Alphabet of Masks PDF
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Enigma Books Also published by Enigma Books Hitler‘s Table Talk: 1941–1944 In Stalin‘s Secret Service Hitler and Mussolini: The Secret Meetings The Jews in Fascist Italy: A History The Man Behind the Rosenbergs Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History Diary 1937–1943 (Galeazzo Ciano) Secret Affairs: FDR, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences 1942–1945 Stalin and the Jews: The Red Book The Secret Front: Nazi Political Espionage Fighting the Nazis: French Intelligence and Counterintelligence A Death in Washington: Walter G. 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Bouis and Bela Shayevich Enigma Books All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, distributed, or transmitted in any printed or electronic form without written permission from Enigma Books. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors‘ rights. Purchase only authorized editions. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author‘s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Published in the United States by Enigma Books New York www.enigmabooks.com Copyright © 2011 by Dmitri Birman Translated by Antonina W. Bouis and Bela Shayevich First U.S. Edition ISBN 978-1-936274-35-2 e-ISBN 978-1-936274-36-9 Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication CIP available upon request. Introduction Alphabet of Masks, a collection of short stories and poems written on his mobile phone, paints a picture of the life of a busy and sensitive man, dealing with wives, girlfriends, travel, and colleagues and reminis- cing about lost loves, lost illusions, and lost parents. It is an imaginative foray into the modern-day Russian experience. With Birman as guide, we see how today‘s Russians straddle their Soviet past and their capitalist future in order to survive—from A to Z. The stories are wry, humorous, and sexually frank, the poems lyrical and elegiac. While not necessarily autobiographical, Birman‘s book tells the life story of the narrator and his friends. The anti-Semitic reality of school bullies and army conscription, the adoles- cent yearning for classmates and teaching assistants, viii Introduction the Soviet dream of world travel and luxury con- sumption are all deftly drawn in stories no more than a page or two in length; the poetry resonates with the texts, variations on a theme. Dmitri Birman‘s stories are not set in Moscow or St. Petersburg, the two capitals of Russia. His characters live in a smaller city, more typical of the rest of the country. One of the funniest stories, ―Fashion Plate,‖ is about a young narrator trying to organize his wedding reception at the city‘s most posh restaurant. His father thinks it a good idea to let the young man try his hand at making arrangements and networking—in Soviet times whom you knew was more important than money. The politics are local, as we see in the story, ―Actor,‖ when the narrator goes stumping for votes in the slums in new elections. The residents interact with the ―big city‖—for example, the narrator in ―Road‖ drives there frequently to deliver bribes from his boss. The business life is active, there are office parties (―Barbie‖) and deals to be made with European distributers (―Toilet‖). Introduction ix Several stories depict the casual anti-Semitism of provincial Russian life, especially in Soviet times. ―Choice‖ reveals the dilemma faced by Russians of Jewish extraction who were able to leave the USSR but did not feel Jewish and wanted to live in Russia. ―Jews‖ is about a school friend who looks Jewish and comes to empathize with his Jewish friends when he is subjected to the same kind of hazing they face on a daily basis. In ―X-emption‖ the main character stubbornly demands that his draft deferment papers list his ethnicity as Jewish, not Russian, when most Jews tried to pass for Russian, in order to have prefer- ential treatment in college admissions and so on. Animals play a large part in the stories. There are obnoxious cats (―Kitty‖), huge slobbering and defecating dogs (―Grin‖), and small annoying dogs (―Yorkshire Terrier‖). There‘s even a poodle running across a road and creating an opportunity for two drivers to meet and fall in love (―Unexpected‖). Sex plays an even greater part. There are jealous husbands (―Manias‖), unfaithful lovers, gentle lotharios (―Questions‖), and a comparison of Russian
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