My Father’s Books

Stalin’s Portrait

98 Stalin’s Por­ trait My ­ father ­ slaved over his books until late in the night. He ­ waited for all of us to fall ­ asleep so he could con­ tinue to read and to think, hav­ ing found new en­ ergy from the ­ strength re­ leased by our ­ dreams, as he used to joke. My ­ mother did not go to bed be­ fore my ­ father did; she al­ ways found some­ thing else to do. On one such late night in the ­ spring of 1948, a mob of peo­ ple we did not know burst un­ ex­ pect­ edly into our house. First, with­ out knock­ ing, they came in ­ through the bal­ cony and into the room where we chil­ dren were sleep­ ing. My ­ father al­ ways said that the most se­ curely ­ closed doors are open doors. As a re­ sult, our house was al­ ways open. My old­ est ­ brother woke up first; he ­ jumped down sev­ eral ­ stairs and im­ me­ di­ ately ran to my ­ father to tell him that peo­ ple had ­ broken in and were look­ ing for the ­ family’s por­ trait of Sta­ lin. Usu­ ally, above our heads on the wall of our room hung two large, beau­ ti­ fully ­ framed por­ traits, one of Sta­ lin and the other of Tito. My ­ father never ­ showed un­ cer­ tainty or fear in front of us chil­ dren, even when fate ­ struck its hard­ est blows ­ against our door. It im­ me­ di­ ately be­ came clear to him that the time of “Big ­ Brother” Sta­ lin was gone for­ ever! For a long time he had heard the West­ ern radio broad­ casts he lis­ tened to in se­ cret after we went to sleep, in par­ tic­ u­ lar the BBC, re­ port­ ing that some­ thing se­ ri­ ous had hap­ pened ­ between Tito and Sta­ lin, but he had not be­ lieved them. Now my ­ father ­ calmly ­ waited to be led away by the peo­ ple who had en­ tered the house look­ ing for ­ Stalin’s por­ trait. There were very few rea­ sons in this life to be­ lieve in Sta­ lin, but it was ob­ vi­ ous why we kept his pic­ ture next to ­ Tito’s. It was sim­ ply for the­ safety of our fam­ ily, the ­ safety of us chil­ dren. 99 My ­ father ­ calmly ­ waited for the peo­ ple to lead him away on ac­ count of that por­ trait. Be­ fore, it was those fam­ i­ lies with­ out por­ traits of Sta­ lin who were under sus­ pi­ cion. But now . . . There was not much time to think. He got him­ self ready to go. But in­ stead of the po­ lice at the door, there was my ­ mother stand­ ing in the door­ way to his study, car­ ry­ ing in her hands the large ­ framed por­ trait of Sta­ lin. The poor thing. Even in her ­ dreams she could not im­ a­ gine that in her hands she held my ­ father’s doom, the doom of our fam­ ily. My ­ father, grasp­ ing im­ me­ di­ ately that he had once again ­ cheated death, ­ calmly asked my ­ mother what she was doing with the por­ trait, since the peo­ ple from the po­ lice sta­ tion were on their way out of the door of the house. My ­ mother, not sens­ ing what had just hap­ pened, ­ calmly re­ plied, “A few days ago I no­ ticed that there was a lot of dust on the pic­ ture of Com­ rade Sta­ lin. I heard from the neigh­ bors that peo­ ple from the govern­ ment were going to come ­ around to see how peo­ ple were car­ ing for their por­ traits of Tito and Sta­ lin! So I said to my­ self, Let me just wipe this pic­ ture off. I had it in the ­ kitchen, and I was on my way to show those peo­ ple, but ­ they’re leav­ ing.” My ­ father’s blood ­ nearly froze. “My dear wife, you poor thing, Sta­ lin is over! He and Tito have quar­ reled. If those peo­ ple had found Sta­ lin in our house, they would most ­ likely have taken me away. And who knows ­ whether I would ever have re­ turned.” Now my ­ mother was in shock. She let go of the large pic­ ture. The glass in the frame broke...