Simone De Beauvoir is best known for her works such as “The Second Sex” and “The Woman Destroyed,” but little is known of her novellas, including "A Misunderstanding in Moscow." Set in the 1960s Nicole and Andre are an old married couple from Paris who go to Russia to visit Andre's daughter, Macha, from a previous marriage. On this trip, readers will observe how despite being married for years, Andre and Nicole grow apart and have become strangers. The ever-changing Russia and dialogue about the politics of the Cold War serves as a comparison to that of the marriage between Nicole and Andre in which they have in a way unfamiliar to each other and themselves.
There are misunderstandings and confusion between the East and West just as there can be in families. De Beauvoir writes what Andre reflects:
Perhaps they would enable socialism to triumph, but their version of it would bear no
relation to the one his parents, his comrades, and he himself had dreamed of. Yet if the USSR
settled down to peaceful coexistence, socialism would be a long time coming...No the future had
never seemed so bleak to Andre...What he had wanted was for [his life] to be usually incorporated
into a history that led me towards happiness. Doubtless they would find happiness one day (35).
In this party of the story, Andre is reflecting on how Macha's views of socialism and upbringing differs from his own as they are a product of their time period and setting. Despite being related and regardless of how they frame their point of view, they are still unable to agree. However, it also serves as a metaphor for the distancing and friction between the connection of he and Nicole. Triumph for Andre is his happiness as he continues to think that his life had served no purpose. When he sees young people, he envies them for what he would consider a privilege to be young and have the energy to participate and witness such a pivotal moment in history. Despite generational differences, they are forced to coexist. Similarly, he and Nicole are at a standstill by simply coexisting with no passion and lack of understanding each other’s suffering.
Just as Andre is dwelling on what ifs, Nicole is suffering from existential dread as well. De Beauvoir writes what she thinks, “‘I could have been someone else, but then it would be someone else questioning about her self.’ It gave her vertigo to sense at once her contingency and the necessary coincidence between herself and her history,” (55). Instead of wishing she were younger, she begins to think what if she were another person. Unlike Andre, she's accepted the fact that she's gotten older and is not wishing herself to be young again. She argues that regardless of who she could have been in another life, this sense of questioning life's purpose was bound to happen one way or another.
De Beuvoir reveals how individuals are subject to their own body. De Beauvoir writes, "The church was slim and slender in a white dress covered with embroidery halfway up...'I'll have just two hardboiled eggs,' said Nicole," (26). Notice how the church is personified. A church is a landmark, a piece of geography, a part of land. It is clothed in a white dress and is feminized, just as Mother Nature is feminized, except a church is manmade. De Beuvoir is using this as a metaphor for the stages in life that women go through: purity; marriage and fertility, which is represented by the eggs that Nicole orders. By feminizing the church, it is almost as though de Beuvoir is making the point how purity, which is associated with the color white, is much more sacred to a woman's body than to men because women are bearers of children. There is a before and after purity — that is before and after sexual intercourse —, and before and after fertility. Time is the enemy and determines when a woman can and can no longer bear children. Throughout the novella, Nicole comes to terms with her aging. As for the church representing marriage, it could be seen as a comparison between the relations of two countries. In this case, the U.S. and Russia.
Nicole slowly, but surely becomes stranger to herself. De Beuvoir writes:
Some years ago, she had never imagined that she would ever worry about her weight. But now that's
what it had come to! The less easily she was able to identify with her body, the more she felt obliged to pay attention to it. She was responsible for it and she looked after it with a kind of worried devotion in the way she might have looked after an old friend who had become slightly unattractive, diminished, and who needed her (14).
She is an older woman who is feeling alienated from her own body. Notice the language she uses when she says she felt responsible for “it,” looked after “it.” There is a power struggle. Nicole is degrading herself by referring to her body as "it" as if the body itself is becoming less human and separate from her self. Another way to look at is is that there is a juxtaposition between her body and her soul. Her self is in power, yet the choice of words makes it appear as though her body is a child, which is physically the opposite. Thus, there are not only conflicting forces in politics and their marriage, but also within themselves.
In conclusion, Misunderstanding in Moscow would more accurately be titled "Misunderstandings in Moscow." The Cold War serves as a backdrop and metaphor as the delayed and misinterpreted communication between Nicole and Andre. Though on two very different pages with one another, they are both going through an existential crisis as they come to terms with aging and are facing the physical and psychological impacts. Whether it’s be a discussion of relations in a marriage, or between a father and his daughter, one thing is for certain: time is uncontrollable and can negatively impact relations among one another and with one's own physical being.
De Beauvoir, Simone. Misunderstanding in Moscow. VINTAGE CLASSICS, 2023.
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