The Russian Jerusalem by Elaine Feinstein Page A

there. The news of a ban – which soon leaks out – guarantees the interest of the world press, and huge sales. Suddenly, there are French, Dutch, English and German translations. Akhmatova shrugs and smiles when they meet. ‘You will find Fame and Scandal are much the same,’ she tells him sadly. She is remembering Zhdanov’s decree in 1949, which took away her livelihood and deprived her of any chance of publication.
    Â 
    And then Ehrenburg brings other rumours. He has heard them from Louis Aragon, and he repeats them to Pasternak with anxiety rather than congratulations. It seems there is a good chance he will be offered the Nobel Prize, perhaps with another Russian writer. Perhaps alone. Pasternak had been nominated for the Nobel before, but now, even as he stands looking into the garden, he knows that the Prize will be no source of pride in Russia. The Writers’ Union will take the decision of the Nobel Committee as a political insult. Too much has been written about Pasternak’s heroism in the West.
    Ehrenburg agrees it could be a disaster. Before he leaves, he has one suggestion to offer. Pasternak might approach the Writers’ Union and propose they publish some safe part of Zhivago in Russia. That would defuse the excitement in the West. Pasternak considers the possibility. The two men sit together, drinking, as the light goes and the wind gets up. By evening, it has begun to rain heavily. There is a pile of leaves gathered together from the path to the house, theirdecay hastened by the rain. Pasternak watches Ehrenburg’s frail figure disappearing into the watery night. The telegram arrives the next morning.
    The citation is for his lyric poetry only, and for a moment Pasternak’s face shows naked joy. Without thought, without shame, he sends back his acceptance: ‘Immensely thankful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.’
    Â 
    He knows what must follow.
    Â 
    Four days later, Pasternak is expelled from the Writers’ Union. This takes away his right to the dacha in Peredelkino and any chance of literary earnings. Olga will cope, but Zinaida will be penniless. What else did he imagine? He has destroyed Zinaida’s life, and his son’s too, he reflects. Already, he repents of his hasty response.
    He cannot sleep. The telephone is silent. The days pass in a single blank. Then, on 29 October, maddened by insomnia and Zinaida’s tears, hardly able to breathe, Pasternak sends another telegram to refuse the prize. His gesture heals nothing. It is well known that only three laureates have ever declined an award, all of them in Hitler’s Germany at the instructions of Hitler’s government. Those at the centre of the Writers’ Union are even more incensed and they propose a graver sentence: Pasternak will be deported, and deprived of Soviet citizenship.
    Â 
    Exile. His greatest dread.
    Â 
    Like Akhmatova, who had often been urged to leave Russia when it was still possible, Pasternak has always refused to live abroad. And for the same reason: a poet cannot leave his language. Life might be more comfortable with hisfamily in Oxford, but he knows it would be more trivial. Now there is no choice.
    Â 
    The warmth has gone out of October altogether. Even with a huge log fire, Pasternak is shivering. He speaks to both Zinaida and Olga. Neither wants to leave Russia with him; there are children who cannot be abandoned. He begins to think death would be preferable to exile alone.
    Suddenly, he cannot imagine why the Nobel Prize had ever seemed important to him. He is embarrassed by his telegram of acceptance. It was not a betrayal of Russia but of himself. He is ashamed of the words he had chosen, and his reckless speed in sending them.
    Â 
    We watch him walk around the rooms of his house in a fever. He cannot bring himself to telephone anyone. He cannot settle in a chair.
    Â 
    But he has not been forgotten by his friends. A draft is being