She didn’t even speak English when she went to an American public school at age 12, but when she turned 23, she graduated magna-cum-laude from college, and, 30 years later, published her famous ‘Up the Down Staircase,’ a bestselling novel about an uncompromising fledgling teacher of English at a New York City high school.
Bel Kaufman, Shalom Aleichem’s famous granddaughter, died exactly a week ago, at 103 years of age. The news, as sad as it sounds, might seem a little trivial in our severe times of life and death, but there is something inquisitively striking to it: There lives a well-known Georgian TV journalist of Soviet times in the United States who remembers Bel well. Nana Gongadze is still remembered in Sakartvelo thanks to her longtime elegant presence on the air in this country. She left her motherland quite a while ago to continue life and work overseas together with her late and even more famous husband Tengiz Sulkhanishvili, one of the most memorable TV anchors in Georgia.
Gongadze remembers with love and excitement that Bel (family members would call her Bella, by Russian tradition) went to a dance class at the age of 101, highlighting her tango performance by wearing much celebrated high heels. Nana did a story about the aged beauty for WMNB TV station when the pride of the nation was only (only!) 95. That was the day when Bella and Nana became pals, and never forgot each other after. The heels probably made the years feel lighter to the perennially youthful celebrity of our time, seeing her conquering the peaks with zest and ease. Says Gongadze: Bel’s self-deprecatory young soul would never allow the ever-present problems and pains take their toll, and she had a perpetually radiant smile on her beautiful face.
According to Nana Gongadze’s lovely narrative, Bel Kaufman, the descendent of one of the greatest Jewish classic writers, author and teacher herself, became one of the harshest critics of the American school system. More than a million copies of her incomparable ‘Up the Down Staircase’ were sold all over the world, having been translated into a score of various languages. Using her own experience of teaching school children, she created an unforgettable saga in the form of brief quips and epistolary dialogues, describing the pedagogical anguish and agony she suffered in her years toiling at school. In 1967, notes our dazzlingly gifted compatriot Nana Gongadze, Hollywood gave the world Robert Mulligan’s cinematographic version of Kaufman’s extremely popular book, in which the main protagonist of the novel, the idealist English teacher Sylvia Barrett, was played by the famed American actress Sandy Dennis. The film earned global recognition for Bel Kaufman.
Nana says she met her one winter’s day 29 years ago, in her Manhattan Park-Avenue penthouse when she sought to create a TV story about the all-American celebrity of the day. Soon after, Gongadze wrote a story about Bella for Voice of America. Nana recollected Bella’s interpretation of her phenomenal longevity: “I am too busy thinking about my age. Look at my desk! It’s full of papers with versatile projects. I am trying to write my life story, the memories, rather! The title has just occurred to me: ‘Dear Dad’. We lived in Odessa when I was four. Shalom Aleichem was already in New York, from where he wrote to me: ‘I am writing this letter for you to grow up fast and learn how to read and write to drop me a word sometimes. And to grow up quicker, you have to drink milk, eat stews and vegetables, and refrain from sweets. Just call your dolls in and play with them’. We never called him grandpa: He was Papa Shalom for all of us kids.’ And said Nana a prayer for a friend who was no longer around: Bella, darling, we all remember you. Rest in peace!
And here goes the finishing touch to the whole story: no sooner was Kaufman’s future bestseller out in print in 1964 to charm millions all over the world, I managed to get my hands on it. I had its pages on photographic copies. There was no xerox machine in Georgia at the time: I translated the book in one breath. It was all typed on a typewriter and brought to soviet publishers. For reasons unbeknownst to me, the Georgian translation of Bel Kaufman’s absolutely brilliant ‘Up the Down Staircase’ never saw daylight in Georgia. It is still sitting on one of my ancient bookshelves, wrapped in a faded cartoon file, waiting for a publisher to take up a job.
Blog by Nugzar B. Ruhadze
