The Wanting (45 page)

I gratefully acknowledge the help given to me by many friends and colleagues. My readers, Jennifer Futernick, Sam Lavigne, Michal Evron Yaniv, and Tamar Yellin, all added immeasurably to this work. In Israel, Roni Hefiz and Tamara Mendelsohn and their children Daniel and Michal gave me guidance, especially relating to young people. Thanks also to Hagit and Yoav Zeff; Aryeh Green of MediaCentral and his family, Michal, Moriya, Yonatan, and Katie; Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch; Walid Salem of
Palestine Journal
; my Negev guide, Alon Shirizly; Michael Loftus for his help in Jerusalem; Amir Gutfreund for sharing his knowledge and his home; and Orly and Eitan Eldar for their friendship and wisdom. For help with the Russian portions of this book, Sasha and Masha Ortenberg were indispensable (plus they reminded me how to curse authentically); Olya, Seryoga, and Liza Rakitchenkov aided with stories and Russian language; and to all my Russian friends wherever they ended up, the Kriksonovs, the Preismans, the Khazanovs et al., my gratitude. And, finally, a big shout-out to Annie Blackman, age fourteen, for the delightful drawings that illuminate these pages.

But most of all I would like to thank three people without whom this work would never have taken form. To my editor, the gentle poet Deborah Garrison, who said yes and never looked back. To my true friend, agent, and champion Michael Carlisle, who loved it from the first and wouldn’t give up no matter what—I owe him more than I can say. And to my beautiful and patient wife, Gayle—first reader, true inspiration, and partner in all things.

Books, publications, and Web sites used in the research for this work of fiction were many. But important among them were Gershom Greenberg’s
The End of Days
(Oxford),
Gulag
by Anne Appelbaum (Anchor),
Occupied Voices
by Wendy Pearlman (Nation),
Drinking at the Sea of Gaza
by Amira Hass (Owl),
Natan Sharanksy’s seminal
Fear No Evil
(Public Affairs), the less-well-known but equally poignant
From Leningrad to Jerusalem
by Hillel Butman (Ben Mir), and Helene Celmina’s remarkable
Women in Soviet Prisons
, found online at
vip.​latnet.​lv/​LPRA/​celmina
. I am especially grateful to Paul Steinberg for allowing me to use the interviews and martyr videos he and Anne Marie Olivier transcribed in
Road to Martyr’s Square
(Oxford) as templates for some of my martyr dialogue. I would also like to thank the University of Colorado Soviet Jewry Archives for generously opening their uncataloged collection to me. The Akhmatova poem is taken from
The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
, translated by Judith Hemschemeyer (Zephyr). The epigraph is from
Now and in Other Days
, 1955, translated by Stephen Mitchell in
The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai
(University of California).
Fushigi Yûgi
is a real series of graphic novels:
Fushigi Yûgi: The Mysterious Play
by Yuu Watase, translated by Yuji Oniki and Kaori Kawakubo Inoue (VIZ Media). Translations of the Qur’an are by Thomas Cleary; Qur’an and other texts also translated by H. M. Shakir on the University of Michigan Web site, A. Yusuf Ali at
sacred-​texts.​com
, and Marmaduke Mohammad Picktall at USC-MSA. Hadith from various sources, including
Sahih Muslim
, translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqui at
iium.​edu.​my/​deed/​hadith/​muslim
,
Hadith on Torments of the Grave
, translated by Dr. Norlain Dindang Mababaya at wefound.org.;
Hadith
collected by Paul Halsall at
fordham.​edu
;
Shaikh Muhammad as-Saleh Al-’Uthaimin
, translated by Dr. Maneh Al-Johani at
al-​sunnah.​com
; and
Du’a
compiled by Mutma’ina at
geocities.​com/​mutmainaa/​dua.​html
. Also of help were Madrassah Inaamiyyah and
Muttaqun.​com
at the Islamic Society of North America, especially for prayers. Peace to you all.

MICHAEL LAVIGNE
was born in Newark, New Jersey and educated at Millersville State College and the University of Chicago, where he did graduate work on the Committee on Social Thought. His first novel, Not Me, was the recipient of the Sami Rohr Choice Award for emerging Jewish writers, an American Library Association Sophie Brody Honor Book, a Book of the Month Club Alternate, and was translated into three languages. He has worked extensively in advertising, for which he has won numerous awards, is a founder of the Tauber Jewish Studies Program, and spent three years living and working in Soviet Union. He now lives in San Francisco with his wife, Gayle Geary.