New Year’s Day 1955
Happy New Year!
I clink your glass, get it ring clear for the well-being of body and soul, sunny days, friends and love!
We’re having a lovely, celebrated New Year’s Day. After months of drought and scorching came productive rain. It rained last night, and still today. All the tanks, wells, basins and buckets are full. All the leaves drink, and are motionless and green. Beyond the window, on a parched cactus, two white blooms have opened overnight, like twinkling stars. For the first time in a long while, I also feel a holiday serenity. We still don’t have electricity, so we also don’t have a radio. I was just playing from Vītol’s book of hymns and in my thoughts I was back in the churches of my homeland. In fact there’s plenty of opportunity for such reminiscing, and I was thinking about friends and loved ones whom I’ll never see again. That world still goes on. Perhaps it sinks, along with each of us, and rises again with every newborn. Perhaps. Yes, certainly it’s different each time, and yet not exactly strange. Not so strange as it sometimes feels.
Yesterday, on New Year’s eve, I received your letter written at Christmas. Though you do warn me not to believe everything I hear, it’s hard not to believe the good things. And you say only good things. Maybe just now it’s better like that. There’s enough struggle and suffering. I’m grateful to you for your great support for my bits of writing. The typed one, quite rightly, was done in my youth, some 15 years ago. Rereading it, I feel I should have crossed out some of it, but I didn’t have time to relive it and correct it. I sent it to you as is. Yes, you could call the piece about Vik Rūķis a fragment of a novel; but that novel has been written so far only by life itself, somewhere in the Ļaudona/Saikava area, near the Aiviekste, starting with the Bridge (not Lake) hotel, with first Vik, then Jānis Ezeriņš living there (not in the Bridge hotel, but in Saikava) and they both being rivals for the one beauty.
I got to know Vik much later. I know a lot about him. I understand him better now than I did then. But a novel! — I think that only recognised writers are allowed to do such things. This sketch was written by chance, in memory of him.
Yes, he was exactly how you said. But how could you see that — in my brief sketch? The strangest thing is, that the same Vik was saved. Saved by some beautiful, good, clever, straight-forward, ordinary girl. He still loves her, and with her help, is a good family man, already gone grey. I couldn’t write a novel without the support of real facts, and here I would be rather hard pressed to capture the real Vik.
But — if I could! — You see in Anna Meija Christian and Latvian issues. They weren’t put there deliberately. But I have really wanted to write a novel about that from a female perspective, which, clearly, I have. If it’s not all too late! And if you would help with your guidance such as you now give me and which is so precious. I have written diaries from my first year at high school. That thick exercise book (and 19 hard cover notebooks) I miss just as much as I miss the letters which were buried somewhere in my homeland. In these books, just for my own pleasure perhaps, I was sort of learning to use words, not to express, but to get to the essence of what really does happen. But I haven’t managed to write anything else. I’ve written this and that, but when I reread it, it seems to need changing.
I would be grateful if, for a while, you kept everything that I have sent, and hope to send, with you. (That is, all that hasn’t been and won’t be published). I have such an “archive” with a friend in America.
It would be nice to see something in print. Though it’s a bit scary, for the name and words look different in print. You can’t hide any more from prying eyes. Besides, I should start off well. I’m from the visual arts, and if they ever write, they usually do it well. I mustn’t spoil the record.
I’m reading your novel in the paper, and quite often feel chastened. You depict everyone in such grand style, even a smile, so assuredly, precisely drawing each character, with small, or large, if large, even grotesque strokes. I’m still far from seeing people so clearly. I’ll probably never be able to. I stumble through everything, full of all sorts of feelings that can only be hinted at, and moreover, willingly remain unclear and full of illusions about everything. But at the same time I have the calming conviction that the truth is not so far away.
While still in Germany I sent some of my stories about the refugee days to the publisher, H. Rudzītis. He wrote back that … “the language is good, the characterisation engaging … ” and kept one for publication in the magazine Laiks [Time], but then he suddenly left and I received my article back from some other editor. Laiks did not get issued again.
I think that I won’t be able to be still. Because of my circumstances, for me, this is an easier method of self-expression than you had so far led me to believe, and if it is not too much, I’ll soon send you something more. It does me so good to be able to lean on you.
My circumstances? — dreadful if I want to produce anything. I am a farmer’s wife, and very poor. The market for beans crashed this year, and even those grew poorly for us this year because of drought. We have just sunk a bore, looking for water for the garden, or rather the fields. Water was found 114 feet deep. Now the water is being analysed to see if it’s good for use on plants. We’re hoping it will be, as there is only a faint, salty taste. Maybe it was more from the dirt and the oil from the drilling machine. Then there will come the pump and the irrigation equipment. And then- again the bending over the endless rows of beans. In my pursuit of some fleeting moment of freedom, I had been over-doing things. I’m still not quite sure about my health, but I’ve taken my medicine, and am now rested. A farmer’s wife, whether on a large or small farm, soon becomes indispensable, not allowed to go anywhere else than there, in the 101 places she is needed. That’s how it is with me. If there’s a brief, stolen, free moment, then it’s like when someone has to fall asleep knowing that the alarm will ring at any moment. Just from fright, I can’t start anything, knowing that immediately I will be dragged away as soon as I’ve become absorbed in my work. But somehow I must struggle on. While doing my farm duties, since I can be working things out in my thoughts, even constructing sentences, finding words, it’s easier for me to write than draw. But maybe not only for that reason.
Your day seems wonderful to me. I was able to live like that in my youth, having as much time to myself as I liked. But in those days I was endlessly lazy, flitting about in the sun like a butterfly. Maybe it hasn’t all disappeared and something has been gained from it. There are many blessing these days too: the children with all their mischief and love, everything — the cow and cat included. It’s a world very full of life, in no way empty. Only it’s hard to fulfil all my duties and still leave time for something creative.
I haven’t seen the exhibitions on in Sydney. Sp. Klauverts writes that they are well attended, because they coincide with his monthly literary evenings, which last just a couple of hours. But that seems enough, and the most important thing is — the public gradually gets used to less familiar art.
I don’t know yet what I’ll send. Probably mostly drawings, like the ones that were in Melbourne’s [Latvian] Cultural Festival. You don’t like flying. Yes, it is far. What lovely thing would entice you? Everything always turns out a bit more shabby than one would like. A new year is beginning, maybe it will bring something good and beautiful. I find that finding you was one of last year’s biggest gifts.
All the best, E. Dzelme
17. 2. 1955
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
I’m butting in to your family affairs and wishing you a happy birthday!
Perhaps you are reading poetry in the garden, in a reclining chair, as you mention in your letter. So that you have plenty to read, I’m sending you an anthology of Australian poetry.
I went to Wyong, to look for something for the occasion, and this was it. Please ignore the wrapping. I wanted to send it right away, but here in the bookshop, such as it is, there was no other wrapping paper than old newspapers. I snatched it back out of their hands and went to the post office. I thought there would be some wrapping materials there. There were! They very obligingly wrapped it in — old newspapers! No point in grabbing the book from their hands yet again, for if I had taken it home, to wrap it “beautifully”, — your birthday would be over.
This badly wrapped book annoys me. I know that if you’re going to like it at all, you will like it regardless, but still! Why is it that things often don’t go as I want them to. Calmly, without haste. But that’s long gone. Overall, I can be happy that I got out of the house today; I might not have been able to get away. But the bean seed had to be ordered, so my running off coincided with practical things and was accepted.
Forgive me for writing in pencil, I forgot my pen at home. Here I would be able to write with pen only in the post office, standing up, and I wanted to do it in a milk-bar, drinking coffee and thinking it over at leisure. Not what I’m writing, but the whole process.
I got your letter. Thanks for making it a bit longer. I needed it very much. Things are pretty tough. Physically I can bear more than usual, because this year I’ve been swimming a lot, and been in the sun, and am stronger — but my soul is withering. And for sure it’s not going to do so quietly! It gives battle and torment, and one must thrash about like a fish on dry land.
Perhaps it’s not even the soul. Maybe it’s the blood, still rushing, unable to be still, when all the world is so lush. This year there’s been a lot of rain, everything is lush, green and blossoming. The wind, the clouds and sun are merging and fragmenting.
You say that a human being is a very complicated thing. It is wonderful to live feeling that, and being preoccupied with that. The game is over, if one assumes that the human is ordinary, understandable, predictable, that you can hold in the palm of your hand. Everyday I have to contend with that sort of assumption, and it destroys me. Maybe not yet me — my life. I actually live only while I am away, alone, or among others. Even just in my room — it’s better.
I won’t write much about bean picking, though — perhaps I could. There I looked into the depths of another human being, and saw a whole other hidden world. Beneath that exterior flows another, very strong, restless current. Now it seems to me that I know my neighbour as two different people. About that other, maybe his real self — it might be worth writing. But then I would have to investigate further and that is dangerous. I don’t know how to work it out just in my mind. I discover everything via love. But of course I can’t be in love with my neighbour — else all this valley would topple.
I would like to go to Sydney to see a fellow from my own home district — Andrejs Eglītis. But I’m already feeling the trepidations — how to manage my getting away. By the rules of our house, a person is not allowed to be so complicated that one part of them has leanings towards Andrejs Eglītis, another part towards someone in Melbourne, yet another towards the neighbour, let alone a friend in America, etc. etc. That’s all evil-doing. But since I am full of such leanings — then I need to be locked up, put in chains. And that’s what gets done to me.
What did the girls like best in Sydney? — The folksongs sung by the mixed choir, and the theatre. They didn’t see the folk dancing, because at that time, I had to help out the little girls who were preparing for their ballet performance and who didn’t have a pianist.
Nevertheless, unconsciously, my girls had absorbed nationalistic feelings — they felt Latvian and proud of it. For the first time. And that’s why I took them. Coming home, they were talking out loud, in Latvian all the time and didn’t even realise it. But — that’s already gone. What can I do?
I still want to say something good in closing, something that would cheer up a birthday. But I know I won’t grasp it in words. I will try to fold into these pages, a little of the air from here, where I am — that will be the closeness that I sometimes long for. More is not really necessary. As you yourself acknowledge, things could come to grief.
Yours, E. Dzelme
3. 3. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
I have been longing so much for your letter, but it doesn’t come. Maybe you have much work. You went to Ballarat, plenty of adventures. You also had your birthday. From me, a belated greeting. It was a lovely day. Here, I went to work and thought of you on your day. Somewhere there wafted the scent of a blossoming orange orchard. I wanted to go to the post office to send you a telegram. But I thought — I would have to write “Happy birthday to you” (in English) and suddenly that turned me off. I walked right past the post office. Days go, one after the other, and nothing happens. I can’t get any work done for myself.
My ability to make judgements has become muddled — I can’t tell what’s good, what isn’t. It is being muddled by the world, “the big wide world out there”, which is currently harassing your [lot in Melbourne], everyone getting in each other’s hair … Here in Sydney it’s even worse. One [Latvian artist] has retaliated against another. You must have read the critique.. When you listen to it all, it is sad. There’s nowhere left to turn, no one to run to. And I want to, so much. Somewhere where there is space with light, and people’s faces and ideas. But where is there such a place? One keeps butting the other, like calves in a pen. Nowhere to go.
And that is sad.
My friend in America doesn’t write. Last words were at Christmas, when she wrote that things were tough, that she was exhausted in heart and mind … I’m afraid, wondering what’s happening to her? As long as there isn’t some more serious trouble.
Your bronchitis must be better, otherwise you wouldn’t have gone to the writer’s group. I was longing for a letter so much, but I haven’t been so good about writing myself. Still, — please write. A magpie’s singing, and everything is green and lush after rain. I want to have fun. But it’s so lonely, lonely, when there’s not a single human voice.
Greetings, Yours, E. Dzelme
28. 3. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
I dreamt about you this morning. I had slept in, and as happens at such times, — I dreamt that I got up and had begun my day’s chores. Outside, just opposite, through green branches, someone was approaching, and it was you. Dressed all in white, only the eyes dark and serious. You were coming towards me quickly, and I thought you were about to say something, and then I woke up. Now all day, I can’t get you out of my mind — are you O. K? Is your bronchitis distressing you even more? Will you get free of it before the Christmas break so that you can rest before the rainy period? Do my letters tire you and keep you from your work? (Though you did say you wait for my letters.)
In your last letter you wrote that we seek ourselves in everything, “finding our reflection even in a friend’s smile”. Maybe so. Nevertheless, something more does remain – it’s not enough with just ourselves, even if we never get tired of having confirmation of ourselves.
It’s crazy that we are all forced to live scattered so far from one another. Only words, written down, and belatedly received, still link us. That’s how it is for me with you, so too for my American friend, who perhaps is sick right now and might be needing me, the same as I need her — but distance separates us. If one can actually meet in everyday life, and do something for a friend now and again, put some flowers on a table, sympathise together about how nasty it is when it rains too long — then friendship, greater or smaller, is not so self-serving.
Good that you remind me that I should write something for the Australian Latvian Annual. I will write — I’ll finish something that I’ve started and then you can see — what’s useful.
Forgive me for finishing this letter in pencil. I had to hurry to work. And now, work done, as I go to send it at the P.O., I’ve nothing else to write with.
It’s a lovely day again; after the rain and wind the sun is shining.
In front of my eyes shines the road — you could say highway — and I’d like to run down it and away. Somewhere! … But you can’t run “Somewhere” down this one. One way goes to Wyong, the other to The Entrance, and that’s all.
Will your book be out soon?
Did you read Anšlavs Eglītis’ Man from the Moon? I’m sending it to you. It’s no grand present. I had ordered it from O. Strauts and unexpectedly my friend also sent it to me, so it’s a waste to have two lying about at home.
As soon as my exhibition is over in Sydney (in April) I will finish my stories and send them to you to see what you think of them.
All the best, Yours, E. Dzelme
9. 7. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
It’s been a good while since your last visitation. Thanks for it. I was very happy. Before that I was worried that I might have said something unpleasant in my letter. After Dzidra broke her collar bone I was pretty touchy, everything affected me and hurt me, I defended myself wherever I could in whatever way I could, and was often nasty. I thought maybe that had also come out in my letter, and that you’d felt unjustifiably attacked. Well thank god your letter has arrived, and there was a different reason for its being later than I’d expected. I didn’t answer you straight away because I forced myself to rewrite a piece on some rather secretive incident at “Ķikuri” (my childhood home). While rewriting, I made quite a lot of changes, and having begun, sometimes went on too long — and had to rewrite some parts again. But now it is finished, and I’ll send it to you with this letter.
You’ll see for yourself what works and what doesn’t. Place names, and even people’s names, are for the most part real, as are the events. We are now so far from all that once was, that so that it doesn’t disappear altogether, it must be depicted in writing with real names.
As you mention, your fourth book will soon be out, and that’s good. What you write about in your 5 stories I guess applies to a period that I don’t remember because I didn’t experience it. Maybe the same period that you wrote about in Suitors. That piece touched my heart. Now I’ve been reading your story in Signposts I was deeply engrossed in the part of the story where on a steamy afternoon fon Barlevin is riding along and battling with march flies. Someone interrupted me just then, and it felt like I was being dragged out of the cart, out of the hot afternoon, and the sleepy battle with march flies. It seems that one can experience also in another’s story what one has already experienced oneself.
Thank you for bringing along with you yet another visitor: Mrs. Kreišmane. She is so dignified, good, nice. I don’t know whether I would have known how to behave properly if she had written to me. I feel such a wreck in her presence. But it is very nice that you made the move first. Of course, Mrs. Kreišmane’s words please me greatly, to think that something I’ve said resonates in another. Credit that she praises me so much falls more on herself — only a bountiful person can be so generous with their praise for another. I’m quite afraid to think about the style which she mentions, because I try to capture it through feelings, nothing else. I’ve got bad memories about the subject from my high school days. We had a much adored Latvian language teacher — Jānis Āboliņš (Golden Āboliņš), we called him to distinguish him from (and value him above) the maths teacher, Peter Āboliņš (Silver Āboliņš). This Golden Āboliņš very rarely gave us fives (top mark). For one essay, I got 5, and in his precious handwriting was written, “I’m giving the highest mark with the note that it was earned not so much for content, as for style”. (We had been discussing and reading the work of Vesels, as an example of good style). But then, in the next essay, after having received a 5 for style, I felt hopeless, I didn’t know how to get this style into my new essay. I struggled and strained and got — 3, my first (and last) 3 for Latvian language class. From that time on, I put aside thinking about style and relied on feeling, although searching quite carefully for that. Usually this thing about style, for its own sake, gets weighed down by excess words, and then it’s all over.
After your letter, again I felt like flying down to see you. After all, you talk there, discuss things, participate — I am left here, abandoned without counsel, to my writing. But there’s still much to say, perhaps not so important as to warrant any great serious thought. I have works that I have begun writing, and others I intend to write, only I haven’t had time to get to them. I also want to write that “Journal”, but there’s little time for that either. I’m hoping that the coming week will be half-free, and I’ll be able to manage something. Then the pea picking season will start, like a black night.
Last week I drank lots of coffee to keep myself from falling asleep — but it didn’t work. I slept like a bear. And then, when I wake up at night, I can only think, I don’t manage to get up and work. I considered buying a torch, then sitting in bed and writing, because if I get up and sit at a desk, I freeze, and my thoughts freeze. But nothing would result from that little bulb. And it’s good that I can sleep, if I couldn’t do that, I would be lost. (I know what it is to not be able to sleep).
It’s not true, however, that women are either spiders themselves, or the victims of spiders. I know that very well. But, everyone has his cross to bear. Everyone pays for their life in some way. In my youth I had the gift of many sunny days, and was, in my happiness, pretty blind to the suffering of others, and sometimes behaved perhaps even offensively, and maybe this is the payback. And — my greatest wish from life — my children are beautiful! Maybe I am paying for that …
But enough about all that.
I wrote something about Dzidra, but I won’t send it just yet. It was intended just as a bit of parley with you — maybe I’ll reread it and send it — so I don’t have to think about it any more. So that I can get onto something new. I’m pleased in what kind of book we’ll be neighbours. That can only bring blessings — your nearness.
This morning there was a big frost. The peas froze. They’ll now have marked pods, and won’t be first grade. But there’s nothing can be done.
11. 7. 1955.
I came to the post office, and on the way, there was wind, sun — for a moment I thought I was surrounded by the smell and the swaying of birch branches. Then I wanted to be with you, to grab your shoulders, turn you around and drag you out of the room to where the sun shines, waters flow, trees sway. To revisit the past, tend the graves, — but we can’t, can’t, can’t … And one is not allowed to write about it either. But I already threw out one morbid page from this letter, it’s better not to write about sad things, at least not then, when, momentarily, the sun dazzles them out of one’s heart.
In the page I threw out I’d written that after all there might be some sort of sense to the fact that I must tread through such darkness. In your translation of H. Hesse’s poem, it says “No one is wise who knows not darkness”. And it isn’t only the darkness of night that must be known. To be wise.
It costs a lot. It costs everything.
But there’s nothing can be done.
Soon I’ll send you some odds and ends that I’m writing. Please write.
Greetings, Yours, E. Dzelme
25. 7. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
Thanks for your letter, from the bottom of my heart! It arrived on — “the first day of pea picking” and since I hadn’t had to wait too long for it, it had extra special value.
The second day of pea picking has passed already, and the calf meat has been put in the freezer, and we survived some pretty exacting days of meat preparation. Somehow or other, I’ve managed to get through it all. There won’t be as many peas in the first field as we’d hoped for, so there may well be more free time, but also more bad atmosphere — the outcome is anyhow bad.
Yesterday and today, I felt that the weather is starting to turn towards spring. How much that meant, once upon a time! How little now — and yet I still have my gypsy pleasure about it — the evenings will no longer be cold. But — there won’t be any evenings any more, for the day will stretch till night, and so little of the day belongs to me.
By the date, it’s Jacob’s Day. My mother’s father was a Jacob, and my sister’s husband too. Jacob’s Day had rich overtones for us. Also that’s gone.
Yes — but then what’s left? Beyond the window there is a green hill with trees and fields, and I’d like to go there. But when I got there — there would be empty fields, dry trees, thorns, crawling creatures, — I don’t think I’d like to spend time there.
Somewhere, surely there is still something, only I can’t find it.
My older girl will go to her first school dance in a few days (in our day, at that age (13) we had thoroughly danced ourselves out at various festivities, no?)
But I won’t make empty chit chat. Time is short.
A statement in your letter on the debate about the small “I” and the large “you” pleased me, as it could also be the basis of future art. It’s good that I’ve been on the right track. Sometimes I’m overtaken by fear — that maybe I’m churning out something that’s been played out already, been done. I’m so precious and don’t hold to any theory.
It would be good to drink some vermouth and chat about these things — styles, directions, but I don’t get to investigate it all much myself because of the forbidding “isms” into which all the art world is being so surely divided. I read what I find, what I like, and rely on my intuition. That’s not much, I know, but the method has stood the test of time.
I’ve got a rough sketch about the tending of the graves at Ļaudona, — I’d like to redo it, but it seems as though it’s grafted, quite organically, to some larger work. It must be the same one that you feel the Vik and Aiviekste’s story has been taken from. Yes — but so far I still don’t have this larger work. Would I already have the strength and where-with-all to create it? I don’t have any theory. Where did all that stuff about the structure of a novel go? Someone gave you that introduction, promising it would appear in the paper. Oh how I need it all, that which you have down there and I have none of here. I’ll be happy if the Aiviekste’s story is in the paper. This time that will have to do. I’ll do more writing, and then send it overseas. I still hope to keep getting better at writing.
Please would you look through this story, around page 14 or 15, about the condition of the water and the girls. On rereading it, I added something about the girls’ flirty eyes — now it seems, that I grabbed that out of what the reader should be thinking. If that’s so, please, cross out those flirty eyes.
The [Latvian] Cultural Festival at Christmas will be here again soon. Now it’s in Sydney again and I ought to go and check it out. I’m thinking about the fact that I have to start doing something to get it ready in time. I have to save some pennies, sew some dresses for my daughters. I should take at least one of them with me, if not both.
For years now I’ve waited for something special to happen at Christmas. I keep thinking, something must change. But it doesn’t.
1. 8. 1955.
A week has gone already since I wrote this and didn’t send it. Lots of other things to do and — I wanted to send it together with the story, but I couldn’t manage it. Not enough time. Pity. Not only about that — much more, sadly. But something will turn up one day …
Best wishes to you, Yours, E. Dzelme
5. 8. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalnins,
I’d just sent a letter to you when I received yours. Doesn’t matter, we’d both been discussing more or less the same things. I read over your words whenever things are too hard. And it’s not easy. Today we have to deal with the third rooster, after the calf. In between, I’ve started writing stories — but I’m not getting very far.
You’re looking at Indian art — that’s a bit different from cleaning roosters. And still — all roads lead to Rome — I think that I’m still digging up something here. It’s quite delightful. That, – if I could write a novel, it would have in it the same “broader themes” as in the work of people living radiant days. You say I notice small things, details, and talk about them, and you acknowledge that as being good. This life forces me to see what one would normally pass by. But then something within me must make me seek out the minutiae. I believe that through little things I can find the way to the big ones, understanding the small, I’ll reveal part of the large.
Your plan for a novel entices me, but I’m still afraid of such big things. Can’t one say just as much through sketches, stories, novellas? Or is my writing really leading more towards a novel? Well, whatever will be, will be. I very much want to work, and there is an abundance of topics that seek expression in words, characterizations, etc. I’ll write all I can and send it to you and you can pile it all up. What could be — should be published somewhere. Surely somehow I must get to writing with more freedom. Thinking about it now, I seem to be getting closer to one fateful day, suddenly being able to just put aside all those other obligations and taking off. Where? — I don’t know. To sit down by the side of the road and write. With Christmas approaching, again I’m hoping, for something. Maybe a free week. Somewhere other than here. Somewhere, where I could become totally absorbed in my work, with no interruptions.
I get no time at all. But some day it has to be different. Only that sustains me. The wind is terrible. Wind can be lovely, but at the moment it’s too strong. Yesterday I went out, looking for something, but I didn’t find it.
Greetings, E. Dzelme
20. 8. 1955.
Honourable Mr. Kalnins,
The day before yesterday, I received your Men’s Talk — thank you. I see that this book will become very dear to me — and at times quite indispensable. I only got a chance to look through it after midnight on the day I received it, and opening it I came across Mrs. Nauman’s letters. I had spent that day, and more, working late on dressing Dzidra’s doll. At school, they were putting on a play about Snow White, and also preparing the same play for the puppet theatre. Dzidra was preparing the dolls’ heads (out of paper and paste) and I was sewing the clothes. Even by midnight, the book still remained out of reach. Today I’m reading snippets, time stolen from housework. Though tomorrow is Sunday, but that means — peas.
I think that for each and every Latvian, young and old, your Men’s Talk is, in these times, a blessed gift. Nothing else could give so much warning, invitation, and I don’t know what else for the preservation of national cohesion and consciousness. That’s one of the great aspects of this book, let alone it’s artistic value. Then — the style of that era. I’m completely enchanted. It seemed as if I could enter that life and be more truly alive there, than in this life here.
22. 8. 1955.
Your book has disconcerted me, I hardly feel the ground under my feet, real life. I have so much longing for the past, that I don’t know where to turn, and yet it’s an illusion.
The time you write about is familiar to me only in so much as it was mirrored in my mother’s and father’s lives, which I absorbed in my earliest childhood, listening to them. A little bit too, from my own experiences (father’s starched collars, mother’s skirts with fringes along the bottom, lace parasols, old photographs … ) which left an impression on me. As I want to write about my mother’s life, your book brought into sharp focus memories of all that past life’s details, and I want to read a bit of history and records of that era and to start organizing my thoughts and memories. But can I do it? When will I be able to do it? — and I mustn’t delay too long! …
Living here, all the pain of what’s been lost feels like just a private pain, as though I should be ashamed of it, and try to hide it, – for the neighbours in this place feel hurt if I don’t say that it’s “very nice” here, and that I am “very happy”. But when the words of our old warriors, and of our homeland, stand around me from out of your book, then again one could scream at the injustice and devastation that has been wreaked upon us. One way or another, it’s a sign that I’m not dead yet, and can still do something. But there’s still the catch, that I can’t get myself free to be able to work. Though there’s no point, else, to my life.
I so much would like to live awhile near you. Even just for a few weeks. Maybe that’s just a hairbrained idea which would be better if it didn’t happen. But I do have such a wish. I think we would walk around Heideberg or wherever, or sit in some room, exchanging memories, thoughts, realizations, and thereby enrich ourselves.
But it’s not worth thinking about it. It’s just good to be able to receive your letters, and to write to you. My friend in America doesn’t write. She has big conflicts with her son, who is already 16-17 years old, and doesn’t want to go to school, and is getting up to all kinds of tricks. Several times they’ve had the police out looking for him to get him back from his little escapades, trying to make money, or in some other way to get ahead in the world.
Well then — now that I’ve told you all my woes, I feel better. I’m off to pick beans. Tomorrow I start my job at the children’s summer holiday farm. I want to work there for another 3 weeks, but not over the Christmas holidays. I want to go to the Culture Festival and also to get a bit of sun on the beach with the children. Maybe then I’ll be able to write. The children aren’t so small any more, and every moment you have to watch to see that they don’t go into too deep water. I’m starting to feel the pressures of child raising. A life full of lies and arguments doesn’t sit well with them. How can I save them? How to give them more joy and a healthier attitude towards the tasks of everyday life? Things I don’t have myself! They also ought to spend more time among Latvians … No, I have to go to the peas …
27. 8. 1955.
Yesterday I received your letter with the blue stamp. Thank you! The new stamps have been added — the post office’s jubilee stamp with the mail coach on it, and the last one, of the globe divided up in a remarkable way — the IMCA’s stamp. I enjoy new editions of stamps along with my children, for both girls are involved in a bit of stamp collecting.
Your letter brings good news — something will be published in the Year Book and the literary supplement. Good! One small step forward, perhaps. Maybe in the future also I’ll be able to do something more, when I finally get off the ground.
The literary supplement will be a very lovely thing, and quite a few will welcome it. I miss the literary section of the Australian Latvian very much. There are quite a number of writers here, and we women beginners in among them.
I’m working at the children’s summer holiday farm now, and on my days off, I pick beans, so writing happens only when I’m about to fall asleep and on waking — in my thoughts.
You don’t want to come to the Culture Festival, and you give whole rows of reasons why not. But none of them stand up to scrutiny. You simply — don’t want to come! Maybe there’s another reason — it can’t just be your social commitments. Those you could leave to that Mr. Prankas and come incognito. I had even imagined that we’d be at the ball, drink wine and try to be very happy and jolly. But maybe you see more clearly — emptiness is the surest thing we get from all our imaginings.
I read your book, but not exhaustively yet. I read it falling in love with the past era described there, with its style (which you can portray so well), with the names of the old warriors, our land’s place names … I read it fleetingly, like in a dream, leaving out the odd statement completely, so that it would still be as new on a second reading.
When I had sent you my latest stories and received your letter afterwards — I thought, I don’t even have to send you a letter, I can just send you my stories and you’ll still know my thoughts and my experiences. But I don’t feel that I could get a reply in the same way from you. Now, reading your book, it was possible. In it I read your thoughts. For example, Reinis Kaudzite’s thoughts, and in lots of other places. I think — firstly they are your thoughts, your own discoveries, experiences — only then have they been given to someone else. I even wondered at the words of the critics who said that in these stories you, yourself, were not to be found. Now I can only congratulate myself, that I was more or less right. You confirm what I suspected. There is much of you in this book!
The title of my story about the drowned body is Aiviekste’s Secret. I don’t know whether “ which you suggest, might be better? I also think it’s hard to find good titles. At least, it’s not easy every time. Knut’s Lasins considers it very important. But overly dramatic titles aren’t good either. They seem pretentious.
This letter will probably be delayed here for quite a while, as I have no one to go mail it for me. I’ll wait again for some good word from you. Hope all is well with you.
Yours, E. Dzelme
16. 9. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalnins,
Thank you for your letter with Name’s day greetings, and yet more thanks for the book. Lovely is your promise that next year there will again be another book!
I’m in such a rush to write to you because I want to ask you please to change “Aiviekste’s Secret” to your suggested “Prophesy”. If that’s OK with you. I didn’t know myself why my title didn’t suit the story, but I could feel it. Now I can see how simple it is – as you said – it suggested something about love, but that is not in the story. There isn’t anything very important in the story, maybe the most valuable thing is the depiction of that era that has now disappeared. But there is a prophesy there, and everything revolves around that. That will be the second title you have found for me.
I have a whole row of stories lined up. Only I can’t get to finishing them. I don’t know if they make much sense, but there they are, and I must write them. I’m hoping that for a while now I’ll have a bit more free time. These holiday weeks were very hard. I was at work from 6 in the morning till 9 at night, with time to sit down only to eat and peel potatoes. I’m exhausted. But I will have money for the Latvian Culture Festival. And both the girls will go. That’s what we are fantasizing. There remains one more heavy task – the National costumes! We are three women. That means what we wear is very important. Nowadays, there isn’t anyone in the world, from the king and queen down, about whom the first and foremost thing mentioned is not what they wore, on their backs, their heads, their feet… And most often that is all that is written about them. No-one is going to write about us, but Sydney has its Latvian society with an academic (in all its meanings) flavour. To hold our own in their presence, we have to be “appropriately” dressed. That will take time and money. But it can’t be helped.
I’m thinking about your talk – will I be able to get to read it? Maybe in the paper? Or would you be able to send it to me? I would be very grateful. At the moment I’m reading a novel by a Romanian author, “In the Twelfth Hour”. But I think it is more about ideas than art. The fact that you, every now and again, in your letters write about art, is very precious to me. I feel myself being so left behind in knowing what’s going on in the world. I’ve come to the conclusion that I must get away from here. I can’t do it the way I’ve been dreaming of it up till now – somewhere where no-one would find me. I have to go and be prepared that I will be found, but I must organise my, and my daughters’ lives, such that we do not get brought back to here. That will be hard to accomplish. But I have to work it out before Inese finishes high school. The children are growing into quite another world, another language. I can’t change that, without a change in their circumstances. I have to move to some sort of place with Latvians. Sydney. I would prefer Melbourne. But that’s even less possible out of all the impossible things, that I must nevertheless make possible. The main thing, hardest thing in all this is perhaps actually the money. Where to get enough to start, where to earn more later? I have to think about all that. Maybe there is still some way out. Then I myself wouldn’t drown among the beans, as you put it.
I’m very exhausted, physically, from these past weeks when I was doubly busy. Now what is getting to me is, not being able to write. I can read in the evenings for an hour. But not write. I’m never alone. Perhaps in summer there will be more free time. If only I could be allowed three weeks holiday, like everyone else! Since I haven’t had that for several years, then I ought to get three times three weeks. Then I would come back a different person. But – I must not talk such drivel.
I would be very happy, for a few moments, under this yoke, if you would write again, lots about what you are up to, what you are experiencing, thinking?
I can’t write anything good to you, I’m tired. But now – a new rule: I’m not allowed to send you the next letter unless first I’ve finished writing a story.
Cheers! Yours, E. Dzelme.
20. 10. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
This day has a little bit of light in it: yesterday I received your letter about the talks, I got a letter from my American friend, I finished my short story which I’m sending you, and this morning bees are flying in and out of the hive, where we put them yesterday. The day before yesterday we managed to capture one swarm which was flying past just when I was watering the garden with a long hose. I just had to turn the water onto the swarm, and they settled right there onto a tree. They are sure to give me grief and I’m sure I’ll suffer over them. For any life forms we have here at our place, at some stage I get to suffer, I’m to blame for everything, if something bad happens, but this morning it is lovely to see the bees at work. It reminds me of home, my mother and grandmother. Maybe these bees will even bring me a short story.
It’s good, now I can write you another letter, because I’ve fulfilled my promise to myself to complete a short story. Though it is one with a sad theme that everyone is sick of – refugee camp life, but that’s all I could manage. I had already begun and half finished something from Latvia, about youth, love, but the current surroundings prevented me from getting properly into the topic. I had to drop it for the moment, and grab something closer to these times.
Grīns, I think, criticises Ingrīda Vīksna’s collection of stories and novels, “Gift”, saying that tragic stories can only be written by authors who have such dispositions, or at least some experience of it. Now that I’ve finished my little story, I think it does have a tragic theme, but whether I have that world view, or only some inkling of it, I don’t know. The story actually recounts something that happened, and whether it works or not, you will be able to decide. Myself, perhaps later. I cannot keep it any longer to let it “settle” and then work on it again, because the content is not that significant, and secondly – I don’t have the time to fuss around so long on one thing. For the next letter, I want to finish the story I’ve already begun, with a nicer theme.
Since I last wrote to you, here it has been miserable and bitter. My heart has felt stressed, and I’m also spiritually exhausted. I need rest, and that is not forthcoming. Then my younger girl was sick for a long while with a cold, and after that, the older one came down with it. The doctor wants her to have an X-ray, because he could hear something in her lungs. That hasn’t been done yet, because next week we will all go for our chest check-ups. I’m hoping for the best, that it will all be nothing. But all that has also affected me.
Summer will be coming, perhaps the days will be brighter. I thank you for your good words. Maybe the unspoken advice is – to write? The only encouragement I would need in that direction would be to keep faith in myself, because anyway all my thoughts are about writing. Since lately I was able to devote so little time to it, it really felt like I would be crushed by all the heavy demands of life.
If only I was allowed to get away with no-one to bother me, I believe that material deprivation would not destroy me. I get on well with people wherever I work, and I’m sure to land a housekeeping job somewhere. But the trouble lies elsewhere, – there, where, short of some sort of catastrophe, I’m unable to start anything. And a catastrophe might be too destructive. We will see, what will happen in the near future. But what kind of change can I hope for here?
21. 10. 1955.
I can see here that yesterday I had started to whine. But I’m already doing that every moment. Actually even much more than on paper. I’m like a rat in a well. Sometimes I think – after the Latvian Culture Festival, I ought not to come home, but escape somewhere, follow my nose – come what may.
I’ll wait for your letter, with critical appraisal of what I’ve written. If only I could talk to you, talk over a thing or two. I think I’ve no more time to write, even though I know there was something else I wanted to say. I can’t remember what.
Our bees spent two days and nights in a dark, dirty box, that they couldn’t get out of. Then on the third day, they woke in a more-or-less comfortably set up little abode, in a good position, near a flowering bush, with some drops of honey put down for them by their door. The children said, “How happy they are going to be! Waking up: sun, a home, the smell of honey!…” Couldn’t it also be like that for humans?
Cheers, Yours, E. Dzelme.
P.S. Tell, in another letter, more about your everyday life, please. E. Dz.
3.11.1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
Yesterday I received your letter with your book. Many thanks! It really is lovely! All the handwriting and design and poetry, the vital work of two people, a father and son – isn’t that wonderful?!
I don’t have a suitable place to put it, where the surroundings wouldn’t detract from it. Yes, one day, things ought to be different for me.
Thank you also for the notice about the competition. I’m sending the cutting out of the newspaper back to you, so you could have another look, whether there would be any chance of sending in works later? It is written there – that works intended for the competition must be posted not later than 1st February, 1956.
If they take note of the date it is posted, as it says there, then it could still be sent in January. Normally, air mail takes one week. I would send it 2 weeks ahead, but not in the middle of November, the way you suggest. That is, if that’s possible.For the middle of November, I’ve hardly any hope of getting something written. And even if I managed to do something, I wouldn’t be able to send it to you for your opinion. I don’t know what to do. I’ll definitely use every spare moment to get something done. I’ve got three stories I’ve begun here. But none of them have some sort of bigger idea in them. One is about life here in Australia, the other two about life in Latvia.
I’ll do what I can, and wait for your letter, whether it’s not possible to send them in later. If you write something about this matter more quickly, please use the old address, Berkeley Vale, N.S.W. I hope nothing will be taken. Nothing has disappeared for a long while now. Your letters have actually never been touched. So maybe I could get something more quickly, and with your advice will be able to get something done.
I’ve also already read the literary supplement. My story shocked me with how long it was. Maybe there are too many minor details about the Vītrāgs, but that came from a great love for them. I’ll wait for quick news from you, I’m prepared to risk it, for this time the risk isn’t fatal.
Yours, E. Dzelme.
P.S. This time I’m addressing you as in old times, because some lesson is echoing – not to do anything out of habit. E. Dz.
23. 11. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
I had begun a long letter to you, but it was full of too much philosophising, even I couldn’t get through it all, and I threw it away. I had started writing about the girl in the novel by Rozitis, defending her against that superficial reader, Stern. But then I thought — why should I be thinking about other people out there, I have so much to do myself.
Thanks for the invitation to the exhibition. Thanks for the poem in English, though I must say there was a lot in it I didn’t understand. About half.
I’m working in the neighbour’s bean field’s and saving money for the Cultural Festival. Our beans didn’t come up. I could have had some free time, but since that wouldn’t happen anyway, when the neighbour asked me, I went to help and now am earning “big money”. Both girls are going to the dressmakers to try on dresses, and I’m trying to stay on a diet so that I can fit into my old ones — there’s a sort of marvellous atmosphere, not at all conducive to thinking about sending works to a competition. But life demands its due. Occasionally I’ve been working on a piece similar perhaps in tone to Aiviekste’s Secret, but I doubt whether it will be suitable for a competition as there’s no story to it. But somehow I can only write about whatever takes my fancy, as the saying goes. As soon as I finish it — I’ll send it to you and start something new. I’d like to do it quickly, but around here, nothing happens quickly, except those little stories which you like.
I liked the Biblical theme in your novel very much. Our writers don’t seem to use it much, probably being afraid of lacking expertise. I think — you have to know the Bible, as well as history, and geography. You have time enough to study it all as much as you need. And then — you depict it fearlessly.
I have to start the day’s work. It’s a beautiful morning, as lately there have been many. I get up at about 5a.m. Working for the neighbour, I get a glimpse into another’s destiny. Right here, from these two families together, there’s material for a novel.
Greetings, Yours, E. Dzelme
P.S. Come to the Cultural Festival. Fly!
28. 11. 1955.
Goodly Mr. Kalniņš,
Today is a day full of such turmoil, in the garden the jasmine is shedding its blossoms, and the wind in the eucalypts reminds me of birches. Maybe it’s because I wrote this story that I’m sending you. It’s about the nightmares that are today, and the memories of what was yesterday. I wrote it instead of the letter I had intended to write. I wanted to express in the blackest of words my misery and everything. Then, having sat down to write, and having thought up some terrible opening, the words began to search out a different form to take, and from which to pour forth, and I started to write a story. I rewrote it, and am sending it to you. I wanted to write it very neatly and tidily so it would be easy for you to read, but I was hurrying and changing things, so there’s not much neatness there. But to rewrite it again, there isn’t time. Besides, I have to get some distance between me and it. If I could, I’d lock it into my desk drawer, but that is not a very safe place. Just now, I dare not keep this story here a moment longer. Its motto is what you wrote in your letter, “Write — time does not stand still”. “Yes, delve” I say, and today I really could delve, a free day. But time slips away, as you will read in the story. Nevertheless, today, I’m rather happy. I’m resting, and not feeling guilty.
Yesterday, I received the Australian Latvian Yearbook. I got it last year too, and haven’t known whom to thank for it. The sender’s handwriting seems to be that of Šmits, but why have I been sent one? Maybe it’s your doing? You haven’t revealed Ķikure’s secret, have you?
I was waiting to read my published piece. But same as last time, I experienced bitter disappointment. And I don’t exactly know why? It’s as though I am ashamed, as though too little has been expressed, and yet still too much has been revealed, and — a feeling of loneliness, only my own words. Writing something, I always think that I’ll gain something, will embrace friends, people, my homeland, my youth — I don’t know what! But it doesn’t happen.
And I ran to write to you. I know what a huge blessing it is, that you write to me, and I to you. No matter how much people — friends — are selfish, unfaithful or petty in their friendships, friendship, whether greater or smaller, is still one of life’s most luminous things.
I’m enjoying Lēmane’s small poem, and Rozītis’ novelette. And of course your story, which I must read again, and soon, because I rushed through it all so quickly last night, having just finished my story. This story by Roziītis I like better than anything I’ve read of his before. I didn’t like Lady Godiva, but this one is pleasant, with a tragic overtone. Now I’ll wait for the literary supplement where I hope to encounter all the names which I’m now beginning to recognise. That’s important for me, because I can’t get to your meetings.
Your thoughts, in your letter, about giving advice to others, I like very much. That’s how it really is, that another’s advice can sometimes lead to ruin. And the more someone needs advice, the more dangerous it is to give it. Nevertheless — give me advice, as much good advice as you can.
Now I ought to finish this letter, and in these few hours that are left, write something again. But for a moment, when I finish this letter, I’m going to take a rest outside, in the sun.
In my thoughts, a series of stories has been forming, such as might be able to be unified into a novel — called “Women on the Road” — or something similar. It would be about women, migrants, who struggle without help, without community, without anyone close, without their land of birth, without all that which makes a human a human, and still they are human. The story, “Mercy”, which I sent you, could be one section of it. Then there would come yet others about mothers, grandmothers, and single women.
Maybe it’s dangerous to start on such a topic, but it’s close to me. I’ve been there myself, and also watched other women.
Of course you couldn’t get by without a man, and there would be some — idols, that deceive, but bring with them the charm of illusion.
Thanks to those who made sure I received the Australian Latvian Yearbook, and thanks for everything I’ve received from you! Yours, E. Dzelme
31. 11. 1955.
Several days have already passed. Nothing has been done. I’m waiting for your letter. I’m waiting for the literary supplement. I’m waiting again for a free day. Today is a beautiful summer’s day.
Will you finally sympathise with the woman in your novel, or will you decide to despise her. I think that will be hard to do. It’s easier to love, than to hate.
Before the next letter to you, I must write something. That’s the rule now till Christmas: at least every second letter must also include a manuscript. Write to me and please — also your critiques. Do you know what warmed me in your story? The potbelly stove in the guest room on an autumn Sunday afternoon. Lovely!
E. Dz.
Here’s my first published poem.
Merrily the skies cleave
swathes of clouds fall.
Light beams drift sliding into golden clusters.
Bundles of rain are carried off by the wind
and sweeping begins on the bright steps of heaven,
The sun is coming down!
11. 12 .1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
You are a magician, I must say. I read my poem, which I must have written myself, but you have put your hand to it, and now it sounds so lovely.
The day I received the paper with the poem in it, I was in Wyong. Your letter wasn’t there. There was one from my friend, but her’s didn’t calm me the way yours would have. It was a sad sort of day, full of no’s. They are all like that, but on that day one had to say no to even more than usual, because life demanded it be so … It was a rejuvenating surprise when I opened the paper in the evening and saw my own words. I could hardly understand how they had gotten to be there. So then I read my poem as a greeting from you. It was good to feel that you had looked through my trifles and taken care of them. I read it and thought — devil be, did I write it so well? I couldn’t quite believe it! I looked at my notebook, and of course, you have helped it along! I see that I have learning to do. I only write that moment’s feelings, but if I manage to capture those in poignant language, I don’t know how to make corrections. I don’t know whether I lack faith that I can write poetry, or whether I’ve got something against writing in poetic form, don’t love it enough. Reading poetry, I do love. Once, I couldn’t live without it. Now I can live without many things, if you can call what I do, living.
And you cannot call it that. Now I feel more constrained than ever. Even though I should be writing. There is too much other work, and in my free moments nowhere to hide, to escape, so as not to feel harassed. These fears have totally eaten me up, and I can’t be free of them even when no one is making ready to attack. When I was running off to my jobs, tears often sprang to my eyes because I couldn’t get to do my writing. And when there’s a spare moment, I run about like a rabbit in the woods and still can’t get into my writing, and I know I’ll either be caught out, or the moment of freedom will anyhow soon be over. When I complain to you like this, then I feel ashamed, and resolve to become stronger.
I have begun various themes, and cannot finish them because my environment prevents me from delving into them, to properly experience what I’m writing.
Christmas is so close! Both the girls and I tried on our new outfits. What a lot of pleasure and pain! We don’t have any nice dressmakers here, so we’re experiencing real heartaches as ladies will. But in the end, it will be all right. But there are also other concerns. We still don’t know where we will stay. Dzidra is starting to worry about her bad Latvian pronunciation. She’s even starting to argue with her sister in Latvian. That’s something they ordinarily do only in English. “Greedy pig” is thus an everyday saying. Yesterday we tried to translate it into Latvian, and it came as a great revelation that you really oughtn’t to be saying things like that. It’s a word that gets used quite a lot when they are sharing some tasty thing. So now Dzidra is still not clear as to what she will say to her sister if she breaks off the larger piece of chocolate …
Passing time this way isn’t even so bad, but such times are few.
16. 12. 1955.
Christmas is already here! Only a few days left!
On one of your letters I noticed the smell of tobacco smoke. So, judging by that — meaning the smell of smoke — I’m sending you a small packet.
Happy Christmas! Yours, E. Dzelme
21. 12. 1955.
Dear Mr. Kalniņš,
I’m in an endless rush, but I want to send you a New Year sketch. You can see, I’m busying myself with trivia. I wrote it in Germany. Now my friend sent it to me, since she has all my writings. The topic doesn’t interest me quite so much any more, but I couldn’t be still and had to correct it and rewrite it. I lost two days. I should be working on the piece intended for the competition, but somehow, when working on those, I set my sights too high and don’t get off the ground. I grab something else and get side tracked. If only I could discuss with you whether the piece I am writing about the tending of the graves, no fiction, will be suitable for the competition? But – you are too far away. Will I see you at the Cultural Festival?
Greetings! Bright festivities! Yours, E. Dz.
E. Kikure
“Why Inge broke her collarbone.” Or — “What happened to Inge?”
It would be easy to predict everything, if for every —why?- there could be found a single, clear answer. But there is not one answer. There are many, and each leads off in a different direction. If we listen to only one, we see a distorted picture of things, or events. If we listen to all the answers — we are left knowing just as little as before hearing them.
Why was Mrs. Veronika unhappy?
There wasn’t anyone who knew Mrs. Veronika who had not, at some time or other, asked themselves that question. But there is no answer, no one answer — only blind guesses, and so many of those, that they clarify nothing. Some people, the longer they live, the more they complicate their lives. Maybe that is how it is with Mrs. Veronika.
But Inge is still small. The biggest thing that has happened to her, is that she broke her collarbone.
Why did she break her collarbone? It was a perfectly ordinary incident, but everyone says something different about the matter.
Inge is a small, strong, lively girl. Next Saturday she will be nine years old, and on Monday she had her accident with the bone.
Inge is a fairly unusual girl. No one, having seen her only once, can recognise her again because she looks different every time. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she quite often looks beautiful. At nine years of age, she knows her face better than her mother knows her own. Just as, from everything that falls into her small hands she fashions something, so too she invents her face. She discovers an expression where, by sucking in her cheeks, she creates two tiny dimples just for a second. They flash like sparks in her smile, and then disappear. She looks into the mirror with eyes like those of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”, though she has never seen that. Looking at Inge, one can sense how Mona Lisa might have looked, not as a painting, but as a live woman. Inge, at times, has the same forehead, oval face, eye and lip expression, and even facial skin tones. Other times she’s no longer at all like that. She crinkles up her nose, childishly distorts her top lip and romps with her two dogs.
But other times she again stands in front of the mirror, forming, out of her face, — Princess Margaret. Looking in the mirror happens often, especially in the evening, because opposite Inge’s bed is a wardrobe with a mirror on its door.
As soon as Inge’s mother opens the wardrobe door to exactly face Inge, she, who was already lying in her bed, in an instant is no longer lying down, but standing. Her nightdress has slipped off her shoulders, and she stands wrapped to the soles of her feet in a white sheet. Shoulders are bare, and around them, the sheet, as if by magic, is forming into an evening gown, the eyes take on a look, lids half closed, lips pouts, and are parted — exactly like the models in magazines, newspapers, on wrapping paper, on billboards … The sheet parts, and reveals a brown, suntanned leg in all its tiny length. It gets positioned, lifted slowly and gracefully, till just so, it completes the exact, perfect pose.
Then with a precise, clever movement, all is gone. The sheet is changed for the mother’s nightgown. A completely different girl looks into the mirror — hands hold the draped material around the shoulders in a womanly fashion, eyes sparkle, lips smile. As though on command, jewellery appears — bracelets, necklaces and head gear, belts, suspenders, hair ribbons, belonging to Inge’s sister and mother.
The mother takes back her nightdress and in an instant around Inge’s hips is wrapped a colourful beach towel, around her neck hangs a long, twisted, black, school stocking belonging to her sister, and Inge’s legs and arms begin beating out a crazy rhythm.
The mother does not look at Inge. She must not laugh. It is way past bedtime. She scolds.
The white sheet covers Inge, over her head. Inge sits in bed wriggling her fingers under the sheet, poking upward, pulling them down — a ghost.
Before the mother puts out the light, for a second Inge stands again in her sheet, with bare shoulders and leg bent just so.
With all her leg, and shoulders, of course Inge is no different to all the other small girls, who never miss out on seeing the stream of magazines which inform the people of this day and age. Inge’s sister likewise sometimes wraps a sheet around herself and together she and Inge jostle one another, competing for the mirror. It is a marvellous joke, to turn oneself into that which the world is full of. It is an absorbing game, and fun, if there is no difficulty in changing oneself into a Princess Margaret, Marilyn Monroe, or some other nameless model, who sprawls across the newspaper pages.
Inge is developing slowly. Only gradually does she begin to wonder whether goblins and fairies really do exist. She plays with dolls. Her dolls play out the whole spectrum of human life. They get dressed in bride’s dresses, then rock their babies and lay them in cradles. This same life, Inge draws in her exercise books all day long, without tiring. She draws with her left hand and creates beautiful things. Most often, she draws women.
Inge’s development in drawing goes from abstract, from purely aesthetic form, to realism, exactly the opposite direction to the development of art in the big world. A few years ago, Inge’s drawings of women were far from realistic, even though they were — magnificent women! Their faces were gently oval, the top wider, the chin in a lovely little point; the eyes — straight, slanting strokes; the mouth – a rosy dot right in the point of the chin; the nose — not there at all.
Maybe having totally ignored the nose was partly to blame for Inge’s turn toward realism. The father ridiculed these lovely, noseless faces so much, that Inge, with clenched teeth, turned to master that revolting object — the nose, and along with that, – to realism. At first it was really dismal. But Inge was persistent. There was effort needed for the other parts of the flesh, too, till they acquired muscles, and took on the roundness of human form. The relative sizes of limbs started to look more correct, losing some of the fluidity of movement — but now that is all over, and a sure hand puts everything in its proper place. In colour, Inge retains her freedom. When women are drawn in all of life’s possible colours, then women come with green, blue, violet hair; with starry yellow eyes, greenblue phosphorescent faces. Only the lips maintain their permanent rosiness. Also a male is beginning to appear — a boy. But he’s nevertheless much less useful for art, as many have discovered long before Inge.
Everything changes form in Inge’s hands. If the mother is peeling potatoes and some potato has a little round lump on it, without the mother even having missed it, it returns floating on a boat made of splinters, as a whiskered old man, with a green leaf for a hat. After a while, that same potato has transformed into some other creation, and on it rides a newspaper cutout of a cowboy.
Once Inge had caught a cold and was sitting in bed, and had grown tired of playing with her pencils and dolls. The mother threw her the pin cushion, which Inge’s sister had just filled from her sewing with several dozen pins, all with shining heads. Soon they were being formed into curves, ornaments, battle lines. After half an hour, when the mother went to Inge, on the pin cushion could be seen something like an elaborate scene from an opera, where the king and queen in purple, and their colourful, glittering courtiers, are watching two pairs of dancers in white, with transparent capes and wings — all the pins dressed in minutely cutout lolly wrappers. If a photo had been taken of the pin cushion, no-one would guess how this colourful performance had been created.
The mother has plenty of trouble with Inge, because all corners are filled with her things. There are tins with seeds sown and plants planted, there are tadpoles in bowls of water, boxes of caterpillars which turn from green to gold, from grubs into neat chrysalises and emerge as trembling butterflies, and cicadas in their seven varieties with their dried out shell remains like strange carriages, then seaweed, leaves, moss, piles of snail shells, berries and seeds strung together, bird feathers, coloured cottons, paper, collections of stones, modelling clay, mud, plasticine, marbles endlessly rolling about … Endless and boundless — cutouts from newspapers. Nothing to be thrown out. The mother has to understand that.
Perhaps the mother allows Inge too much freedom and that is why accidents happen to her. Not long ago, she cut her foot so badly the doctor had quite a job stitching it up, and now the broken collarbone.
“It’s the mother’s fault”, says the father.
“It’s because she has soft bones” says the manageress of the children’s holiday home, where Inge’s mother works, and where the accident happened.
“Because there was a competition on the grass where Inge was doing cartwheels … ” say the other children.
Because her hand slipped, thinks Inge herself. Everyone is right.
But Inge’s mother privately thinks it is something else altogether — because there was Peter, eleven-year-old Peter, among the other children …
(fragment … )