Read Online The Stalin Epigram by Robert Littell - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Littell
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attracts women?) They didn’t take their poetic gift for granted,
knowing, as we all know, that because you are able to compose a poem one day does not mean you will compose another in your lifetime. What else? They shared an abiding responsibility to be truth
tellers in this wasteland of lies.
They brought out the best in each other and in me, no mean feat when you consider the times we lived in, and the place. When the three of us were able to come together, we vanished into a
sanctuary of camaraderie and connivance that was not, I’ll be the first to admit, without overtones of sensuality. (I had slept with one of them years before and would have slept with the
other if he had ever asked me. I won’t say which was which; let that be my little secret.)
We started to stroll, and I walked between the two of them, looking happily from one to the other, the three of us not in the least concerned with the getting there, contented only with the
going. In the distance we could make out enormous cranes swinging giant wrecking balls—Osip, who excavated metaphors in the most unlikely places, thought it was a sign of the times that they
were in the shape of teardrops—against the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which the Bolsheviks had condemned to demolition. Geysers of chalk and cement particles spewed into the sky with
each angry thump of the teardrops. I think I was wearing the rubber mackintosh with the hood for fear it would rain, along with my shiny black ankle-length boots. Yes, yes, I must have been because
I distinctly remember Osip teasing me for dressing like a deep-sea diver. (It’s amazing the details that come back to you once you start down this road.) Borisik was still under the spell of
Shostakovich’s new opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District , which he’d seen at the Stanislavsky-Nemirovich the night before. He took a visceral pleasure in reading aloud the
inane review he’d torn from a page of Pravda . I can still hear his melodious voice in my ear. “ ‘An ugly flood of confusing sound, a pandemonium of creaking, shrieking and
clashes.’ Ah, and this,” he said, slapping the scrap of newsprint with the back of his hand. “ ‘ Un-Soviet .’ Now what the hell does un-Soviet mean? I can vaguely
see what they’re driving at with this Socialist realism gibberish, but how can music , for God’s sake, be realist in form and Socialist in content?” Shaking his head in
disgust, he added, “We live under a dictatorship of mediocrities, not a dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Osip, for his part, described a visit he’d had from Ehrenburg, the Russian émigré novelist who had been living in Europe since the early twenties. “In tones that left
little room for dispute, Ilya Grigorievich let me know how much he admired the progressive politics of the Soviet Union. Needless to say, I could not let that pass without comment.”
“Needless to say,” Borisik agreed, flashing one of his delicious grins.
“I ripped into him for praising from Paris what writers and artists and poets here had to endure at first hand. I told him how hard it is to compose honest verse in this atmosphere, how I
make the rounds of editorial offices looking in vain for someone with the balls to publish a Mandelstam poem.”
“The problems of those of us who live in cities pale in comparison to what’s happening in the countryside,” Borisik interjected.
“Precisely,” Osip agreed. He let his walking stick clack against the metal grille surrounding a neighborhood Party building. The racket made Borisik and me uneasy—we
weren’t keen to attract attention to ourselves. “I described to him the train ride Nadenka and I took returning from the Crimea,” Osip continued, “the emaciated bodies
stacked like firewood in open wagons queued up before improvised cemeteries, the ribs clearly visible on the horses dragging plows in the fields. I dredged up a line from a poem I wrote a few years
ago
knowing, as we all know, that because you are able to compose a poem one day does not mean you will compose another in your lifetime. What else? They shared an abiding responsibility to be truth
tellers in this wasteland of lies.
They brought out the best in each other and in me, no mean feat when you consider the times we lived in, and the place. When the three of us were able to come together, we vanished into a
sanctuary of camaraderie and connivance that was not, I’ll be the first to admit, without overtones of sensuality. (I had slept with one of them years before and would have slept with the
other if he had ever asked me. I won’t say which was which; let that be my little secret.)
We started to stroll, and I walked between the two of them, looking happily from one to the other, the three of us not in the least concerned with the getting there, contented only with the
going. In the distance we could make out enormous cranes swinging giant wrecking balls—Osip, who excavated metaphors in the most unlikely places, thought it was a sign of the times that they
were in the shape of teardrops—against the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which the Bolsheviks had condemned to demolition. Geysers of chalk and cement particles spewed into the sky with
each angry thump of the teardrops. I think I was wearing the rubber mackintosh with the hood for fear it would rain, along with my shiny black ankle-length boots. Yes, yes, I must have been because
I distinctly remember Osip teasing me for dressing like a deep-sea diver. (It’s amazing the details that come back to you once you start down this road.) Borisik was still under the spell of
Shostakovich’s new opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District , which he’d seen at the Stanislavsky-Nemirovich the night before. He took a visceral pleasure in reading aloud the
inane review he’d torn from a page of Pravda . I can still hear his melodious voice in my ear. “ ‘An ugly flood of confusing sound, a pandemonium of creaking, shrieking and
clashes.’ Ah, and this,” he said, slapping the scrap of newsprint with the back of his hand. “ ‘ Un-Soviet .’ Now what the hell does un-Soviet mean? I can vaguely
see what they’re driving at with this Socialist realism gibberish, but how can music , for God’s sake, be realist in form and Socialist in content?” Shaking his head in
disgust, he added, “We live under a dictatorship of mediocrities, not a dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Osip, for his part, described a visit he’d had from Ehrenburg, the Russian émigré novelist who had been living in Europe since the early twenties. “In tones that left
little room for dispute, Ilya Grigorievich let me know how much he admired the progressive politics of the Soviet Union. Needless to say, I could not let that pass without comment.”
“Needless to say,” Borisik agreed, flashing one of his delicious grins.
“I ripped into him for praising from Paris what writers and artists and poets here had to endure at first hand. I told him how hard it is to compose honest verse in this atmosphere, how I
make the rounds of editorial offices looking in vain for someone with the balls to publish a Mandelstam poem.”
“The problems of those of us who live in cities pale in comparison to what’s happening in the countryside,” Borisik interjected.
“Precisely,” Osip agreed. He let his walking stick clack against the metal grille surrounding a neighborhood Party building. The racket made Borisik and me uneasy—we
weren’t keen to attract attention to ourselves. “I described to him the train ride Nadenka and I took returning from the Crimea,” Osip continued, “the emaciated bodies
stacked like firewood in open wagons queued up before improvised cemeteries, the ribs clearly visible on the horses dragging plows in the fields. I dredged up a line from a poem I wrote a few years
ago
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