Daniel Stein, Interpreter

PART THREE

1. 1976, Vilnius

F

ILES FROM THE ARCHIVE OF THE DISTRICT

KGB D

EPARTMENT

FROM AN OPERATIONAL SURVEILLANCE FILE

DOC. NO. 117/934

STATEMENT

I wish to bring to your attention and request you to take measures in respect of the fact that the woman living in Apartment 6, No. 8 Tilto Street, Teresa Krzysztofowna Benda, is a furious Catholic and brings many people to the apartment block. They assemble regularly like they are having a meeting, pretending to drink tea. While other more deserving people live in small rooms with 12 square meters despite all they did in the war and have been awarded personal pensions, Benda occupies 24 square meters and has a balcony. It is known that her father was a Pole and Polish nationalist and it is unknown how he managed to avoid being punished. He died in 1945 after liberation by the Soviet Army from tuberculosis.

What is more, for eight years she has been paying the rent and communal charges but living who knows where. Not that she has been subletting or speculating with the accommodation. No. But we are fed up with it. I draw to your attention that this disgrace is taking place.

SIGNATURES OF RESIDENTS: illegible

ACTION: Refer to Agent Guskov for investigation

REPORT FROM LIEUTENANT GUSKOV

I have to report that on 11/04 this year an investigation was conducted on the basis of a statement from residents of No. 8 Tilto Street with illegible signatures. The source of the statement was found to be Nikolai Vasilievich Brykin, with whom the appropriate work was conducted. It was confirmed that 4–8 people gather in Benda’s room on Wednesdays and Sundays from 7–9 in the evening. There are invariably two men and the number of women varies. All are Lithuanian and conversation is conducted in the Lithuanian and Polish languages.

In the course of an operational investigation it was established that Teresa Krzysztofowna Benda is a covert nun who took her vows in 1975. Additional information may be obtained from No. 8 Section upon application to the deputy chief of the operational section.

It is believed that on Wednesdays and Sundays, Benda conducts a meeting of evangelical groups in her apartment.

In order to establish the identity of those attending, further operational activity is required.

Benda graduated from Leningrad State University and was directed to work at the Vilnius City Library in the capacity of bibliographer. She worked there from 20 August 1967 to 1 September 1969. A reference from the workplace is attached.

Prophylactic measures are not considered necessary.

Senior Lieutenant Guskov

ACTION: Archive

Major Perevezentsev

FROM SECTION PT-3 TO OPERATIONAL INVESTIGATION SECTION

Report

Section PT-3 encloses copies of 4 (four) letters from Teresa Krzysztofowna Benda to diverse addresses.

LETTER 1

Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna,

The purpose of my letter is to thank you. Your words that “The Gospel is not an icon, its purpose is not to be kissed but to be studied” are going round and round in my head. The fact that even just reading the Gospels in a different language gives additional depth of understanding I can well understand. I have read the Gospels in Polish, Russian, Church Slavonic, Lithuanian, German, and Latin and have always been aware that there were distinctions in the perception of the text. Truly, God speaks to people in different languages, and each language subtly corresponds to the character and characteristics of the people. The German translation of the Gospels is striking for its simplification, by comparison, say, with the Church Slavonic. I can only guess what rich nuances are contained in the Greek and Ancient Hebrew texts. I am thinking of the text of the Old Testament.

Everybody who was at our tea party was greatly impressed. Our elder brother S. sends you greetings. Tell me in advance when you are again able to come to Vilnius. We will try to organize a modest excursion for you.

Accept my sisterly love. May God protect you,

Teresa

LETTER 2

Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna,

I have been brought a remarkable present from you which is just what I need most of all. The profundity, the boldness, and what metaphor! Unfortunately I do not know English and am unable to appreciate the quality of the translation, but the impression from the book is that it is not translated but an original. There is no strain, complete freedom of thought and words. Thank you so much for your hard work. The author is extremely interesting and very topical.

I have been ill for almost two weeks, and since it was dreadfully cold in the convent all that time, I was allowed, while I was ill, to move to my apartment. Here, too, I have devoted myself to reading and sleeping to excess.

Next week L. is returning from the Vatican and we are looking forward with great impatience to seeing him. Can you imagine, we shall see a person who saw that person.

May God protect you,

Teresa

LETTER 3 (Translated from Lithuanian)

Dear Asta,

I am sending you some warm clothing to pass on to the sisters. There isn’t much money, unfortunately, but I will send it by cash transfer. You will need to tell me yourself what to do about food products. I have heard that if a food parcel is just sent to a particular address, it may not arrive because there are many restrictions.

Perhaps when you are in Vilnius you will come to see us. Ask the gatekeeper to call me or leave a note, and I will write to say when I can meet you. The best time is Sundays from 4 to 6.

May God protect you,

Teresa

LETTER 4 (Translated from Lithuanian.)

Dear Mrs. Jonaviute,

I am sending you a remarkable book with Janis. It has been translated from English by a Moscow translator who is very close to us in spirit. The book is in manuscript and although it has been offered to a Moscow publishing house there is little likelihood that it will be printed, although sometimes miracles do happen. After all they published the magnificent Teilhard de Chardin! As your journal is independently minded, perhaps you will be able to print at least some excerpts from the book, but translated into Lithuanian. We have people who can help with that and would produce a high-quality translation quickly.

My thanks in advance,

Teresa Benda

ASSESSMENT OF TECHNICAL CONSULTANT

The 4 (four) letters received for technical assessment were written by Teresa Krzysztofowna Benda.

The first addressee is a Moscow translator, Valentina Ferdinandovna Lintse, Candidate of Philological Sciences, lecturer at the distance learning Institute of Culture, reference material No. 0612/173P.

The second addressee is Asta Keller, resident of Vilnius, housewife, member of a prisoners’ support group, engaged in constantly sending postal packages to camps. Reference to card index materials 2F-11.

The third addressee is Anna Gediminovna Jonaviute, editor of the prose section of the Lithuanian journal Young Lithuania. See catalogue 2F-11.

The author referred to, Teilhard de Chardin, died in 1955. He was a Jesuit, a priest and a palaeontologist. He did not engage in anti-Soviet activity.

Junior Archive Research Assistant Lieutenant Kuzovlev

ACTION: Archive.

Major Perevezentsev

1977, Vilnius

M

AJOR

P

EREVEZENTSEV TO

L

IEUTENANT

-C

OLONEL

C

HERNYKH

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM

It is my duty to inform you that the activities of the underground Catholic convent accommodated in three private apartments in Vilnius is entirely under control. Over the past year the number of so-called nuns has decreased: one of the sisters (Jadwiga Niemcewicz) has died, a second (Teresa Benda) has left the convent and is again living at her registered address. On Sundays a priest, Jurgis Mickevi ius, visits an apartment at the address Apartment No. 1, 18 Dzuku Street, and celebrates Mass, and on the other days of the week the nuns read the rosary. The majority of them are of pensionable age and many have been released from prison. Prosecuting them for their misdemeanors is not considered expedient. Operational surveillance of the apartments has been discontinued. They remain under surveillance by local personnel with district-level authorization.

Major Perevezentsev

PRIVATE LETTER FROM MAJOR PEREVEZENTSEV TO LIEUTENANT-COLONEL CHERNYKH

Dear Vasiliy Petrovich,

I have written an internal memorandum to you as required, but wish to add that the situation in Vilnius is such that we have neither the time nor the resources to concern ourselves with half-crazy old women. Anti-Soviet nationalistic feeling is very strong, and I am much more concerned about young people. We are currently preparing two major samizdat cases. We could clean out this nest of old women in a day, but I can see no point whatsoever in doing so. The journalists will make a fuss and what will we gain? It is, of course, for you to decide. We are subordinate to the Center, but I urge you, under the old pals’ act, not to burden us with religious oddballs. We have more than enough to cope with already. Give my best wishes to Zinaida and Olga. I think back to how good life was in Dresden!

Alexey Perevezentsev

2. January 1978, Vilnius

F

ROM A LETTER FROM

T

ERESA

B

ENDA TO

V

ALENTINA

F

ERDINANDOVNA

L

INTSE

… the brazenness of this request, or perhaps its audacity. When I arrived at the clinic on 13 February, L. was the color of old paper and looked to have been drenched with water. You cannot imagine, even his lips, which were always so firm and purposeful, had slackened and become as puffy as those of a child. His arms were so swollen he could barely raise them. Every movement clearly cost him an effort. I left with the feeling that he might die at any minute. That night when all the sisters had retired and that special night-time tranquillity had descended which is so conducive to prayer, I got up and prayed fervently. The thought was vouchsafed me that I might depart in his place. In the morning I went to the prioress who is well disposed toward me. I told her that I felt a call to leave in place of L., and she gave me her blessing.

I went immediately to the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Žvrynas and again began to pray. That golden moment duly arrived when I knew that I was being heard, and I called out in prayer, “Take me instead of him”. I did not leave the church until late evening, entirely absorbed in a trance of prayer, and returned to the sisters late at night.

The following morning the prioress whispered to me, “L. underwent an emergency operation last night. He has had a kidney removed. He is at death’s door.” She smiled, as it seemed to me, a little sardonically.

Imagine, everybody had prepared themselves for L.’s death but he turned the corner. His recovery was exceptionally rapid.

Just three weeks later he was discharged from the clinic. The bishop would not allow him to return to Kaunas but himself accommodated L. At Easter he officiated. Throughout the service I was weeping tears of joy. My sacrifice had been accepted and I began to prepare myself.

Immediately after Easter I began to weaken. I lost ten kilograms or so. Alas, my joy and exultation were replaced by such terrible physical and spiritual weakness that I will not attempt to describe it. Last week I fainted twice. The sisters are very gentle and caring. Our life is complicated by inner relationships. By no means everything lies on the surface, but I always knew this was the price we pay for our closeness to the Source.

L. is back in Kaunas and I do not see him. That upsets me, because his compassion would be so precious to me. I ask your prayers, dear sister.

May the Lord bless you,

Teresa

3. May 1978, Vilnius

F

ROM A LETTER FROM

T

ERESA TO

V

ALENTINA

F

ERDINANDOVNA

… indescribable fear. I fell asleep with difficulty and awoke five minutes later in a fit of panic. I kept returning in my mind to that moment when, in a state of exaltation incompatible with a sober spirit, I asked for this substitution. I was then in such a state of grace that my departure at that moment would have been blissful. Now however I was at the very bottom, and a heaviness was crushing me. I was in a dreadful state and my horror at the imminence of death, an all-enveloping animal fear, sickened me. Although I had eaten nothing, I was constantly vomiting a foamy acid which tasted horrible. It was the taste of fear. One further completely appalling thing began to happen to me. Against all the laws of nature, excrement, buckets full, began to gush from me. You could not imagine anything more vile. I felt at that time as if my whole physical self was being expelled from me in that stinking form, and that in a few days’ time, I would have been consigned in my entirety to the sewers. There would be nobody left to flush away the last pile of filth. And then I cried out. This was not what I wanted! In sacrificing myself I had been expecting rewards, beauty, justice for heaven’s sake, but I had received something quite different! But then, where had I gotten the idea from that a sacrificial victim would experience joy? There was only nausea and terror, and not a hint of bliss. As I knelt at a toilet brim full of excrement, I prayed. Not before the image of the Virgin, not before the Crucifix, but before an evil-smelling pile of shit I prayed, “Let me not die now. Let the worst thing imaginable happen, let me even be expelled from the convent, only let me not die now.”

A week later I was able to walk again, and three months after that I was expelled. The prioress treated me as if I had deceived her. She had not expelled Sister Joanna, even though she is an incorrigible thief. The sisters shunned me like the plague, after looking after me and expressing so much sympathy.

For the first time in 20 years, my Easter has been not a resurrection but a dying. There is no joy. Like Lazarus, I am in my grave clothes although my life has not been taken. My isolation is complete, almost without relief. It is only your letters, sister, if I may call you that, which support me, and one of my old colleagues from the library who attended our meetings. He still comes to visit me and sometimes takes me outside for a walk.

I am so sad that you cannot come in the summer as you had planned. We could have gone to the Curonian Spit. My aunt still lives there and cells could be found for us in her house.

Remember me in your prayers,

Teresa

4. July 1978, Vilnius

L

ETTER FROM

T

ERESA TO

V

ALENTINA

F

ERDINANDOVNA

Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna, dear sister,

As things have turned out, you are the only person left I can talk to about what is most important to me. I am only too aware that an admission of this kind may cause great embarrassment to the person to whom it is made, but knowing your immense spiritual reserves, I implore you to hear me out. The form of a letter is best suited to this because there are things about which it is even more difficult to speak than to write, but I know that you cannot fail to understand me. It is precisely because you have had that rare and ineffable experience you told me about when we last met, the experience of direct communion, the experience of hearing and seeing the invisible. The existence of the spiritual world was revealed to me when I was still barely a child, and that revelation distanced me from girls of my own age.

I told you I lost my father very early and have no memory of him. My mother died when I was nine and I was brought up by an aunt, a good woman but very dry. She was childless and no longer young. She married for the first time when she was around 40, and her marriage brought me many trials. Her husband had some admixture of oriental blood. Although his surname was Russian, his appearance was completely Tartar, and he had the cruelty of a Tartar. My aunt worshipped him. She was attached to him like a cat, and I have ever since been revolted by physical love. We lived in the same room, and their proceedings during the night made me feel literally sick. I prayed to the Mother of God to protect me from this, and then I started to hear music. It was the singing of the angels and it enveloped me like a cloak. I became peaceful and fell asleep, and my dream continued to the sound of that music. My aunt’s marriage lasted four years. It was a carnal frenzy, and their shamelessness continued to be an ordeal for me although the music shielded me from much.

And then that dreadful Gennadiy was transferred away. He was a soldier, and he disappeared forever. At first my aunt tried to find where he had gone, but he had evidently given instructions that she should not be given his new address. Their marriage had never been formalized and, to tell the truth, I think he already had a wife who had refused to move to Vilnius with him and had gone to live somewhere else. But that is neither here nor there. My aunt went completely mad. She was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and it was a great relief for me when I went away to St. Petersburg to study. I am ashamed to say I visited her rarely, and she met me with such hostility every time that I couldn’t be sure whether I should go to see her at all. I remember from those difficult years the protection granted me by the Virgin and her angelic music. How often I have lamented that God did not give me the gift of memorizing that music and noting it down. Ever since, I have been certain that the great composers like Bach and Handel were only writing down sounds which reached them from heaven by the grace of God.

I almost starved during my student years in St Petersburg. But what do I mean, almost? I did starve. The girls with whom I shared a room in the hostel were just as poor as I was but, as if by design, all of us were pretty. In the second year one of us began engaging in what was little short of prostitution, then a second. The third, like myself, suffered from the situation, but one way or another our enterprising roommates brought back men, usually during the day, because it was more difficult to gain admission to the hostel in the evening. Sometimes, though, they brought men to stay the night, and then I seemed to find myself back in the times of my unhappy childhood, when the squeals and grunts of concupiscence kept me from sleep. Once again, only prayer and the music were my consolation. I graduated with distinction. I am an art historian by profession and was invited to stay on as a postgraduate student, but I was so weary of that hostel! Imagining another three years of living like that, I declined the offer. My aunt was almost constantly in the hospital and I was left on my own in a large room.

What a joy it was to be alone, not to hear other people you had no wish to hear. I started work at the library. By then I was already so accustomed to praying and had grown so firmly into the Catholic life that I resolved to enter a convent. Soon I was introduced to a prioress and became a novice. Needless to say the convent was clandestine. We lived in apartments but under a strict rule.

I had wonderful support. My prayers at that time were so full of grace that I heard not only the sounds of wonderful music but also sensed the presence of Him who is the Source of Light. Two years later I took full vows. The trying life of a convent I found easy and joyous. I was constantly anticipating these visitations and they even became the object of my prayers.

One time when I was at prayer, something happened to me. It was as if a hot and playful wind enveloped me, caressed all of me and wordlessly asked me to consent to surrender to it. I had experienced nothing similar previously, and despite an unusually strong desire to prolong these sensations, I refused. But the caressing continued and the hot air spiraled around me, penetrating my breasts and loins. Then, as if awakening, I cried out to the Lord, and immediately heard hissed cursing and a slight jolt.

These phenomena began to recur. I told the prioress about them. I fear she was not discreet and many heard about it from her. I began to gain the reputation of a madwoman. Remembering my aunt’s illness, I realized that there might be a hereditary tendency to insanity and, eager to persuade myself that this was not the case, that is, that I really was being tempted by the Devil and was not merely ill, I learned to summon this demon. It gave me the feeling that it was not he who ruled me, but I him. The more so since I was always able to stop the temptation in time. Now I realize this was a dangerous game, but that did not immediately occur to me. At times the demon simply paralysed me so that I could not move my hand to protect myself with the sign of the Cross. I couldn’t even say a prayer, my throat seemed to freeze. These noctural battles lasted for hours while the other sisters were sleeping peacefully.

The priest forbade me to have any contact, to inwardly consort with a being to which he gave the name of Satan. I was afraid to utter that word, but after it had been said by the priest, I could no longer deceive myself. The priest assured me that the Enemy can never cause us harm unless we ourselves consent to it.

The more Satan tormented me, the more the Lord consoled me. This lasted for several years, and then there occurred what I have already told you about. I took the vow relating to L. which I was unable to honor.

I would not burden you with this tale of my oppressive spiritual phenomena of years past if this temptation had not befallen me again. To my profound regret I no longer receive those prayerful joys, those quiet rapturous moments of the presence of God which were there in the past. The prayers I incessantly send heavenwards remain unanswered.

Your unfortunate

Teresa

5. October 1978, Vilnius

L

ETTER FROM

T

ERESA TO

V

ALENTINA

F

ERDINANDOVNA

Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna,

Over the past month so many completely astounding things have happened that I really don’t know where to begin.

After prolonged but unsuccessful attempts to meet the prioress she consented to see me. Our conversation was unpleasant in the extreme. She said she would not give refuge to one possessed and that I was leading the other sisters astray.

After this devastating encounter I went to my father confessor, who was even more firm with me. He said that I evidently had a different vocation, that a good Christian could work for the Lord in the world, too. I really do not understand why they are so intent on driving me away, and when I broached the matter with him he spoke terrible words to me. He said that my spiritual experiences testify to the fact that I am completely in the power of Satan, and in the Middle Ages people like me were burned at the stake for associating with him.

“But St. Anthony, too, had his temptations,” I protested timidly. “If he had had you as his father confessor, would you have sent him to the stake?”

He smiled sarcastically and said, “That is the path the saints tread.” What was he implying? My mind and heart cannot take it in.

Nevertheless, when I left him I had a strange sense of relief. Now I can rely on nothing except the love of the Almighty, and I have given myself to Him. Prayers to the Virgin, whom I always loved so much, have become completely impossible. Her immaculate nature does not allow me to address her. Only Mary Magdalene can now be my protectress. Does my absurd situation not make you smile? Having preserved my virginity for the Lord, I have been expelled for the most dreadful of perversions and feel profoundly guilty for these nocturnal manifestations to me of a power which I hate with all my heart.

The Catholic Church is expelling me, and into whose arms?

I have moved back to my old room, to my dreadful neighbors who hate me and dream only of getting their hands on my accommodation. I spend my days in prayer and in cruel temptations. As before, I go to the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Žvrynas, but there, too, where before people treated me kindly and with openness, I’m met with disdain and suspicion.

6. December 1978, Vilnius

F

ROM A LETTER FROM

T

ERESA TO

V

ALENTINA

F

ERDINANDOVNA

… now I am coming to the last part of my sad tale. My only friend, Efim, to whom fate guided me at the library, has greatly supported me all these past months. I do not know how I would have survived physically and financially if it had not been for his unstinting succor. He is a lonely man, and now he has made a very unexpected suggestion that I should enter into a fictitious marriage with him and emigrate to the State of Israel, to the Holy Land.

My mind is in such a state of confusion that I have forgotten to mention the most important thing—Efim is a Jew, although all his spiritual striving is directed toward Orthodoxy. For a long time he did not undergo the sacrament of baptism, and did so only two years ago after his mother died. She would have found it very painful. Since then he has entered ever more fully into the life of the Church.

He attends church services every day and even serves at the altar. He compiles surveys of current spiritual literature for the abbot here, writes papers, and makes translations from foreign languages if the abbot considers a book to be of interest. The abbot has great respect for Efim and loves talking to him. There seem to be very few people so educated and serious-minded within the clergy. In the end, Efim shared with him his intention of becoming a priest. To this the Father Superior said very emphatically that his nationality was a major obstacle on that path and he could hardly imagine a Jew in the role of parish priest. For a Russian flock, the abbot remarked, it would be too great an ordeal.

And this, dear Valentina Ferdinandovna, despite the fact that the abbot is one of the most liberal and enlightened priests! A long time ago, before the war, he went through the ordeal of the labor camps and survived only by a miracle.

There is an Orthodox bishop who lives, or rather, hides, in Vilnius. He, too, is an ex-prisoner, and at the abbot’s request sometimes ordains young people as priests, secretly, of course. A bishop, as you know, has the right to ordain through the laying on of hands anybody he considers worthy, even without their having attended a seminary.

How absurd it is. Efim has a university degree in classics. He is proficient in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. He is a Candidate of Philology and is so versed in theology that he could lecture at any seminary. The abbot himself told Efim that under different circumstances he could have been a professor at a theological academy! That is how highly the abbot respects him, but even so he refused to give his blessing to his ordination.

Efim has considered becoming a monk. He even traveled to the Pskovo-Pechorsky Monastery and stayed there last year for a month, but when he came back he told me he was not ready to take such a step.

At the same time Efim is thinking of emigrating to Israel. He has an uncle and several cousins there who managed to leave Lithuania before the Germans came. Efim’s mother was saved during the war by a Lithuanian peasant woman.

So now, finding himself in an uncertain situation and seeing that I am in an equally uncertain situation, he is proposing that I should enter a fictitious marriage with him and try to make a new life in the Holy Land where there are convents and other houses for those who incline to the monastic life. Although rejected by the convent, I remain a nun. Nobody has released me from my vows and this proposal of Efim’s is my only chance of starting a new life.

Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna, I value your advice above all others’ because you have long been close to the Dominicans and lead the perplexing and dangerous life of a nun in the world. You are so active and do so much valuable work that it is by you that I would like to be advised. The main problem is deciding for myself to emigrate to the Holy Land, because neither our prioress, let alone the bishop, will give me their blessing to do so. Even if the difficult formalities of emigrating can be overcome, I am accustomed to monastic discipline and obedience and find it very difficult to undertake such a wilful action.

In order to merit your advice, I must tell you everything I myself know about the situation. Efim is a man of quite exceptional nobility of spirit. I even believe that in pondering the option of emigrating to Israel he is mindful of the opportunity it would give to repair my destiny. Of himself he says that it will be there, in the land of Jesus, that he should be able to overcome his indecision regarding his future path, whether as a priest, a monk, or simply as a lay person.

I have never before met a man so profoundly immersed in Orthodoxy, so splendidly informed on the texts of the liturgy, and so knowledgeable about theological subtleties. He has the inspiration of a Catholic and the conscientiousness of a Protestant. For him the library is truly his home and he is in the full sense of the word a man of the book. He has long been writing his own treatise on the history of the Eucharist from the earliest times up to our days.

My sweet Valentina Ferdinandovna, I feel guilty about pouring all these tormenting problems out on your poor head. Forgive me, but I know that without your advice I am incapable of reaching a decision.

May God keep you, dear sister.

Your Teresa

7. December 1978, Vilnius

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ETTER FROM

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ERESA TO

V

ALENTINA

F

ERDINANDOVNA

Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna,

Events are developing so rapidly that I am writing to you even before receiving your reply to my last letter.

Yesterday Efim came and told me he had had a two-hour talk with the abbot. Efim informed him that, as he sees no prospect of being able to participate in the life of the Orthodox Church in Lithuania, he is inclined to emigrate to the Holy Land. Completely unexpectedly, the abbot then said he would be prepared to bless his ordination as a priest on condition that he emigrated. There is now only one obstacle to his becoming a priest: Efim is a bachelor and has no intention of marrying. In the Russian Orthodox Church there is a tradition, almost a law, that only married men are ordained into the priesthood. That is a complete reversal of the celibacy of Catholicism. Is this not a sign from above?

Efim and I knelt down to pray and prayed almost until dawn. Needless to say he has never thought that his companion could be any woman other than me, but each of us has had to make a sacrifice. I must change my faith and convert to Orthodoxy, he must take it upon himself to be responsible for me, and we have both undertaken to bear witness to God in a marriage of the spirit, a brother-and-sister relationship, a perpetual living of a shared life and shared service. What is that service to be? This decision we entrust to the Almighty.

I wept for the rest of the night. My tears and prayers delivered me from my usual nocturnal trials. I remembered those first tears of happiness after I had become a nun, when I would be wakened in the night not by fear and torment but by joy, by a prayer rising from the depths of my soul and rousing me from sleep. The sad thought occurs to me that I have lost that greatest of gifts. Next week I shall go to Father L. and hope very much that he will support me.

I ask your prayers, dear sister. May the Lord bless you.

Teresa

8. 1979, Vilnius

L

ETTER FROM

T

ERESA TO

V

ALENTINA

F

ERDINANDOVNA

Since that day everything has rushed by like something out of a movie. After five days I was anointed with Holy oil and was accepted into the Orthodox Church. Holy Communion came as a great surprise to me. It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I have ever had. I can tell only you and Efim that by comparison with the True Wine I drank of from the Orthodox chalice, the Catholic communion seemed rather feeble.

My vow, after changing my denomination, was purely a matter for my conscience, and on 19 May we were married. The application to register a civil marriage had been made earlier, and the day after we signed the register we applied to emigrate. Efim’s cousin had found a speedy way of sending us both an invitation through the consulate here. To this I can add that the abbot has told Efim we will face no objection from the authorities because he has personal contacts in this area. He also said Efim might be called in for a discussion by a very important department and asked him not to refuse to collaborate because it is only by agreeing that he will be able to serve the Church. That, after all, is the one thing we are both longing for, and no price seems too high to pay.

We may leave very soon, but the two of us are sitting here in a state of paralysis when we should be packing books. Efim has a large library he could not think of leaving behind. There are a great many books in foreign languages, there are ancient volumes in Hebrew which were saved from being burned during the war, and before they can be exported we need to obtain various special permits and there are lots of other forms we have to obtain.

Whenever I hear someone say “Israel,” my throat tightens. I cannot believe my own feet will walk the Via Dolorosa, and my own eyes will see Gethsemane, and Mount Tabor, and the Sea of Galilee.

I have one very important question. Can I write from abroad directly to your address or should I use other ways?

With love,

Your Teresa

9. 1984, Haifa

F

ROM

“R

EADERS

’ L

ETTERS

,”

HAIFA NEWS

Dear Editor,

Several days ago I was walking down a street in the city of Haifa when I saw the following notice on a house in one of the streets in the city center:

“There will be a meeting of the Association of Jewish Christians at the Community Center on 2 October at 18.00 hours.”

I don’t give a tinker’s curse about this society, but it does raise two issues: who is financing it, for one. And secondly, why is it being allowed to exist in Israel at all? We got by without this organization in the past. Why has it been set up now? The Christians have brought down so much war, persecution, and death on Jews from ancient times to the present that no Arabs even come close. What are we doing encouraging the existence of such organizations in Israel?

Shaul Slonimsky

REPLY FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Mr. Slonimsky,

Our newspaper could reply to your question itself. The traditions of our young state are in accordance with democratic principles, and the creation of an Association of Jewish Christians reflects the freedom of religion embraced by Israel. We have, however, invited a reply to the question from Father Daniel Stein, a war hero who has received many awards for fighting Fascism, a member of the Order of Carmelites, and director of the Association of Jewish Christians.

REPLY FROM FATHER DANIEL STEIN TO MR. S. SLONIMSKY

Dear Mr. Slonimsky,

I’m very sorry our notice so upset you. That was not part of our intention. The Association survives heaven knows how, but, at all events, at no cost to the taxpayer. There is too much enmity in the world we have inherited. After the experience of the last war in Europe, it seemed impossible that such a charge of hatred as was expended by the peoples during those years should accumulate ever again. Alas, we find that there has been no lessening of hatred. Nobody has forgotten anything; nobody wants to forgive anything. Forgiving really is a very difficult matter.

That Galilean rabbi the world knows as Jesus Christ preached forgiveness. He preached a lot of things, and to Jews most of them were familiar from the Torah. It was thanks to him that those commandments were made known to the rest of the non-Jewish world. We Jewish Christians respect our Master, who said nothing that would have been totally unknown to the world before his coming.

Christianity in history has indeed persecuted the Jews—we all know the history of the persecutions, pogroms, and religious wars—but in recent years a painful process of revising Church policy in respect of the Jews has been taking place within the Catholic Church. Specifically, in recent years the Church in the person of Pope John Paul II has acknowledged its historical guilt.

The land of Israel is a place of great holiness not only for the Jews who live here today. By Christians and Jewish Christians it is venerated no less than by Jews who profess Judaism, to say nothing of our brother Arabs who have settled this land, lived here for a thousand years, and whose ancestors’ bones lie side by side with those of our own ancestors.

When our land withers and is rolled up like an old carpet, when dry bones arise, we will be judged not by the language we prayed in but by whether we found compassion and mercy in our hearts. That is all our organization has been set up to achieve. It has no other aim.

Daniel Stein, Priest of the Catholic Church

10. November 1990, Freiburg

F

ROM A TALK BY

B

ROTHER

D

ANIEL

S

TEIN TO SCHOOLCHILDREN

Those fifteen months I spent with the sisters, in their secret convent which looked out at the police station, were very dangerous and difficult. More than once there were situations in which I, and accordingly the sisters too, came within a hair’s breadth of death. There was, however, also a lot that was touching, and even comical. It is only now I can say that, after the passing of so many years. I remember the Germans came unexpectedly one time to search the convent. They came down the corridor toward the room I was in. The room had a washbasin and screen and all I could think to do was to rush behind the screen, hang a towel on it, and make a lot of noise at the washbasin. The Germans who had entered laughed and left without looking behind the screen. Another time, when the nuns were obliged to move to another house on the outskirts of town, I had to dress like a woman, shave myself closely, powder myself with flour, and hide my face behind a bouquet of dried flowers and a plaster statuette of the Virgin Mary. Together with three of the sisters, I walked in procession through half the town.

I shared their life. We ate, prayed, and worked together. They earned a livelihood by knitting, and I too acquired that feminine skill. On one occasion I knitted a whole dress. I read a great deal, not only the Gospel but other Christian books. I suppose it was then that I became a Catholic and the idea that my life would be linked with the Catholic Church took root in me.

In late 1943, as a result of serious defeats on the front and the growth of the partisan movement, the Germans adopted harsher policies toward the local population. Arbitrary large-scale searches and arrests began, and I felt I could no longer put the sisters at risk. I decided to join the partisans. For several days I wandered aimlessly along the roads in remote areas where the Germans practically never ventured. I knew these woods were the partisans’ domain and eventually I ran into four former Red Army soldiers. One was a man I had managed to save while working in the police and he recognized me immediately. He started thanking me and told his comrades I had saved his life. They were friendly toward me, but said I could not join their unit without a weapon. If I could get my hands on something, that would be a different matter. They gave me food and I went on my way.

In one village I came upon two Polish priests who were also hiding from the Germans. I told them about my circumstances and my conversion and expected that they would at least let me spend the night under their roof, but they didn’t. In a small village nearby, however, I was given shelter by a Belorussian family.

I was standing at the window of their house in the morning when a cart trundled by. There were a number of men on it and I recognized one of them as Efraim Cwyk, an old friend from Akiva who had escaped at the time of the breakout from the ghetto. Fortunately, Efraim was one of those who knew I had organized the escape and supplied arms from the Gestapo arsenal. I had grown a moustache in order to disguise myself and he did not recognize me at first. He had been sure I was dead and we met like long-lost brothers. Efraim took me to a Russian partisan unit, and on the way I told him about the most important event in my life, my conversion. Needless to say, he neither understood nor sympathized and advised me to clear all this silliness out of my head. I can see now how foolishly I behaved.

During the night we made our way to a brigade under the command of a Colonel Durov. He had heard something about a commandant at the German police station who had helped partisans and saved the lives of Jews, but was far more interested in my links with the Fascists. He promptly ordered my arrest and conducted the interrogation personally. I was searched and my New Testament was taken away, along with a number of icons the nuns had given me.

I told Durov in detail about my life and work among the Germans. I told him how I had escaped and about my subsequent conversion to Christianity. He demanded to know where I had hidden in the fifteen months since escaping from the Gestapo, but I could not tell him I had been concealed by the nuns all that time. If it had become known in Emsk, they would unquestionably have been executed. Durov did not trust me, but neither did I altogether trust him, so I refused to give him his answer. How could I tell him about the nuns when I knew the Communists’ attitude toward believers?

My refusal to reveal my hiding place struck Durov as very suspicious. The interrogation lasted almost two days without a break. I would be questioned by Durov personally and then by his assistant. He came to the conclusion that I had spent those months in a German spy school and had now been sent to the partisans to collect intelligence. I was sentenced to be shot. Efraim was beside himself, having brought me to this brigade and now not being believed. I was locked up in a shed, and kept there for several days. I still have no idea why they did not execute me immediately. It was one more miracle. I was completely calm and sat in the dark and prayed. I commended myself into the hands of the Lord, prepared to accept whatever He might send.

On the morning of the third day, help arrived. A doctor came to Durov’s brigade, another escapee from the ghetto by the name of Isaak Gantman. He was the only doctor in the entire area who treated the partisans.

There was a wounded man in urgent need of an operation and Gantman had been called from Czarna Puszcza. He was an irreplaceable person with great authority. Efraim immediately told him about me and I was again subjected to interrogation, this time in the presence of both Durov and Gantman. At first the proceedings were in Russian, then I and the good doctor changed to Polish because he was not fluent in Russian.

I explained that I could not reveal where I had been hiding for fear of endangering the people who had helped me. Durov trusted Gantman, who was in any case the only doctor they had, and I trusted him, too. We agreed that I would tell him where I had hidden on condition that he would not divulge the secret to Durov or anybody else. Gantman persuaded Durov that the reason I could not say where I had stayed was entirely personal and offered himself as a guarantor of my innocence. The second guarantor was Efraim. Durov said that if I was tricking him, both guarantors would be shot along with me. He imagined I had been hidden by a lover. That was evidently something he could understand. My execution was put on hold.

Before the interrogation was over, two partisans from the Jewish unit, also from Emsk, arrived. They had been sent by the commanding officer of the Jewish unit to testify to my having saved the lives of Red Army soldiers and Jews while serving with the Germans. News spread surprisingly fast in the forest, considering how uninhabited it appeared.

In the end, our joint efforts persuaded Durov I was innocent. The report about my sentence had already been sent to General Platon, the head of the Russian partisan movement in Western Belorussia, and a new report was now sent in its wake requesting that the death sentence should be annulled as there were witnesses to my innocence. I was allowed to join the brigade.

I spent a total of ten months with the partisans, from December 1943 until the Red Army liberated Belorussia in August 1944. Looking back now after so many years, I can honestly say that being a partisan was worse than working in the gendarmerie. There I knew I had a mission to help people and save lives as best I could. Matters were considerably less straightforward in the forests with the partisans. Life in the brigade was brutish. When I joined, it consisted of Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, and a few Jews. There were already no Poles. Some had fled and the rest had been shot by the Russians, as I later heard.

A partisan was half-hero, half-outlaw. In order to survive we needed provisions, and these could be obtained only from the local peasants. They were robbed by the Germans and they were robbed by the partisans. The peasants never willingly surrendered anything and we were obliged to take it by force. Sometimes we took their last cow or horse, and it was not unknown for the stolen horse then to be exchanged for vodka. Vodka was more highly prized than bread. These people could not live without it.

When raids of this type were being conducted, I was usually one of the sentries guarding the village while the others went and seized everything they could find. My conscience was nevertheless not clear.

I took part in combat only once, a sabotage operation to blow up a bridge and derail a German train. I did my best to avoid bloodshed and tried to make myself useful in other ways, by guarding the camp and working in it. There was no shortage of work.

I found the situation of women in the unit deeply dispiriting. There were far fewer of them than men, and I saw the way they suffered. It was hard enough for them to be living in the forest in dugouts, with all the privations, and to this were added the sexual demands of the men which they could not escape. There was ceaseless rape. I felt very sorry for them, but had also to recognize that most of them when they yielded to violence were hoping for favors in return. I had old-fashioned views on relations between men and women and could not reconcile myself to what I constantly encountered. I was appalled by the thought that Marysia, too, if she had survived and been here, would have had to submit to these ways. This was probably when I began thinking of becoming a monk. I stopped viewing women as a man, and for me they were not sex objects but only suffering human beings. They sensed that and were always grateful to me.

At the end of the war the Russians started giving out medals. I was awarded one also and kept it for a long time. It had Stalin’s profile on it. In August 1944 the Russians liberated Belorussia. We were all very glad to see the Red Army and most of those in the brigade merged with it. By this time, however, I had decided to enter a monastery and in order to do so needed to get to Poland. It was clear to me that east Poland would be retained by the Russians. Warsaw was still occupied by the Germans. When the people of Warsaw rose up against them, the Red Army stood aside for two months on the far bank of the Vistula and gave them no support.

While I was wondering how to get home and find my parents—although there was little likelihood of their having survived—the NKVD caught up with me and I was taken back to Emsk on a special mission. I had no desire whatever to work for the NKVD, but nobody asked me.

Emsk was almost empty. All the people I knew had left the city, and those who had collaborated with the Germans had vanished. Many houses had been burned down and the fortress was half ruined and empty. I was issued with a Soviet uniform and allocated a room in the very building the Gestapo had occupied. There I was to write reports on people who had collaborated with the Germans. To my relief, they were long gone. My reports were mainly about German operations against the Jews. I compiled a list of all the Jewish villages and hamlets which had been destroyed while I was working there. My bosses were far more interested in anti-Soviet sentiment among the local population, but I gave them no help with that.

A number of Jews who had survived returned to Emsk. They hailed me as a hero, but we could not find a common language. My Christianity had been baffling for those I had become close to in the partisan unit, and now I had to recognize that it was unacceptable to my old Jewish acquaintances. Indeed, to this day many Jews consider my choice a betrayal of Judaism. The person who tried most energetically to change my mind and turn me from Christianity was Efraim Cwyk who, along with Dr. Gantman, had once staked his life on my not being a traitor. Later, when I was already in a monastery, he came and tried to rescue me from the clutches of the Christians. The people closest to me at that time were my nuns. They supported me.

It did not take long for me to see that the NKVD would not just let me walk away. I sought a means of escape and the opportunity arose when the chief went off to the district center for a couple of days. His deputy saw me as a dangerous career rival and gave me permission to go to work for a secret service major in Baranowicze, a place whose only advantage over Emsk was that it was closer to the border with Poland. I reported to the major, he inspected my documents, saw that I was a Jew, and refused to have me. This was just what I had been hoping for. I asked permission to travel to Vilnius and he wrote me out a pass. My only joy in Vilnius was meeting up with Bolesław again. The Germans had not harmed him and everyone living on his farm had survived through to liberation. He greeted me warmly and again offered to let me stay with him.

Vilnius, like Emsk, was half ruined and empty. Many Polish townspeople had fled to Poland, those who had collaborated with the Germans had left with them, and six hundred thousand Lithuanian Jews had been shot. These postwar sights only strengthened my resolve. I went to the Carmelite monastery in Vilnius but the abbot refused to admit me.

In March 1945 I was on the first train taking Poles back to their homeland. So were Isaak Gantman and his wife. I told him that I was going there to enter a monastery. “You are turning away from life’s great treasures,” he told me, and I was unable to make him see that I had chosen the most precious treasure of all.

In Kraków I went to the abbot of the Carmelite monastery, who received me benignly and asked me to tell him my story. I spoke to him for almost three hours and he listened attentively without interrupting. When I had finished, he asked me the title of the article about Lourdes which had triggered my conversion. I told him the name of the magazine and the author. He had written it himself.

That year there were two candidates wishing to enter the monastery as novices, myself and a certain young actor from the local theater. There was only one vacancy. The abbot chose me, saying, “You are a Jew and it will be far more difficult for you to find your place in the Church.” He proved right. The second applicant was one Karol Wojtyła, who certainly did find his place in the Church.

11. 1970

F

ROM

H

ILDA’S

D

IARY

What happened last night is beyond my comprehension. It had to be when Daniel was away! Our community was attacked. It was a real pogrom, dreadful. Of course, it had been coming for a long time. I have been a complete idiot not to have been more concerned last month when Sister Lydia, who was praying at night in the church, was alarmed by intruders talking nearby. When she went out and asked what they wanted they immediately vanished. She could not see who they were in the darkness, but noticed there were three of them. She thought that one resembled that homeless Serb I took to the hospital.

I thought no more of it, and did not even mention it to Daniel. That was such a mistake! We were attacked last night. Our watchman, Yusuf, a distant relative of Musa’s, is elderly and rather deaf and might seem better suited to be a resident in our old people’s home than employed as a watchman. He is very keen, though, and has been working with us from the outset, almost three years already, in return for board and lodging. I buy him whatever he needs but that is almost nothing. He was asleep in the annex and woke only when the women in the main building began screaming. A fire had been started on the ground floor. Nurse Berta was on duty in the old people’s home last night and she was also asleep on the second floor. After setting fire to the building, the intruders broke into the church, smashed and stamped on everything they could, and ran away. Yusuf put a ladder up to a second-floor window and all who were able to walk climbed down. Someone happened to be driving along the lower road and rushed to help when he saw the fire. He turned out to be an ex-soldier from the renowned Givati Brigade. The first thing he did was to get Rosina out. She has been bedridden for many years. Then he went back for poor Ans Broessels, who by then had severe burns. The soldier, his name is Aminadav, immediately took her to the hospital. He came back this morning and helped us clear everything up. I told him the story of Ans. She is Dutch. She saved a Jewish boy during the occupation and then emigrated to Israel along with him. The boy’s parents were religious Jews and they died in a concentration camp. Ans considered it her duty to bring him up in the Jewish faith. Tragically, after they came to Israel the boy became a soldier and died in the Six-Day War. Shortly after that she went back to Holland but did not feel at home there and returned to Israel. That is the kind of person who lives in our old people’s home.

An interesting detail Ans told us was that the deportation of Jews from Holland began the day after a Dutch bishop publicly expressed his disapproval of the Nazi policy. The bishop’s letter in defense of the Jews was read out in the churches, and the German commissar immediately responded by deporting 30,000 Jews, mainly Jewish Catholics. Ans believes condemnation of Pius XII for failing to rally the Church in defense of the Jews is unjust. He knew only too well that outright condemnation of the Nazis would have likely only worsened the situation for the Jews, as it had in Holland. Well, that was her point of view.

Aminadav, who helped us so much, is very influential in Haifa and promised that the investigation will be conducted meticulously and the villains caught. He came back to examine the results of the pogrom by the light of day and concluded it must have been a gang of thugs but that most probably they had been hired. We discovered they had made off only with the money in the candle box, and had failed to find the rest of it in my table. Perhaps they just didn’t have time. Fortunately, the fire did not get as far as my table. The refectory has been virtually destroyed. We have lost all the furniture, crockery, and food supplies. I spent the whole of today finding homes for the old ladies with parishioners. They are all lovely, and as a result two women even squabbled over which of them Rosina should stay with.

I went to see Ans at the hospital. The doctors say her condition is critical. They weren’t going to let me see her, but did after much pleading. She looks in a bad state. I am not sure she recognized me. How I wish Daniel was back. I couldn’t even phone him. He has gone to Sinai with a group of tourists.

On the other hand, what a pleasant surprise it was that the Druze came to see us and asked what kind of help we needed. They sent up eight young people who did more in a day than our parishioners could have managed in a month. I am hoping we will shortly have a group of students from Holland and Germany and everybody will join in and put things right again.

12. 1970, Haifa

L

ETTER FROM

H

ILDA TO HER MOTHER

Dear Mother,

It is quite a long time since I last wrote because we suffered a great misfortune. Some criminals wrecked the church and one woman was so badly burned in the fire that she has died. We are all very upset. Daniel is beside himself. I have never seen him in such a state. Almost all the property we have been collecting for the past three years was destroyed and the old people’s home we built has been burned down. We worked for two weeks without a break but now we have to admit that it cannot be rebuilt here because it is just too dangerous to keep helpless old people in such an insecure area. We have 12 of them to look after and for the time being they have been farmed out among the parishioners. I am trying to get them into state institutions but the problem is that they have no citizenship or documents and accordingly have no entitlement to anything. The church has been almost completely restored through the joint efforts of our Druze neighbors, the parishioners, and, in part, the hired laborers, but the main problem was the old people’s home. Then, just when I was in complete despair, a miracle happened. German settlers have been living in a small town not far from Haifa since the end of the nineteenth century. They are quite well off because they own chemical factories, and when one of them, Paul Ecke, heard about the fire, he sought Daniel out and offered to buy him a property in Haifa to use as a home for the community.

I had been very depressed all this time until Daniel told me about Paul’s offer. He was so pleased, and comforted me and said that there is another book, apart from the Bible and the New Testament, which it is important to be able to read. That is the book of life of every individual, and it consists of questions and answers. The answers rarely come before the questions, but when a question is asked the right way, a reply is usually not long in coming. The only thing is, it takes a certain knack to read the book. The question being asked was, “What should we do now?” and the answer came in the form of Paul, who offered to buy us a house. The main thing to recognize is that if what you are doing attracts no outside support, your venture may be without foundation. If it is firmly grounded, help comes. It is as simple as that.

Actually, of course, there is nothing simple about it. While we are repairing the church, we have no time to do what we were always doing. We have been neglecting our old people, our homeless people, and all our work with children is impossible without premises. So for the time being we are in a strange situation which goes right to the heart of the life of the community, our church services. As of now we have no place of worship.

Daniel says, “Hilda, the Temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed for almost 2,000 years and there is no longer any worship there, but liturgical life has evolved. Part of it has assumed a family form, another part takes place in the synagogue, and Judaism has survived because that is what the Lord wanted. Never fear, Hilda. We do what we can on this earth, and judgments as to the value or otherwise of what we do will be taken upstairs without our involvement.”

Meanwhile, Paul has found a house. It is not vast but has a wonderful garden and I will be able to live there and no longer have to rent. It is also in need of repair. The main thing is the really quite large garden in which we can build a new home for our old people. I’ve already thought all about it. It will have two stories, with small bedrooms upstairs (but each with a balcony), and all the amenities and a hall downstairs. Musa has a builder friend with several teams who will construct it.

I cannot say my life here is straightforward. It is far from that for many reasons, but what a joy it is to be here, in the place where I am right now. Do you remember I wanted to become an artist, to work in the theater, or something of the kind? I find it strange now even to remember that. Was it really me? Do you remember how you tried to steer me away from the arts and advised me to study something useful—accountancy, or a secretarial course? I have to thank you. You were right about everything, though I did move in a different direction.

How are my brothers? Axel wrote me a lovely letter. Did you know he has a girlfriend he is completely crazy about? Or am I giving away secrets? Please write.

Lots of love,

Hilda

13. 1972, Haifa

L

ETTER FROM

H

ILDA TO HER MOTHER

Dear Mother,

I can see from your letters how orderly and unvarying your life is. One thing follows on from another like clockwork. Here in Israel, in our parish at least, extraordinary things happen all the time, some of them very amusing or instructive. Last Sunday a nun from somewhere in the Balkans, I didn’t gather where exactly, wandered into our morning service. She was wearing a kind of floor-length brown habit and had a pectoral cross like a bishop. There was a cap on her head and a rucksack on her shoulders.

As we started, she took out a rosary and knelt with it, and stayed like that to the end of the service. Afterward we invited her to share our meal. There were twenty people or so. Daniel said grace, everybody sat down, and she suddenly started speaking a weird, terribly funny mixture of languages: Serbian, Polish, French, and Spanish. At first Daniel translated, managing somehow to conjure meaning out of incoherence. She had come from the village of Garabandal where the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael had appeared to them, and above them in the sky a great eye of the godhead had shone. At this point Daniel interrupted her and said that people were hungry, so they should first have their dinner and then she could tell us everything properly. She got very cross and waved her arms at him, but he said to her very strictly, as if talking to a child, “Sit down and eat your dinner! Our Savior also first fed people and instructed them afterward.”

I immediately started trying to remember how it had been with the Savior, and actually I think it was the other way around. Anyway, everybody started eating and so did she. The food on the table was what our women had brought from home. We ate and drank and then Daniel said, “Tell us, sister, what you want to. Only not too quickly. I have to translate it.”

Her story was that ten years ago or so, the Virgin Mary appeared in their village to four girls. She appeared over a period of several months and through the girls conveyed tidings to all humankind. There were three messages in all. In the first she called for repentance, in the second she warned that the chalice of patience was overflowing, and that pastors were particularly sinful. She predicted punishment in the absence of repentance. In the third there was something important about Russia, but I don’t remember what exactly. The Virgin also told the girls ten secrets. They were on white sheets of some celestial material on which for now nothing could be seen, but with time the letters would appear and it would be possible to read them. The nun then produced from her rucksack some brown vestments exactly like the one she was wearing and said that anybody who died wearing this habit would never know the eternal fire. The Virgin Mary had promised. She then invited us to buy them at a modest price.

At this point Daniel stopped translating and started speaking to her very rapidly in Polish. She replied in some Slavonic language and they appeared to be arguing. It ended when she shouted, “The sun is dancing! The sun is dancing!” and departed. I think he had simply told her to get out. The congregation were perplexed. They had never before seen Daniel so annoyed. He sat unspeaking, looking at the table. The women cleared away the dishes and washed everything up but still he did not speak. They all went away without having received any explanation. Only brother Elijah stayed behind, fussing about as always with his tape recorder, and two students from Mexico who had asked to stay the night.

I made coffee for Daniel. He drank a little and said very quietly, “What an unpleasant episode. I should have explained my point of view, but I couldn’t. I have to admit, Hilda, that it is always very difficult to decide what you can say openly and what you should keep to yourself. When I was young I believed people should be told everything and that, as a pastor, I had a duty to share all my knowledge. Over the years I came to see that was a mistake. A person may know only what they are capable of assimilating. I have been thinking about this for half my life, and especially since I have been in Israel, but there are few people I can confide in. Really only you. You see, it is a terrible thing to disturb someone’s equilibrium. If a person has become accustomed to thinking in a particular way, even a slight digression from that can prove painful. Not everybody is open to new ideas, to making their understanding more precise and supplementing it, to change. I have to admit that I am changing. Today my views on many matters have diverged from those generally accepted in the Catholic world, and I am not the only person in that situation.

“You see, the birth of the One whom the Christian world knows as Jesus Christ happened just 200 kilometers from here, in the town of Beit Lechem. His parents were from Nazareth, a village only two days’ journey from here. We venerate Him as our Savior, Master, and the Son of God. We venerate his holy parents. However, the combination of the words ‘God’ and ‘Mother’ to give the concept ‘Mother of God,’ which is so widespread in Eastern Christianity as the title of Miriam, the mother of Jesus, is completely unthinkable in Hebrew to the Jewish mind. Yoledet El, ‘she who gave birth to God,’ would cause the outraged ears of a devout Jew to fall off! Yet half the Christian world venerates Miriam as none other than the Mother of God. The first Christians would have considered that expression sacrilegious. The cult of the Mother of God appeared in Christianity at a very late stage. It was only introduced in the sixth century. God, the Creator of all that exists, the Maker of the world and all that lives in it, was not born of woman. The concept of ‘The Son of Man’ appeared long before the nativity of Christ and had an entirely different meaning.

“The legend of the birth of Jesus from Mary and the Holy Spirit is an echo of Greek mythology. Beneath that is the earth of a powerful paganism, the world of the great orgy, the world of worship of the powers of fertility, of Mother Earth. In the popular mind, the goddesses of antiquity are invisibly present, the cult of the Earth, of fertility, of abundance. Every time I encounter this, it drives me to distraction.

“All this has been taken over into Christianity. It is a complete nightmare! To cap it all, two dogmas are constantly confused, the later one about the divinely assisted conception of the Virgin Mary by her parents Joachim and Anne, and the dogma of the sperm-free conception of Jesus.

“I so love the Annunciation. It is a sweet picture. Miriam sitting with a lily, beside her the Archangel Gabriel, and a white dove above the head of the Virgin. How many innocent souls are convinced that Mary conceived from that bird! For me it is no different from Zeus as golden rain or a mighty eagle. The divinity of Jesus is a mystery, and the moment when he assumed that nature is also a mystery. Where did they get that idea of mysterious impregnation? What do we know about that?

“There is an ancient midrash, Vayikra Rabbah, which was written down in the third century, but the oral legend always predates the written version. I believe this midrash was written down after the Gospels, when the topic was beginning to excite everybody’s interest. Be that as it may, there are words in it which touched the depths of my soul, and which seemed to me more true than all the dogmas of the Church. Those words were, ‘For conception three elements are required: a man, a woman, and the Holy Spirit.’ The word ‘ruach’ is right there and there is no way you can translate it other than as ‘the Holy Spirit.’ Accordingly, it participates in every conception and, what is more, it continues to watch over the woman and the fruit of her womb after conception. Animals walk on four legs and the embryo of an animal is more secure than the embryo in the belly of a woman who walks on two legs, whose infant is at risk of abortion. God is obliged to hold every child in place until the very moment of birth, and for the baby not to be afraid in the darkness of its mother’s womb, God puts a light there. This speaks of something Jews knew before the birth of the Virgin Mary or of Jesus, that every woman conceives with the participation of God. I would even say to you that for the Jews, all great people have been born with the participation of God. The clear intervention of God was evident when Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah, who were already too old for childbirth, as the coming to them of angels testifies. That is what the ancient Jewish manuscript says, simpleheartedly and naïvely perhaps, but I feel the truth behind these words. Poetic truth, yes, but truth nevertheless.

“What did the evangelists think about the sperm-free conception? Nothing in particular! That is, nothing fundamentally different from the views to be found in the Jewish tradition, like the midrash I have paraphrased for you. In Matthew the word ‘betrothed’ was applied to Joseph later, after this problem began to be discussed. That is a later insertion when everybody suddenly started taking an interest in the intimate details of Mary and Joseph’s marriage and what really happened. Mark says not a word on this subject, and neither does John. You find it only in Luke. St. Paul makes no mention of any immaculate conception either. He says ‘of the seed of David’ and one who became ‘the Son of God through the Holy Spirit.’ Paul doesn’t even make any mention of Miriam! He speaks of the resurrection. Death and resurrection!

“Do you know, Hilda, what this tells us? To a twisted mind sexual life is inevitably associated with sin. For the Jews, however, conception is not associated with anything of the sort! Sin is associated with people’s bad behavior, while conception is a blessing from God. All these legends about the Immaculate Conception were born in sordid minds which saw the marital union of man and woman as sinful. The Jews never had that attitude toward sexual life. It is sanctified by marriage, and the commandment to be fruitful and multiply confirms that. Personally I cannot accept the dogma of the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception as it is currently presented by the Church. I greatly admire Miriam, quite irrespective of how she conceived. She was a holy woman, and a suffering woman, but we really do not have to turn her into the progenitor of the world. She is not Isis or Astarte, she is not Kali or any of the other fertility goddesses worshipped by the ancient world. Let them read their rosaries, pray to her as the Immaculate Virgin, call her the Mother of God, the Queen of the World if they want to. Miriam is so mild she will put up with the lot of it. She will even put up with those shrines stuffed with golden crowns, rings, crosses, and embroidered cloths which she is offered as a gift by simple hearts.

“I probably should not have kicked that nun out, Hilda, but when she started offering to sell a brown frock which could save you from hellfire, I could take it no longer. If she turns up again and asks for shelter, let her in. Only not when I am here.

“Perhaps now you understand why I did not say in front of everybody what I have said to you. I do not want to intrude upon ideas which have formed deep in the hearts of each of my parishioners. I do not want to entice anybody to follow me. Let each person find their way to God by the path revealed to them. We gather together here to learn to love, to pray together in the presence of the Lord, not to engage in theological disputation. I am telling you all this, Hilda, because it seems to me that you want to know it.”

Mum, I have never felt happier than at that moment. When I am with Daniel I always feel that what is superfluous and unnecessary is being broken off me in lumps, and the more needless stuff falls away, the easier I breathe.

Then we closed the church up. We hurried Brother Elijah on his way because he was still recording with his tape recorder. He is constantly writing down everything Daniel says. He considers that all his sermons must be preserved. Daniel laughs at him and says his focus is on eternity, and making sure all our follies are recorded for posterity.

I realize, Mother, that this cannot impress you as powerfully as it does me. I need to think long now. There are some things I want to argue with him about, only I don’t know how to. What he said was convincing, even inspired, but can it really be the case that millions of people have been in error for so many centuries? If we are to be completely logical, we will have to say that people value their illusions far more than the truth. Daniel seems to be suggesting that truth itself is a complex construct which exists in a minor, simplified form for some and in a far more complex and richer form for others. What do you think? Do let me know soon. I might even telephone you, although calls to Germany are expensive and we have money problems again this month. I’ll write to you another time about how they have arisen.

Lots of love,

Hilda

14. 1973, Haifa

L

ETTER FROM

H

ILDA TO HER MOTHER

Dear Mother,

I have been happy for the whole of this past year because our work has been going very well. We have managed to restore everything, even building a small old people’s home in the grounds of the new community center. We have found the money for a nurse to work there and the doctor comes every week. The children’s program is going well now, and donations have come in from Germany, so we have put in the boiler and replaced the pump with a more powerful one. Suddenly, though, we got a letter from the city council informing us that we are illegally occupying the site of the Church of Elijah by the Spring, which they say belongs to the city. That is, after we have restored it, twice (the second time was after the fire). There was a church here before, however, so either the earlier church had also been erected illegally or someone is playing games. Daniel immediately went to their office and was told that we could only have the land on lease. They want an enormous sum which is completely beyond our means. Daniel is calm, although they said that if we don’t pay the rent within a month they will send in a bulldozer and knock everything down. I cried for two nights, but Daniel seemed unperturbed.

Yesterday he called me in and asked me if I would like him to tell me another Jewish parable. He told me about some Reb Zusya who had to pay a debt by the morning and did not have the money. His disciples were in a panic as to how to get it, but the rebbe was calm. He took a sheet of paper and wrote down 25 ways in which the money might arrive, and on another he wrote a twenty-sixth. The next morning the money arrived from somewhere. The disciples read through the list of 25 ways but did not find the means by which the money had actually come. Then Reb Zusya unfolded the other piece of paper on which was written, “God does not need the advice of Reb Zusya.”

I laughed of course, but two days before the council’s deadline, a group of American Protestants came to visit us who have a great liking for Israel, and their pastor wrote us a check for $5,000. That will pay the rent for a year!

In my heart I had already said good-bye to our young orchard and grieved for the people for whom we are responsible and would now have to turn out on to the street. Then everything turned out as it has.

Lots of love, Mama. Write and tell me about everybody, as neither Axel nor Michael have written a word.

Hilda

15. 1972, Haifa

L

ETTER FROM

K

ASIA

C

OHEN, PARISHIONER OF THE

C

HURCH OF

E

LIJAH AT THE

S

PRING, TO HER HUSBAND,

E

THAN, IN THE

U

NITED

S

TATES

Dear Ethan,

I’ve been meaning to write to you for a month about something very bad which has happened here. I have been so worried that I couldn’t write. It was just so unwise of us to not all go together. We should have gone together. We could have gotten by somehow. If you didn’t manage to earn enough for us to buy an apartment, we could have carried on living in our little … Anyway, now Dina is pregnant. I am horrified. She is 15, what a foolish girl! It is already five months and I’ve only just noticed. To tell the truth, it was not even me, it was our landlady Shifra who noticed. She hinted, but even then I did not get it straight away. It was only in the evening the penny dropped. It’s true. Dina is not saying who got her pregnant. Either she is pretending nothing has happened or she really does not see she has ruined her life. I can’t even say she has been behaving especially badly. She’s a girl like any other, going to school, not staying out late, coming home at the right time. What was I missing? I have been in a complete panic all month. You are not here. I don’t want to tell my friends, especially Melba. Even before this she was always telling me how badly I am bringing up my daughter.

Last week I went to see Daniel. He made time for me and I told him everything I knew. “What should I do?” I asked. “I’m even afraid to tell my husband about it.”

Daniel said, “That’s all right. He is not half as stupid as you. He’ll be upset for five minutes and then pleased that a human being is being born. You are still so young, and you will have a grandson! How I envy you. For my whole life when I look at babies I feel so jealous of those who have brought them into the world. Those little hands and fingers, their little ears. You should be pleased, you silly woman! Tell Hilda to collect all that the baby will need. She has an exchange scheme where mothers swap children’s things, cots, prams … Is Dina pleased?” I told him she just seems vacant, as if nothing has happened, and won’t tell me who the father is.

“Well, she is embarrassed,” he says. “It’s probably some little kid as young as she is herself. Take her out of school or the other children will be unkind to her and we can do without that. She will have the baby, leave it in your lap, and go back to school. She is a clever girl. She mustn’t see this as a misfortune. It is a great happiness. Do you want everything to go by the timetable? From all I know about women, those who are unable to have babies see it as a real misfortune. I congratulate you, Kasia. Tell Dina she should come to Mass. Everybody here likes her, they will not be unkind. Go away, go away! I’m very busy today. You can see how many books I have to read.”

I came home, and Dina had a little boy with cauliflower ears visiting. Rudi Bruk, who looks to be about twelve. He’s half a head shorter than her but the cleverest boy in her class. I arrived and he immediately headed for the door.

“Well,” I asked, “where are you running off to?”

“I promised to be home by 9:00, and it’s already 10:30. My mum will be worried.” At that I burst out laughing, through my tears. “Well why didn’t you go home earlier,” I asked, “so as not to be late?”

“Because Dina was frightened of being on her own. I was waiting for you.” I really wanted to kick him, but he has such a slender neck and Dina was staring at me wide-eyed, like a wild cat. I thought, Lord, don’t tell me she is in love with him.

Ethan, my dear, now I’ve told you everything. Everything would have been different if we had gone to the States together, but because of my greed this has happened. I thought we couldn’t live here without an apartment and you might not be able to make enough. Now you will come with money, we will buy a three-room apartment, and it will still be too small for us. I kiss you, my dear. I miss you very much. I was wrong not to come with you. I can’t wait to see you. There are only four months left. By the time you get here, we will have a grandson. For some reason I think it will be a boy. He could have been ours.

Dina does not want to write to you. She is ashamed and scared. She respects you far more than me, and does not want you to see her belly. Oy, do you know the thought I had? We could have had the baby here and moved to another town and told everybody it was mine. You and I could have adopted him, but in view of the fact you have not been here for a full year, our friends would all think I had been on the razzle! Which version do you prefer? Both are worst!

I kiss you again,

Kasia

16. 1973, Haifa

L

ETTER FROM

D

ANIEL

S

TEIN TO

E

MMANUEL

L

EROUX IN

T

OULOUSE

Dear Brother Emmanuel,

You may remember we met briefly in Toulouse at the conference of our Order in 1969. If my memory does not deceive me, you said that when you entered the Order, you continued to work as a brain surgeon in a children’s neurological clinic. I have a woman in my congregation whose 15-year-old daughter has given birth to a baby with hydrocephalus. The child is now six months old and the doctors observing it here say there is an operation which could halt the progress of the illness. They say it is not available in Israel but that there are specialists in France. I remembered you and decided to ask whether you might be able to find out where in France such an operation might be performed, and perhaps organize a consultation for the baby.

The girl who is the mother of this unfortunate child is herself still a child and is deeply traumatized. I will be grateful for any information you can give me in this matter. I would also like to know how much such an operation might cost. The family of the sick boy is in dire circumstances, so we shall need to busy ourselves with raising the money.

With love,

Brother D. Stein

17. 1973, Toulouse

L

ETTER FROM

E

MMANUEL

L

EROUX TO

D

ANIEL

S

TEIN

Dear Brother,

Your letter has found its way into the right hands because it is at our clinic that the method of performing this operation was devised. It is a fairly complex operation performed on very young children. The results are good but much depends on the stage the illness has reached. There can be cases where we are no longer able to help. Please send the results of the child’s tests and then we will be able to decide whether it would make sense for him to come. We will discuss financial matters later, when it is clear whether surgical intervention is possible. Our clinic attracts charitable donations and that might significantly reduce the family’s expenses. Here in Toulouse we will at least accommodate them in our charitable center or with our parishioners, which will avoid the expense of a hotel.

With love,

Brother Emmanuel

18. 1972, Haifa

B

ULLETIN BOARD IN THE

C

HURCH OF

E

LIJAH BY THE

S

PRING

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO BROUGHT MONEY FOR SHIMON COHEN’S OPERATION.

WE HAVE ALREADY COLLECTED $4,865. WE NEED ANOTHER $1,135 BUT CAN ALREADY SEND THE LITTLE BOY TO FRANCE FOR THE OPERATION. THANK YOU EVERYBODY!

HILDA

19. 1973, Toulouse

L

ETTER FROM

K

ASIA

C

OHEN TO

E

THAN

C

OHEN

Dear Ethan,

As soon as we arrived, little bighead was examined by two doctors, one a pediatrician and the other a surgeon. They examined him for one and a half hours. He did not cry and behaved well. The pediatrician said that mentally the child was perfectly fine, and that all the observable limitations of mobility are caused by the pressure of fluid in his head. They arranged one more examination, praised all the X-rays we had brought, and said the Israeli doctors were on par with French doctors.

Dina has delighted and amazed me. You remember we only knew about the trip in March and came here in July, but believe it or not, in the meantime she has learned to speak French. She sat with her nose in a textbook and I was secretly annoyed that she was just wasting time. Incredibly, she understands everything and can speak the language.

Little bighead was taken to the department. At first he was a bit naughty but Dina had brought a toy for him and we avoided any crying, although he was pouting a bit. He is such a sweet, clever little fellow. By comparison with other children here, ours is really not too ill. The day after the X-ray, the professor said that in his opinion the prognosis was favorable. My dear Ethan, there is a baby in the next cubicle in such a state it breaks your heart to see him. His little head is twice the size of ours, his whole face seems pushed down to his chin, and there is a great hernia in the skull as big as a largish apple. His mother sits there with him, poor woman. It’s so terribly sad.

Dina is clearly feeling happier. Our little man is one of the very healthiest. Dina has met several of the mothers. Imagine, they give them psychological counseling. I will go myself later, but for the moment I feel more like looking around the city.

They have put us in a small room in the monastery guesthouse. This is a big community and the people are very welcoming. I didn’t expect such warmth and goodwill from French people. They had always struck me as haughty and self-important. In the next room is a girl from Brazil called Aurora with that very sick baby I described. She is here with her twin brother, whose name is Stephan. Aurora’s husband abandoned her when he saw the baby was ill but her brother has greatly taken to him. There’s so much sorrow here, but also a lot that is heartening.

Dina is behaving very well. She seems to be less upset and has perked up. At least there is not a hint of the depression she was suffering from. They will perform the operation very soon, early next week. The professor said he does not like to second guess the future but thinks that he will be able to send us home two weeks after that. He hopes the operation will stop the process.

I shall phone you immediately after they have done it. Although we are living here without having to pay, we are spending a lot of money. Food is quite expensive, and Dina really wanted some sandals so I bought them for her. On Sunday we went to Mass. There were two Polish women there, very sweet people. We made friends immediately. Brother Emmanuel was celebrating the Mass, the monk who arranged this trip. After the service, he came over and asked whether there was anything we need.

I wanted to tell you, dear Ethan, that I have always slightly envied Jews having such a closeknit community and such strong family support—not including your family, of course—but this time I have found there is the same family feeling among Christians, and when we are all together we are like brothers and sisters.

I felt this most acutely when I was queueing for communion and we were all united in spirit and members of one family. How splendid that was!

I kiss you and hope (I don’t want to say too much) that everything will be fine.

Your Kasia

Dina says she will write to you separately.

20. 1976, Rio de Janeiro

L

ETTER FROM

D

INA TO

D

ANIEL

S

TEIN

Dear Brother Daniel,

Mama has probably told you that Stephan and I registered our civil marriage while we were still in France, and now Stephan is insistent that we should get married in church. He says we need to put right the mistakes of our youth and that we should have a second child in accordance with all the rules, that is, after a church marriage. If we are to be married, then who would do it better than you? Please tell us when it would be convenient for you to come to Brazil, after the beginning of September, and we will immediately send tickets for you and Hilda. I very much hope you will not delay, because otherwise the bride will not be able to find a dress to fit her. Our second child is due in January. The Brazilians are wonderful people but a marriage not sanctified by the Church strikes them as questionable. They also take a dim view of giving birth before the wedding.

I do not know whether Mother told you that my husband’s family is very rich. They manufacture fashionable footwear which is famous throughout Latin America. Steve’s parents want to arrange a huge wedding and say I can invite anybody I want from Israel. I would like to invite Hilda. She was so kind to me when I was going through a very difficult time. Apart from my parents, two of my schoolfriends and my father’s brother and his children are planning to come to the wedding. Father is terribly pleased because this is the first time his respectable Jewish family will be joining our family in a Christian celebration. However, a second uncle, Leo, will hear nothing of it. Grandmother, too, is making her mind up. Let’s hope that, when she has thought about it a bit more, she will forgive my mother her Polish origins and my father his unwise marriage.

Dear Brother Daniel, I am only now beginning to realize that my life is working out thanks to you. You brought my parents around when little big-head was born and father was going to walk out of the house. You arranged for the operation in Toulouse where I met Stephan and Aurora, and together with them suffered the death of little Nicky and then that dreadful complication of little bighead. He survived the infection by a miracle, and after going through all that we became quite inseparable. I gained not only a dear friend and sister but also a husband, the best in the world. Do you remember coming to me before the birth when I was practically suicidal, idiot that I was, and told me I would be happy? You told me everything would be fine if I could learn to live by the rules which everyone knows but which each person has to discover afresh with their own heart if those laws are not to become mere words.

I cannot say that I understood at the time what you meant, but I do now.

Little bighead, thank God, is fit as a fiddle. They have yet to correct his squint, but Brother Emmanuel says that operation should be done a bit later. Our little boy is physically rather less developed, both in size and in the movements he can make, than other children his age, but he is far ahead of them in mental development. Please do not think that I am just a typical mother exaggerating her child’s progress. He is not yet four but can already read fluently, remembers everything he has read, almost by heart, and the whole family thinks he is wonderful, especially Stephan and Aurora.

I know for a fact that none of this would have come about if you had not prayed for me.

Dear Brother Daniel, Brazil is a Catholic country and Steve’s parents are devout Catholics, but how different their Catholicism is from ours! It seems to me that they differ from us more even than devout Jews differ from Israeli Christians.

I really want to talk to you about this, because there are some questions I am afraid even to raise. Come and see us because, after all, I, too, am your spiritual daughter even though I live in Brazil.

Love from

Dina

21. 1978, Zichron Yaakov

L

ETTER FROM

O

LGA

R

EZNIK TO

D

ANIEL

S

TEIN

Greatly respected Father Daniel,

This letter comes to you from a woman from Odessa whom you do not know. My name is Olga Isaakovna Reznik. I have been living in Zichron Yaakov for five years with the family of my son David, his Russian wife, Vera, and their children. In Israel everything was well with us until David began to have heart trouble and it was decided he needed a heart operation. During the operation, he died and was resuscitated. Vera is a very good wife and mother, and relations between her and her mother-in-law could not be better. God sent me Vera. She is more than a daughter.

While David was having his operation Vera closed the door and prayed. She prayed so fervently that I could feel it in my head. It was like a strong wind blowing. It was 3 o’clock, and later they said that it was at 3 o’clock that his heart stopped and the doctors started to resuscitate him. I believe, I am certain, it was not the doctors who managed to do that. She prayed to Jesus Christ and the Mother of God whom I have never before been much bothered about, but I know that day Christ saved my son through Vera’s prayers. I know that and now I want to be baptized, because I believe in Him, no matter what the Jews say or think. I asked Vera to take me to a priest. She promised, but then refused. That is, it was not Vera who refused but the Orthodox priest she goes to. He said he does not baptize Jews. Then I asked her to find me a Jewish priest, because I heard that such do exist. She told me about you but said you are a Catholic priest. It is absolutely all the same to me, although it would be better to have an Orthodox one in order to be the same as Vera, but where is one to be found? So I’m asking you, greatly respected Father Daniel, to come to us and baptize me. I have been unable to leave the house for two years already because I have a bad leg.

I very much hope you will not refuse my request, because I am old and am so grateful to Him for doing that and there is nothing else I have to give other than being baptized.

David is angry with me and says I have gone crazy, but my heart tells me I need to do this. David leaves for work at 7:30 in the morning and gets back no earlier than 6:00, so please come when it suits you but during working hours so that he does not know what I am up to. I am 81 years old, almost blind, and cannot read any Gospels, but Vera reads to me, and there is nothing there saying there is any difference between Catholics and Orthodox. I look forward to your visit. Let me know when you are coming and I will cook something good.

Till we meet,

Olga Isaakovna Reznik

22. March 1989, Berkeley

L

ETTER FROM

E

WA

M

ANUKYAN TO

E

STHER

G

ANTMAN

Dear Esther,

They say that statistically Americans undergo a major change in their lives every seven years, either of their job, their apartment, or their marriage partner. The first two have happened to me simultaneously, changing the place where I live and losing my job. I am looking for work. I have sent my résumé to various places and there is one job I would very much like. It is a splendid park with a small research center and soil science laboratory.

I used to think nowhere could beat Boston and Cape Cod, but California is better, or at least, certainly not worse. We have rented a wonderful house with a view of San Francisco Bay. I can’t tear myself away from the window. If I don’t find a job I shall just sit and look out the window. Things could be worse. On top of his day job, Grisha has received an offer to be a consultant to some firm and is pleased. In material terms everything is simply brilliant.

Alex is very happy and has finally decided to go to film school in Los Angeles. He has even abandoned his Greeks and now is inseparable from his camera. He is making some film of his own in which the main heroes are dogs and their owners. As a result, we almost constantly have three dogs and their young owners jumping around in our house. One is a very funny Chinese boy and the second is a stunningly handsome Mexican. They are all very sweet, but it is a purely male alliance in which the sole female is a bitch called Gilda. I have almost gotten used to the all-male scenery although I haven’t given up hope that some sex-bomb girl will appear and turn Alex’s head. He is 18; at his age Grisha had ploughed his way through half the girls in his class.

Grisha and Alex are still very sweet on each other, and I am grateful to you for putting a halt to my psychosis. It has to be said that seeing a psychotherapist is helping me regain my mental composure, too, but if all these friendships with boys came to an end and he found himself—I was going to say a “nice” girl, but then thought just any girl—my suspicions would dissolve like a bad dream.

Writing a letter is far more important than talking on the telephone. It is quite a different matter. I told you briefly how I found Rita during my last trip to Israel. She is now visited almost every day by a new friend she met at the hospital. She is a dismal Englishwoman called Agnessa, a nurse, without a hint of charm, a small mouth, and large teeth. She has lured mother into some Christian sect, which baffles me utterly. Agnessa has a good effect on her though. They talk together about religion and I find that weird. I remember only too well how furious she was when I started going to church in Warsaw. Agnessa is not Catholic but some kind of Protestant, and that seems to have clicked with my mother. At the same time I can’t stop worrying. As you know, I am a religious person and formally a Catholic, but the disorder of my life gets in the way of my everyday practice. I pray only once in a blue moon, and as for reciting the rosary, well, no thanks. The fact that my Rita has suddenly started reading the Gospel puts me in a curious position. If I really am a Christian I should be glad that my godless Communist mother has been converted, but instead I am puzzled and even rather cross. It’s as if I want to keep her off my turf. At least she hasn’t converted to Catholicism. I would find that completely intolerable.

On the other hand, I can see that my mother is a wholly religious type. Her faith in Communism was stronger than mine in the Lord Jesus Christ. I understand that both those things are quite alien to you, but you do remember her when she was young. You are the only person with any recollection of my mythical father. Can you explain it? It’s enough to send me straight to the psychoanalyst to try to make sense of an incomprehensible situation.

I have not yet had a chance to meet anybody here, but one of the advantages of working in a university is that there is a social life of sorts, concerts, receptions, and we are constantly receiving invitations. There is a very pleasant family, also from the university, living in the house next door. He is a professor of theology from Russia and his wife is an American, a historian who writes about the workers’ movement. We are even getting on Russian terms with them and drop in on each other for a glass of tea. They have a lovely 15-year-old daughter and I am pinning my hopes on her. Perhaps she will take a shine to Alex.

Oh, yes. When I was in Jerusalem I visited Yosef, the restorer. They had buried Leya’s mother, Praskovia Ivanovna, only the day before. I think I told you about her. She was the old lady in a shawl who made the sign of the Cross over the food on the Sabbath. Apparently she was a priest’s wife, a simple woman from a Russian village who had immigrated with her daughter to Israel and was very homesick. When she died they naturally wanted to give her an Orthodox funeral. They went to the local Orthodox Church but the priest there was a Greek and refused to conduct her funeral service because, although Greeks are Orthodox, they are some different variety. Then Yosef and Leya went to Jerusalem. They wanted to bury her at the Moscow Patriarchate, but they said they didn’t know her and would need to see a certificate of baptism. You can imagine, the old lady was christened 80 years ago in Torzhok. Next they went to Ein Karem, where there is an Orthodox monastery and cemetery, but there they demanded so much money, there was no question they could not find it. Land is very expensive in Israel. Five days passed without them finding anywhere to bury her. In the end they appealed to a Catholic priest who is a monk at the Carmelite monastery and he buried her in the Arab cemetery in Haifa. There is an Arab Catholic Church there where he had already buried many stray Christians, but then they stopped. The cemetery was small and they were concerned that soon they would have nowhere to bury their own people. Yosef and Leya took the coffin to Haifa but the cemetery watchman came out and would not let them pass. Yosef says he was in desperation. There was nowhere else to turn. Then this priest got on his knees before the watchman and said that if they wanted, they could throw his body in the sea to the fish, but they should bury this old lady. He let the car through, they quickly dug a grave, and the priest conducted a funeral service. Yosef said later that the funeral service in the Orthodox Church is one of the best of all services, but what he saw that day was a real celebration before the Lord. The whole point is that this Catholic priest is a Jew from Poland. I wondered, Esther, whether it was him you were talking about, the interpreter who helped the Jews to escape from the ghetto in Emsk. I wouldn’t be surprised. Israel proved such a small world and everybody is either related or neighbors.

Oh, yes. Yosef got your book and said the miniatures were remarkable but he is working on a large commission at the moment and will not be able to start very soon. I said there was no hurry, the book would wait.

My table is right by the window. When I look out I forget everything. If I can get that job at the park, it will be just wonderful. Grisha says I would do better to stay at home, but I am completely unaccustomed to living without a job. Of course, it would be ideal if it wasn’t fulltime, but I’ll have to take what I can get. Full-time jobs are easier to find.

I’m looking forward greatly to seeing you again. I hope you won’t put it off and will visit us soon. Remember it’s best to come here during your hottest months. We don’t get really hot here. We will drive to the ocean. The scenery is marvelous and the town is very pleasant, too. As for the vegetation, there is nothing to compare with it in Boston. Real great forests with paths and streams. It’s a paradise.

All my love, dear Esther. Grisha says to say hello and invite you to come and stay.

See you soon,

Your Ewa