13.1.1957.

Today we three women went to Wyong for X-rays (it has been compulsory  here). We were alone together for more than half a day, and we felt really good.  There I got your letter. In it there was a line about – how is it to be three women together – that maybe it’s good. Of course it’s good. Wonderful. On the way there I was thinking, if only were were allowed to live freely, just the three of us together! Then I was thinking just how good it would be for a while. We’d earn and make do and in the holidays wander about being happy with very little. But now, we have very little pleasure.

            Today I cashed the first £5 out of what Pranks sent me. I bought some slippers. And then – then I had some change left over!… All three of us stopped outside a bookshop window. I told Inese ,“Go on, have a look, see what you can get.”  “Are you going to buy one?” she exclaimed quite excitedly, even though I hadn’t really thought it through yet. I had to make an immediate decision – that I was going to buy. We went in, but there wasn’t anything good in that shop. Dzidra decided that she must have some game in a box which she would buy with her own money (she had 50 shillings from her drawings). But I didn’t want to let her. Then Inese knew of a second shop, where there were better books. We went there. Suddenly Dzidra found a book she wanted. Inese found one for herself, and since they weren’t dreadfully expensive , I asked for a Steinbeck for myself. It was “East of Eden”. We bought these three books and were in heaven. Inese’s Pearl Buck, my Steinbeck, and Dzidra’s one out of some children’s literature series, all neatly wrapped. The nicest thing was how united we all were in our satisfaction. Even Dzidra did not want her game box any more, and she at once decided that we shouldn’t buy anything to eat now, whereas before we had been talking about going to a cafe to rest and drink tea. Now it was easy to refrain from anything. That cheered me up more than the new Steinbeck. Nevertheless, we did buy some ice creams and opened the neat bundles of books to look at the new treasures. Dzidra was against it – “leave it till we get home, they are wrapped so neatly.” But Inese wrapped them up again just as neatly, and stuck them down.

So you see, that’s also how women are. They are happy, not only about a sale at the butcher’s, as you once implied.
Among other things, when the shop assistant wrapped our books, we thanked her and told her, that each of us got just what we wanted.
“But where is yours – don’t you need one for yourself? she asked me. 
“The Steinbeck” I said.
“Oh! I though – that was for the daddy.”
It makes one think – that your meat sale comment is after all typical for women, at least in this country. In the assistant’s mind, I should have something about a pale countess, in more modern style.

17.1.1957

The days are going rather fast. I haven’t managed to finish, nor even to send you a letter.  But I wanted to write a lot – about your “Negantnieks” [Scoundrel],  about “Kalna Kuļu Vikfu”, about Jusi, and other things. I ended up unintendedly writing just about – our book buying. But today the letter must be sent. 
I’m enclosing also Journal pages. 
Yours, E. Dz,

19.1.1957

Thank you, for your “visit” just now. Inese gave me your letter. I’m at home alone for half a day. The others went to the beach. It’s a very hot day. 

Sunday. But I won’t have time to rest. We might be having guests, an older Latvian couple, poultry farmers. So, while the others are at the beach, I have to get lunch ready, cook a couple of cakes, and feed the chooks, dogs, do the ironing, mending, wash the kitchen and so on. There’s alway such a mess here. Sometimes I am just too tired to hurriedly get the kitchen cleaning done so as not to leave it for Sunday morning. Other times, Steinbeck is so irresistible – everything can wait, I have to surrender to that! Other times, something else just as important wins. What can I do! Some of you have free time on your days of rest!!! Wonder of wonders! For us here, all the time it’s head over heels. No-one ever has spare time. Everyone has some precious corner where you can’t go and which you can’t touch, always too little time. Inese goes to Sydney every few weeks to some sport’s club to throw the discus. Every other day during the week she lifts weights here to train her body, every day she throws the discus. Inese came back from Sydney yesterday. In her club, for her age group, she set a new discus throw record by 4 feet. That’s her with sport. Now about books: her teacher listed what she should read for the year – 96 books. Among them, no lack of thick books, such as Galsworthy’s “Forsyth Saga”. Inese reads till steam comes out of her ears but there’s not enough time. Now there are also not enough books. Though French ones are still unread. She has decided to do Honours in English and French. In between the reading she has to write some letters, sew (blouses and cushion covers) and then endlessly wash and starch, because you know, they now wear stiffened petticoats again. Sometimes they have to go to the beach. We literally run around after all that has to be done, and can never get ahead of it. In between, some cooking skills ought to be practised but – there’s no time. Only some sweets which they call marshmallows. Inese made them a couple of times while waiting for her Latvian girlfriend to come for a visit. Now it’s berry time again. Blackberries grow in this area. I’ll have to hurry and cook jam myself. The girls only have one week of holidays left. So it goes. None of us have got free time, I don’t know why. We are too greedy! Inese reads. Dzidra reads. I read. Inese does sport. Dzidra draws. I play the piano, write and so on and so on. Both girls collect stamps, and cut out of magazines all the ballet pictures they can find, and stick them in a scrapbook. Dzidra also plays the piano. Endless choices. But so much clutter and mess, that these desirable things are forever sort of out of reach, sort of only surreptitiously attainable, because of chooks, egg collecting, cleaning, packing, milking the cow and taking her to the neighbour’s to graze, a couple of miles there and back, on and on. Well, has this given you some idea of what it’s like here? On top of it all, there’s no hot water, no washing machine, no vacuum cleaner – heaven help anything that tried to suck up this dust! We also don’t have a sewing machine, so I sew my aprons and Inese sews her frilled petticoats by hand. We’re a mixture of prehistoric and modern here, and we struggle without pause. Dzidra has written two little plays for some children’s contest. We don’t know the results yet. I realised something, watching her write. She writes, writes, then grabs paper and draws. She said to me “I get such a great urge to draw when I’m writing, that even if I just draw a few lines, I can the write again.” I thought – it’s similar for me. When I’m playing, or writing, I suddenly have to go and play. I don’t know what it is. Is it that I could best express myself in music, and Dzidra in drawing? I don’t know. But I can’t express myself adequately in music.

Yes, as soon as I’d finished with all my cake baking this morning, I took your letter to read. Inese only gave it to me this morning before going to the beach. Late last night on her way home from Sydney she had picked up the mail on her way through Wyong. I don’t know why, but this letter of yours was just like having a visitor. Thank you. And now, head over heels – off to the chooks!

20.1.1957.

Yesterday, I was in a good mood. Today it’s gone. So it goes. I feel so wishy washy that I can’t stand it myself anymore.
Your enclosed letter in English, that is – Virginia Woolf’s letter to Lytton Strachey, seems lovely to me, alive. But she herself seems young. And if her letters remind you of mine, then there’s some mistake. as I already wanted to say to you before – you imagine me at least 20 years younger than I am.

What I didn’t like about Lācis is the hero, and the way he thinks. The author himself was invisible in the writing, but his hero annoyed me, and I painted the author with some of that same brush.

When you explain to me that Aina Neboise spent her school days in Germany, then I can see her differently. Till now – I have to admit, that her works, as much as I’ve read of them, didn’t do much for me at all and in general that was because of the writing. I wouldn’t say that the writing is bad, but it’s not alive, and in lots of places somehow poor, without freshness and lively warmth, and now I understand that if you can’t completely rely on words, like on a trusty instrument, then it can turn out sounding dry.

Myself – I have to get holidays so that I can work. 
How did it go at Mrs. Kreišmane’s?
I like her writing. I’m waiting for your letters!
Yours, E. Dz.

6.2.1957

            I am in Gosford. Fishing for piano students. But there aren’t any bites. Waiting for transport to get home. I finished the journal pages, the ones that were missing. I am feeling scattered and confused. I will write to you soon. How is your bad mood?

            Yours, E. Dz.

8.2.1957.

I’m sending “Our Neighbour” back to you the same as it was. I corrected only a few small mistakes that I found. But I didn’t cross anything out. Since I can’t read it to my husband, then at least let it not be disjointed.

I can’t work and that kills me. There are so many trivial things to be done. In the evening, the only place for some solitude would be my and the children’s bedroom, but the little ones are also starting to want their solitude just as much, that in the evening they spend all their time there. There isn’t enough space for all of us.

How are you? Maybe tomorrow there will be a letter from you. Your big bad mood has landed on me, I’m suffering quite hopelessly. I’m angry at everything, but of course that doesn’t help. I sent some pages of the diary to you and only then it occurred to me that maybe the first story from there (that is, in more or less the same format) didn’t disappear at all. I asked you whether you received something mentioning Viralts, but he wasn’t even mentioned there. Without naming him, there is some discussion about his etching, “Hell”.

Probably, after you have read what I sent you now, then you’ll remember. Maybe it will be a bit different now. I didn’t find all the notes.

I received the letter with the money and the congratulations, and the form for joining the Press Society. I haven’t managed to reply yet, which I must do right away.
I’m waiting for someone to release me from my chains. No one is coming to do it…

I’m cooking jam. 51 little jars are full already. And tomatoes and peaches and passion fruit (what are they called in Latvian?) are preserved in bottles and jars by the dozen. I go picking blackberries. They are supposedly the same as “lācenes”. Perhaps. They are beastly. No other thorns are so fierce. I return home sweating, shredded fingers, full of thorns, haunted by a black snake which crossed my path, like a dragon in Chinese drawings, and yet it’s good. To be in the forest, the fields, bush after bush. Only – I always have to come back.
I wait for your letter. Yours, E. Dz.
P.S. Please send “Our Neighbour” to “Laiks”. It won’t do any harm.
I’m permitted to go picking berries in the bush, and as I can take off an hour to do it, I’ve tried taking writing materials with me, but I can’t write there. I’m as wild as the bush there.

9.2.1957.

Yesterday I received your letter, as I’d hoped. It’s written after you received mine where I asked – what happened  to you that you don’t write? Already when sending my next letter, I was unsure whether I should send it, because of the rather revealing content. But I did it after all. I was emboldened by something I read somewhere recently – “don’t be ashamed of your feelings” which struck a chord with me. But now, reading the letter I received from you, my heart feels constricted – I shouldn’t have done it. You tell me not to think I can expect anything from you. In my childish letter, you can see how very much I had thought I could. But I promise in future I’ll be better. I regret if my letter contributed again to your bad mood. For the sake of my “Journal” at least, don’t be annoyed. Big men (perhaps women too) have also written revealingly about themselves. Wanting my writing to continue, I often return to myself. Since it works better for me to write in first person, perhaps I will write first person about many things, but it won’t any longer necessarily be about myself.

Twice now I’ve sent you a page or two from my “Journal” and “Our Neighbour”. Please mention in your letters – did you receive them?
With this letter I enclose L. Kalnina’s letter and that letter I received. 

I’ve changed my mind about “Our Neighbour” – I want to wait a bit. I want to see if I can write something just as good (actually better) and so earn the right to talk about everything. Maybe for such a beginner to talk about oneself shows a lack of taste (society-wise). Perhaps. And so, since I feel a bit guilty that I’m doing it, then it’s better to wait. This sullied, guilty feeling comes because this work that I’m doing, in my struggle, ends up being done somehow “behind his back”. Though it’s not done so deliberately, and still it’s tainted. Well, so be it. Actually, when I wrote it, I didn’t think it would be published right away. Why take on more possible unpleasantness, of which I’ve already more than enough. 

We had some rain, after a long, dry spell. Everything is sparkling, and I too have sparked up a bit. May your mood get better too.
Yours, E. Dz.

21.2.1957.

It was a lovely day after all. Empty, like the fields and forests, but green, all green. No sun, but no longer misty like yesterday.
How was yours?
I didn’t want to deliver what you call a worm-riddled pleasure and I didn’t mention anything. Let everything be eternal and boundless and let us not be hemmed in by restrictions. 

I’m very tired and won’t write any more tonight. Although there is the feeling that something has been left undone today, hasn’t happened, and so with that same feeling one must switch out the light and receive the night. In the morning there’s more to hope for. And saying that, Akurater comes to mind: “…fooled is he, who trusts the morning”…

27.2.1957.

Today I got your other letter. They are both very good. I don’t know why, but I find them insightful and supportive. You say – just and illusion. It’s all an illusion. Nothing is lasting here for us. Nothing that we can catch, keep, procure. Absolutely nothing. Maybe things, maybe an old pocket watch. That remains yours till the end. Nothing more. Even our children. Primarily the children, every day are slipping away. All that we can give each other, and get, is a minute bit of sharing and closeness. A little warmth, that’s all. It’s all an illusion. It all fades. And in the end, perhaps it doesn’t matter whether you lose something that has been yours for years, or for just a moment. 

The human is after all a creature who likes to have and to hold, to hold unchanged. That’s his failing, leading only to ruin. 
It’s not good and not right if you are blaming yourself at all for your son’s tragedy. You shouldn’t think that way. Those are very heavy thoughts and can’t help – only hinder. We can’t be responsible for everything, can’t mould everything. We can’t foresee our own fate, nor that of our closest ones.

You can give Neboise “Our Neighbour”. It can’t to any harm. Maybe it wouldn’t have done any harm either if you had sent it, but I do feel more at peace that it won’t be published just yet. I battle with rewriting, just as you do. Each work, which at one time already seemed finished, after a certain period an be altered. So far I consider my corrections are improvements. But you can’t spend your time working on the same thing over and over for too long, which is why, if I’ve more or less finished something, I send it to you, so I don’t start doing it all over again. Because it seems that it doesn’t happen because what’s been written isn’t satisfactory, but because we change, and always want to add something more.

I’m playing two previously unfamiliar composers whom I haven’t played before – Debussy and Scriabin. It’s lovely to discover new worlds, and find there resonances with one’s own. 
Your depression has landed on me. Even though I hang on as best I can, I am dreadfully sorry about my life. I want something more – but there is nothing more.
Yours, E. Dz.
Thank you for yet again praising my work. It will do me good. If I’m good myself.

2.3.1957.

Time flies by extremely fast. Nothing happens. I’m working a bit. Only notes. Your idea to devote two years to the book is good. Hard, yes, however, I’m adhering to that. I’m rewriting a story, one that H. Rudzitis wanted to publish in “Laiks”. Reading it after all these years, I saw that it’s in a different mode to how I’m writing now, but I didn’t feel like starting to re-do it in a new form. Now, while rewriting, the corrections are happening all by themselves and the piece is turning out better. But there’s not much invention in it, just a view of [migrant] camp life from our first refugee year. I’ll send it to you in a few days. What are you writing? How is your research on the Bible going? What’s with the planned “Son of David” novel? Please write about yourself, about your surroundings, about people you meet – everything, all! I am very lonely. You are among people as much as you like and you can also choose close ones from them.
Yours, E. Dz.

8.3.1957.

You don’t want to get up because you don’t want to have to start working. Getting started is often difficult. I’ve just been having a hard time with it too. At last I had done it, and just now I had quite forgotten my surroundings and been transported to the place I was writing about…but – sounds of footsteps, it’s dinner time! Everything has to be pushed aside, to run, put something on the table. Now that’s over, I’ve again got a moment (till the laundry copper boils). I want to immediately continue – I can’t. Something has been destroyed, something has stuck in my throat, I want to strangle something, shake it off, get free, drink some potion, which would make me happy, release me from that dragon which is the everyday – but that can’t be done. There isn’t such a possibility, such a potion. I have to lose these few minutes, because as soon as I am feeling satisfied with something in myself, returned to myself, so that I can start going on with my writing – the copper will be boiling. 

A beautiful day. We had rainy days. Today is sunny, soft wind. The earth is exceedingly lush, the trees swaying in the breeze, the plants push forth the greenest shoots. But they did suffer too. We had drought. They were grey and withered, their leaves dropping off then, parched. 

Time slips away. I’m looking at the garden through the window, where the wind is blowing. Further, lie the checkered fields with their rows, some green, some brown. One of our neighbours is working like crazy this year. His fields keep changing like sets in a theatre.
Time slips away. The laundry tub will soon have started to boil. Soon I could return to what I started.

Yesterday I read Neboise’s work. You want to know what I think about it. For me, there’s something missing. I feel it most when reading. I understood where the journey would take me, and felt real joy: to look at that country in those times! But I didn’t see it, or very little of it – a few characterisations of people, some vistas. But the language is good, the conversations seem solid, without anything false, and that’s very important. A clear, confident portrayal. The ending? If the topic is historical, then you can’t change it much. But speaking honestly, I had the impression that the point where Baiba rides out to meet Kvintili to give him back the big piece of amber, the story loses its conviction, grander style, character, and becomes grey, unimpressive. Baiba doesn’t maintain her leadership qualities there at all. Her tears are somehow out of place. I think that’s exactly when Baiba’s character should rise with something out of the ordinary, and make Kvintili understand, which after 10 years he still doesn’t – that Rome is as unimportant to her, as the barbarian countries and world is to a Roman. How to do that, I haven’t thought out in more detail. But I think it’s not enough that, feeling Baiba leaning close to him, Kvintili thinks of what Cornelius would experience, if he were in his position.

Right at the end, I think there’s also a statement about Plīnijs being moved, when his hand won’t move to write, the same as Kvintili, ends his story in a quiet, tired voice. I think these notations on the impact of the story aren’t necessary, so that the story impresses the reader all the more (without those indications that it should).
The laundry tub has boiled.

This story of Neboise’s has given me real pleasure in quite a personal way. I can see that I must write, and that it is possible to write without nailing oneself to the cross. It would do me good to try to do it that way too – not so much about the personal, but of course my delight in writing is bound up in just that discovery of the self. And the disclosure further, of whomever/whatever I have understood.
I now want to re-read Lēmane’s “Lizet”. And what about those who didn’t get any awards? Will any of them be published?
So then, to the laundry tub. Yours, E. Dz.

13.3.1957

Today is a freer day. I’m having a rest. I haven’t had one in a long time. I’m doing a bit of mending, and occasionally reading. Inese has several books from school (literature class) which interest me, such as a smallish book “Essays of Today”. I will have to read them all. There’s one essay, “Style” which says very little, and yet – style is what, if someone has something to say and he says it as clearly as possible – style is the person himself.

Yesterday I got your letter. You are still not writing. Did you get my story about the migrant camp and the journal pages? Please let me know in your next letter. I hope you will do that, since you usually do. You say that you were beginning to think – that perhaps I wouldn’t write any more to you. No, we should decide, like great lovers do – “if you don’t love me any more, then tell me”. Don’t you agree? If something is not good any more, then we will tell each other. “Give me back my toys. I’m not playing with you any more”.  
I hadn’t heard of the saying you mention in your letter – “God doesn’t give horns to a starving cow”. That’s very well put.

Why do you feel lousy after days you have spent with people? That day with the flower show, Strauss waltzes, listening while sitting on a big rug, travelling in the car – such a day shouldn’t leave you anything but feeling uplifted.
I once saw a flower show in Ghent. That was a lovely day. If only I could have time now as I had then, to do whatever I want.
Yours, E. Dz.

30.3.1957.

I’m sending you a story that I began as a letter to you (I had promised to write you something happier), but later it turned into a reminiscence piece. Maybe it will fit into the “Woman’s Journal” lot. As long as it fits, but of course in a journal, everything one can think about can fit.

Here it’s the beginning of autumn. It can be quite beautiful. Perhaps it is beautiful. I’m floundering about as usual. I haven’t seen a letter from you this week. It seems longer. Is there something good to note about M. Zīvert’s visit? Please, if you can, write openly about it. Here for a while I was hoping to get to Newcastle to his “Last Boat”, but as usual, it didn’t happen.

Inese has turned 15, a grown up young lady.
The end of this week, which is half gone already, was to have been a bit freer. It will have to be given over to guests. I got news that the Ulms family will come. We were billeted there during last year’s culture festival. Everything here looks pretty miserable. I’d have to do some running around to brush things up a bit for the guests. But once in a year – it’s nothing.
Yours, E. Dz.

1. April 1957.

Well I ought to fool you, but you’re too far away to play jokes. 
Yesterday we had guests. The Ulm family, with their two daughters, who are veritable fountains of strength. My daughters, who are otherwise quite robust, disappeared in their presence.

Then there was Mr. Liepiņš (the scout leader) and his wife and a Mrs Masulāns as well, with her son. We went in their car to the sea, where everyone “breathed in the fresh air” and waded about. Only my girls swam, as the others didn’t have swimming costumes with them.

To meet people from Sydney or any other big city, is nevertheless strange. It feels as though I’ll never extract myself from these, my circumstances, and here I can get little done. It’s not worth complaining. There’s much beauty in this life where I am, if only life wasn’t so short, so sick, even risky here. That my husband is spiritually unwell, I’m convinced yet again. That he’s completely unbalanced. But these incidents could lead to a catastrophe. I have to think about that seriously, not just complain. I’m waiting for your letter. I’m hoping it’s at Wyong. 
Yours, E. Dz.

9.4.1957.

Thank you for the story. Now I have two versions of this story – one you sent me a good while ago, last year.
I like this story. Very colourful. But whether the first impression is generally stronger or not…most of the story I find better in the first version. The meditation on love, though, is better in this version, when it’s not so long. Taking them separately, there are very lovely bits in the other version. For example – that love’s kingdom is one of silence. But this meditation doesn’t quite have the same tone as the rest of the story (I think). The story is fresh and new and bright, without over thinking.
Otherwise in parts I like the first version better. But actually it’s not my place to be so finicky.

I am very, very occupied with beans. Sometimes I fear how it will all end. But at the moment, it’s morning, and mornings are usually good.
I’m slowly writing a story. But it’s not good to write a story in bits and pieces. There are places which should flow on the spot.
Yours, E. Dz.
P.S. Maybe I’m not as badly off as I myself think. The people from Sydney who came to visit also aren’t doing so well – everything is “watery” for them, everything – eggs, honey, also probably art (Zīverts and others).

Approximately 17.4.1957.

Your letter written yesterday (10.4) is good, I got it today. It’s Green Thursday, and now in the evening, I’m going to write a little to you. I don’t know how many days in a row already I have been picking beans. This is my first free day, where I don’t have to pick. Tomorrow I won’t have to pick either. But not because it’s some holy day, but because there is no market where to send them. Beans are very cheap, but that doesn’t make any difference, they still have to be picked. It’s not even worth talking about. But what can I talk about, when I know nothing else. I started giving piano lessons in Gosford and I’ve got – one girl student. In that same street where I give the lessons (where I found a room with a piano which I rented for one day a week) it turns out there is another teacher who has lived there for ages, and the students who answered my advertisement usually end up finding their way on to her. But – what can I do? Here at home I’ve already got 4 students, but they come only once a week. Nor could I really spare more time for them. It’s just that on that day when I go to Gosford, so that I’m not losing money, I could do with a few more students. But – looks like there’s really no money in it. It can’t save me. At least not right away. Well, let it be for the moment.

There hasn’t been time for anything else. I get to play piano a little in the evening, when I’m too tired to do anything else, other than just clomp away.

Though in between, I do read this and that. In the Sydney Morning Herald just now one after another are turning up with prize-winning novels. The first prize got £2,000, and second prize £1,000. The first one was rubbish. The second is quite good. I’m enjoying it, and reading it every day. I’ll investigate later, who the author is – whether it’s a known writer, or someone new to this field. Either way, I like him. He’s got a style I can admire.

I also read your son’s story, just finished it. I just received “Ceļa Zīmes” yesterday. The story deserves several readings. It’s got philosophical ideas, arguments, humour, everything mixed and integrated so, that the reader can’t take it in all at once. The style and language remind me of yours. In the end there’s the really beautiful depiction of the American type – the current city person. Very freely and beautifully portrayed. Such that I’d quite like to read something of his that is a little less clever, at least something with just a portion of such big cleverness in it, as there is in this story. I’ll definitely be reading it again.

I’ve also re-read several times what he wrote about Lesins. You ask – “was it worth tanning that hide” -? I’d also thought something similar. Though I do pick up Lesin’s book quite readily – but such three-layers-deep delving into him I hadn’t even imagined, but that’s – my fault. The Janka Musician I really disliked, and could hardly understand that Lesins had stooped to such tasteless things, as endless, modern dissections, and all kinds of other indulgences. But – I would read it again, if I had the book. Lesin does have great appeal.

It just occurs to me, that I should get V. Karklin’s work. “Ceļa Zīmes” has his novella “in the cold, white room” and I was much moved by that. I also like the novel “Nobel Prize” but I don’t know his bigger works. Seems he’s grown into one of our first rank authors.
I only wanted to write a little bit, and I’ve already filled three pages! 
Well, good, that Neboise too, recognises my “Neighbour”. Yes, it’s also one-sided. But – so be it.

I’ve been wracking my brain, as to who could free me from my work in the fields for a few months? If I could just devote myself to my own work, I really could achieve something again. But that’s a dream. You are drawing in your hut. I too have been visualising etchings when I look out at the valley and mountains, and my Dzidra. And then I’m completely confused – I’ve begun something else entirely – writing! And have deserted my “studied” graphics. Oh – there’s no sense in any of it, not the first, nor second, nor third field of work. Yet, were I to be given time, I would salvage something. And Ziverts – ? Mere – chatter. Isn’t that sad? 

15.4.1957.

Happy Easter!
This year, I am so far from what I just wrote, that is, from Easter, that I can’t even get my head around it.  You will be having a wedding and confirmation – also little similarity to Easter. But maybe there’ll be some moment for an Easter thought. I wish you that with all my heart.
Yours, E. Dz.

24.4.1957.

A week has gone by. Today I received your second letter. Thanks for the Easter wishes. There was no festivity.
Beans, nothing but beans. The cow had a calf. Now it has to be milked, have to splash about with milk. The hens lay more than 200 eggs daily (that’s still very little), they have to be cleaned and packed into boxes in the evening. The hens also make very useful bird shit, which has to be spread onto the field, and there the peas have to be tied – then picked, and so on, and on.
And yes – eventually that all passes. Everything eventually passes – even bean picking.

But – what did I really want to say? – 
Good, that you liked Zivert’s second play. Good that you met other people, that gives one heart, even hope for me too. To strive! (Till the beans finish…) Or maybe after all, a bit before that?
Will “Inga” be in the supplement?

If my “Woman’s Journal” should grow into a novel (I’ve accumulated some more pages) it will nevertheless be a very personal book. I don’t know whether I’ll dare to get it published, as my first? That shouldn’t be rushed, even less than anything else. Before that, I ought to get together a volume of short stories. What do you say? I know – “ first you have to write them.” You already told me that once. And I am writing. I’ve made a start on 4 already, which need refining. I calm myself by thoughts of a book. I’m starting to tire of the everyday stuff. Nothing helps me any more. Even the pleasure of something when it turns out well, for example some short story, even that no longer helps. I need something tangible to lean on. I think – a book would be something. I can count some 13 short stories (without the migrant camp and the war time stories, which I would combine into a different lot). This book would have two parts: the first with themes from Latvian times, and the second from here.
I         1. Bushland 
         2. Hidden Aiviekste
          3. The White Trousers
          4. Disenchantment
          5. Honouring Graves in Ļaudona
          6. Story (No.2)
          7. Accumulation (pasturage)
8. Two Years (Unfinished)
          9. Sunday Midweek                  
II       10.  Fur Vest 
         11. Story (No. 1) 
         12. Magpie Song (Unfinished)

How would those be, all together? Those that are unfinished, presumably are just like the finished ones. The whole book  would be without a single real dead weight, for the unfinished ones also have no corpses. Two of them perhaps have a more sombre tone. But – just a tinge. As there aren’t dramatic themes, then all the gravity, that is – all the worth one could gain from this book, has to be put into the style, language, the point of view.
I have to write the unfinished ones even better than the completed ones. This task slows me down. But I have to try.

27.4.1957.

Another letter of yours has arrived. And answers written but not sent yet. You say in this letter, that without having read what you did in your youth, you wouldn’t be able now to write a single line. I think that what I write also isn’t only because of music. Maybe music has played a part, and still does, but what has been read has given much. More about that in the next letter.
Yours, E. Dz.
P.S. Your last letter, written in the evening, is mournful, but it has given me more, than the one written in the day. Thank you! E. Dz.

21.5.1957.

I’ve made starts on long replies to your letters, but haven’t had time to finish them. Thus they haven’t been sent yet. Just to send you something – some “written lines” I won’t write long.

Thank you for the letters. I wish they were longer. But I understand that it’s a heavy time for you and you don’t feel like writing. I can’t help you there. Don’t be too sad. Time is so short, everything passes so quickly. Look at the sun, on the sunny side, I mean. Take a break, but don’t waste time too much in heavy thoughts.

It’s easy to give advice, and even think that it’s good advice. Myself, I’ve already ages ago lost my sense of humour, battling the everyday and often running out of strength, actual physical strength, and the day is gone before I’ve been able to start something for myself. Sometimes it’s all like a nightmare. I can’t disappear even for a moment, or hide, I have to hold the children above water. I’ll write more some other time.
Yours, E. Dz.

5 June, 1957.

If I don’t write to you, will I never again receive a letter? I ask myself that. I know that that would be very sad. But I just can’t write, it’s like I’m in a state of lethargy. It’s like I want to somehow rest, but can’t.  And also some good things have happened. From Imants’ book publishers I ordered and received ten cheap books. I’m frantically reading them. From Klauverts in Sydney I received some money – he has  sold seven of my works. And what did I buy? Your won’t believe your ears (or I should say, your eyes). I want to earn by knitting ‘wind jackets’ and not have to pick beans anymore. But I don’t know how that will work out. It all weighs heavily.
I think I’m like a hibernating bear in winter. If strength returns, then I’ll be able to wake up. 
I’m waiting for your letter. Please write. Yours, E. Dzelme.

19.6.1957.

Yesterday I got your letter. I want to reply quickly. It’s nearly Jāņi, and you are a John, and at Jāņi, people gather where there are festivities.
If I don’t write, you say, that I won’t get a letter from you. That’s logical. That’s the way it’s always been. But lately my mood was such that I wanted two plus two to be five. That even if I was not good towards anyone, still they would be good towards me. That even if I didn’t write, they would still write to me. To me, that seemed the way things should be – even necessary. But that’s not how it is, and cannot be. In one instance that still is how it is – between me and my child.

I think I was over exhausted, both physically and spiritually. It’s still not good, but it is better. For a while, I just had to stand still and forget that I belonged to this century. It still hasn’t ended. If I sleep some more in this coma, I hope it will get better. And if not – then nothing can help. But it will get better. The heart is a bit better again, and along with the physical, the spirit also revives.

I started to despise everything, wanted to throw away and smash everything that was good and precious. It’s impossible to write in such a state. Though there is some letter I wrote you already ages ago, replying to your letter about reading, where you said that without Pushkin and other reading, you wouldn’t be able to write a word. I wrote you that I was reading Heine, Hamsun and others. When I find that letter, perhaps I’ll send it to you.

You were thinking, that inertia might come into my life. It has already been there, now and again. Yes, there were signs of it again now, following the  physical tiredness. Otherwise it can’t come, the conditions don’t allow such surrender. But the physical does undermine the spirit’s life force (here on earth).

Just now I got Karl Abele’s letter, an invitation to Adelaide’s Culture Festival. I thought about it, and I want to go! Then I’ll get out in Melbourne and perhaps meet you, if that’s alright with you. Although I don’t expect much from this meeting, because maybe I am different to how you imagine me, perhaps our meeting would only disturb things, if things continue. But we aren’t children, and we would have lots of practical things to talk about, and do.

I’m already thinking about such a trip. As long as I’m physically strong enough, then it should happen? And I want to take Inese with me, she will be able to travel half price and on her own scholarship money. I think it would be a lovely trip for us, and it would be good for her to see Latvians.
But now I must go to sleep. The heart is giving signals that need attending to, and if I don’t heed them, I won’t be able to travel. Thus I keep myself in relative order. 

Won’t you go to the Culture Festival in Adelaide? Let’s all go together. You won’t have to walk. Your rheumatism will be over by then because it will be summer. The trip might be hard, but perhaps it will be restful.
Though you did mention from your life, that there was tragedy, and now there is comedy, but you didn’t elaborate. But I already know what you will say if I ask questions – “I don’t know how to talk about myself…”
Happy Jāņi. Yours, E. Dz.

26 June, 1957.

What I really want to write about is unreasonable, such that it must remain unspoken, unseen. Such as must be covered over, hidden, dug back underground, if it ever came from there, though that’s unlikely.
But it came from somewhere. Living undisturbed, raging for years. Is it evil, a misunderstanding, a sickness, the devil’s work? I don’t know.
And I am unable to cover it up. Sometimes it has to burst out. As it is it gets hidden hundreds of times, and just once shows itself.
I just looked at a letter, where it’s clear to me, that I want to do it and it urges me to do it. Even though the letter I read is not beautiful, still it’s the truth.

Well – that’s all just a preamble. Which needn’t have been. Apologies for my weakness – talking.
St John’s day was more pleasant than other years. There were no awaited guests, didn’t have to go anywhere. But at the last moment, I was told that  some neighbours were coming. We raced around with the girls to tidy up, decorate, cover up bits, show other bits and so on. 

Inese cut her father’s hair. Outside in the sunshine. Now that begins to be her job. I don’t have to do it any more, when she’s at home. It’s not an easy job.      
So then – on Herbal Day, preparations, busyness, running out of time, hurry and the sense of celebration. Even the sun, and branches of greenery.

And suddenly, dreadful howling of the dog.  Horrible – in the middle of Sunday’s serenity. Our bitch has been put into a cage, high up on a sawn-off tree, because the neighbour’s dogs are coming around. Ok – that’s nothing, because however uncomfortable it is for her in the cage, in wind and rain, heat and cold, it’s all understandable. But down below the cage, two rabbit snares have been set. I nearly trod on them when I was taking food to the dog.

I don’t know whether it’s possible for me to describe what I felt when I saw them on the ground. I couldn’t believe it. I touched one of them,  – and they slammed shut.
I swore to myself, that I would keep my mouth shut, not say anything to him. If I say anything, he just does it ten times worse. But I couldn’t help myself. I did say something. Of course it didn’t help. 

Now there was one dog caught there. A broken leg? Was it still being hit, being beaten? I don’t know. He hurried off quickly to free it – the noise of the howling was frightening in the stillness of a Sunday, where surrounding neighbours had visitors who had arrived in their cars.
We three were scared out of our wits, red-eyed from crying. After a while, we returned to cutting hair, washing floors, bringing branches for decorations. St John’s Day? No. –

The reason for the snares? I don’t know. Occasionally a dog has gotten in to eat the chook feed, or been seen nearby.  If that had happened, now it was getting payback. But the other dogs? Even if it was really needed – but snares, broken legs, on innocent, uncomprehending animals? 

Endlessly there’s also one or other of our own animals – being punished, tied up or locked up. Again it has gotten out or pulled itself free – again has to be punished. Yelping, and chattering teeth.
You would think, that children living here would have turned into beasts. But it’s quite the opposite. Often they can’t swallow a morsel of food knowing an animal is being tortured.

About a month ago on a Sunday, we wanted to go to the lake and do a bit of fishing. Dzidra had gathered some earthworms. But when she saw the fish hooks in her father’s hands, when he had put them down on the ground to sort them – she suddenly jumped back and crying, started digging the worms back into the ground. Everyone’s nerves are strained to breaking point.

The girls are still battling bravely. They are learning and working at school as hard as they can. They want to get out of here. Where there’s a hellish darkness.
What exactly? Maybe just a mentally sick human. But what can help us? Who takes any notice?
Even more horrible things take place. And again one feels ashamed. Things are better hidden. People won’t forgive such things…
Forgive this. I read over some of it, and tore out bits after all.

But usually the winter months are the worst. Then all eruptions in nature are also the strongest. (I’m adding a few statements that Inese translated).

Letters are being sent to all kinds of businesses with which there are dealings. Abuse is being doled out everywhere, and constantly. Quite the magisterial lack of self control. For our laziness, all three of us, one after the other, receives put-downs, just as anger is directed at everything around, on anyone close at hand. But about them – it’s behind their backs.

He himself in the night has nightmares, crying out, in delirium. He ought to go to a nerve clinic for a while. But who would be able to get him into one of those? Besides, here there’s barely enough money to make ends meet. Everything is done the wrong way around, stubbornly, and is fruitless.

All three of us are exhausted, escaping from the daily grind into books, hoping to get somewhere in our dreams, to escape. Dzidra was told at school that her essay was the best written about Anzac Day, and she’ll get a prize of £1. Dzidra was rewriting it maybe 10 times, was reading all kinds of magazines and newspapers and got first prize. Inese just now in her half-yearly exams in Physics and English beat the number one student in her class, who had come first for 4 years already, and is supposed to be some kind of brainchild, always getting 100%. After Inese now got a higher mark in English, the school’s department head (who isn’t her class’s English teacher) said he wanted to look at both the girls’ papers himself and compare them. They find it hard to believe that a foreigner can have language skills.

Seeing the children doing such battle, lets my faith not completely crumble. My head is full of new stories, but how to get those onto paper? Now, writing this letter, I should be doing that, but all these trials oppress me. I want to shake myself free of them, somehow. For several months already, I haven’t been able to feel safe. I’m driven tighter and tighter into a corner. Endlessly I need respite. But there’s no waiting for that. How can I hope, in such circumstances, to get to Adelaide? Yes, money still earns greater respect, if my fare could be paid for and if somehow I manage to get Inese to come with me – I hope, that I won’t be prevented from coming.

At least that’s the hope that I cling to, so that I’ve got something to hold on to, because it would be good to travel freely with Inese for a week or so. What will happen with Dzidra during that time? Maybe it won’t be so bad, only lots of work, the cow to be milked, meals prepared, the rest can wait. That is – if there aren’t beans, or tomatoes or peas.

You write that perhaps your letters have kept me in a state of upset for these years, and that has been too much for me. Can you now understand that the effect of your letters is utterly different? It’s my salvation. I have to cling to something so that I don’t go mad. Without my girlfriend’s and your letters, my plight would be unimaginable. To receive a letter is never problematic, only to write one is sometimes hard, if things are weighing one down.

 One has to look for the reason for everything, to think, and investigate – what caused it? What must I do to make it better? And when I can’t get anywhere, then I want to start writing letters, which I shouldn’t write. But let this letter go to you, with all the ‘shouldn’ts’. Maybe one day I’ll face some reckoning about it all, to myself, or others – I won’t have anything. So that everything won’t be forgotten, I send you this dross.
And now, after that, perhaps I’ll be able to write better letters and also begin some short story. 

I have to go and feed the hens. Then collect the eggs. Then clean the eggs. Then get dinner ready. Milk the cow, and so on and so on.
If a man, who often studies and deliberates and can’t understand women, mired for years in the works of women, then in the end he will understand them very well. 
Big deeds render one big. Small, pitifully small struggles, small deeds – render one small, are draining, and exhausting.

Evening. Unexpected freedom, for it’s just Inese and me at home. Dzidra and her father went to the neighbours. For a moment it is good. And then, gradually, thoughts that they’ll soon return plague me. I must be sort of sick.
I wish I could still add something good, but I can’t. The clock ticks. Time slips away.
Yours, E. Dz.
P.S.  My sister is going to Latvia. She’s already there. I got a card a week ago, written en route on 3 June, from Omsk. St John’s day – in Latvia.

2.7.1957.

The letter I wrote you yesterday remained unsent today. Inese forgot to take it, and today words, somehow left unsaid, still swirl in my head. But they aren’t wildly important, just everyday rubbish, not worth reading nor writing. So, let them be.

You ask about my letters, but what about the ones you wrote to me? For the time being they are here safe. There’s also too much in them to think of destroying them. I think one day they will be published, along with your other letters. Or wouldn’t you like that? We can’t really make use of each other’s letters in a novel and do them justice, it could only be done impressionistically, referentially, what they gave us. But I’m afraid to return your letters to you just now – because you might not have mercy on them, and that would be a pity. So I must look after them and only hand them over to you if you sign or give an oath, one might say!

I read about the short story, play and poetry competition in the paper. I hope to take part. One would think this time it will be a bigger fight.
What is happening with Rozitis, why aren’t any works from them to be seen any more? And what’s with Kreišmane?  You said she was writing a novel?

I would like it if you would reveal more of your mentioned games, tragedies, or comedies. For no other reason, but that I’m not exactly sure, how I’m supposed to take these veiled references. Do I just have to stand to one side, or somehow extract a better explanation from you. But that wouldn’t be good. One can’t ask more than the other wants to reveal. On the other hand, if I don’t ask, you might say, that I don’t want to know. In fact I want to know all that I might possibly be able to share along with you, to feel, to understand, in some manner to take take part.

I see one of Bisenieks’ works in the Australian Latvian paper. I didn’t like it. I don’t have anything against a disjointed format, but this piece I just couldn’t take. I’m reminded of K. Mienieks’ words: “Don’t think, then it will turn out ok”. Maybe I’m wrong, and one can’t judge from just one piece.
Yours, E. Dz.

9.July, 1957.

Tonight for the first time in a long time I feel good again. I mean spiritually. Physically, I’ve got all kinds of ear ringing and even a black eye from life.

But I can’t feel that. Yesterday and today I’m reading Priestley and feel – at home. I had not read anything of his before. In one of his plays, I read something exactly like I wrote in my journal a few years ago. Good to know, that even while losing everything, one can gain something. If this mood continues, it will be good, I’ll get new energy and peace.

Yours, E. Dz.

I don’t want to look for a new bit paper to write, because it’s late. But now I could write lots and ask – how are you?
I received your letter and was happy. You don’t have to climb some humble mountain! Or perhaps you do, who knows? I knew that my wishes were illogical, wrong-headed, not to say evil, self-serving. But that’s how it’s been for me for several months now. I can’t any longer get my act together, don’t want to, am unable to. I dislike everything. No, the word ‘dislike’ is too neat, too arid. I think the word “hate” better expresses what I feel. I loathe everything. Finally! I want to sleep, eat, be lazy, not see anyone, and more – not comb my hair, not even get dressed like I’m supposed to and so on, so that I even loathe myself. I’m over-exhausted from the pointless struggle, from the spiritual loneliness, and the absurdness of the situation. I want to rest. To get up with renewed strength. If not, then one must waste away, sink to the bottom. As soon as I say that, I don’t really believe it. But actually it could happen even if one didn’t believe it. It’s like in the snow – if I don’t move, I’ll freeze. I no longer want to move.

But I still hope, that at the last moment before I freeze, I will have gathered enough strength to move, and get up in one go. So I still hope. But who knows. Good if it’s still only a silly notion. But I am tired. Just in the last few days I thought, it’s not quite so bad,  I’ll get rest and it will be ok.
When I first started writing on this new page, I didn’t mean to say all this. I wanted to write something else, but now I can’t remember what that was. Again my time is up, I’ve got to leave off this page.

Outside there’s an autumn sun, the trees are full of a gentle wind. Actually, quite beautiful. 
Inese has to read a lot this year. I’m taking her books and reading them. I just finished Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. It was quite powerful. I long for winter, real autumn and cold countries.
Yours, E. Dz.

10 August 1957.

Perhaps your letter isn’t all that sick, maybe those are just summer’s freckles. Once, I used to avoid people with freckles. I think I’d adopted a different ideal – dark hair and eyes (they are usually without freckles.) I held on to this ideal till I noticed, that actually I held it only in theory, but in practice I never managed to get together with the ideal type. So I finally came to understand that my supposed ideal wasn’t actually my ideal. And if I kept statistics – I was attracted to those with lighter eyes rather than dark. So one goes through the whole of life before one realises what one really likes, but then it’s too late.

What exactly my letters have revealed to you I don’t quite know. Don’t know at all. Likewise, I can’t really imagine what your two inner worlds are like, (as opposed to my one). But no matter. When, in your letters, I encounter words that are somehow familiar, I make use of them. How? Again – I don’t know. Or – I don’t want to find out. 

Your birds don’t say anything to you. That’s because you look at them with a realist’s eyes, listen to them without adding some fantasy. If you waited for something, not knowing what, if you wanted to find and notice something, not knowing what – then upon hearing bird calls, they would blend into your longings like a promise, like an affirmation, a confirmation of your fantasies and they would become very important and dear to you. For me, they always are an affirmation of my perception of life’s beauty, its magnificence. I find it, and lose it, and seem not ever to be able to find it, and yet am always in its power. Thus bird calls for me have a value in themselves, and more, suggest to me some even greater value. 
Right now the birds are making a racket, I’ve been crying, and I’m able to write about such groundless things. 

It doesn’t matter that Barda wasn’t greeted. Why does he always end with such sharp-witted things? You already mentioned once that he does that. For some reason, he’s not content with just intelligent talk.

I would like to read Kreišmane’s short story – and I’ll be able to do that in the Year Book. Don’t you think she’s good at revealing the hidden bits of life, as are some of the other writers? I think that’s very important.     

This letter was begun ages ago. Just now when I wanted to read something of yours, I realise that I didn’t send you what I’d written. Spring is coming very slowly. Winter has been oppressive, both spiritually and physically. I’m putting all my hopes on spring, that I will regain something – but how? Peas, those enemies of mine, have started growing like mad. It’s my last chance to get something good written for the competition. But all that I’m doing – is a few, nasty lines in my Journal. Along with Inese, I’m reading Oscar Wilde. Some of it that I’ve read before, seems less worthy style-wise. but I just read a poem about prison – worth reading. I’m playing piano a little. Gazing at the sky a little.

How the whole trip to you, to Adelaide, will go, I can’t even imagine, but it has to happen. How else can I bear all that I have to bear? I have to dream about something, even though no-one could ever dream up what is actually happening in real life. No matter, one is allowed to dream, even impossibly.

How are you? What people are you meeting? Or creating? Your days are your own, don’t discount them.
Things are going badly. Getting worse. But somehow I have to make headway – I have to get out of this at last, don’t I? Even if some evil spirit has been guiding me (my father got lost once in the forest and went around in circles 7 times, always coming back to the same heap of branches) and however many times I’ve ended back at the start – surely I must be able to find the way out of here?
Sincere greetings,  E. Dz.

25. August, 1957.

I just got your letter. I’m so glad that you’re still alive, and the letter is so long and warmhearted. It doesn’t mean much, that I’m glad about that, meaning – my being glad isn’t worth very much, but still, therefore you could put off your dark thoughts for a day or so.

In your previous letters, I didn’t know what you were talking about, only in your second-last letter I started to suspect something like that. Now that you’ve explained it, I no longer have such bitter resistance to it. You stated it so clearly – that it has to happen like that, because there isn’t a better way! But – then, aren’t there allowed to be worse ways? However it is for you, – the way you mention, is after all, final. I can’t say anything, or give advice, I’m not in your shoes, but in theory, I am against it. Comedy or tragedy – no-one plays it quite alone, there’s always someone playing opposite. Who – of course I don’t know. Probably no-one knows. It would be better to play on till the end. Why? Again, I don’t know. For spite, or for politeness, or for humility’s sake. That last you won’t acknowledge, if you’re talking in such practical terms about it all. That – from the overall perspective. From me, personally, in this case is just a self-interested plea: stay longer. Stay as long as you possibly can.

I’ve thought it over during these past days. I’ve received so much from you – advice, support, encouragement, one can’t even put it all into words. Each letter brought something. A moment’s hope, confidence, new strength and so on. If there hasn’t been a letter – there’s still the thought, the feeling, that somehow there is some sort of bond, some connection with other like-minded beings. I’ve been selfish. I’ve clung to you mainly because of what I get from you. But I’ve also thought unselfish thoughts, I’ve wanted to please you, wanted to give something in return, sometimes thought about you just wishing the best for you. Perhaps I’ve never actually known how you really are, how you spend your days and hours. But neither do you know that about me. We know only part.   

Recently I thought – if it all wasn’t like it is – you could come here for a visit. Sit in the sun, look at the fields that lie criss-cross on the hillsides, listen to the birds that fly about here, each singing it’s own song. The Kookaburra sits quietly on the fence post, right near the house, sits so quietly that you don’t even notice it. But the little wagtail, which is looking for trouble, starts picking on it and doesn’t leave it in peace, flying around, right up to it, annoying it, till the Kookaburra, having snapped at it once or twice with its large beak, pissed off, flies away. There are so many birds here, that they really are delightful, each different, each with its own song and behaviour. I’m sad now that back home, I paid so little attention to birds. But that time hadn’t come yet. Meanwhile, I must say, that Lēmane, in her prize-winning story, if the bird she depicted was meant to be a Kookaburra, as was implied, then it seems clear – that she’s never seen or heard a real Kookaburra, even though she goes into great detail. It could rather be an Australian crow, only the old man, who can’t see them, calls them Kookaburras… then one might accept it.
I think that here too, in this life, in this country, there is much beauty. Only we mustn’t approach it casually. We have to see it clearly, really get to know it – then we will understand it and reap rewards.

No – I drifted off from what I wanted to say – and I wanted to say, that it would be lovely if you could come and visit, here, in this world as it is, with no pretensions, with no big deal – just to have a nice rest, and watch the world go by. But the way it is, that can never happen, while things are the way they are. Before, at home, at the Kikuri farm, when my sister and I lived ‘with mum’, usually in summer we were visited by our friends, our girl friends, teachers, people we knew, and I think they enjoyed themselves, however simple life was there. You have to leave people in peace, then they are happy. I’m surprised that you don’t feel that people are genuine, and you feel out of place? Might it just be your imagination? Once you wrote that lots of families would try to cheer you up, take you out – what more can you ask? They wanted something good, and it cannot be that they didn’t get anything from you in return, as a person, forgetting all pretences. The trouble is, that you all there are up to your ears with society life. It’s as though one person doesn’t need another, but that’s because you all there are too loud. One person can give more to another through peacefulness, rather than through busyness, but that’s almost impossible there.

I hope that your daughter-in-law has somehow been able to hold on, and stabilise herself money wise, and then things won’t feel so bad for you in your little hut. If you really have to leave, then there must be some way you can find a peaceful corner for yourself where you can feel good.

When I asked you whether there were rooms where one can stay at the Latvian centre, I didn’t do it because I wanted you to find me a place to stay. But if you willingly found space for us in your place – then thank you! We wouldn’t be against that. The only trouble is, that it would be exactly at Christmas time, and so at such a supposedly peaceful, family time, we would be rather uninvited guests. Though – perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad.
How Inese and I could get all that way, we still don’t know. But we’re discussing it like something that is going to happen. Only the little one will be wailing to come too. So we’re not discussing it openly.

Regarding the reading in Adelaide, I agree with you – the shorter, the better. I don’t really think that such Writers’ Mornings or Evenings are worth much. The public doesn’t need to see the writers themselves. They see them through their works. That I let myself in for doing such a reading in Adelaide  – was shameless on my part. I did it just for the free fare, otherwise I’d have no hope of getting to Adelaide or Melbourne. I’m even a bit afraid that I won’t have done myself any favours by doing this trip, career wise. I’ve aged, I’m tired, I can’t any longer play the grand dame, which I’m not. I do still want to find some strength, only – the peas and beans…..
Here, we’re moving towards spring. I’m going to plant some little flowers in the garden tomorrow.

Thank you for delivering  the “Inge” story to the publisher. Let’s see how it looks in print. I don’t know what will come out of the “Woman’s Journal”. It’s full of all sorts of ravings, pages from all kinds of everyday musings. If I really get to meet you at Christmas, and if there was time, I’d like to go over it with you and tidy it up a bit, or to tidy it up first and then discuss it with you. It all feels a bit odd to me, it’s not really a novel, but some sort of crazy book. But – that’s how women are. And some are different. 

Thanks to Z. Barda for his greetings. At the publication, you can greet him for me, even though I only know of him from what you have mentioned.
It’s a warmer evening, and all the time I’ve been writing in our (the girls’ and my) bedroom, where it’s quite cool. I must end this endlessly long letter. Keep well!
Yours, E. Dz.
P.S. I looked at the date – today is (Jēkabi) Jakob’s day. My sister’s husband was a Jakob, and we used to celebrate this day with ease and joy. My mother’s father was also a Jakob. There used to be a big apple orchard… Used to, used to…

5. September, 1957.

Your news about the books was so sad, I couldn’t sleep. I’d already been hoping to be reading the Annual, reading my own and Kreišmane’s short stories and others. Now you say – there’s nothing! How can it be that so suddenly it’s all come to nothing? Every year it still used to come out. Cry, and scream and protest?
But who will do that?
What are we here for then, if all the stuff of our long lives comes to nothing? What else are we living for? To give our children over to a strange country? To improve their blood with our blood?
Bloody hell. That’s how they swear here, so I’m doing it too.

Personally, that destroys me. If I don’t manage to get a book published in the next couple of years, then I’m done for. And even if personally I manage to, by dint of some unexpected fortune, what meaning would it have, if we are not all growing for our own nation, in our own nation. What’s the point, if – we don’t exist any more? Whom are we writing for, if there are no more readers?

I’m going to go home! I’m not going to stay here any longer. If they are still publishing books in Latvia, and you can’t do it here, then I’ll go back. Let’s go! We’ll be too old for them to send to Siberia. We’ll just have to blow on a whistle. 
Oh pity us, who are homeless in this world.

Dzidra was sick with chickenpox, which has been going around here for ages already. Inese hasn’t caught it yet. Both of them have been home for two weeks now. But there’s nothing good here. It’s been raining the whole time. The father – king – is endlessly harsh and in a bad mood. Only with flattery and deceit can we get around it all. We have to pretend, and not take things to heart – life is so hard, like a nightmare. I’m bothered by a weak heart and depression, and lack of energy. I haven’t written anything, and time slips by.

Only in the Journal am I writing anything. But even that feels like a useless delusion. For sanity, I play the piano in the evenings for half an hour or more. Life slips away. But the children are still full of energy, still tackle everything. Inese hopes to get to Uni for free. That’s still far off, but if she keeps going as she has been up till now, then that door will open, and that will mean one of them is on their way. Just the other remaining. Still with 5 years of high school to go. I won’t survive that long here. Something has to change.
Let the beast talk, you say, and then don’t say anything about yourself. You can do that. I can’t. I want to talk like an animal. So that I don’t become more of an animal than I already am. 

Is there no chance that the Annual can still find the means to come out again? How much does it cost to put out a book like that? Couldn’t some Latvian calendars be sold?

I’m really longing for spring. The winter has worn me out. I’m hoping to regain strength in the spring, to lose a few pounds so that it’s easier to function, to drink in some sun. If only the peas had not grown so abundantly. But somehow I have to get through all that. Then, to Melbourne and Adelaide.
My sister writes that I should live for myself, not to be run down by farm life. She still thinks I’m worth better than that. 

But my friend Mrs A. in America writes very gloomily. She is struggling to finish at the conservatorium, for she only started there in America, when she was over 30. It would be all right, but there are family problems. Conflict with the husband and son, who’s nearly 20 years old, hanging about with the bodgies, not studying, disappearing, makes big plans about how to make money, conversing with all kinds of petty criminals. It’s apparently at a crisis point at the moment. She feels desperate, lost in her own problems and misfortunes.

We all ought to have our own land back. Otherwise everyone is disappearing. Each in his own way. They’re all just as sad, those that sink, and those that float to the top, get rich and become Americans, or Australians and so on.
Good that Grins has understood you. It is easier, when someone understands, is it not?
Are you really such a squire that no-one is able to get near you? Don’t you feel any closeness to even a few people, that you express surprise that they come and visit? 
Please write. I’ll be able to get letters faster now. Yours, E. Dz.

20.9.1957.

Thank you for the Names’ Day letter. It was good. After all the mention of things as they really are, still it left room for hope – that the shot with the handle of the rake could still make a bang!…
If only one was allowed to load! But I’m given no time at all. I’m waiting for warmer weather, so that my legs wouldn’t freeze at night, sitting at the desk and I could write at night. But they are so cold – only good for sleeping after the pea picking… Maybe also what I’ve been intending to write is still a bit hard to work out. Thoughts form, and even whole sentences, but I’ve hardly written down anything. If only I was allowed a week’s peace. But there’s no chance of that.

Inese was sick with the chickenpox. She came down with it in the last days of the holiday. Missed 10 days of school. But she’ll get over it and make up lost time. The children don’t take up so much of my time anymore, but the farm work is a horrible rut, with no breaks.

OK then, the flight to the land of our birth has to be postponed for the moment. It would be good if books could start moving in both directions. It’s possible that yours will find its way to Latvia, even though the postal rules say that books and printed matter can’t be sent to the USSR.

My daughters generally talk to each other more often in English, but their lives here are much like life in Latvia. People work hard around here, with horses, tractors, ploughing, sowing. Here there are forests, birds, and still little of city modernity. We ourselves – have poverty and lack. Not a lot of pleasure. Just school and books. Books are both the girls’ refuge. But of course they aren’t Latvian. Reading in Latvian is harder. What can one do? Yet they haven’t shown a particularly big attachment to Australia. Inese doesn’t want to live here. She readily looks at American magazines. They apparently have more realistic and factual illustrations and literature. Yes, Australian stuff is more banal. It would be a step forward if later, when school is over and real life has begun, the girls don’t want to stay in Australia. That will all depend on jobs, and falling in love. In Latvia, we oldies will also perhaps find it a bit too constricted. We will want to know what’s happening in the rest of the world. But that wouldn’t be a big deal. We would be able to give much to Latvia. 

I really don’t know much about the Latvian society here. I can’t say that I miss it. I do miss friends, and do miss a normal life. Maybe artists are better off here than other immigrants. But that’s always the way, isn’t it – that artists are happier?

Here’s a small illustration of our everyday. Dzidra’s drawing of Inese after chickenpox. She draws better than I do. It’s a pity that I can’t print my etchings, or I’d be able to send them to Adelaide. But no-one else thinks it would be a shame if I can’t organise that.

I have to go pick peas. Maybe tonight will be warm and I will write. Even though I find it better in the mornings. The mornings are generally beautiful, particularly now. I have a very beautiful view through the window. Of course I could see that same view outside, but sometimes it’s even lovelier through the window. Seems that’s how it is with everything.
How goes it with the swindler gatherings? What’s new at your table? How is your health? The heat in Spring is not so bad, if you rinse it off in the sea – you should try it.    
Yours, E. Dz.

9.10.1957.

I got your letter only yesterday. Now I’m sad that I didn’t write to you earlier, like I wanted to, and put it off only because of work. Now I’ve been thinking – things are not going well for you at the moment. And at such times it can be good to hear from someone.  I don’t know why you have to leave your cabin, but it doesn’t sound good. We’ve all been brought up and become attached to our various cabins. It’s harder without them. But – don’t be too put off by the others, don’t overreact. It will be better for both you and them. I hope that Jusis [the dog] will go with you and you’ll be able to be independent enough. Don’t worry about where I’ll be able to stay at Christmas. Something will turn up. I just hope the trip itself will happen! Already there’s been some thunder and lightning in that direction. And I myself am starting to feel hesitant about appearing among people. But perhaps I’ll get a hold on myself.       

At the moment I’m writing a short story. It’s all in a big rush. Not good. But I wasn’t able to start earlier, and I can’t do anything about that. Now that the evenings are warmer, I’m doing it. But there were 2 fields of peas, and then in the evenings I’m so tired, that though I write, and fill the pages, but none of it is any good. In the mornings, I don’t have time. But mornings are my most sacred time for writing. So everything is back to front. Well at least – in the mornings I think about what I will write, and then in the evenings I attempt to get it down.

I’m a bit concerned about “Inge” – that it might be too weak, too intimate for the paper. But in any case it’s good that it’s in print. That way I’ll better be able to save it. Otherwise everything disappears.

Since we’ve had chooks, and they lay more than one hundred eggs per day, my time is unbelievably mangled. There are moments of free time, but everything is so piecemeal. One is endlessly on pins and needles, making sure to not miss something, like not forgetting to give the sick patient his dose of medicine. 

The closing date is 1st November? I’ll manage to send something. Only it won’t have had a chance to “settle”, and for me that is quite important. If a  piece of writing has been able to settle, I can refine it with minor changes into something much better than before.

Would that I could be released into freedom,  or put into a prison where I had free time. Crazy talk. I’d like to hear how you are? Maybe it will be all right, maybe there will be something nice in the surroundings or among people that will be good for you. I wish that for you with all my heart.
Yours, E. Dz.

9.11.1957.

Yesterday evening, at the end of the week, after dinner, the children didn’t sit down to do homework, but curled up in bed, to unwind, to rest. I joined them. And when they drifted off, I got up and played the piano. And for a while, I felt such peace as I hadn’t felt in years.

That was also from “Magpie Song”. It has achieved something there. And at last, I felt some sort of hope, that perhaps I will return to myself, the way I once was long ago. Actually – very, very long ago. To myself, the person, who is whole, untrammelled, and who has in them still some corner that’s full of quiet, of confidence. Just a corner. But this corner must have walls and a roof, where one can take refuge from everything. Also from feelings of low self esteem, and lies.

15.11.1957. 

It was a dreadfully hot day. Headaches and heat killed the day. Now it’s evening. I don’t want it to end. I want to do the things I haven’t had time to do. But tomorrow – I have to get up early. I have to conserve myself for what relentlessly fills up my every hour – the everyday chores. 

Last night I had a beautiful dream. There was the sea, and at the same time mountains, flowers, and at the same time snow, or froth on the waves. It was as though it were real, and yet like a painting. I was driving through it in a car, driven by someone whom I had a crush on once. 

Today I was alone at home. But I’d been given so much work to do, that only for brief moments did I register my aloneness. And that was wiped out by the heat and a head ache. But still – it was good. I wanted to play piano a bit. On the piano lay open Strauss waltzes. Inese had wanted to hear them the previous evening. She is exhausted from preparing for exams, and wanted to listen to something lighter. Today I didn’t need Strauss waltzes. But I played them – because I didn’t have more time, didn’t need to look for anything better – everything, everything felt good, because I was alone at home. 
I would like to write something about a guard in a gallery. I know what he’d be thinking. Only I’d like to read up on his surroundings. But why look so far? There are guards all around.

16.11.1957.

Also today, nearly till midday, I’ve been home alone. Though Inese is here. But that’s – the same as just me. She’s studying for the exams. Dzidra went with them in the truck – taking Ledy (the dog) to the Hausmans. Together with Dzidra, we washed her clean and white. She shivers, she always shivers in fear. She is a clever dog, and suffers from all she has to put up with here, more than do Duksis and Rafis. Here’s hoping that they will keep Ledy there, and she’ll be ok. But she’ll be lonely. She did love this place. “The poor slave grows to love the rock, to which he has been shackled”. Rainis also must have known how true that is.
Well, maybe Ledy will get used to her new surroundings… 

I’m not sure whether I’m just writing journal, or a letter to you. I’ll send it as a letter.
I just though of your Jusis. Will he have fallen for the redheaded dame? Hopefully. It is easy to fall for dames.
Our little Duksis is growing fast. He is very frisky. He playfully bites hands, but his teeth are very sharp. Once I started plaintively crying aloud when he was biting – he then instantly lets go and starts jumping all over you, trying to make up to you, looking for your ear to give it a lick. It’s so funny that we’ve now made it into a game. But yesterday he was pulling on my shoe. He was tearing at it like mad, and I started crying, but he just paused a moment to listen, and then kept tearing the shoe. So he knew that it wasn’t hurting me, and that I didn’t need pitying. 
It’s so odd, watching the workings of such a little dog’s brain.

18.11.1957.

The proposed trip to Adelaide has been an unpleasant weight this last month, together with everything else here. My husband raves forth nonsensically spouting words from the Bible, and I don’t know whether I’ll manage to get away. He vows to not let Inese go, and she won’t have money anyway, as she hasn’t received her Scholarship yet. And that’s all just because when we first mentioned this (the trip) he didn’t say anything, and we thought – it has been accepted. 

Of course I have to stand up for myself. But I’ve so little of the sort of strength needed to carry out something like that, that after such a battle I could just drop to the ground and sleep for a week, rather than hold my ground and stand up for my rights. My rights – resemble a squashed earthworm.
Please forgive all this rambling. It’s all pressing down on me, and I’m just letting it all gush out, writing these useless lines. Waiting for your letter.
Yours, E. Dz.
P.S. Do you think that the piece about the “Untimely Burial” should be sent back to me, so that I can shorten it? Perhaps that should be done. Please, when you have time, send it back! This week perhaps I’ll get clear as to whether I will travel by myself, or whether it has to be sent for someone else to read.  

19.11.1957.

When I fold this letter and put it into an envelope to you, I feel sorry that it’s so miserable. I can’t find another word. A letter ought to bring something pleasant, precious, lovely.
Yes, and now I want to include something else in the envelope. I look around – what could I add? It’s early morning. The children are asleep. In a minute I have to wake them up. Inese’s exams start today. It’s a mild morning, it’s going to be a hot day. 

Yes, I’ve not got anything else, only this mild morning light, and the desire to say something nice to you. …
The morning light is soft     
and flowers and trees are waiting     
quietly for this day beginning…

So I search for a poem, but the day arrives and I dare not search for a poem and so can’t send you one.
Yours, E. Dz.

1 December, 1957.

Thank you for both letters, my “Burial” and the triolets. And thank you for the congratulations about my Versaille’s triolet. When I first opened the paper, I saw only my name – and wondered, what now? Then I read the triolet. It’s only a joke. But an innocent, nice joke. Thank you. It must be because my happiness isn’t complete, because I don’t have my mother here to show her. She would have appreciated it, and had even greater pleasure. But I read your letter, and see that you liked it. Thank you for liking it. That’s the biggest gift one person can give another – to share their pleasure. 

Yes, I’ve something of my own, which you’ve written about in your letter, and even some kind of human truth, I think, that’s been brought about by such shared delight. I was taught that by my mother, in that she used to take delight in me, and gradually I started to know how to give that gift of myself to her, as you might say.

She became a widow at the age of 36. Then she lived off memories, and us two daughters. We each lived for each other. If someone went off into the garden, field or forest, then whoever was left at home, would always be brought something from where the other had been. It could be the simplest thing – a flower, leaf or twig, or even a new potato, or pebble. It could also be a whole armful of flowers, or a bowl full of mushrooms or berries. 

In winter, when my mother was left on her own, we wrote letters. Longer and longer, and more truthful, so that mother would be able to live along with us. 
Yes, I think that that home life was, and is that basis of my very being. My mother generally read all my books, knew, at least by name, all my schoolmates and teachers, my academy colleagues and professors. 

Now I don’t have an adult person with whom to share. Gradually I do spend time with my daughters, but the time is too short for me to really follow all their books and lives. And there’s no warmth at home. Only covert. But we’re not entirely bereft.

You shouldn’t put yourself down, your letters are good. They always bring me so much. All the time you have been my support, calming me and giving me advice. I can’t even comprehend how much you have helped me. Don’t ever think that it doesn’t amaze me.

The days are very, very heavy. And at last it’s starting to affect me physically and spiritually even more. I’m unable to spring back. And still I’ve no idea, of how to get away? I need some sort of official assistance.
I cling, again, to the thought of getting a book published. What good will it do me? And – it’s all so late. But still. That remains the only hope. For, to wipe myself out, hour after hour…. Better not talk about it.

Will there soon be enough of the “Woman’s Journal”? I still have 20 -30 pages to send. Please read them – and then they will be able to be collated? I probably won’t go to Adelaide. But I could more easily get to Melbourne. I will have a bit of money from the “Magpie”. Then I should travel there and sort it out. “Untimely Burial” I began writing as an actual Journal entry. Only afterwards, it was made into a short story. It would suit the “Journal”. But what would the whole thing end up as? Some woman’s daily ravings. The only thing common to it all is this same woman, her ravings, which occasionally turn into sort of short stories, which are sort of about herself, and then not – and yet, are about herself. Perhaps something will come out of it. Not a novel, nor a story. And it’s hard to find some sort of resolution or conclusion to it all. 

What is your new novel called? You are waiting for Dunsdorf to return – will he come back to live?
These pages are getting shorter because I’ve no more paper left here at home, only off cuts.
Yours, E. Dz.

7. December, 1957

Please say what you thought about Kazokvestite’s [“The fur vest”] reading and then please send it to me. 
I’m scared writing that – send me this, send me that – how I order you about. I know myself how much sometimes I don’t like having to send something. Please forgive me, that I have to ask you for that. 

That’s how it is, whether we like it or not. During this last year, the effect you have had on my life and what I’ve achieved, has been enormous. You haven’t so much said things in words, nor corrected what I’ve written, or advised me, and yet up till now my work has only been able to go ahead with your support. I wasn’t even able to keep my writing safe here. Lately, there hasn’t been any such control. I’m being left in peace more. Only I’m very scared. I absolutely hate it when something is taken and read. More importantly, when I don’t get it back. It’s a bit better now.
There are other things, that are worse. But what can be done.

If I could go to Adelaide after all. If I could break away, then I wouldn’t stop in Melbourne on the way there, but on the way back. But I don’t think it will all be able to happen. 
If only I could write more and get a book out more quickly. And I won’t dare to keep it in a drawer. I’ll have to give it so someone, in order to be able to live and survive. 

It’s odd, that any time you have crossed something out in my works, it’s been exactly what I myself had doubts about, whether it had been necessary. I guess it’s like that, with those white collars and cuffs, when one wonders whether one should wash them or not – then one should wash them. When one wonders if one should say something or not – then don’t say it.
The day before yesterday, it was 10 years since my mother’s death.

9.12.1957.

The days are flying unbelievably fast. There’s no time for anything else, other than what I have to do here every day. To try to change anything of my everyday life would take such effort as I don’t have the energy for. Each day relentlessly, I’m dragged into the same mire. 
I don’t believe I’ll get to Adelaide. I can’t even get any reading done. I no longer belong to a civilised world. 
Today was a Sunday. Exactly the same as all other days.  And yet I have grind this day into order, even right at the end of it, or it will grind me.
Yours, E. Dz.

22.12.1957.

Merry Christmas!
I don’t know whether you’ll still get this letter before Christmas. Something has gone wrong with my letter sending here. You’ll get this for New Year, and the new year should start with money matters, so I’m sending you a lucky lottery ticket.

It’s got Home written on it, but it’s illegible. When you get rich, I’ll be able to see it in the paper. The ticket is bought on the 13th, and the 13th is my lucky number. And I’ve got the letter K written on the palm of my left hand, and that’s the first letter of your name, so with all that together – luck will come, because I put the ticket into the letter with my left hand.

Thank you for your letter with Christmas greetings. It had one bit of advice which I’m going to keep in mind – to think less about the outcome. Even though the outcome is very necessary, and if for once it was a good one, I’d be more able to think about my writing.
Thank you for the book. I haven’t received it yet, it must have been a bit delayed. 

I’m satisfied with “The People of Ļaudona”. There are a few small corrections, or perhaps they were overlooked, and a few printing errors. But it’s more or less all as it was written. I don’t know who actually corrected it from “Saudona” to Ļaudona”. In it I’ve loudly feted my relatives, and perhaps I wouldn’t do it if now again I had to talk about Ļaudona. But it’s done, and it sounds quite enthusiastic. You could think it had been written by someone young. Better that they think that.

I can’t get to Adelaide. Today I sent a letter to Abele and now for the first time I really understand someone who says – “I feel like getting drunk”. Right now, I feel like getting drunk. I’m ashamed that I haven’t been able to do as I promised, it’s a pity that I can’t go. It turns out that also Inese’s scholarship money arrived ages ago, and without saying anything to anyone, it has been put into the farm account. There was no intention of letting Inese come with me. Inese’s feelings weren’t taken into consideration at all, as long as he could make unpleasantness for me, forbid me, ruin everything nice that I’d hoped to do with Inese. It’s all about his ego, intolerance, and fear for his own well-being, lest someone should make the slightest dent in it, and besides that – a different way of thinking.

There’s nothing for me now. That’s why I felt hurt at a few words you said in your letter. I’ve lived thinking of the future for most of my life. Everything I imagine I have, for example the children, are more like a fantasy. And of course – it’s all my own fault. I shouldn’t have played lightly with my own life.
Thank you for the invitation to the Press Club’s meeting. I would love to be there, though – what would I do there, I’d be a stranger. And – how could I get there? I was so looking forward to the trip to Adelaide.

I have to extract myself from here, where I am. But there’s no help. Even you don’t know how I really am, even though you know a bit about me. The strangest thing is that I myself would forget how it really is, if I got away, and wouldn’t be able to describe or depict what it’s like here. But it ought to be done, then it might serve some purpose. I will wait for your letter again. I’m sending you these pages which have accumulated, with not much of value in them.
Yours, E. Dz.