—I call it my second birthday, Roidman said. Samuil invited him in and joined him at the kitchen table to raise a toast. —So, a happy occasion, Roidman said and smiled. One has to remember to rejoice—especially when everything is not going quite according to plan. By “not going quite according to plan,” Roidman meant that, after nearly a year, and after all of his son’s machinations, and all of the letters written on his behalf by Jewish ladies in Winnipeg, the Canadians still had no interest in him. Roidman confided that he would continue to wait until one of two things happened: either Canada accepted him or he finished his opera about Fanny Kaplan. He found Ladispoli to be conducive for musical composition. There was the seashore, the mild climate, stimulating company, and few practical obligations. This was how he had always imagined the way creative people worked in their exclusive rest homes and union retreats. How engaging and fulfilling it was. He had been working in one trade or another since boyhood: finishing boots with his father, a sapper’s duties in the Red Army, later his occupation in Kiev, tooling leather.
