The Russian Jerusalem by Elaine Feinstein Page B

an elder brother? A cousin, I decide, noting his well-cut hair and neatly shaven face. They hail him as Abram, but he rebukes them. He has changed his name. They must learn to use the new one. Mikhail Kuznetsov. He has come from Kiev, where life goes on splendidly and there is no longer any prejudice against Jews.
    They laugh at that, and he looks a little offended, but sits down at the table nonetheless. He is married now, but has not brought his wife. She is fully Russian and he does not want any embarrassment. The only problem theyhave, he explains, is living space. But of course it is worse in Moscow.
    â€˜What do you do in Kiev?’ asks the beauty, suddenly a little shy, I can see, in the presence of this cousin.
    â€˜I’m a mathematician,’ he tells her.
    The old man shakes his head.
    â€˜What, you make a living from arithmetic?’
    â€˜Not exactly. I work in a physics lab,’ he replies.
    And then he laughs, looking rather like a handsome wolf as he does so.
    â€˜There are stranger professions. Do you remember my brother Lev, the one with red hair? He is a poet. A Russian poet. A member of the Writers’ Union. Though a year ago …’
    He stops, and I guess at some recent problems.
    â€˜And this is a trade?’ demands the old man.
    â€˜You get ration cards, a flat.’
    â€˜So why have you come back to the stetl , if everything is Paradise in Kiev?’
    â€˜Family is family. I wanted to warn you. I have heard rumours…’
    â€˜There are always rumours, ‘says the old man.
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    The Kiev cousin stares at me, while they explain my relationship to the family.
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    â€˜He was cleverer than all of you,’ says the old man, who is probably the only one in the room who remembers him.
    Now the beauty enters the conversation.
    â€˜He and his brothers went to England. Was that such a mistake?’
    Yefraim mutters sullenly.
    â€˜It’s no safer than here. Look what happened in Germany. The Jews thought they were at home there once.’
    The beauty murmured, ‘The Germans have wonderful music.’
    â€˜And for that is it worth losing a Jewish soul?’ demands the old man. ‘The Gypsies play their violins, too, and has it brought them happiness?’
    She is not afraid of the old man, and he knows it, but he frowns at her. It is an argument they have had many times. He disagrees with all of them in different ways. He probably still reads the books Menachem Mendl loved. But he has endured a harder life and there are no laughter lines round his eyes.
    â€˜His children will go to university,’ the Kiev cousin observes.
    â€˜A Goyishe university?’ asks the old man.
    â€˜So? They learn the laws of science.’
    â€˜And can they grasp eternity, infinity, with all their science? A Jew without God can be persuaded of anything,’ the old man sighs.
    â€˜They will learn the great literature of the world,’ the beauty joins in.
    This incenses the old man.
    â€˜All the writing of the world is filled with violence and fornication. Your Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary and our own Yiddish writers are all the same: once you worship art, you cannot worship God.’
    â€˜These are books you have read?’ the Kiev cousin wonders, a little slyly.
    â€˜Long ago,’ he assures him. ‘When I was younger than you. And I tell you, even if we cannot carry our traditions into the next generation, while I am alive we shall stay here together. In Rechytsa.’
    Then the whole family begin to speak at once: about France, that trollop of a country, and what it means that Stalin is Hitler’s ally, with Poland split between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
    â€˜Stalin knows what he’s doing,’ says the Kiev cousin.
    The old man is sceptical.
    â€˜And what is he doing?’
    â€˜Building tanks, building planes …’
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    I want to cry out: ‘Have you learned nothing? Leave. Leave now,’