A Woman in Amber
Agate Nesaule
 A Woman in Amber begins with Agate Nesaule as an adult. She is a successful professor of Women’s Studies and 20th century American Literature at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. Despite her outward professional success, Agate lives with an inner turmoil caused by her memories of war and perpetuated by her husband Joe. Nesaule finds herself in therapy, depressed and unable to come to terms with the root cause of her depression. On the advice of her therapist Ingeborg, Agate learns she can not begin to heal until she is able to tell her story; the story of what happened to her and her family during World War II in Latvia and Germany at the hands of the invading Russian soldiers. So she begins her story by admitting that she was in Germany during the last year of the war and that she was starving. From this first admittance, Agate begins to tell many stories related to her hunger. She tells how she was prompted by her mother to beg the Russian soldiers, in Russian, not Latvian, for food. Later in life, she mistakenly tells this same story to her husband Joe. He mocks her time and again for the way in which she was forced to beg for food; suggesting she enjoyed it. Agate remembers how the Russians looked at her as if she were a goose singing. Agate relates the shame of going hungry and living with the belief she was not worth feeding. As the war progresses, things do not get much better for Agate and her family. When the Mongolian (perhaps Mongoloid) Russian soldiers arrive, her father is forced to leave with the rest of the men. The women and young girls are taken to a basement where the women are repeatedly raped. Agate is young enough to escape this, but careful provisions must be made for her fifteen year old cousin Astrida. Agate’s mother Valda is understandably destroyed by the Russian occupation and the horrors that occur in the basement. When they are finally let out of the basement, the soldiers lead the women and girls into the woods. Everyone believes they are to be executed. Valda makes preparations to drag Agate with her to the front of the lines. Valda reasons if she and Agate are first, they will not need to see the others die. Agate does not wish to die, what ensues is a physical tug of war with her mother for her life. The struggle Agate has with her mother that day remains a constant tension between the two. Agate is unable to see Valda’s love for her and desire to save her from pain. Later, the reader comes to see that Valda did care deeply for Agate and loved her very much; particularly in Valda’s description of her desire to prepare Agate for her wedding day, a preparation Valda was never able to follow through on. Unfortunately for Valda and Agate, the trauma of war and the distance their shared experiences placed between them left no time to reconcile before Valda’s death. Later, Agate and her family journey to Berlin where they are admitted to a Displaced Persons camp. Here they are given food and shelter. The family would move many times during the next several years, going from camp to camp and beginning life again. Agate attends Latvian school while in the camps. At age twelve, Agate and her family leave the camps and immigrate to the United States. We learn of Agate's life in the United States and her parents' financial struggle. Agate must adapt to life quickly in the United States. A quick learner, Agates teaches herself English in one summer. The first book she learns to read in English is Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. An excellent student, Agate receives a scholarship to attend Indiana University. While there, she meets her future husband Joe. Agate’s family does not agree with the marriage, and it finalizes the distance between Agate and her mother. During the next twenty years Agate receives her doctorate degree, has a son named Boris, and becomes a successful professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Constantly living with Joe’s put downs, harassments, and minimization of the trauma she endured in the war, Agate represses her feelings of depression and tries to carry on with her life. Though they are separated for much of their adult life, Agate and Beate rejoin each other when Beate’s husband Uldis dies alone and penniless from alcohol poisoning. Despite being distanced from the Latvian community in Indianapolis where her father remained very active, Agate retains a close tie to her Latvian heritage. When a friend asks what he may bring Agate from Latvia, she asks for some Latvian soil. It is party due to her connection with Latvia that her new husband John is able to find a way into Agate’s heart. Throughout her life, Agate admires an amber pendant that her mother wore and then passed down to Agate. John gives Agagte a similar piece of amber. Through his respectful and receptive listening Agate is fully able to heal when she tells John her story and finally finds acceptance.