Book Review - Among the Living and the Dead
A
descendent of Latvian refugees, Inara Verzemnieks was raised in the US by her
grandparents. Following the death of Livija, her beloved grandmother, Inara
sets out to discover her roots in the hope she might “find her again in the old
stories that still existed there.” In Latvia she visits her great-aunt Ausma
for the first time. Over five years, she pieces together the sisters’ stories –
how they lost each other during the Second World War and did not meet again for
almost fifty years. Livija lived in a German refugee camp with her young family
until they were allowed to travel to America. Her husband was treated with
suspicion because he had been conscripted by the Nazis. Asuma also suffered the
pain of exile as one of 41,000 Latvians sent to Siberia under Soviet order in
March 1949.
Latvia’s
history, Verzemnieks learns, is “cratered with epochs of loss and
displacement.” Her family are from
Gulbene, a region shaped by centuries of migration and flight: “Once, the
people who lived here didn’t even bother distinguishing between the different
routes that cut through their land. They simply called the paths in and out of
their region by one name: war roads.” Those born prior to the 20th
century would have been “bound under hereditary contract to provide a lifetime
of labor to the wealthy friends of whatever empire happens to be ruling at the
time.” In 1882, her great-great grandfather purchased the land he worked from
the German baron who employed him.
Livija
and Asuma grew up on the farm they called Lembi and were considered well-off by
local standards. Livija was sent to boarding school, housed in a castle reclaimed
by a newly independent Latvia at the close of World War I. There she met her
future husband. Asuma’s education was cut short following the arrival of Soviet
troops in Latvia. Verzemnieks is eager to glean as much information as possible
from Asuma, collecting and pocketing her memories “like they are so many
perfect stones”, even though it is sometimes painful for her grand-aunt to
recall her past. Asuma’s husband, Harijs, tries to intervene by reciting a list
of his own calamities, “to offer me his trauma, so that he might spare his love
talking about hers.”
Verzemnieks’
lyrical memoir is subtitled: “A Tale of Exile and Homecoming.” She gets to the
heart of what it means to be a refugee: the painful limbo, the longing for
home, the constant desire to resurrect what has been lost. It’s also a
homecoming of sorts. Verzemnieks may have lost one set of grandparents in
America but she gains the love of another side of her family who welcome her
with open arms.
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