Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Simaite

5. Caregiving and Letters

29 chapter 5 Caregiving and Letters in addition to thousands of letters, Šimaitė left twenty-nine diaries covering the period from 1953 to 1970: two record the year of 1953 in Paris; ten document 1953–1956 in Israel; and seventeen cover 1956–1970 in Paris. They record the minutiae of Šimaitė’s life: food and money shortages, laundry, and the drudgery of work are constant themes. But above all, the diaries record Šimaitė’s compulsive letter-writing. A good example can be found in Diary 17 from the year 1957. The very first entry starts with a quotation that Šimaitė identifies as an Arabic proverb: “Work for this world as if you had to live here forever, and for the next as if you had to die tomorrow”: april 6, saturday Survived six days of this month. Daily problems and the work I do to earn a bite of bread prevent me from living according to the wise Arabic proverb. The doctors have forbidden me any physical exertion, yet the laundry and ironing must be done every week. Work in the library archives has become impossible, too technical. And after a hard day of work there is the cook swearing and screaming at me for taking a piece of buttered bread for my supper. Don’t I earn my meals with this backbreaking work—laundering and ironing? . . . I wrote letters to both Aldutės [her nieces], and to my two sisters, and today I finally answered that letter, saying I couldn’t take part in the discussion in the press, since it’s difficult for me even to answer a normal letter in time. But in those 6 days I wrote 14 letters. (September 30, 1957, Diary 17) 30 Caregiving and Letters Šimaitė kept meticulous count of how many letters she had written and to whom. The margins of her diaries are filled with numbers that represent how many letters she wrote on any given day. Here, for example, Šimaitė tallies her letters and parcels for the month: Last Tuesday—September 24 [1957] was a very productive day. I wrote all the letters I had planned to my relatives. Of course, I wasn’t able to write to everyone. . . . In all I prepared 67 letters and packages and took them to the post office. Of course, I should have done more, but couldn’t. . . .1 (Diary 17) This second example, written approximately two months before her death, gives only the month of November as an indication as to when it was written: I’ve been sick since October 17. . . . With one exception my heaviest memory will be each and every one of my present and past confrontations with these so-called nurses. They call me names or give me such harsh orders, and yesterday they threw awful accusations at me. They outdo even Hitler’s Gestapo—even they didn’t order me around like this or keep blaming me. . . . Yesterday I wrote 3 letters dealing with very difficult . . . matters. . . . Last month I received 66 letters and packages, and wrote 67 + one package to my relatives. (Diary 17) Šimaitė’s comparison of the nurses with the Gestapo is striking in its hyperbole, but it illustrates her difficult relationship with caregivers. As she wrote in a 1965 letter, “I am of the opinion that every person must know how to take care of him- or herself. Only in extraordinary circumstances, when it is impossible to help oneself, should one approach others” (Letter to Icchokas Meras, November 20, 1965, Meras’s Papers). But Šimaitė herself was an extreme and eternal caregiver. If people were in pain, she took it upon herself to look after them. In Israel she spent her free days visiting terminally ill patients, bringing them food, reading to them, and teaching the young women to sew dolls. In her diaries she referred to one young woman, for whom she had the most affection, simply as the “ligonė” (the patient): 7. Details from Šimaitė’s diaries. The numbers in the margins represent how many letters she wrote in a given day. Vilnius University Library Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. 8. Šimaitė in Israel. Vilnius University Library Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. 35 Caregiving and Letters march 18 [1956], sunday I went to see the ligon...