On the afternoon of February 27, Ol’ga Fyodorovna resolves to pack her prerevolutionary leather valise.
Nearing sixty, she has the wisdom of a woman who has outlived most of her lovers. Until her postwar detour—an exploration of the Jews—she limited her amorous pursuits to Russian poets.
They never left her fully, and their final moments were poetry as well: Nikolay, daring the firing squad to set his soul aloft; Marina, hopeless and hungry, her neck in the noose.
They died in prisons, revolutions, wars, and famines; by hanging and by the despair that comes with driving taxis on Paris boulevards and selling insurance in New Jersey. They vanished, but she stood guard over the remnants of the beauty that once inspired them. It was elegance, really, the spare beauty of a girl petite and willowy at once.
Her grace is still intact, as is her strength. The low-slung bangs are there, too, still patent-leather-black and straight as wire. They now caress her thick and graying brows.
Her room is about symbols of beauty as well: a round white dining table is Biedermeier, a palatial treasure she found discarded in revolutionary Petrograd. The mirrored armoire is white, as are the walls, the sofa, and the sheer curtains. The bentwood chairs her parents brought from Prague before the revolution are bleached with age, but sturdy still. She owns one vase, a set of white plates, clear simple glasses, and absolutely no china figurines.
There is a charcoal drawing on the wall: a willowy young woman with razor-straight bangs, nude, reclining on a draped divan. Where is the boy for whom she posed? The gold mines of Magadan, the bogs of Narva, or the Auschwitz sky?
On the afternoon of February 27, Ol’ga Fyodorovna performs an act for which she is famous.
She leaves.
* * *
A bloodstain is the first thing Kima sees when she passes through Kogan’s gate. The tears cease as suddenly as they begin, and only her red eyes and the bags that swell beneath them bespeak the awakening of grief that gripped her during the night.
She hears a gunshot, and sadness is instantly replaced with the steely comfort of mortal danger.
Instead of lurking in the bushes to gather information and taking a calculated risk, she runs toward Kogan’s house.
“A gunshot!” she shouts, bursting through the door, and, to her relief, she finds Kogan and Lewis in what appears to be a calm conversation.
“I am afraid so,” says Lewis, looking up.
“Who?”
“Levinson killed a thug.”
“Aleksandr Sergeyevich, what happened?”
“I was beat up. They came to kill me.”
“Has it begun?”
“I don’t think so. These were simple thugs.”
“I saw the Black Maria behind that hedge three days ago. I saw the corpses. The throats of two men were slit, and one was stabbed. I watched you dump the bodies.”
“So you were there,” says Kogan. “I’m not entirely surprised.”
“You were too busy making humor of Friederich Robertovich’s vomit. After he drove away, I followed on skis. I saw him kill Butusov.”
“You did … you did … Now, please, go as far as the rails will take you,” says Kogan. “I’ll give you money.”
“Aleksandr Sergeyevich, I don’t need protection.”
“But you are a lady!”
“Thank you for what you’ve done. This is enough. I am your comrade. I need some burlap sacks, a sled, and a long piece of rope.”
“You’ll find it in the shed,” says Kogan.
“When I return, I’ll want to know the plan for our attack.”
“You are a copy of your father,” says Kogan. “A clear head.”
“I’ve feared too much for too long. Now I will fight. I’ll join your band.”
“No,” says Kogan. “That was, emphatically, the answer I prepared in the fear that your determination would lead you to our plot. I have my lines, yet I can’t say them. I have no right. You aren’t the beaten cub who crossed this doorway seven months ago. My lines be damned. Please, join us, comrade.”
* * *
“She knows,” says Kogan as Levinson walks in.
“You blab again.” Levinson scowls. “Soon, all of Malakhovka will know! I have a joke: Two Jews meet at the kolkhoz market. ‘Have you heard, Levinson and Kogan have formed an underground counterrevolutionary organizatsiye…’ ‘You don’t say!’”
KIMA: How does your joke end?
LEVINSON: I don’t know yet.
LEWIS: It may not be a joke.
KIMA: What can I do to make it real?
KOGAN: You’ve done enough.
LEVINSON: Not so fast. I need red cloth.
LEWIS: What for? Don’t tell me there are costumes.
KIMA: How much red cloth?
LEVINSON (counting on his fingers): One … two … three … Four or five large flags’ worth.
KIMA: I’ll bring a dozen.
KOGAN: This isn’t the time to die. Our Kima is ready to read Pushkin.
* * *
In the shed, Kima puts Tarzan’s shattered head inside a noose. She runs the rope to his feet and pulls, until the corpse is folded in half and Tarzan’s single remaining eye is left to stare at his leaden ankles.
She loops the rope three more times to keep the body folded and asks Lewis for a burlap sack. Lifting the head and ankles, she places the burlap under and asks Lewis to lift the other half.
The sack closes neatly above Tarzan’s buttocks. She slips another sack on top of the first and drops a few handfuls of hay inside. The second sack closes above Tarzan’s head and feet. Repeating the same procedure with Kent’s corpse, she ties the sacks to Kogan’s sled.
“I’ll come back after dark,” she says, and leaves for work.
* * *
That night, after the sled slowly pulled by Kima and Lewis disappears from view, Moisey Semyonovich sits down with a book, and Levinson approaches the stove.
“Do you have the thing that spins?” he asks Kogan, looking at the watery red fluid in the cauldron.
“My beytsim?”
“Fok yu! Laboratory thing. A dreidel that you put things in and spin, to separate the dreck. I saw you use it.”
“Laboratory dreidel … Let me think … To separate the dreck. I had it … You mean a centrifuge?”
“That’s right. You have it?”
“No.”
“What should I do with this?”
“The blood? You dump it in the outhouse.”
“What’s a blood ritual without blood? Are you insane?”
“Remember when they stood you on your head onstage? You wore a leotard. There was a tefillin on your leg.”
“I’ll boil it.”
“Boil what?”
“The blood.”
“What are you doing, trying to reduce it?”
“I guess. To get the snow out.”
“Why do you need my blood? Isn’t the purpose to obtain the blood, to bleed the victim? And what about the thugs? You killed two just today.”
“This is my play. When it’s your turn, you’ll write your own. How much should I boil out?”
“Bring it where I can see.”
Kogan puts on his glasses. His nostrils rise slightly as he intensely ponders the pinkish, watery liquid.
“Why’s there fat on top? And what’s this? Onions?”
“A little shkvarkes from last night.”
“You couldn’t wash it out?”
“I didn’t know. How much?”
“About three quarters. What was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“What was it like to stand on your stubborn, empty head and wear a leotard and tefillin? How did the world look?”
“The world looked almost right.”
The reader knows better than to believe old men. You should have seen Levinson then, in 1921, when proudly upside down he stood, in a hall painted black.
The players who joined the troupe of Alexander Granovsky sought neither fame nor bread. If fame and bread were what you wanted, you’d surely escape from revolutionary Russia.
But if you shared Granovsky’s vision of the modern world, as Levinson did, you’d dance amid the cataclysm of crumbling empires. His was the world of big equations. World equaled theater, Theater equaled World. Stage, orchestra, and seats merged into one, an entity of art, a modern unit, where acting equaled music, which was the same as props and pantomime. A leotard equaled canvas, which equaled cog, which equaled sword, which equaled turbine. All became one, a monolithic unit of justice, truth, and beauty.
In those days, Levinson learned to get out of bed in a way that symbolized cubism, extending his left leg in the direction of the left corner of his mattress, the right leg in the direction of the right. And then he stretched his arms in the same manner.
* * *
In those days, Levinson didn’t give applause a thought. His modern world had no room for talent. Man’s goal was to become machine, an instrument of history and of production. As industry and art became the same, the loins of art would merge with propaganda, and propaganda, being the truth, would serve as the people’s education.
Old God was lowercased to god, a cosmic, powerless dwarf of heaven. And upside down, Levinson held up his godless world, like an inverted Atlas. A leotard, tefillin, an ancient prayer to mock. Would anyone dare to ask for more?
You should have asked him then, “What does the world look like?”
“The world is good,” he would have said. “Because we gave it reason.”
In those days, he reveled in the wholeness of an ensemble, the rush of being onstage, and—yes, of course—the laughs.
Standing over a cauldron on the evening of February 27, 1953, Levinson is beyond pondering big equations.
“It’s turning brown!” he shouts to Kogan.
“What is?”
“Your blood!”
“My blood … oh, in your cauldron. The red blood cells are breaking down. They are weak.”
“What should I do?”
“Add butter.”
“I don’t have butter!”
“Then use lard. It’s better anyway.”
Levinson lops off a thumb-sized piece of lard and throws it in the cauldron. Meanwhile, Kogan returns to the meditative state of a man who has sustained two blows to the head.
“It’s still brown!” shouts Levinson.
“What’s still brown?”
“The blood!”
“Which blood?”
“The blood I’m boiling! Your blood, old goat!”
“I guess that’s good,” says Kogan. “Let me see…”
Kogan waves his right hand over the cauldron, driving the fumes toward his nose. The smell of the glue-like, brown substance works like a tonic.
“It’s done,” he says.
“But it’s still brown,” protests Levinson. “You told me to add lard! The blood did not turn red!”
“I didn’t say it would. Why should it?”
“What do I do with this? This dreck? I wanted red!”
“Do what you want, mayn komandir.”
* * *
Theater historians haven’t understood that Levinson had to steal his sole artistic triumph.
After the success of Kinig Lir, its translator, the playwright Shmuel Halkin, was commissioned to interpret the story of Bar-Kokhba, the leader of a Jewish rebellion against Rome.
The timing infused the old story with urgency. Fascism was on the rise. Indeed, it seemed unstoppable. Young Jews, whether Communist or Zionist, were scouring history for strong leaders. The Maccabees made a triumphant return, as did Bar-Kokhba, a rebel who was pronounced the messiah by none other than Rabbi Akiva.
Of course, Levinson loved the play and the komandir it glorified. Alas, due to his own history of rebellion—an effort to oust Mikhoels—he was relegated to being an extra. He had two parts: As a Roman soldier, he had to walk ominously and stand silently. Then he had to make an appearance as an old Jewish sheepherder who comes to swear allegiance to Bar-Kokhba.
In this role, Levinson had to look mildly decrepit and carry a shepherd’s staff. It was a harmless part. He was contained, dissolved into the crowd as Rabbi Akiva blessed the rebels.
At the premiere, as freshly blessed rebels stood in their assigned positions, Levinson threw down his ridiculous staff and grabbed a dagger out of the hands of an unsuspecting rebel, then another dagger out of another set of hands and, continuing on a mad trajectory, became airborne, then went completely motionless as the bottom of the velvet curtain touched the stage.
This acrobatic feat triggered a standing ovation mid-play. It was noted in all the reviews. Mikhoels was furious. He would have used this act of insubordination as an excuse to fire the madman. Halkin, however, thought it was a brilliant interpretation that emerged organically after the dress rehearsal.
“Eto nakhodka,” Halkin said to Mikhoels in Russian. “This is a find.”
And a find it was. Is there a better way to portray the unfurling of hidden power than an unexpected pirouette with smallswords?
The fact that many members of GOSET audiences were non-Jews is largely forgotten. They flocked to the theater because it was one of Moscow’s best. Levinson’s acrobatic feat transcended language.
It worked so well that Halkin convinced Mikhoels to abandon his reservations about Levinson and move him to the part of Bar-Kokhba. This couldn’t happen in Moscow, but it did happen when the play was taken to the provinces.
It is no small feat that during the summer of 1938 Levinson toured the former Pale of Settlement, portraying the strongest of strong Jews, a man whose name means Son of a Star, the defier of Rome, and a messiah to boot. The play had to be altered for Levinson. The singing parts had to be dropped, because Levinson was able to carry a remarkably narrow range of notes, had no notion of tonality or rhythm, and, overall, sounded goat-like.
Spectacular stage combat beats hokey singing every time. The son of a whore made a fine Son of a Star.
When Levinson uttered Bar-Kokhba’s final words—“The struggle isn’t over! Forward!”—the character’s and the actor’s experiences became one and the same. What difference did it make what came first? What difference did it make what trumped what? Who the hell was Mikhoels, who the hell was Stanislavsky, to pronounce themselves arbiters of right and wrong when it was the leap that told the story, the whole story? Halkin understood that, God bless him.
This was Levinson’s final contact with the millions of Jews who inhabited the areas of western USSR. Within three years, the people who applauded Levinson’s Bar-Kokhba would think of his heroic leap as they met death at the edges of deep ditches, the omnipresent chasms where the stage ended.
And—yes—other strong Jews remembered Levinson’s leap as they stormed the Nazi positions, spraying from the gut.
Levinson’s battle continued as well.
* * *
A loud knock on the dacha’s door makes the three men take their battle positions.
Has it begun?
The choices they make reveal their inner selves and how they feel about inflicting death.
Moisey Semyonovich reaches for a pistol.
Der komandir lets his smallswords flash, retreating behind the door. He’ll be the first to greet the intruders. Kogan takes no weapon at all.
They wait silently for another knock. The person outside can surely see the smoke rising through the chimney and the flickering of the yellow, halting light of the kerosene lamp.
Moisey Semyonovich throws open the latch, then stands aside.
The door opens slowly, and, like a vision from her own youth, a woman in a shapely karakul coat strides into the center of the room, and with a smile that once could have been tragically misconstrued as seductive (it was, in fact, sarcastic), giggles. “Oy mal’chiki, mal’chiki … puglivyye vy u menya?” Now, my dear boys … aren’t you fearful?
* * *
“Ol’ga Fyodorovna, dear, to what do we owe the pleasure?” asks Kogan.
“Vy pomnite, u Anny Andreyevny bylo takoye…” Do you recall, Anna Andreyevna wrote about this?
Everything has been plundered, betrayed, sold out,
The wing of black death has flashed,
Everything has been devoured by starving anguish,
Why, then, is it so bright?
Kogan is familiar with the poem, from Akhmatova’s Anno Domini MCMXXI, and it takes considerable effort for him to refrain from reciting the rest.
“Why, then, is it so bright?” he asks instead.
“Otchego zhe nam stalo svetlo?” Ol’ga Fyodorovna repeats.
“Are you personally acquainted with Anna Andreyevna?” asks Kogan, who, alas, is not.
“Cooing like little birds,” Levinson whispers to himself. Onstage, this would be an aside. Around the table, it is rude.
“Yes. She hates me with a passion.”
“Something political?”
“Something amorous.”