June 2, 1972, the poet Joseph Brodsky left the country, which is no longer on the map of the world: USSR. As there is no city in which he lived: Leningrad. Witness this tragic event in his life was the wife of Vladimir Solovyov, Elena Klepikova, who worked as the editor of the literary magazine “Aurora”. She now lives in new York, where he later met and was friends with the poet. Since that tragic day has passed, it is terrible to say, 48 years old, and Elena remembers it like it was yesterday. Here is her story.
our Last with Brodsky the meeting. My husband and I just returned from a high-speed suspicially trip to Finland–Sweden. First time, went abroad, the coveted West. Sipped neat, as the ozone of freedom. Paradise, I confess, feelings. Finish immediately thrown in eleven days.
the phone Rings. Osia Brodsky — to say goodbye, the 4th flies to Vienna. Like an ax. Barely up kept. Knew, knew, that he was kicked out of the country, but miscalculated the timing. “Jack, please, we go to you!” — “I have nothing against”.
And here we are in his cherished den. Wasnae — the last time. Osia bad. Oppressed and bewildered. With a wry smile shows exchanged its dollars. Here is a popular set of photos of flowers and plants of Russia. Makes a stack of books that takes on a foreign land — all of the old Petersburg: Lukomski, Antsiferov… Citanie-read. Stroking the cover of “Soul of Petersburg”. Haven’t left yet, and already nostalgic.
We move excitedly: “Osia, do not be afraid, do not suffer so, all will be well, will be just fine” — and vparivayut him our idiotic enthusiasm from abroad. By the way: the trip really was fabulous. With us, there happened every day — miracles. The money is theirs, like colored pictures, fell in with some moss-covered walls. And other frivolous excitable rubbish. Osia listened attentively, and, oddly enough, with a personal interest. Asked something, delved sympathetically and seriously. I realized the incredible: we considered him an expert in the Western world, notebooks amerikanofil in friendship with a lot of foreigners etc., was for him the only reliable messengers “out there”. Where he, as it turned out, was not going, the more irrevocably:
— no, No, no! Not had this urge, this temptation. Thought is not allowed. On the contrary, quite the contrary. Tightly conceived, well — ponaglee, something that is pressing on my fake law — to settle in the homeland. This year has been for me the best, the best… the books were written amazingly, with the New year and beyond — non-stop. Even the thought that such a good momentum going, good luck, success, intelligent… well, not inertia, all hate inertia in the work, and this boost of maturity, when I am sure that will be good, will leave a distinct��Oh, a hundred. About poetry, certainly. I had plans for this year, next. Never have to look further.
Abruptly cut me off, asking him where he is, in the West, about to land:
how do I know?! Is this the case? The main thing — not much, and where!
— How — say — Oginski Polonaise “Farewell to homeland”?
Just then Jack laughed. Not in the country then was. The main point that eating eating it — poems lose their daily feeding native speech, the fear of losing the Russian language, did not speak. He left in anywhere, it is unknown to whom and why. Vienna is portrayed, grimacing, conductor with the wand over a Strauss waltz.
But your favorite Mozart there!
I know, I Know — so what?
it was Hard to spin it — such was the tension. How could any cheap things, we were comforted. Distracted, he cut the brakes on his indescribable tragedy. So sometimes, with stormy interludes — Osia, of course, could not sit still, three hours, maybe more. Surprised: all this time — neither visitor nor a phone call.
towards the end said forcefully that he wrote a letter to the Secretary General. Showed and gave to read. Typescript, the recipient remember this: the Kremlin. L. I. Brezhnev. Yet — without a signature. The text itself is quite civilized, no whammies, but with reproach and mysterious — because of the recipient — a morality play on the theme of “himself live and let live”.
Here I am — I confess — and screwed up without thinking: “It’s, Osia, village of my grandfather — neither the Kremlin, nor to Brezhnev will not come.” Did not understand that the letter is an open, broadcast—, all, all, all, urbi et orbi. This historic and pathetic gesture Brodsky anticipates your foreign destiny. Cleverly and shrewdly calculate the future. I have a passion to bring to the ground any grandiloquence. Well, not reached me.
Pause. The expected explosion. But Osya so embarrassed if a tub of cold water. And then removed the leaf. When later on the “enemy’s voices” is his open letter to Brezhnev was portrayed as a desperate, spontaneous gesture of the poet-exile in the time of exile — i.e., June 4 — Volodya laughed: read the letter days before.
Jack didn’t let us. He was not naprositsya. Not with us personally and permanently. I didn’t want to be alone, in total solitude.
Goodbye many times — in his corner, usasem in the hallway, on the landing. Finally, Volodya gave him, finally saying goodbye, the hand. Osia loomed some kind of all disarray. I lunged forward and hugged him. He leaned back and buried his face in my hair. When I tried to pull away, Jack was holding me, coping with tears. Sobbed as if coughed and jumped back, wiping his fingers on his eyes. And you said that never cries.
Crying Brodsky — the spectacle is not easy.
