This story was archived in my memory, and remained there until the day I stopped at that colorful market in New York.
That night, in my rented apartment in Brooklyn Heights, I imagined the thousands of desperate people who, like that livestock trader, immigrated to Russia in search of a better future. Those who embarked on a journey to a place where everyone had the right to be happy, without suspecting that they were heading toward their ruin. The lives and deaths of all of those people inspired me to write this story about hope and egotism, about innocence and evil, about ideals and love—a tale of the consequences of fanaticism and poverty, but also, at the same time, a tribute to the sacrifice and fortitude of a group of courageous people who, thrown into an alien world, fought to be the masters of their own destinies.
I didn’t want to end this reflection without borrowing the words of an old writer friend, who once assured me that if you search deeply enough, every life contains the inspiration for a beautiful novel. I don’t know whether he was right, but what I can say without fear of being mistaken is that this novel was inspired by a beautiful person, my beloved grandma Bienvenida.
A GENUINE STORY
Regardless of the necessary degree of truthfulness required from any novel inspired by real events, determining the balance of reality versus fiction on each of its pages always puts the writer in a predicament. When I embarked on writing this novel, the options I toyed with brought uncertain rewards. If the documented facts outweighed the fiction, it would enjoy the credibility bestowed by historical rigor, but at the risk of infecting the book with the dryness of a novelized essay. Conversely, if the emotions of the characters took precedence over the facts, it could arouse the suspicion of historians.
For the layperson, an approach based entirely on the facts seems the less risky alternative. However, I was preparing to spend three years of my life writing a novel, so the choice could not be based so much on these considerations as on what I honestly felt the reader deserved. And the reader deserved not so much a true story as a genuine one.
The macroeconomic data that politicians bombard us with does not reflect the reality of an economic depression. A depression is the poor woman whose desperation leads her to throw herself from a balcony because she cannot see a future for her children, or the thousands of destitute people rummaging through waste containers in search of something to eat. Equally, love is not the pleasure of a passing conquest, or a Valentine’s Day gift wrapped at the last minute. Love is a widow’s gaze as she caresses the photograph of her sweetheart and longs for the embraces they shared, or the throb you feel when you are near the person who makes you want to live every second as if it were your last.
This is why, instead of writing about historical figures, I preferred to tell a story about characters. After all, all I knew about the real figures were their deeds; I knew nothing of their feelings, their fears, their ambitions, the hatred they harbored in their hearts, or their darkest desires. In which case, what should I do? Invent their thoughts, fictionalize their feelings, and fabricate their actions? Would that be honest? Would it be right to put words that they never said in the mouths of historical figures, or describe feelings they never had? Rather than lie, would it not be preferable to create fictitious people of flesh and bone, whose actions could be shaped by those exceptional circumstances that really did change the lives of millions? How would I make readers more realistically experience the terrible events that took place, and what, in short, would be more real?
The decision meant choosing between reason and emotion. The judicious me said, Play it safe, but my heart compelled me to lay myself open. In the end, the decision was dictated by feeling. I wanted to write a novel, and a novel is, by definition, fiction. And why do we love fiction? For its unique ability to trigger emotions, to captivate, to make us dream of characters who love and feel just like we do. Their problems interest us because they are our problems, and we are moved by their lives because they are our lives. And because if reason is what makes us human, then feelings are what make us people.
The process
Though this was to be a novel, the complexity of the historical setting of the 1930s required me to redouble my research efforts to ensure that every last detail of my depiction of a period as enthralling as it was heartrending was imbued with plausibility. It was arduous and treacherous work, hindered by the contradictory nature of the records, which varied substantially depending on the source. As clear as the water from a spring may seem, it always carries sediment from the place from which it emerges.
To determine the accuracy of the facts, I classified the documentation according to the political affiliation of its authors, weeding out any documents of a propagandist nature produced by biased factions on whatever side. I did this with the large number of essays and chronicles published in Europe at the time—the contents of which reflect the sentiments of those who saw Russia as a beacon of freedom and hope—and with those who viewed her only as an imminent threat. It is also worth mentioning the large collection of reports, essays, and analyses produced after the advent of glasnost, which were a ray of light in this long and murky tunnel.
As for the thousands of immigrants who, without intending to, became the protagonists in a horror movie not of their making, we can differentiate between three groups. First, the technicians and specialized workers who provided their services in exchange for advantageous remuneration. Second, the handful of idealists who, identifying with the principles of equality and solidarity that underpinned the Soviet Union, left behind everything they had to begin a new life that was as hard as it was altruistic. And finally, the largest contingent and the one that suffered the most hardship as a result of the events that unfolded: the legion of dispossessed Americans who, dazzled by the promises of prosperity advertised in the New York Times, left the United States in search of the work and sustenance that their own country denied them.
For this dispossessed group, the adventure proved particularly painful. Most of the Americans who traveled to the Soviet Union did so before the United States established diplomatic relations, which in practice meant that, when their visas expired, they were left with a choice between being expelled from the country or renouncing their US citizenship and accepting Soviet nationality. Faced with this predicament, many decided to return to their homeland, but when they tried, the Soviet authorities stopped them. The Stalinist purges put an end to the exploits of these workers who went in search of prosperity and ended up the scapegoats of Soviet totalitarianism.