Writing the life of

Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of  Ona Šimaitė by Julija Šukys

In January this year, I attended a talk at La Salle by a certain Julija Šukys, a Lithuanian writer who was invited to share on her experience researching, tracking, and understanding the letters of an obscure Lithuanian Holocaust hero—the librarian Ona Šimaitė. "She is not Jewish, but she hid our sacred books."

I was piqued because I was working intensively on 17A at that time, and also, The Magic Circle (launching at swf this Nov!). How do we, as editors, work with intensely private, personal stories, while presenting it in an accessible, compelling way, that remains every bit authentic and true? I remember Julija reading an excerpt from the first chapter to give us a teaser of the tone of the book. This excerpt details Parc Monceau, a space and time of which Julija the narrator was immersing herself in, and which Ona frequently visits and refers to as that place "of restful beauty and of sanctity" (because in 1871 members of the Paris Commune were shot there en masse). Julija writes:

"Every day she comes home by metro and crosses the park to her apartment on the rue de Courcelles. I've been following her for weeks. ... On hot days she rinses her face and hands at the green fountain by the grass. I keep my distance, observing her as I would an animal. In one arm she carries a loaf of bread, and in the other, her ubiquitous handbag. Today I learned that Claude Monet painted this park five times. Every garden, every street in this city has been marked only by revolution but by art. The librarian loves to walk the streets that writers walked and to sit in the places that painters studied. In Paris, she often writers in her letters, even a person of the most modest means has access to great beauty.
The lacy iron gate on the far side of the park is only a short walk from her building. Exiting, we pass a curious red facade of dueling dragons and lattice before we descend the gentle slope to Number 38. the building is dated 1927. Carvings of plum peonies adorn its entrance. I hang back and watch her disappear inside as the gate clangs shut. This is as far as I go."

It was that last line that convinced me to buy a copy thereafter (and have it signed with a beautiful message), because I really wanted to know how Julija navigated writing about the very history—life—of a person who was dead, and who, in her letters, speak about such catastrophes that marked humanity.

About 2 months ago, after my last read, and because I was starting work on a compilation of a certain somebody's letters, I picked up the hardback to read about Ona Šimaitė. Travelling to the Vilnius Library where Ona spent her profession, to Paris where Ona lived after she moved out, and finally to the aged home where Ona breathed her last—Julija could not resist the ghost of Šimaitė.

Despite parenthood and career diversions, lack of answers, and missing letters, Julija instead found her present life profoundly intertwined with that of Ona's. It was as though Ona's memoir—repeatedly persuaded to completion by Ona's editor and writerly friends—would finally be done only after her death, and by one person—Julija.

Reading Ona's narrative as sequenced by Julija, there were some chapters and allusions that to me seemed a tad too liberal, and I was pricked by it, because of the audacity. And I wonder what could have been an alternative—or left unsaid. It made me think of how extrapolating the narrative non-fiction genre could go, how much of the writer's self should dominate, and what then of the collaboration between biographer and biography? At the later parts of the book, Julija reveals more about the condition of women at that period in time, and in particular, the vicissitudes of Ona's respondents—close friends and relatives. Quite significantly featured towards the end are tragedies, one was the mysterious suicide of her newly married editor friend from Vilnius Library, and the other, her niece Adule. Who in photos was a resplendent-looking youthful face, but whose fate was marred by the burdens of schizophrenia. She had insomnia, was married followed by the birth of her son, an aborted second pregnancy, divorce, isolation, and twenty years after Ona's last correspondence, Adule was found one morning, frozen to death in her garden, wearing only a nightshirt.

"Stories within stories."

That's what Julija believed and interpreted, as she trawled through hundreds of handwritten letters and correspondence, consulting with Ona's grandnephew, and entering Ona's world by laying feet down on the ground where she once trod. Ona was like a friend, say, an abiding presence for so long in her life, that Julija could not not feel the heart of Ona as Ona received these letters. That is why Julija could have the confidence to write herself—a woman—into the story, fully aware of the obligations not to readers, or the future generations, but to herself and to Ona. Julija writes:

"Writing a woman's life as a woman. To respect not only one's subject's methods of inscribing the dailiness of her life, but to respect one's own voice. Years ago I began to think of myself as having a relationship with Šimaitė, and I imagined my research in the archives as a conversation. She spoke to me through her diaries and letters, and I responded to her through my writing. As a result, my understanding of Šimaitė's life is inextricably linked to the experience of my own.
Šimaitė lived through reading and writing. It was a major struggle or her to clear the time she needed to accomplish the literary work she both desired and felt obligated to do. And now, as my own life fills increainsgly with thankless everyday tasks, I find I understand her more and more. ... And I follow her in my imagination because I trust her as a guide to her personal past. I interpret the signs she leaves, I fill in the gaps as best I can, but I cannot claim to know. Where I invent, I must admit it. Because I do not want to lie to my reader, or to betray my friend Šimaitė, I cannot erase myself. "

And as I wrap up the book, I don't feel so much that Julija had robbed away the voice of Ona's even as she added much of her self, her thoughts, and her inferences into the narrative. In all respects, Julija strove to use her insights as a driving force to propel the narrative, while being respectfully faithful to the words of Ona's. She spent almost a decade having this relationship with a ghost, from when she was still a student, until now as a mother. It is an obsession, and a journey that's taken and given much. Finally, Julija closes this chapter as she is in her hometown in Montreal in autumn. She is holding the hand of Sebastian her little son, and speaking about the turning of a season, when the leaves fall—a passing afternoon. "Out of the corner of my eye I see the flash of a black hem disappear behind a tree. He sees it too, I think, and he waves his arms and squeals in its direction. She is here, her presence unmistakable."