Bridge of Words

BRIDGE

OF

WORDS

ESPERANTO ANll the dream of a IJniversal Lancuage

ESTHER SCHOR

mfitaopolifan lioŭlci hknky hŭlt an[? ctjmranv nnw yoiik

Begin Reading Table of Contents About the Author Copyright Page

al samideanoj pasintaj kaj nuntempaj,

koran, verdan dankon

to Esperantists past and present,

green and heartfelt thanks

It is not down in any map; true places never are. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Author's Note

Because I have used pseudonyms for most of the Esperantists mentioned, I have reversed the usual practice of using asterisks to indicate pseudonyms. Thus pseudonyms appear without asterisks, and asterisks are reserved for actual names (at first mention). Historical figures and cited authors are referred to by their actual names, without asterisks.

All translations from Esperanto are my own, except where otherwise indicated in the notes.

Introduction

On the muggy July afternoon when I visited the Okopowa Street Cemetery, the dead Jews who'd slept on while the Nazis packed their descendants into cattle cars bound for Treblinka were still asleep. After hours tracking the contours of the Ghetto behind a detachment of Israeli soldiers, I was relieved to be among the lush ferns, rusted grilles, and mossy stones. Here and there, tipped and broken monuments had settled where they'd fallen among yellow wallflowers. In other sections, weeded, swept, and immaculately tended, huge monuments incised with Hebrew characters bore a heavy load of sculpted fruits, animals, priestly hands, and the tools of trades. The stones were cool to the touch, amid a musky odor of rotting leaves.

Among the largest monuments in the cemetery—the baroque monument to the actor Ester Rachel Kaminska; the porphyry stone of writer I. L. Peretz; the ponderous granite tomb of Adam Czerniakow, who after pleading in vain for the lives of the Ghetto's orphans took his own—was a large sarcophagus. On top rested a stone sphere the size of a bowling ball. Below a ledge of marble chips planted with plastic begonias was a large mosaic, a sea-green star with a white letter E at the center. Rays of blue, red, and white flared out in all directions. It was gaudy and amateurish, awkward in execution. The inscription read:

DOKTORO LAZARO LVDOVIKO ZAMENHOF KREINTO DE

ESPERANTO

naskita 15. xii. 1859. mortis 14. iv. 1917

Esperanto: I recalled one glancing encounter with it when I was twenty-three, an American in self-imposed exile, living in a chilly flat in London. The reign of Sid Vicious was about to be usurped by Margaret Thatcher, and the pittance I earned in publishing was just enough to buy standing room at Friday matinees and an occasional splurge on mascara. My boyfriend, Leo, and I found a rock-bottom price for a week in the Soviet Union; the only catch was that January, the cheapest time of the year to go, was also the coldest: in Moscow, 28 degrees Fahrenheit below; in Leningrad, a balmy zero. Leo took his parka out of storage; I borrowed warm boots, a fake-fur coat, and a real fur hat, and off we went. (In fact, I found it much warmer in the Soviet Union than in London, at least inside—chalk that up to central heating, which I could not afford.)

At the Hermitage, I wandered over to a large, amber-hued painting labeled PeMĈpaHgT. Pembrandt?—no, Rembrandt. A prodigal myself, I recognized it as a painting of the Prodigal Son, a young man kneeling in the embrace of a red-caped patriarch. As I drew closer to the supplicant, I noticed he had an admirer besides me: a tall, slender woman about my age with wispy bangs, stylish boots, and a brown wool coat. The previous day, a well-coiffed Intourist guide had explained to me that there were three kinds of women in Russia: women with fur hats, women with fur collars, and —she paused for effect—women with no fur at all. Here was one of the latter, and while I noted her furlessness, she greeted me in Russian. "npHBeT."

"Preevyet. Hello," I said.

She smiled. "My name is Ekaterina, I am from Alma Ata. Where are you from?" She seemed to be rummaging for more English words, but after "Do you speak Esperanto?" the pantry was bare.

Laughing, I asked, "Frangais?" but she wasn't joking.

"Ne, ne," she said deliberately, her gray eyes narrowing, "Es-per- AN-to." One of us, I was sure, was ridiculous, but who? She, speaking to me in a pretend language? I, ignorant of Russian,

Kazakh, and Esperanto, in my red Wellingtons, got up as Paddington Bear? Even as we shook hands and parted ways, the conversation was swiftly becoming an anecdote, a story to tell next week at the Swan over a pint of bitter.