By Carine Topal
Cher Chagall,
It was always the umbrella floating to the milky clouds. The cow with fiddle, the bride in white, the tilted menorah. And Liozna, your town at the end of the world. Cher, you kept our people alive: the lamb’s blood, the mezuzah donning the doorway, while other tribes clawed at us. The strain of the earth was never in your eyes. We trusted you, our home from far away, the one you kept lush for us, your palette oozing with living green, our boys and girls climbing the pear trees, someone’s wife flying in the blue.
Votre sincѐrement,
Mademoiselle T.
Chere Mademoiselle T.
We are cousins, no? You see the Jew with the tallit and torah? The cow beside him, the violin beneath his chin? That is us. All of us. We share the same sapphire sky. When my eyes are awake and my bare feet grounded on the cold wood floor, I paint. The taste of metal leaves my mouth. I am rimmed in moonlight’s glow. It seems we are no longer strangers.
Cousin Marc
Cher Cousin Marc,
Your color-drenched hand held us down for decades; we never stopped searching for our glassy-eyed babushka, her apron filled with thrush eggs—a clutch of five— in her satchel a cluster of beetroots ready for the brine.
Merci mon cousin,
Carine
-stanza break-
Cousine Carine,
And there is Bella by the door, fetching in that chemise with white collar. We are lovers under lilies. Again, I paint the cow, the bird, the winged red-haired child. And the wedding crown. Yes, we returned to Liozna, discovered our parents had prepared a table with candelabras, bottles of wine, meats, black breads we loved. And sweet red plums. We married. The following spring Hashem blessed us with a baby girl. We lived many good years in Paris. I was loved for my paintings. Bella was my milk-moon, my Passover wine. I promised her Paris. And we were happy here. Ma cousine, forgive me for going on. The calendar stops here. Violins played the night Bella’s heart gave out. Suddenly.
Ton cousin de tristesse,
Marc
Cher Cousin Marc,
My heart aches for your loss. I know that your daughter will bring you some comfort, her face the face of Bella. Meanwhile, my socks are up, my one hand reaches for the coffee and morning begins. How is it I am still startled by dawn, scent of rain disappearing, light crossing the room. And I surrender. To write.
Ton cousine,
Carine
Chere Carine,
My loneliness brought me Vava in her lavender dress, green velvet fields beneath her borrowed shoes. My life in color. I hold her, she who is tethered to my boy. Now tell me, how is it your Jake and Esther are gone? Your Isadore and Paulina of Belarus? Their grown daughter’s hair like a chapeau ablaze. You speak of my goats and cows and flying brides but you, ma cousine, are the veins of our ancestors hurling the twilight on its toes. Tell me what has driven us to getaway boats? Remind me, s’il te plait, how the war ended, how we scattered, how you came to my address like a flung star tapping at my door.
Cousin Marc
The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process
During the dark times, in particular, the creative process, the act of generating new ideas, establishing unique perspectives in a worried world, allows us to face challenges, connects us to others, encourages empathy.
What was the inspiration for your creative work?
I love the paintings and stained-glass structures of Marc Chagall. His dream-like quality, and his incorporation of fantasy and folklore, his use of vibrant colors, weave themselves into my writing.
Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation?
Summers in New York City were always brutally hot and humid. My parents sent me up to the Berkshires in New England where I fell in love with the cool lakes of Connecticut. I felt safe, embraced by the mountains, the white pines and paper birches standing like monuments. I try to keep that image in the foreground, hoping that my granddaughters will one day be able to feel the joy that I felt while swimming in clean water, while resting beneath a kingdom of pines and birches.
