Postscript: For the reader

My last letter returned two months after I sent it. Yarostan’s address was completely covered by a large blot of opaque ink, and an arrow pointed to my address. There were no explanations anywhere on the envelope; in fact, there was no indication my letter had gotten any further than the local post office where the stamps were canceled, there was no clue as to who had returned it or why. During the past eight years I haven’t heard a single word from Yarostan or Mirna or Yara or Jasna. The “police capitalism” that imposed itself by means of its “historically available instruments” still rules today.

I held on to Yarostan’s letters and the carbon copies of mine; occasionally I shared them with friends. Several years ago one of those who read them suggested I share them with a larger circle of friends. I hesitated because there was too much in them that could incriminate people whose lives are under constant police surveillance — and not merely “over there.” When I finally decided to accept the suggestion, I carefully omitted all the names of places, and I changed the name of every person mentioned in both sets of letters, except where I felt this wasn’t necessary (as with my own name: the police files over there never listed me as Nachalo, but as the daughter of the man I called “Alberts”). I hope “Yarostan” forgives me for making a book out of his letters to me: I hope even more that he sees this book.

I’m deeply grateful to all those who offered to help me typeset, proofread and print these letters, particularly to Ted and Tina. I’d like to address these letters to “all my likes” and “all Yarostan’s likes,” as he would have put it. And I want to dedicate it to the people I named Yarostan, Mirna, Yara, Jasna, Zdenek, Jan, Vesna and Irena, and to those I called Ron, Jose, Alec and Tissie,

S.N.