My Life As a Nomad: Where Is Home?

By Mary Smith

Mary Smith was born and raised in a country behind the Iron Curtain. She lived in a tiny apartment and shared a bedroom with her parents during the frigid winter months. She wore school uniforms and red pioneer ties. She ate variations of potato dishes, stood in line for a loaf of bread, carried heavy blocks of ice during the hot summer days, played hide-and-seek with the children in the building, and thought that life was wonderful. Her nonconformist parents, however, talked of a world beyond the Iron Curtain and planned to escape to a place where they thought they would find freedom.
My Life As a Nomad recounts Mary’s peregrinations through five countries on three continents that began in 1964. What started as an adventure full of promises, evolved as a perennial search for a “home” amid the customs and traditions of an unfamiliar world.
“Adam was but human – this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.”
Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
“The quality of mercy... is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes; ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.”
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398441088

Mary Smith

Mary Smith was born and raised in a country behind the Iron Curtain. She lived in a tiny apartment and shared a bedroom with her parents during the frigid winter months. She wore school uniforms and Red Pioneer ties. She ate variations of potato dishes, stood in line for a loaf of bread, carried heavy blocks of ice during the hot summer days, played hide-and-seek with the children in the building, and thought that life was wonderful. Her nonconformist parents, however, talked of a world beyond the Iron Curtain and planned to escape to a place where they thought they would find freedom. Mary’s peregrinations through five countries on three continents began in 1964. What started as an adventure full of promises, evolved as a perennial search for a “home”, amid the customs and traditions of an unfamiliar world. In her book, Mary Smith includes a quotation from Mark Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it on these accounts.” As much as the author admires this great writer, she does not agree with his statement. Travelling to places without living among the societies of sojourn may not influence the way one sees the surroundings. It is only upon inhaling their air, living off their food, laughing at their jokes and speaking their language, that the traveller may start shading the “prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”. My Life As a Nomad describes the people and places of the author’s sojourn, and most importantly, it attempts to analyse the impact of these experiences on her personal growth. The book follows her journey as an inhabitant of five countries with vastly different political systems, cultural norms and socioeconomic structures. Mary Smith spoke the local languages, worked and studied with the natives, and at times, became impervious to the differences between “them” and her. She watched, listened, and occasionally blended in. And in doing so, she realized that no matter where she would travel, she still has the DNA of her place of birth, and that this cannot be severed. So where is home, for even her own country of origin may be unrecognizable after decades of global changes? By learning to accept humanity with all its idiosyncrasies, she may discard the “prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”, and start building a home.

Book preview

I Attempt to Write About My World

and How I Interacted with It

I always thought that writing a memoir or autobiography is an absurd exercise in self-indulgence. I am a strong believer that a human being’s duty is to be useful to the family, community and the society at large, and try to be content in the process. Nevertheless, I inherited my father’s penchant for writing, but since English is not my native language and am aware of my numerous lacunae in this area, I joined a class at the local Writers and Books club.

Initially, I regarded this as a vehicle for improving my writing technique and thought that this kind of forum would help me express thoughts in a coherent and meaningful pattern. I now realise that writing from memory can become fiction, a figment of one’s imagination, the product of roller-coaster emotions, a Rashomon. The composite of one’s life raises questions that may remain unanswered. Nevertheless, trying to address them might become a useful exercise in creative writing.

When I started the process, I tried to detach myself from the subject, to be the reader who would serendipitously come across my writing. Would an outsider comprehend that circumstances can truly dictate the penchant for sadness or anger, or the seldom feelings of joy, in a nutshell, the reactions to the surroundings?

I often ponder about the characters in a play by Eugene Ionesco entitled The Chairs. In it, the two protagonists, an old married couple, are about to die. They claim that their long existence of trials and tribulations can teach humanity how to avoid mistakes and prevent its collapse. After their death, a pale, feeble-looking man appears on stage, only to crumple a few moments later. I always thought that the old people’s life experience did not suffice to save the world. We are not receptive to others’ teachings. We prefer our own mistakes and experiences.

I have lived in five countries on three continents, and have adjusted to, or rather survived, the demands of local idiosyncrasies. My path through life and my responses to it tell me that one’s personality is more the product of the environment than of the genetic code. Had I not learnt to selectively absorb certain aspects of the new cultures that I was living with, I would have sunk into oblivion. Neither did I become impervious to the surroundings: I watched and listened.

I started by looking up the definition for the word memoir. One explanation is a reminder. I do not wish to remember the past, because it might prevent me from stepping into the future. Neither do I want to analyse myself to write a memoir. I have frequently moved to a new country, city, town. During the first phase of my nomadic existence, I attempted to emulate local etiquettes, thinking that this would grant me admission to the ranks of the natives. Peregrinations through various corners of the planet have shown me that ‘they’ were as resistant to accepting newcomers as I was eager to have my existence acknowledged.

After so many decades in alien lands, I sense that individuals are universally a mixture of bad and good traits. As communities, however, idiosyncrasies and herd mentality prevail. Years of living as a stranger in an alien land lessened my eagerness to ‘belong’. Now, I continue my passage through life without further alterations.

I experimented with life, and have taken many risks, often eating the forbidden apple. I have often failed, or rather, I did not always reach the goals that I had prepared for in my young years. Nevertheless, one would have to define ‘failure’. As a child, I dreamt of becoming a physicist with a Nobel Prize. I never won the coveted award. And maybe I am disappointed with the fact that I am an individual on the fringe of society. But then, today’s globalised world seems to be a collection of disjointed communities, polarised nations, isolated citizens.

I have always been passionate about my convictions, and this translated into personal rigidity. On the other hand, I would shy away from preaching: I cannot claim that my personal life experience can become a guideline for other individuals. This write-up is more about places that I dwelled in rather than a personal narrative. It attempts to describe my reaction to the world, for each location I loitered in had its own story to tell. It is also an attempt to analyse the meaning of home, of belonging to a place.

Romania – the Country Where it All Begins

I Enter the World

When I permit myself to stroll through my maze of Soviet memories, I find it so multi-layered and infused with propaganda that it’s difficult to find my way out again. Perhaps that’s because for me, and others born and raised behind the Iron Curtain, the USSR was not an evil empire or a mysterious communal utopia of sharing and equal rights—it was our home.

We lived in small apartments in multi-generational families, wore school uniforms and Red Pioneer ties. Our families gathered around dining tables over boiled potatoes, kolbasa, pickled tomatoes and cucumbers, and everyone did their best to enjoy themselves. We also repeated party lines, like little parrots: Proletarians of all countries, unite! All power to the Soviets. Peace to the People. Land to the peasants.

[This is How Propaganda Works: A Look Inside a Soviet Childhood, by Katya Soldak, Forbes Staff Business, 20 Dec 2017]

*

I consider my personal history as something cumbersome impeding progress. And yet, we walk through life with a baggage of personal experiences that refuses to be discarded: it is an organic part of us, an extension of our body. One tries to amputate it, yet it will reproduce and attach itself like a virus penetrating one’s cells. It has been like spraying a weedkiller to a garden patch, yet the weeds grow back, only this time, stronger. The wrong seeds have been put in the ground of my garden, where they bred an individual who is struggling to identify where home is. Humans are never final products; they perpetually seek answers to conflicts they encounter; they evolve.

I am writing this book to analyse my past and find answers; solutions that would help me secure a sense of balance in the next and probably last chapter of my life. Putting the pieces together is a daunting assignment: I have been trying to delete chapters of my past in order to step confidently into the future.

*

Throughout my initial years, my father’s employment as a journalist for the government’s official newspaper was a useful commodity; he owned a magic card that enabled us to attend diverse cultural events and meet with politicians and artists.

I was eleven years old when my parents decided to apply for an exit visa. At that moment, we all became personae non gratae. I was eleven years old in 1958, the year we were transformed into ordinary mortals. My parents lost their jobs and were considered unemployable—after all, they were traitors, citizens willing to sacrifice it all to escape the dictatorship of a country with a long history of anti-Semitism. I finally understood that my life up to that point had been an existence of unlimited privileges, at least by Socialist Romania’s standards.

*

My initial memory of the past is that of an image rather than an age: a tiny person with a massive mass of blond, curly hair. This vision was to be repeated in its entirety years later, at the birth of my daughter.

The year is 1951. I am four years old and join my father in one of his assignments. My father travels with the newspaper’s chauffer and the paper’s photographer. They are permanent fixtures in my father’s career. The occasion: the building of the stadium for the 1952 Olympic games. I vaguely recall the din of heavy machinery but am not offered the opportunity to visit the site. I remain in the car with the chauffer who persuades me to admire the beauty of his private parts. The incident remains a secret to this day.

Summer, 1952. My father and I cross the chain of police guarding the stadium. We are heading to the opening of the Olympics. My father has a magic card, which facilitates access to such occasions. He possesses unlimited powers. He waves his credentials, and Sesame opens. He does not have to utter the words. It is better than ‘a thousand and one nights’. There is a sea of crowds waiting to catch a glimpse of the historic event; we alone can penetrate the wall.

A multitude of colours covers the field, each hue representing a country with its respective athletes. The patterns change and quiver in regular rhythms. This is overwhelming, and I am convinced that mere mortals cannot achieve it. The torchbearer appears climbing the stairs of the stadium, reaching his destination. The flames mushroom within the flat dish, people cheer, and I am told that this marks the commencement of the competition. I do not know what to expect next, I am dazed.

*

I am five years old. My father and I attend a Gala Performance at the Opera House. My father’s card proves to be, yet again, a useful commodity: it offers me opportunities that shape my personality, my later affinities in life. I sit in the audience, watching Rusalka by the Russian composer Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky. The prince, disguised as a common peasant, visits a remote village. The beautiful daughter of a local villager falls in love with the prince but is not aware of who he is. Before departing, he swears to her his eternal adoration. Back at the palace, the prince fulfils his duty: he marries a princess who would produce a royal heir.

During the wedding, a startling scream is heard from the direction of the lake: it is Rusalka, the peasant’s daughter, who upon discovering the prince’s identity commits suicide. Years later during a hunting trip, Rusalka (now a lake witch) lures the prince to the water, despite the desperate protestations of his wife. The two lovers are reunited. How was it possible to have a lake on stage, while I was still dry? The air was misty, suggestive of under-water environment, and the effect had been created by a diaphanous net-curtain.

At the age of five I did not understand that since the two characters had drowned, the ghosts had united in the Underworld. The young person in the audience believed this to be a happy Grand Finale. There was something so poetic about the performance that the death of the characters eluded me.

My father critiqued new drama productions in the capital city, as part of his job. His newspaper card provided him with free admission to expensive restaurants, exclusive stores with products imported from the Occident, museums, cinemas, theatres—and I was his partner.

Wagner’s The Nuremberg Maestro Singers is a rather long and tedious performance, and its music peeves my yet untrained, unsophisticated ears. But if I wish to be part of my parents’ retinue, I must behave throughout the five acts. It takes me decades to concede that Wagner’s music is beautiful.

*

An opera performance was an event my parents never missed: no snowstorms prevented us from attending it. We would equip ourselves with special rubber boots and walk for miles through the drifts and strong winds, but once at the theatre, we would change into festive attires. The Bucharest opera was a building from white marble and had red velvet corridors, Gothic pillars, and candelabra on each floor. The audience would applaud after each duet or minuet. The enthusiasm of the Romanian people has not been duplicated in my later years. Their effusive reaction had a Mediterranean quality to it. The British politely clap once at the end of a performance, and Americans are similarly undemonstrative in their appreciation of the artistic effort.

During the break, we mingled with friends. This was the place for formal attire and congenial atmosphere, for pleasant conversations during intermission, and reverent silence during the show. I suffered terribly when Aida and her lover Radames were buried alive. I became enraged when Faustus sold his soul to the devil to be young again, for I believed that I would be eternally young, and that I did not need the devil to be immortal.

*

In the absence of a babysitter, I joined my parents to the Censorship House, where we viewed forbidden films, creations of artists from different parts of the world. The little shoe-shining boy, an Indian movie, depicts the abject poverty in Bombay. The main character is a seven-year-old boy (not much older than me at the time) played by Raj Kapoor. I realise how fortunate I am to have parents who love me and protect me. I surreptitiously wipe the tears, as I do not wish the grown-ups to discover how vulnerable I am. After all, I am a child in the adult world, and comprehend that behaviour must be according to the circumstances.

As a matter of fact, I thoroughly enjoy the atmosphere of polite conversation and unique events. My mother analyses performances objectively and does not allow feelings to cloud her judgment. She does not appreciate unnecessary melodrama and has a penchant for abstract arts. My mother prefers symbolism to overt manifestations.

I watch Thérèse Raquin with the great French actors, Gerard Phillip and Simmone Signore. (Years later, they die of cancer at a young age.) The movie is based on an 1868 novel by the French writer, Émile Zola. I recall the scene in which Thérèse and her lover throw the husband off the train. The two individuals continue their existence in complete isolation and moral decay, with the haunting memory of their crime. I am maybe six years old at the time and not yet a discerning spectator. I do, however, enjoy being an integral part of my parents’ life, a chain of cultural events and parties with their bohemian friends.

One day, I miss school. My mother considers that watching the new production of The Red and the Black is more important for my education than going to school as a first-grader. The movie, based on a novel by Stendhal, describes Julien Sorel, a handsome, ambitious young man, determined to rise above his humble provincial origins. He gradually realises that success can only be achieved by adopting the subtle code of hypocrisy by which society operates, and builds his future based on deceit and self-interest. The Red and the Black portrays the post-Waterloo French society, riddled with corruption, greed and ennui.

Mother

It is the custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can’t) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight.

When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.

[The Adventures of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie]

*

I wished to write about my mother, so I looked up descriptions in various books, to decide whether her personality fulfilled any of the characteristics depicted in the literature. I found it frustrating that no story or novel could provide a realistic portrait of her. The mother’s image in Peter Pan, however, was sufficiently nebulous to meet with my needs, for it provided me with the flexibility to fill in the missing pieces.

Does she belong to a country, a continent, or is she in the shape of my mouth, my forehead, the colour of my eyes, the nuance of my hair? Is she in the gestures I make unthinkingly when I am tired? She is a poem, a fairy tale, a new Chanel perfume bottle. She is my pale green blouse and the beauty of the Botanical Gardens. She is fortitude and originality, she is a loner and the maker of the stone flower, she is Baron Von Munchausen, the wanderer.When were you born? Where did you live during your young years? You cannot answer, but you are here. (At this moment, you would tell me that I use cliché expressions. Let’s compromise: you are bodily absent, but mentally present.) I vaguely recall stories about your struggle to survive during the war years. You, however, never mentioned the years of persecution and pogroms, and I surmise that you were incapable of feeling resentment. Or maybe you did not wish to instil hatred in your offspring.

One event persists in my memory, the murder of fifteen thousand Jews in your native town, Iasi, where you hid in the basement of an old building to escape the Romanian fascists who were hunting your people. I remember you telling me that Jews were rounded up like cattle and shot to death. The carnage lasted three days. A data search on the pogroms in Iasi yielded the following paragraph:

Marcel, a Jewish survivor, told us: I remember that the real danger for the Jews started on 29 June 1941. It was a big surprise for all the Jews. We were forced to wear the yellow stars of David on our clothes. We could not buy or sell food anymore. For certain hours, we didn’t have access to some public places. At that time there were cellars where Jews hid. It was difficult for the police to search the cellars. So, in order to make us come to the commissariat, they distributed a sort of ticket with the wordFree written on it in a Jewish district. The Jews thought that if they showed up at the commissariat, they could be set free, could again buy commodities. But it was a trap—instead of receiving freedom, we met death. (Witness No. 84, met in Iasi, on 3 December 2013)

The history of hatred, persecution and murder of the Romanian Jews is something that you did not share with me. Nevertheless, I experienced that loathing throughout my years in Romania, a country where I was often told, Jid, go to your Palestine. Neither will I forget the fact that the gentiles made us feel that we deserved their opprobrium. When in Israel, I often read news reporting that world leaders did not consider us the legitimate citizens of Israel, and that this country belonged to the made-up people called Palestinians. But that is another story, and I do not intend to discuss it in a chapter dedicated to you.

*

You died forty-six years ago, in a car accident. You came to my wedding in England but refused to stay with us after the ceremony. You returned to Israel and met with death a few days later. I am aware that you detest sentimentality, but I feel compelled to tell you how much your sudden, unexpected departure affected me. I was paralyzed and could not be present at your funeral. I have not talked to you all these years. You have a granddaughter and a grandson.

My children are unpredictable, demanding creatures, but when I reprimand them, I remember how rebellious I was as a child, and how tolerant you were as a parent. Yet, I am a mother in a country with habits and traditions that are diametrically opposed to what I encountered in Romania of my young years, and struggle to translate my memories as a child to present-day America, the country where my children grew up.

*

I do not know the geography of your native town or the history of your family. I never met my grandparents, so I cannot weave the chronicle of my ancestors, therefore I conjure a disconnected tableaux: mother taking me through the deep snow to ballet lessons; mother teaching me French; mother preparing my bath.

I would like to paint your portrait and hang it in my living room but have no artistic skills. I will try to reproduce you in words, by sketching you in pencil first, to analyse the contour of your personality. Then, I will attempt to fill it in with colours and features. I cannot promise to do you justice.

*

What shall I start with? The colour of your hair? How can I forget? It is the same as mine, a dark brown hue. This is not the only thing I inherited. You may say that you bestowed on me the beautiful blue eyes with pale shades of green. Actually, mine is a nondescript grey. You might add that I am as rebellious and unpredictable as you were. I am more circumspect and far less adventurous, but this attribute skipped a generation, and it is manifested now in your granddaughter.

Shall I go through the list, or should I focus on your uniqueness rather than our likeness? Do you remember the scandalously sexy outfits you wore for the pleasure of alarming passers-by? You bought a skirt from Scotland and a white, transparent blouse from France, and proudly displayed the outfit on the beach by the Black Sea. You were not concerned with public opinion. I, however, wear outfits that render me invisible to the world, for I seek to avoid the disappointments of rejection. You relished the idea of standing out, of making statements. Yet, some parts of your personality have become integrated into my psyche.

At this point, I have to remind myself that this chapter is about you. It is not another excuse for self-analysis, but to create a document that will introduce you to my children.

*

So let’s begin. I lived for almost forty years within a nation in love with gadgets and personal comfort. Artificial Intelligence, robotics, anything, and everything that is not human, seems to be promoted in the highly utilitarian America. And the population accepts it, for citizens are receptive to advertising and manipulations by Corporate USA. American mothers use disposable diapers for their offspring, have washing machines, tumble-driers, food processors, etc. The list is endless. Yes mother, this is progress. We are advancing so fast that soon my brain will be replaced with a microchip, and my heart will be made of a composite material. Imagine, no more human originality, just mass-produced intelligence. It is the free world, after all. Sorry to sound cynical. I am looking forward to becoming emotion-proof.

*

Let’s concentrate on not so good old days. Do you remember a photograph of myself sitting on the radio-box? I had a contorted expression, and when I asked you as to the cause of my obvious distress, you answered that the pin of my diaper was pricking me but you did not realise it until after the photographer had completed his job.

The most important and complex process was bath-time. You cleaned a laundry tub by adding denatured spirit and lighting a match to sterilise it. You had cauldrons with water on a wood stove. The tub was placed in the middle of the room; you brought the cauldrons and poured their contents. I was stripped and placed inside. Then, water would baptise my unsuspecting head. We had no scented shampoo or mild soap, just rough laundry detergent that touched my skin and performed the ablutions. You did not compromise on hygiene. The apartment was often cold, but I would stand daily in Eve’s garment, and allow you to go through the ritual.

*

You were a dutiful mother and wife, yet you did not belong to us, for you were consistently reticent and reserved in your demeanour. I could never decipher the thoughts and feelings behind your opaque expression. But the products of your hands were always beneficial to us. You cooked tasty dishes from raw materials, and made the most beautiful clothes. You knitted a blue woollen dress when I was four years old and sewed a doll that year. Thanks to your nimble fingers, I was the best-dressed child in our building.

In autumn, you bought plums and placed them in a cauldron. Sugar was added to the witch’s brew, and the fire was kindled in the stove. A long wooden spoon sank and stirred this mysterious mixture. This was one of the longest, most complicated events carried out in our house. A long line of clean jars (to be precise, about eighty) was positioned adjacently on the counter, waiting to be filled with the murky, viscous liquid from the cauldron. The kitchen was the laboratory where you performed your magic deeds on fresh ingredients. We acquainted ourselves with their taste, but never learned how they came into being.

At the end of the complex process, the glass containers took their places on shelves in the pantry. You are not allowed to touch them, until I tell you otherwise, you would tell me. My main desire was to disobey you. I waited for the moment when you would go on your predictable outing, and I would enter the pantry. I perfected a technique that would delay the punishment for my licentious activities: I removed the rubber bands from the jars, lifted the cellophane covers, prepared my slim pointer and started the attack.

I would gradually scoop the inside of all the jars, so that equal amounts would be abstracted from them. I ate to satiation but left the right quantity to deceive you that I had not touched the jars. Sitting on the floor of the pantry and devouring the brown, sweet thing became the ultimate pleasure (and crime). Once my taste buds were satisfied, I smeared the walls of the containers, and ensured that no conspicuous mark was left on the glass. Finally, I covered the jars and replaced the rubber bands around them.

*

By the time I was ten years old, I became a dexterous larcenist. My crimes were numerous. What I recall is the act, not the punishment for the deed. I delighted in cutting your expensive curtains and turning them into dresses for my dolls or taking apart my toys to explore what they were made of.

At Christmas, you bought the largest fir tree in the building, and spent weeks to assemble the decorations. You bought crepe paper in all the colours of the rainbow and constructed elaborate baskets and characters from fairy tales. We were the only Jews in the apartment building, and ours was the most impressive Christmas tree. You gave me presents on the twenty-fifth of December, but for the rest of the year, you studied Hebrew. You told us that you were preparing yourself for the moment when we would live in a country without Christmases.

*

As I grew older, you made a list of books in our library, which I was not allowed to read. You hid them behind dresses and suits in the closet. I searched for them the moment you left the house and discovered the illicit literature. I still cannot comprehend why you thought that Boccaccio’s Decameron was unsuitable for me. Today, American children are exposed to a surfeit of X-rated movies and violent games; Decameron was a mildly erotic book. I can comprehend why you forbade me to read Adam Smith’s theory on the benefits of capitalist economy, at a time when we were living under a threatening dictatorship. Everything else proved to be innocuous to my upbringing.

*

Do you remember Baron von Munchausen? We had a German version of the book, which you patiently translated to me. Do you recall the time when the distinguished gentleman travelled through Russia? It was winter, and snow covered the land. The baron fastened his horse to a tree stump and went to sleep. He awakened the next day, and when he could not find his horse, he looked up: the animal was fastened to the church steeple. The snow had melted during the night, and what previously appeared to be a tree stump, turned out to be part of a building. The end of the story was most unpredictable, and so were you.

*

You bought a volume of legends from the Ural Mountains. It was a hardcover book with silky pages and pictures covered by transparent paper for protection. The story told of a young man who had retired to the remote areas of the mountains for twenty-five years—I do not know why the time sticks in my mind—to build a stone flower from the precious minerals he had dug out. It was a tale of endurance and mettle, but in retrospect, I think that you revealed to me the secret for success.

The young man, who had chosen solitude to fulfil his dream, personified you. He aspired to create the masterpiece of his life, so he gave up earthly pleasures to realise his ambition. I regret not remembering the details of the story. I have a vague recollection of the fact that each part of the flower, was made of a certain precious stone. Our hero had to dig daily for the raw material, then return to his hut and chisel the plant. Each part required a mineral of a certain colour, and the Ural Mountains provided the resources for it.

*

A strange event occurred to me a few years ago. We visited the Natural History Museum in Denver, Colorado. As I was walking through the rooms, something attracted my attention: an exhibition of art objects from Russia, carved from the stones in the Ural Mountains. There were figurines of peasants (mujiks), noblemen, musicians, czars, hunters. The biggest piece could not have been larger than seven inches in height. The details and accuracy of representation were remarkable. The artists had paid attention to the most insignificant elements, from the colour of the eyes and the garb, to the shape of the musical instruments. I was spellbound: this was my childhood, the days and nights of sitting next to you and travelling to a magic world.

*

Do you remember Andersen’s Snow Queen? Do you think that the queen was bad? Did she symbolise the evil inclinations in human beings? What would your definition of BAD be? Is it something we deeply dislike, or involuntarily avoid? I considered Andersen’s stories to be depressing; after all, the good people suffered. Yet, I was addicted to his fairy tales and continued to read them as an adult. Innocent characters endured hardship and their cruel fate made me cry. Woodcutters would fell a fir tree that was depicted as a sensitive creature, the match girl froze, the tin soldier was swept by floods and eventually melted in the fire, the kind intellectual was replaced by his wicked shadow. I still prefer tragedy to comedy.

*

Please let me know if you think that, at this point, your sketch is complete. Shall I start colouring in the empty spaces? You were never a physical presence. A