I finished reading “Survival,” Part One of Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales,[1] took off my glasses, and put the small book down with an involuntary slam. The frost of the Kolyma region in northeastern Siberia already penetrated my body “to the marrow of the bone.” The phrase was no metaphor. I stretched my arms, numb from clutching the book, a gift from a recent guest and friend, and realized that I actually felt quite warm. I looked through the window into the gray afternoon out there. “They’re heating this place well,” I thought without thinking. My mind operated at the feverish pace of petty concentration camp worries and calculations. And then everything collapsed about me. “It’s summer!” I exclaimed and stared laughing nervously. I was alone in my Cambridge apartment. Today.

Addendum (September 19, 1994)

Marko was in Yugoslavia with my parents and Elise was in Mexico with her mother. This was her mother’s reward for Elise’s completion of her doctoral thesis at Harvard—some seven years overdue. I had to stay behind to teach and make money. Besides, I spent a lot of time reading and writing. As always, I enjoyed tremendously the quiet immersion into my Residua.

Before she departed, I encouraged Elise to make love to anyone she fancied. If I did not exactly encourage her, I certainly acquiesced in her well-advertised desire for extra-marital adventures. When she returned, she told me that she did make love to a waiter in her hotel. According to Elise, this young man was somewhat inexperienced, but he was also good-natured and sweet. Although he did not appear to have been a great lover, she had enjoyed having sex with him. Stunned, I did not inquire too much about this episode. Instead, I lied to her that I, too, had a fling with a woman who stopped by to ask me for directions as I was sitting on the front steps of our house, which I enjoyed doing in the summer. Elise did not show much interest in my story, so I did not need to embellish it very much.

In retrospect, Elise’s vacation in Mexico must have been the beginning of the end of our marriage. Very soon the entire construction began to crack. Meanwhile, ever more titillation and excitement was required to keep us going in our self-deception. Elise’s open affair with Michel provided the necessary fuel for a few months, but it also precipitated the ultimate collapse of our marriage. In less than a year it was all over.

Footnote

1. Shalamov, V., Kolyma Tales, New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1982.