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What a wonderful slice of life
we shared...
The origins
of the Tchouktche tribe : a love story |
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Léna KUMPANIETZ and
Jean WEBER
With a big smile and witty eyes under a blond
bang, Lena Weber welcomes us in her small flat in
the XVth district of Paris. The library full of
books gives the room a warm atmosphere. Léna
makes herself comfortable in a wide armchair. We
sit down on the sofa covered with soft cushions.
She looks at Jean’s painting hanging on the
wall. Then, words start flowing, her hands move
enthusiastically, her eyes light up, she takes us
into another time where Jean, the man of her life,
filled the room with laughter.
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Jean Weber |
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Léna Kumpanietz |
“We were not
meant to ever meet. I was the daughter of Russian
emigrants and was born in Paris.
My father fled Ukraine together with his brother
in 1917. My mother left to live with her sister
in France shortly before 1939. Both my father and
her were living in Clamart where an important Russian
community was established. This was where they met.
My mother was not in love with my father, however,
as I was on my way to the world, they had to get
married.
My father was a taxi driver - the only job a Russian
emigrant was allowed to have. At home, we were three
kids who had to go to the Russian school, to the
Russian summer camp, speak Russian, think Russian,
eat Russian, read Russian (even French writers like
Zola) and so on. The atmosphere at home was heavy
and even violent sometimes. My parents used to fight
a lot but my father would bear with my mother’s
screams and blows quietly. As a consequence, since
I was 5 years old, I promised myself that I would
always love my husband and children and never reproduce
what had lived at home.
When I turned 17, my mother decided that I would
get married to a man from the……..Russian
church. How scary! So I told her, I would be the
one sleeping with him, not her, and got hit as never
before!!!!!!! From that time I dreamt only of leaving
that destructive and evil atmosphere. An angel must
have heard my prayer.
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When
people would ask, Jean how we met, he would always
say “by mistake”.
When I was 18, in June 1959, I worked in Paris for
the Exarchat (the bishopric) of the Patriarchate
of Moscow in Occidental Europe, in the XVth arrondissement,
rue Petel.
One day, as I answered the phone in my usual manner
“Allo, Lena speaking”, I heard a voice
saying “Allo, it’s Jean”.
At that time, I was living a strict life in the
environment of the Russian Church as well as under
my mother’s power, so I was not at all the
kind of person who would give her phone number to
strangers. Especially to a man! Moreover, I could
not figure out who that “Jean” could
be.
He asked me what number he had dialled. I told him
and realized it was a mistake: he was looking for
people, I had never heard of.
Then he started flirting lightly, asking me “do
you live with your parents?”. The only answer
he got out of me that day was a shy “yes”.
I was as silent as the grave!
The next day to my surprise he called again. But
this time, I answered some of his questions, after
he said that he liked my voice. He told me that
he was a photographer and that he would love to
take pictures of me. My mother, oh, her again! She
told me never to trust a photographer. So I turned
him down saying I was 35, short, fat and did not
look good at all in pictures. But he was not the
kind that gets easily put out and he replied “I
am 75 and I have a wooden leg”.
And here he managed to get our first rendez-vous,
in front of the war memorial in the XVth arrondissement.
I knew, I was not taking a big risk, as I could
see the statue from my window and therefore decide
to go or not depending on the man’s looks.
I eventually went down. I was wearing Greta Garbo-like
dark glasses, a nice little dress emphasizing my
thin waist and so he saw walking down to him a very
young, tall, blond, very thin woman, well in other
words, someone very
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Léna, first shooting
for their first date |
different
from the description, I had made of myself. He was
stunned, when I stood before him and said, “here
I am”.
We slowly walked towards the Champs de Mars. As
I was still somehow so full of my mother’s
prejudices, I asked him whether he really had a
film in his camera. He was furious that I doubted
it and threw away all the films, he had just bought.
Very soon all the motherly fears and fantasies were
just blown away. He was so funny. I was charmed
and feeling good.
The next day I eventually agreed to go out with
him for a drink even though my mother could find
out. He took me to the Rhumerie Martiniquaise. I
was so unused to drinking that the double punch,
I was served, left me rooted to the spot. Me, who
was usually so silly, shy and prude, was laughing
heartedly while holding the hand of the man, I barely
knew so that I could walk straight. On the way back
to Clamart he convinced me to go out with him for
dinner. I was meant to meet with a couple of friends.
I made up a hindrance. This started a long list
of lies…
That very evening Jean held me in his arms and kissed
me for the first time.
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Port-Mignon
Happiness did not last long. A few days later, I
had to stand, at the last minute, for an instructor
who had suddenly left the kids unattended at the
Russian summer camp.
Of course, I did not want to go and I ended up in
Port Mignon heavy at heart. But then started a wonderful
epistolary relationship. Jean would write on anything
he could find, from bits of tablecloths to bits
of paper, sending little drawings together with
very nice texts. He was such a good writer and had
such a good sense of humour! I wanted to see him
again soon so badly! But after the camp ended I
went to Switzerland for a few days.
We had planned to meet in Dijon for our first week-end
together before I headed back to Paris. I was so
young and I felt so confident with him... He would
tell me how beautiful I was, to me who was always
told the opposite. I felt wanted. I was alive!!
At that moment, I realized how love could make someone
happy. And I had to protect that love just like
a treasure so that no one and nothing could destroy
it, especially my mother. She was so good at messing
up the nice things life could bring.
We were lucky. Jean lived next to my office. So
we started a long series of secret and clandestine
reunions. I became a compulsive liair. Delayed bus,
work, I would make up anything to spend time with
him. My suspicious mother did not notice it. Our
secret was well kept, although I beamed so much
at his contact....He, the funny, cultured, generous,
charming photographer understood my wounds, showed
me new horizons and tought me everything, I always
wanted to know but that had been hidden from me
or forbidden. In return I gave him my enthousiasm,
youth and fantasy.
Let me live
After a year of lies and keeping things secret,
we went on holiday to Trouville to find out whether
we were really made for each other. I pretended,
I was going on
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Back from Trouville,
Jean and Léna decide to live together
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holiday with a friend. Upon our return we decided
to live together. I went home without my suitcases,
left at Jean’s place. My mother was at home.
I made up one more lie to explain their absence
and urged her to leave the next day with my brother
and my sister. Then I wrote two letters, one to
my father, the other to my mother. I asked them
to let me live my life, to stop |
worrying
about me, however without mentioning that I was
leaving them for a man. I was so scared my mother
would destroy everything; she was such a destructor.
I think she could not bare to see happy people.
So I moved in with Jean, avenue Emile-Zola, where
I still live. No one believed in our relationship.
Even our friends thought it would not last more
than 15 days. Natacha was born 3 years later. We
lived 25 years of love, humour, tenderness, respect
of each other and admiration. And of fights too,
just like in every couple!
When he died, Jean said
the most wonderful thing to me: “We shared
a bit of life. Thank you, it was wonderful.”
He was 32 years older than me.
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Jean and Léna
at "la Gonfrière", their house
in Normandie
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Natacha and her parents |
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