The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (129 page)

The dull thuds of Pavel throwing himself against the door. He thrusts himself against it with all his might, crazed, his head reeling, banging his fists against it. A guard slides open the grill in the door, his face appears.

“You want me to hit you with my rifle butt?”

By Nathalie Babel

The Arrest of My Mother*

 I have adapted some of the material in the first section of this memoir from my introduction to the second edition of The Lonely Years, published in 1995 by Verba Mundi Books, David Godine, Boston.

My mother, Evgenia Borisovna Babel, nee Gronfein, was arrested a few months before my twelfth birthday. It was in the spring of 1941, just after the collapse of the German-Soviet Pact. Stalin and Hitler were no longer allies, and all persons of Russian origin residing in occupied France were now thought to be politically dangerous. Many were arrested. The provincial town of Niort in the west of France, where the 1939 exode had deposited us, had little experience with political prisoners in those days. The local French police just rounded up the dozen or so Russian women of the town and took them to the local jail. There were only women, no men. The children were left at home alone or with neighbors. I was left alone. Sometimes concerned neighbors invited me for meals or to spend the night. But most of the time, I managed by myself.

As I remember them, these Russian women were middle-aged or aged women of the old Russian Orthodox intelligentsia, the bygone bourgeoisie, and even one tall, impressive-looking lady with a mane of white hair, who had been in attendance at the court of the late Empress Alexandra. Together, this genteel and distinguished group was put into the jail with a variety of criminals. The prison warden understood quite quickly that these ladies had little in common with the usual population there, and so he decided to separate them from the ordinary inmates. They did not partake in the routine activities of prison life, were allowed in the courtyard at odd periods, and had different visiting hours than the rest of the prisoners.

Clearly, these women were not dangerous, but nevertheless, rules had to be followed when it came to visits. A permit was required before I could visit my mother, to be issued by both the French and German authorities. I remember going from office to office, taking the necessary steps to obtain the right to visit my mother—visits that lasted only a few minutes. I was allowed to come and see her twice a week, if my memory serves me correctly. My mother, flanked by two policemen, would be brought to a gate. I was behind another gate, accompanied by another policeman. The two gates were separated by a kind of ditch across which we spoke. Sometimes we were permitted to embrace and kiss each other, a favor for which I had obtained authorization in a special section of the police.

This went on for a few weeks, settling into a routine. Then one day, at the very beginning of the visit, my mother said to me very quickly in Russian, “The others have been freed. If you dont get me out right away, I will perish.” The guard cut her off after these few words. But I had understood perfectly.

I looked for help, but there was none. I spoke with people. They were all afraid. I went to the French authorities. I saw the mayor. I attempted without success to see the Prefet, the highest administrator of the whole area (department). However, I did meet the official doorkeeper (huissier) of this august personage, and was so dazzled by the gold braids of his uniform that I mistook him for the Prefet himself. Each of these officials said that he was powerless, that the problem stemmed from the larger problems between Germany and the Soviet Union.

Then I met a man who had helped me at the jail. Sometimes we had waited together to see our respective relatives—his wife had been arrested for black-market chicken trading. We used to talk, and one day he noticed that I was distraught and crying. “Only the Germans can solve your problem,” he told me. Then he wrote out on a piece of paper the name of the head of the local Kommandantur, saying that this person was an older career officer. “You must go to the Kommandant of our town. He is a decent man, and you have a chance.”

The German Kommandant happened to be of old French ancestry and was married to an Englishwoman. His name, I recall, was Du Barry. Everyone advised me against going to see him, saying it was much too dangerous. So I went alone.

It was a brilliant summer day. Birds were singing, and drops of water from a garden hose were playing on the windowpanes of the officers’ receiving rooms. How I managed to get inside the Kommandants office, I cannot remember. But I imagine that each soldier of whom I asked directions was too startled to do anything but give them to me. And then, there he stood inside his chamber. Huge maps with small flags covered the walls. I can still see his uniform, his medals, and his aide, whom he dismissed after taking a look at me, the petitioner.

He came forward from behind his desk and astonished me with some words of welcome in French. I told him that my mother was innocent, that I had no one else, and that he had to let her go. Two days later, on July 16, the day before my twelfth birthday, my mother walked into the courtyard of our small house. The weather was beautiful. I was standing outside chatting with a few of the neighbors. She opened the gate and walked in with a smile, as if everything were normal. We all stood transfixed, before moving toward her. I remember the sensation of being in a slow-motion picture, before I started experiencing enormous relief and joy. I did not feel surprised, because in my heart I knew that she had to return for us to have the chance to survive.

How did it happen that she was released? Kommandant Du Barry had summoned her, interviewed her, and could not have failed to be surprised by her refined and completely fluent German. She had acquired it many years before, thanks to the ministrations of a Prussian Kinderfraulein, a most energetic mentor in my grandfather s household. Kommandant Du Barry made my mother promise not to escape, asked her to come every day to the Kommandantur to sign her name in a register, and then let her go. She gave him her word of honor, and every day until the German army fled in tatters and panic, she came in to sign.

But why was my mother not released with the other Russian ladies? Why was she and none of the others kept in jail, clearly destined to go somewhere else where they would process her and her case? It was because the other prisoners were emigre Russian Whites, whereas she was Red. She was the wife of Isaac E. Babel, the well-known Soviet writer and a Jew. Although I was born in Paris, I was his daughter, and therefore I was Red, too. By the time the historical and political events I am describing took place, my mother had already lived in Paris for over fifteen years. But she had always kept her Soviet passport, which had to be periodically renewed. Each visit to the Soviet Embassy was such an ordeal that she had let her papers expire, a fact which created more obstacles for her, and even more complications for her husband.

And why did she keep her Soviet nationality? She had very little choice. She could have applied for a Nansen passport.* [
The Nansen passport was devised in 1922 by a High Commission for Refugees under the League of Nations headed by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen. This passport, which was provided to all Russians claiming emigre status, certified the holder’s identity and category of statelessness. It was officially adopted in France in 1924, the same year France formally recognized the Soviet Union.] 
But as the wife of the writer Isaac Babel, she was dependent on the money he sent from Russia to support us, while she lived in Paris, ostensibly temporarily to study art. She could not very easily sever all her ties with the Soviet Union without bringing severe harm to her husband. And like so many others, she could not renounce forever the possibility of returning one day to Russia.

My first official encounter with the Soviet authorities had taken place with my father years before. When he came to Paris in 1932 and met me for the first time (I was three years old), he took me to the Soviet Embassy and had my name entered into his passport, making me de facto a Soviet citizen. It was undoubtedly a cautious political move on his part. But on the other hand, we also knew, from the hundreds of letters he sent to his relatives abroad, that he harbored the utopian dream of having his whole family around him back in Russia. Yet he had been instrumental in obtaining exit visas for his mother, his sister, and his wife. I believe that this dream was anchored in some reality until Gorky’s death in 1936. After that time, my fathers repeated calls for us to join him in Moscow were no doubt for the benefit of a very vigilant censorship. There were clearly various hypotheses as to why he registered me as a Soviet citizen. Still, for many years, my mother resented this step he had taken on my behalf.

While I was growing up during the 1930s, we belonged neither to the White emigre group, most of whom were Russian Orthodox, nor to the Reds—the Communist colony in Paris. There was a social ambiguity in this position, and also a moral challenge for my mother. The Whites knew who she was, and that her husband had been celebrated by the hated regime. So they were not always comfortable with her. The Reds knew of Evgenia Borisovnas feelings of detestation for them, and certainly did not expect her to join them even socially. Nonetheless, a large part of our daily experience was Russian: language, stories, recollections of the Gronfeins’ family life in Kiev before the Revolution, Russian customs and foods.

My mother also had to explain my fathers absence to me. The main reason she gave was that, as a writer, Babel could not separate himself from his land and native language, which were indispensable tools for his creative art. She convinced me of the nobility of his beliefs, and made sure that I felt love and respect for him and his commitment to his writing. It was only much later in my life that I was able to look at this idealized image of my father with a more critical eye.

In addition to our Russian world, there was the indisputable fact that we lived in France. I have always felt comfortable in both worlds, although there were many differences between my classmates and myself. First of all, besides French, I could speak another language incomprehensible to them. This alone marked me as being different. Moreover, when I was asked at the beginning of each school year about what were my parents’ professions, I answered, “Both of my parents are artists. My father a writer, and my mother a painter.” This also drew attention, as well as the fact that I had a cosmopolitan education. As early as I can remember, I heard about literature, painting, exhibits, geography, and travels to faraway countries from my mother s conversations with her friends. Among them were Alexandra Exter, who painted set designs for the Ballets Russes, the sculptor Constantin Brancusi, the writer Joseph Kessel, and many others. My mother often took me to visit artists in their ateliers, where I could see them painting, sculpting, and creating various objets d’art. I began my formal schooling at the age of seven, which was the custom in Russia, but considered very late in France. I never read stories for little girls, but started out with real literature. My first two books were Uncle Toms Cabin in a French version for children and the classic Lettres de mon moulin by Alphonse Daudet. I received no religious education, following my fathers orders. I studied neither Judaism nor Catholicism, and did not go to church on Sundays. I envied my classmates, with their pretty dresses and flowers going to Mass.

My ignorance of religion could be a danger at times, when our Jewish identity had to be kept a secret. Once, during the war, a Russian lady came to visit my mother in Niort on Easter Sunday. On seeing me, she gave the customary Russian Orthodox Easter greeting, “Christ is risen.” Puzzled but polite, I answered, “Thank you very much, the same to you,” rather than “He has risen indeed,” the customary reply which all Russian Orthodox children would know by heart. My mother blanched, and the lady looked embarrassed, but did not say a word. From such near-catastrophic incidents, I learned early the importance of the meaning of words.

I also understood that Russia was a warm, creative, unique country, whose people had deep feelings and lofty sentiments—peasants as well as nobles. But from the political conversations I overheard at home, I knew before many others that the Russian Revolution of 1917 had degenerated into something monstrous, that the Bolshevik regime was not a temporary stage leading to a magnificent future, and that millions of people were being deceived. Many others, including my father, I believe, remained optimistic, especially in the early years of Soviet rule.

Although I received a partial Russian education and have lived for many years in the United States, I remain also French. The culture of France and its language are integral to my sense of self. I believe that the country of ones childhood education puts its stamp upon a person forever. The first alphabet, the first childrens songs and rhymes, the first counting and adding two plus two, ones first prejudices and loyalties, all make one a member of that culture, like it or not.

All of these contradictions illustrate what I have known throughout my entire life—that there was never anything simple about being the daughter of Isaac Babel. My father was similarly filled with many contradictions, which are apparent in his stories and books. Perhaps his future biographer will explore further the many inconsistencies that marked his brief life. I do believe, however, that these countervailing themes endowed his fiction with a resonance and richness, thereby creating literature of the highest order.

The Yellow Star

There is a story about which I have always felt uncomfortable, because I never tried to find out enough to bring it to a proper closure. Like the first section of this memoir, “The Arrest of My Mother,” it deals with my childhood.

It happened during the time when the German authorities decreed that all French citizens of Jewish ancestry had to declare themselves officially and to wear a Yellow Star. French Jewry has traditionally been one of the most assimilated Jewish groups in Western Europe. Prominent Jewish families have been French for many generations, and they certainly could never imagine that there could ever be any persecution organized against them. They considered, at least at the beginning, that having to register with the authorities was just one of the many troublesome inconveniences of the war.