Leningrad and joining labour teams to help bring in the harvest at collective farms in the Moscow area. Her administrative burden increased further when Tsydzik became ill and went into hospital for the early months of 1952. Sveta had a bad attack of hives and could hardly hold a pen. ‘Hives are not a skin disease at all,’ she wrote to Lev. ‘They’re painful and unpleasant. The only comfort is that it’s not cancer, it’s not tuberculosis, it’s not etc. etc.’
Depression closed in on her again. Encouraged by her mother, Sveta went to see a homeopathic doctor, who prescribed Anacardium, widely used for memory loss and irritability. ‘It seems to work,’ she wrote to Lev. ‘Everybody knows me at the institute but I struggle to remember the names of the new girls every autumn … and I’m always cursing at people.’ Lev himself didn’t always escape her anger. On 19 March, Lev had told her about a letter he’d received from Uncle Nikita, in which he wrote how his only solace was the thought of Lev and all his sterling qualities, and his only wish that he could live with him. ‘I don’t know how to reply without sounding falsely modest,’ Lev had written to Sveta. She replied on 26 March:
I wish someone would give you a good whipping, Lev! To my mind it would be better not to write to N. K. on the subject. First, he won’t believe what you say, and second, even if he did believe it, why do you feel it’s necessary? So that there won’t be any lies? It’s still far from proven that the truth is always better out. To satisfy your own
vanity (‘Oh, look how honest I am’), you’d deprive someone of his ideal, that is, you’d cause another person pain. To be disappointed now so that there’s no disappointment later on – great logic! Especially since you don’t know whether it actually will be any harder later on. Sometimes I too get the urge to destroy people’s illusions. But that’s when I’m feeling evil; otherwise I think it’s better to let the children amuse themselves. Honest to God, Levi, I’m being serious … Besides, your shortcomings won’t decrease just by your counting them. I mean that not for you, Levi, but generally: and probably more for myself … You’re a good man, Lev. As for me, I could write at length about how I’m not good (but then I think that’s clear from many of my letters, and it’s not worth wasting a separate letter on the subject).
vanity (‘Oh, look how honest I am’), you’d deprive someone of his ideal, that is, you’d cause another person pain. To be disappointed now so that there’s no disappointment later on – great logic! Especially since you don’t know whether it actually will be any harder later on. Sometimes I too get the urge to destroy people’s illusions. But that’s when I’m feeling evil; otherwise I think it’s better to let the children amuse themselves. Honest to God, Levi, I’m being serious … Besides, your shortcomings won’t decrease just by your counting them. I mean that not for you, Levi, but generally: and probably more for myself … You’re a good man, Lev. As for me, I could write at length about how I’m not good (but then I think that’s clear from many of my letters, and it’s not worth wasting a separate letter on the subject).
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