Shooting the War

“And why shouldn’t I go out in this costume?” I asked.
“Because you will be so stared at,” said Elisaveta.
“I’ve been stared at in so many countries,” I replied, “that I might as well add one more to the list.”
However, a natural reluctance to be stared at by a whole stadium caused me to abandon my more convenient slacks for a skirt, on the day that I went out to photograph a football game; but my camera attracted an amount of attention that proved painful to me, nevertheless.
On a Sunday shortly before the war, when the Dynamo team played the Red Army, I took my place with the Soviet press photographers. It was with some pride that I brought out my new Speed Graphic, which had been built especially for me by the Folmer Graflex Company in Rochester. It has range and distance finders for five interchangeable lenses, and when a 30-cm. telephoto lens is used, on a 3%/ x 41/4 film, it is an excellent camera for sports. At least the Rochester technicians and I thought so. But the Soviet photographers all use the Russian Leica. It is made in one of their new factories, and while the lenses are ununiform, the camera itself is fairly well constructed, and the Russians are exceedingly proud of it. Any camera larger than the palm of your hand is something they think an antique. “Why does she use such an old-fashioned camera?” I could hear them say about my beautiful treasure, so newly designed that there was only one in existence.
No photographer likes to look old-fashioned in front of one hundred thousand people. I could not stand up and make a speech to the stands, explaining that in America practically all pressmen use Speed Graphics, and most of them a size larger than mine. It was even worse when, after I had photographed a few touchdowns, I turned my camera on the crowds, who interested me more than the game itself. Their incredulity—that the American photo-correspondent should turn her back on the game—was audible.
I shall probably never be able to redeem my reputation with the football fans, who perhaps think that in the United States we are still using wet plates; but I am happy that before I left the country I was able to vindicate my cameras before the Russian photographers. After watching on repeated occasions, with some amazement, what a peanut flash bulb could do, they requested me to show my equipment before a mass meeting of photographers, and they left in ecstasies over what were, to them, entirely new developments in camera construction and flash synchronization.
But some of the elements of our culture which they chose to borrow surprised me exceedingly, principally the cocktail. Its evolution, by the time it reaches Gorky Street, is something to astonish anyone who had been inadequately trained on Fifty-second Street. The new palatial Koktail Hall serves a Kowboy Koktail which would frighten into a stampede the cowboys after whom it is named. Several layers of brightly colored liqueurs, combined with gin and topped with brandy, are separated by the yolk of an egg into something that looks like a rainbow parfait and tastes like everything behind the counter.
I suggested to Erskine that maybe they were trying to symbolize the dawn of civilization, with a rising sun and everything, but he was busy murmuring under his breath, “Which came first, the cowboy or the . . . ?”
The Kowboy Koktail has a little cousin, The Beacon, also designed like a prism: a layer of chartreuse below the egg yolk and an inch of brandy above. These masterpieces are swallowed in one gulp (it was one gulp or not at all, I discovered) by actresses, literati, and Red Army soldiers on leave, to the tune of four rubles and ten kopecks a cocktail, or ninety cents. But these evidences of foreign culture are discarded by most Russians for vodka, which tastes like kerosene until you get used to it but usually turns out to be the best idea after all.
During those prewar weeks, whether we were attending a writers’ banquet with Petrov, or whether I was photographing schools and factories with members of the staff of VOKS, or whether I was just walking along the streets or sitting in a little restaurant with Elisaveta, I noticed that the jokes people told were beginning to take on a political significance. I have often thought that one can tell more about what the people are thinking by the anecdotes that they tell than any other way. Many of these stories were aimed at Hitler.
In one of their favorite anecdotes, Hitler goes to the edge of the English Channel and stands there looking longingly across the water. He decides that the problem is too much for him and summons the
oldest rabbi in the countryside, who, he believes, can give him expert advice.
Hitler explains his problem, and the rabbi says, “Oh, that’s not so difficult. Moses had the same problem three thousand years ago.” “What did Moses do?” asks the Riltrer.
“Oh, he solved it very simply,” answers the rabbi. “All he did was to pick up a certain stick, strike the waters, and everything was handled.”
“That’s just what I wanted to know,” exclaims Hitler. “Where is that stick?”
And the rabbi replies, “It’s in the British Museum.”
Another indication of the drift of international relations was a new rule that was passed, forbidding foreigners, even diplomats, from traveling outside Moscow without a government permit. This meant that even members of the diplomatic corps could not travel down to the Black Sea for a vacation without a special permit, which- was not often granted. This annoyed the diplomatic colony at first, but soon they guessed that it was a measure aimed at the Germans, to keep them from seeing too much.
However, it was essential for us to break through this regulation if we were going to do our work properly, and with the help of the Writers’ Union and VOKS, which felt it was all to the good to permit us to do a thorough reporting job of their country, in words and pictures, we were given permission to travel. Early in June we left for an extended trip through the wheat fields of the Ukraine, factories in Kharkov, Rostov, the Donbas Coal Region, the Caucasus, and the Black Sea. It seemed advisable to have Russian traveling companions, as our limited knowledge of the Russian language was hardly adequate for such a trip, and we asked Petrov and Elisaveta to come along. We were delighted when they were able to arrange to come with us.
A crowd of Soviet writers saw us off at the station with baskets of wine, vodka, chocolates, and packages of fresh caviar to eat on the train.
As the train pulled out of the station, Elisaveta took me aside. There were two compartments, and she felt a conference was in order.
“How shall we divide up?” she asked. “We two girls together, or what?”
“What is your preference?” I inquired.
“Preference doesn’t enter into it,” she said, using the phrase I had heard before in the Soviet Union. “An interpreter is a sexless person.”
“In that case, I have a preference,” I said. “I’d like to stay with my husband.”
And so it was arranged.