Rose by Martin Sherman (2020) - full transcript

- She laughed

and then she blew her nose.

She had a cold.

The bullet struck her forehead.

It caught her in the middle of a thought.

She was nine.

I'm sitting shivah.

You said shivah for the dead.

Shivah sounds like the
name of a Hindu God.

Maybe it is.

I had a flirtation with
Oriental religions once.



I envied the true Buddhists.

They were able to reincarnate.

Not like us, when we're dead, we're dead.

That's life.

That's it.

It's the Jewish curse.

We don't have a heaven or a
hell and we don't come back.

It's now or never.

And for me, now is hardly at all.

I'm 80 years old.

I find that unforgivable.

And on the eve of a new millennium

I stink of the past century.

But what can I do?



I'm inching towards dust.

And sometimes I wish it would hurry

and just take me in the middle

of a thought or a sentence.

Though preferably not with
a bullet to the forehead.

And then I wonder, will anyone sit shivah

for me or maybe in the
bright new 21st century

they won't sit shivah anymore?

Well, I mean, they all draw
off the ducks will of course

but something like shivah
in reality is not religious.

It's just Jewish.

Huh? You sit on a wooden bench for a week.

You laugh, cry, and argue,
you remember the dead,

the particular dead of
that particular shivah.

And you eat a lot and you kvetch a lot

and you get a soul
behind and it reminds you

that you are from people,
a culture, a race of sore

behinds and complaints
and heated discussions,

and minds in turmoil and minds in flight,

and minds exploding like the
atom, which I never understood

but it's certainly
changed the last century.

And Albert Einstein came
from the same street

as my second husband's cousin.

So what are you gonna say?

Maybe the past century
will in fact be the next

to last century and will it all be

because a restless people
produce restless minds.

When you don't belong any place,

your mind doesn't belong any place.

You're owned by no one, except God

and God is only an idea.

And so if you believe in God,
you believe in ideas, huh?

Except now who believes in God anymore

except the fanatically committed.

And if that's true, who believes in ideas?

Now it's different of course,

because we don't wander anymore.

We have a home.

Hmm Hmm.

Can't catch my breath.

At my age breathing is one of
the few pleasures I have left.

You know, the elderly are
supposed to remember the past

with dreadful clarity.

But yesterday the present hardly at all.

With me it's not so true.

I have only vague wandering
images of my childhood.

But yesterday I remember every
single thing about yesterday.

Nothing happened yesterday.

So trust me.

But 70, 75 years ago, Yultishka.

A lot happened.

But I'm not so sure what.

Yultishka, I see clearly in my dreams

because the subconscious
is like an elephant

it never forgets.

But when I'm awake, what do I remember?

Well,

mud roads, tiny dwellings.

I'm not gonna call them houses

but then I don't wanna say huts,

so dwellings, pink trees.

Well, the blossoms were
pink and carts and wagons,

comings and goings, traffic,
but no exhaust fumes.

We had an ozone layer in those days,

the pity nobody told us
we could have enjoyed it.

Yultishka, just a little pimple

on the face of the Ukraine.

If you squeeze it, it will burst.

Just like all the other shtetls,

the little Jewish towns that clung

to the side of the
larger Russian community.

Well, sometimes they were Russian,

sometimes they were Polish.

The goyim kept killing each
other and what do you call it?

Usurping sovereignty,

sovereignty, Ukraine, why
would anybody want it?

And what would it be like today?

Yultishka.

Well for one thing

it would not be far away from Chernobyl.

But in 1920, when I was
born, it was Russian.

And as usual, there was
a civil war going on.

Only this time between the
Russians red and white.

By the time I was two, there was a famine

but there was always a plate on our table.

My mother saw to that.

She took in washing and
with the pennies from that

she bought fruit from a goyisha farmer

and she sold it in a
stand on the roadside.

And with the pennies from
that she bought us food.

To tell you the truth,

I never understood why she
didn't just use the pennies

from the washing to buy the food.

But that would have been
simple, not enough of a strain.

And she would not have been a martyr,

because my mother was a saint.

Everyone in the shtetl said so.

Which is curious because
sainthood is not a Jewish concept.

There's not even a word for
it, but she never complained.

She never questioned.

God had dropped a genuine
Christian into the middle

of a shtetl and he didn't tell us.

So I was born into a contradiction.

My mother's milk was never
quite what it seemed.

So the saint, saint traveler
was the sole provider

for my whole family.

My brother, Asher, my
little sister, Rivka,

and Rosella, the middle one.

That's, that's me.

Who am I forgetting?

Oh, Papa.

Papa.

Oh, Papa.

Was tall.

And actually he was,
he was quite a beauty,

especially his eyes, which
were always laughing,

though none of us ever got the joke.

Shortly after Rivka was born

Papa announced that he was
dying and he took to his bed.

He was in bed for years and years.

He never stopped dying.

As far as we could see, there
was nothing wrong with him.

There was a large wardrobe
right next to his bed.

And it was filled with medicine bottles

mostly used and herbal
cures, mostly empty.

But none of them could cure
this, this mysterious illness

which was a little like God

in that there was no visible sign of it.

But some fanatical Jew
insisted that it was there.

And doctors came from miles
around, always melancholy.

And they brought him medicine gifts

because Papa never paid for
any of his hopeless cures.

And then people came
from neighboring villages

and bought homemade cures.

If you can imagine this in the Ukraine,

he was a tourist attraction.

The rabbi came and said
blessings once a week

which exhausted Papa so much

that he slept through the following day.

And the local cabbalist came and talked

of devil and mentioned
exorcisms, which made Papa smile

because he had a soft
spot for hocus pocus.

But the saint who had a more
traditional form of religion

she threw them all out once a week.

Mama, mama truly believed in goodness.

More than that, if you were Jewish

you had a responsibility to be good.

You've been put on this
earth to perpetuate

a higher moral force.

For her it was just black and white.

And ironically that made
her see me even more

of a Christian.

By the time I was 10

I was selling fruit from the road side.

Asher had taught me
Russian as well as Yiddish.

I had an ear for languages,

and every day I made new
signs, which were descriptions

of the fruit, which needed no description.

You only had to look at it,

melons and berries were luscious then.

I can only imagine what they're like now

in Yultishka wherever it is now.

Mutating from fallout.

Asher went to the shivah.

It was honorable for a boy to
study, which was very annoying

for me because I had an
overwhelming appetite for knowledge.

I read everything I could lay my hands on.

I fell in love with words.

I memorized large Russian
words and I invented

new Yiddish ones.

I became pretentious in
several languages at once.

And Asher, Asher came home from the shivah

and discussed the Talmud with me.

And we had long heated
discussions and arguments

of the kind that girls
were not supposed to have.

And I learned that Judaism's
greatest contribution

to mankind is asking questions
that can't be answered.

And that the glory of our race
is not that we gave the world

Moses and Marx and Jesus.

It has everything to do with
the invention of the phrase,

on the other hand.

The saint was not impressed

with our nocturnal discussions.

Yes, it was hard to move her in any way,

particularly towards appreciation.

She never touched us.

She never kissed us.

She never teased us.

She never told us we were good
looking or a sweet natured.

She had no pride in us whatsoever.

Her energy was totally
in keeping us alive.

She hated answering questions.

Of course she had to.

When I had my first period,
she said it was God's curse

in which she has supported by the Bible.

But however, Asher, on the other hand,

said it might be God's gift.

And I said that if that was so

I would rather he gave us a calendar.

In the same month shortly after that,

the Cossacks rode into town.

And I guess if you have your first period

and your first program in the same month

you can safely assume
that childhood is over.

Yeah, years later, a
history professor told me

it couldn't possibly
have been the Cossacks

because Stalin had pacified
the Cossacks by then.

Well, he left a few over.

They had big horses and big hats,

and big whips, and beautiful faces.

At least that's my memory,

but I'm not sure if my
memory is of the event

or a scene from Fiddler on the Roof.

In my mind, it's exactly like the movie

but then maybe the movie
was exactly like the event.

I, I close my eyes and I see
chorus boys on horseback.

What can I do about it?

Huh?

It's hard to reach my age

and to have lived through some
of the most tumultuous events

of this century and to
be able to distinguish

between reality and the
depictions of reality

which constantly surround us.

Listen, they rode through the town

and they set fire to the stores.

They broke the windows.

They came into our house.

We cowered behind the stove,
but they didn't try to harm us.

They just smashed
everything up and rode away.

Asher was shouting.

Rivka was crying.

I was doing a little bit of both,

as befits the middle child.

Mama, mama, she found a broom

and she started sweeping.

And then Asher, and Rivka, and I,

had exactly the same thought,

in all the fuss somebody
had been forgotten.

Papa.

"Papa!" We said.

Mama put down the brush
went into the bedroom.

She came out, she picked up the broom.

She continued sweeping.

And she said, Papa's dead.

We ran into the bedroom.

And we saw that the
wardrobe full of medicine

had collapsed onto the bed.

And Papa's hand was
sticking out from under it

clutching an enema bag.

And we could see part of his leg covered

in ointment of rosemary and honey.

He had been crushed to death by medicine.

Years later, when I became an agnostic,

that memory would just for a second

make me believe in God again.

Papa's was my first shivah.

We, we ran out of wooden benches.

I think that people just wanted proof

that he was really dead.

Mama was in her element.

Totally impassive.

It was God's will.

A few weeks later on a hot afternoon

I sold my last grapefruit
and I went for a walk

in the woods,

and I saw a field full
of lilac trees covered.

I heard a voice,

it was singing.

Singing in an unknown tongue.

I went a little nearer to
hear this delirious sound.

It was a gypsy, maybe Muslim,
maybe Spanish, maybe African.

And it spoke of lovers and demons.

I had to know, I crept a little closer.

I hid behind a bush and
I saw in the distance

a fragile figure, holding onto a tree.

Holding.

Holding and swaying at the same time.

I got a little closer

and suddenly the figure
turned and I saw its face

covered with sweat and dirt
and desire and longing.

It was mama.

I ran.

I ran away from the
words, away from the song,

back to the shtetl.

When she returned home

Mama was scrubbed and cool.

And she had on her saintly
face and she started to cook.

But I never thought of
her as Christian again.

I had to get away from Yultishka,
but Asher beat me to it.

He married a girl from the next village.

Her name was Chaya, and she was a catch.

Her family were merchants and
the parents gave them money,

and with it they moved to Warsaw.

Asher left me with the fruit stand,

and the sister, and the
mother who was really a pagan.

And each day I grew a little
and each day I died a little.

At the same time, I did not belong.

Asher wrote and said,
come, come, if you can.

He had a child now.

Chaya could use some
help around the house.

Come if you can.

He wrote to mama, send Rosala to Warsaw.

She can take a train from
Kiev, send her to Warsaw.

Mama looked at me, her dry, cold, look,

the same look, always the same look.

I was desolate.

I knew there was no money for a train.

Mama went into the bedroom
and returned with a scarf

which was orange and blue.

It looked like, like
the scarf of a magician.

Wave it and a rabbit appears.

There wasn't a rabbit
instead there were kopeks.

I saved, mama said, for
when it's life and death.

But mama, I said, going to
Warsaw isn't life and death.

Yes it is, she said.

Now maybe it is all in my mind.

Maybe there really is nothing
wrong with my breathing.

Maybe I, I just panic.

Maybe I should sip some water.

The first time I couldn't catch my breath

was in Warsaw, summer, 1937.

We were in a cafe in Krochmalna Street.

And it was chaos.

Artists, and prostitutes, and pickpockets.

And, and those funny little
men who sold lottery tickets

you could win an American
Eagle made of chocolate,

or three colored pencils.

And the waiters were shouting abuse,

and there was talk and noise
and always the possibility

of some kind of seduction.

Asher and his friends
were drunk and laughing,

and Chaya was in a good mood for once.

And the rooms seemed to go round and round

like like we were in a spin dry,

I suppose it was the
wine, we were celebrating

my first year in Warsaw.

And then suddenly the spin
cycle abruptly stopped.

And there was a man at the table,

a large man with long
red hair and one earring,

and his shirt was open and
he had no hair on his chest.

Every man in Warsaw was hairy,

and he had one perfect blue eye.

And the other was of glass.

One, one dead little island in
the middle of all that life.

And suddenly Asher was
introducing me to him.

And I knew without a doubt

that there would never be anyone else.

And we made love that
night, surrounded by canvas,

paintings, Yussel's paintings of shtetls

of mud roads and lilac trees.

Imitation shtetls surrounded
me in this garret in Warsaw

where for the first time
in my life, I was free,

and I was a woman.

Once when I was a child, I
heard the sound of bedsprings

in the bedroom rocking and thumping,

but there was no other
sound, no human sound.

And I lay there in the other room,

terrified, terrified of that silence.

But with Yussel and me,
there was so much noise.

I was moaning and groaning
and shouting and screaming.

And no, no, no, no.

And we lived happily ever after.

Now, Yussel, wasn't a great artist.

He wasn't bad, but he was no Chagall.

Who is?

I think Jews are not visual.

Look at the way they dress.

I think it's because we're
not allowed to reproduce

an image of God.

Now whereas the goyim, oh,
they love nothing better

than a naked man in a
sadomasochistic ecstasy,

strung up on wood or, or an arrow piercing

his nipple, but sex and
God are very confused

for the goyim,

but for Jews they're quite separate.

We can't see our God so we can desire him.

When he betrays us, when he abandons us,

which he always does.

We feel betrayed by a parent,

not a lover, or like a
parent, one day they just die.

But with Yussel and me, there
was no religious dimension.

Not at all.

In fact, he was, he was insatiable.

He wanted everything today.

As if there was no concept of tomorrow.

Maybe he knew.

And when we weren't making
love, we were at the movies.

We loved Westerns, the
canyons, and the desert,

and the tumbleweed blowing
into an empty town,

and the stage coach
riding around the bend.

And we like those silly Yiddish
movies, the shtetl movies

with Molly Picon, dancing
around the shtetl,

singing,

♪ Yiddle mit a fiddle ♪

♪ Aye aye aye aye ♪

And sometimes Yussel
might sell a painting,

but he didn't make a living.

And the last thing he needed was a wife,

but soon he had a wife and
then a year later, a child.

I named her Esther and she
had red hair like her father

and blue eyes, two!

He never told me how he
lost his eye, he refused.

But sometimes in the middle of the night,

he would wake up screaming,

and I would hold his
head and stroke his brow.

And then of course, Esther would
wake and I would go to her.

And in the morning he would
accuse me of deserting him.

And that I didn't care about his pain.

And I said, I don't
know what your pain is.

And he would accuse me of being blind.

And I would bite my tongue
and not say you're blind,

you're half blind.

And I don't know why.

When we made love, he would plunge into me

but I could never really enter into him.

Emotionally, foreplay
was all I was allowed.

And, and sometimes in
the closest relationship

I would ever have, I felt
outside like that tumbleweed

blowing into an empty town,
and I would miss Yultishka,

and I would worry about mama and Rifka.

And I would lie awake and listen

to the sound of the
soldiers marching outside.

When the Nazis first,

when the Nazis first came into
Warsaw, I wasn't too worried.

I didn't think it was anything,
anything to do with me.

You know, I liked Warsaw, but
I had no affection for Poland.

My feeling was, can the
Germans be any worse?

I don't remember the ghetto.

Well, okay.

We were packed together.

We were taken out of
our homes and relocated

in a small area.

They built a wall around us,

12 Jews to a room.

Maybe it wasn't 12.

I don't remember.

But I'll tell you what hell is.

Hell is 12 people
snoring in the same room.

Yussel had bad dreams all the time now.

I didn't have bad dreams.

You have to sleep to have dreams.

And I was afraid to sleep.

I was afraid something would
happen to Esther if I slept.

How did this happen?

Yesterday, we were walking
across the Kravidjin Bridge.

A month ago we were in the
cafe in Krochmalna Street

eating chocolate cake.

Cake.

Now, we had half a chicken for
the entire room, 12 people.

Well, I dunno if it was 12.

I, I just don't remember.

What was going on?

And who was this man with
red hair and an earring.

What was I doing with him?

When I, I should be in Yultishka,

selling fruit by the roadside.

Soon there wasn't even
half a chicken anymore.

And we were starving.

I went to find my brother, Asher.

And he was at the other end of the ghetto.

He and Chaya were in a
room with nine people.

They had lost their child to cholera.

When I entered the room
Chaya was screaming

and Asher told me to ignore her.

I couldn't ignore her.

You know, I had to try and comfort her.

She called me a bitch.

She pulled my hair.

I slapped her.

And then suddenly, I was screaming,

and I didn't know why.

They had no food.

Asher said he had a contact
who could get me a job

in a factory.

It was run by a woman who
was a friend to the Jews

and took on more than she
needed, but only women.

And then, oh, then Chaya
started to beat her breasts.

And Asher took a rope and tied her hands.

What, what were we doing here in Warsaw?

What were we doing here in Warsaw?

And then Chaya began to vomit

and everyone in the room
started screaming at her.

And I ran out into the night air

except there wasn't any air.

And back to my room
where Yussel was lying,

staring at the ceiling,

Esther was telling herself a story.

She was three.

Where were you, he said.

I took his hand.

Where were you, he said.

Why did you desert me?

I started working in the factory.

They escorted you out in the morning.

And escorted you back at night

Yussel did not want me to
leave, but we needed the food.

The women could smuggle
scraps of food back.

The young soldiers were
shy of body searches.

One day in the factory

we heard a noise from the ghetto.

We ran to the window and smoke was rising

behind the walls.

Some of the women fainted,
I lost control of my body.

I shat myself, Yussel and
Esther were in the ghetto.

And we could hear screaming.

No, no, that's wrong, we
didn't hear screaming.

That night we returned to the ghetto.

The streets were filled with bodies.

The buildings were burning.

As men were walking with dogs.

I found my room.

Everything in it had
been smashed to pieces.

It was empty, where
were Esther and Yussel?

I walked the streets,
calling Esther's name.

Passing other mothers, calling
the names of their children.

One giant corral of
names filled the ghetto

under that red sky.

Years later, somebody
offered me LSD at a party.

I said, I didn't need to take it.

I knew what it was like.

Hallucinations.

A minute stretched into
an hour, strange visions,

soaring in and out of your mind,

and the feeling that you will
never get back to reality.

I knew what it was like.

I went to Asher's room, it was empty.

Asher was gone, Chaya was gone.

A hand pulled me off the sidewalk.

It was Simka, a man who
had been in our room.

He had hidden in a cellar on
the other side of the ghetto.

But when the raid began
he was in our room,

and Yussel had handed Esther to him, said,

take her to the cellar.

But Yussel had stayed behind.

How could he slip unnoticed
through the streets

with his red hair and his earring?

So he said to Simka,
tell my wife, tell Rosala

to protect our child.

Thank you, Yussel.

Thank you very much

love of my life.

Later, someone told me they saw him

marching in the left line of prisoners.

The line for useless people.

The line for one eyed men.

They marched them into the woods

where the machine guns were.

Fertilizer.

They made the bodies into fertilizer.

I wonder what they did with his earring.

I don't remember any of this.

Simka and Esther started running.

Now, he didn't look at me when he talked,

he closed his eyes.

He said they passed a soup kitchen.

The Jewish committee was handing out soup.

And Esther broke away from Simka.

He covered his face when he talked.

Esther ran towards the soup,

they'd never distributed soup before.

A young Ukrainian soldier was passing by,

a young blonde, Ukrainian.

He could have been from a Yultishka.

Stalin and Hitler were
friends for the minute.

The Ukrainians help the
Germans to guide the ghetto.

But why soup today?

Simka said the soldier had a small gun.

Small.

He kept saying the gun was small

as if the size was important.

Esther ran towards the soup,
the soldier aimed his gun,

his small gun.

Esther reached the soup.

The soldier pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit her on the forehead.

He might've been from Yultishka.

He was just passing by.

Simka started to cry.

Esther's body lay in front of the soup.

It was just water.

It wasn't really even soup.

I kicked Simka in the stomach.

I was supposed to protect her.

Thank you, thank you very much, Yussel.

Simka fell to the ground.

I ran out into the street

and I don't know what happened next.

You know, if I were a Buddhist
this would count as points

on the next life.

Yes, it's almost time for my pill.

For the breathing.

I sat shivah in the sewers.

There were no wooden benches,
but God makes allowances.

Not that I believe in God.

God died in the ghetto when I
kicked Simka in the stomach.

But on the other hand,
I still needed ritual.

So I sat a kind of
mental shivah for Esther,

for your Yussel, for
Asher, for mama and Rifka.

Because somewhere inside,
I knew that they were gone.

Later I met someone from a village

near Yultishka, who described
the end of our shtetl.

The Nazis marched all the
Jews into the school house

locked the door and burned it down.

Easy.

Screams from behind the walls again.

So I, I sat that kind
of shivah for two years.

I don't remember how I got into
the sewers, that's a blank.

But once there, oh yes,
I remember everything.

There was 30 of us.

I was numb.

Novocaine.

Two years.

You do things in order to stay alive.

I remember everything.

This, I will say,

we talked of Jerusalem.

By the waters of Babylon beneath Warsaw.

We remembered Zion.

The promised land.

Promised.

Just ours.

No one else's, no Cossacks, no Nazis.

Just us.

Safe.

Well then, the war was over.

One day, Nazis were marching into Warsaw.

And the next day, the Russians.

One day Stalin and Hitler were friends.

The next day they were enemies.

It was nothing to do with us.

I was still numb, but my feet worked.

I got out.

I had to get away, away from the Russians.

I had to go someplace safe.

Where, where was safe?

Yes. Germany was safe.

Long lines of refugees passing
from Poland, into Germany,

the place that destroyed them.

That was now itself destroyed.

We passed through Dresden.

I saw a child with no arms
crawling down the street.

The streets were rubble.

I found Americans.

They welcomed us.

They gave us cigarettes.

I'd never smoked before.

And I smoked for the next 50 years

and now I can't catch my breath, so.

They gave us soup.

They put us in a camp.

Well, they called it a
center, but it was a camp.

It wasn't a bad camp, nice
camp, but it was still a camp.

Barbed wire and bunk beds.

The war was over.

What was I doing in a camp
in Germany where it was safe.

I was officially called
a displaced person.

I could have told them that long before.

The camps, the camps were overcrowded.

No one knew what to do with us.

We had no homes to return
to, but I had a place to go.

I had Palestine.

And I was adopted by the
Zionists in the camp.

I was a heroin because I had
fought back in the ghetto.

Actually, no.

When the ghetto rose up
for that final gasp of fury

I was already in the sewers.

But I let them believe
what they wanted to believe

because they were my ticket out.

Now, one day the smugglers arrived.

High priced criminals
paid for by the Haganah.

They bribed the soldiers.

200 people were selected
from the camp, from our camp.

Some of them wore three pairs
of clothing and a knapsack.

I traveled light.

I had soap and a towel.

We climbed through a hole in the fence.

They pretended not to see us.

There were trucks.

People screamed.

They thought it was a trick.

But the next day we were in France,

in Sete, by the sea.

I'd never seen the sea.

I thought it was just
another hallucination.

And there was a boat in the harbor.

It was falling apart.

We were marched on board,
herds of us falling,

rushing in the dark.

But once on board, we
were no longer cattle.

Now we were sardines.

If you rolled over, you
got an elbow in your nose.

The boat set sail and secretly negotiated

its way out of the harbor.

The French turned a blind eye,

but the British were determined to stop us

from going to Palestine.

The British had won Palestine
on the monopoly board

and they were determined to hold on to it,

and to their dignity.

Their foreign minister
was a man called Bevin

and he was the goy from hell.

He only allowed 1500 Jews
a month into the Holy Land.

Certain basic facts about the war seemed

to have escaped him.

The Haganah were trying
to sneak as many Jews

as possible into the country.

Although sneak is hardly the word.

We were a creaky old boat

on an open sea and difficult to miss.

Within a day, we were being
tailed by British warships.

The mood on the boat had changed.

We were allowed on the open deck

and suddenly there was
an accordion playing,

and the sardines were singing and dancing.

I heard melody, the
Mediterranean was playful

and the sea and the waves hypnotic.

And I felt some of the
numbness begin to wear way.

Then I, then I saw
children throwing a ball,

little girl playing hide and seek,

tiny little...

Nope, I couldn't bear it.

I didn't want to remember.

I closed my eyes.

I didn't want to remember.

And when I opened them,
I saw a man's chest,

a hairless chest.

I realized the chest was attached

to a sailor who was smiling at me.

Why was he smiling at me?

There was a chill from the sea.

And he put on his shirt
except he was clumsy.

And he put his head into
the hole for his arm.

And he was stuck.

Suddenly my body went into convulsions,

my spine when it to
spasm, my stomach jumped.

There was an electric
current across my breast.

And I knew this was it.

Finally, I was going to die.

And then I heard this noise

a sound from my throat,
a strange heaving sound.

And I realized that,

I realized what was happening.

I was laughing.

I had forgotten.

I hadn't laughed since the cafe

in Krochmalna Street,
something Yussel had said.

He said it kissed my cheek, which was wet

from tears of laughter.

Had that really happened.

And now here I was on the
open sea in another life.

And the silly sailor with his head

in the armhole had made my
body scream, ha, ha, ha.

Who invented that sound?

Those syllables.

If hahaha is a word then it's the only one

that exists in every language.

And then, then the sailor
who had produced this hahaha

winked at me and
disappeared into the crowd.

He returned that evening.

We were still on the open deck.

He sat beside me or
rather he fell beside me

because he tripped on a rope attached

to a pail of water and
splashed the water over us.

We were squeezed together,
refugees on either side.

He was flirting with me.

At least, I think that's
what he was doing.

I had no experience of flirting.

Yussel was very direct.

On that first night in the cafe,

he said to me, I think we should fuck.

I blushed, but I thought we should too.

So I wasn't gonna do anything
to pretend otherwise.

His name was Sonny, Sonny Rose.

And he spoke Yiddish.

His parents came from a
village, not too far from mine

but he was born in America.

And most of the sailors on
the boat were Americans.

None of them had any experience on a boat

but they all had dreams of Palestine.

They didn't have to be
on the ship, we did.

And that made me like him.

I asked him if he was from the Wild West

with with Indians and tumbleweed.

And he said, no New Jersey,
which made me like him less.

But when I told him my name,
he said, oh, what a shame?

What a shame, we can never marry.

You would be Rose Rose.

I'm not sure that my face showed it

but in some way I smiled.

I think.

Mr. Bevin didn't smile though.

His warships moved closer.

The next morning, the sailors
hung a flag across the top

of the boat.

It had a star of David
on it and a sign as well,

a sign which renamed the ship Exodus 1947.

I can see that sign so clearly.

But then how, how could
I standing underneath it?

Am I thinking of the newsreel
or of the Paul Newman movie?

Or did I just crank my neck back?

How can I tell? How can I tell?

Sonny helped to put up the sign.

But he lost his footing and dangled

from the star of David
until his laughing shipmates

helped him down.

We were nearing land,
promised land, only nearing.

We were still in international waters

which were supposedly safe.

And that night, the
warships moved to our side.

They squeezed us.

Then they rammed us.

And we heard English
voices on the megaphones.

What were they saying?

And then came the teargas,

British sailors boarded
wearing steel helmets.

They had clubs.

We had soda pop.

Now the Haganah had loaded
our hardest food supplies

on deck for us to fight with.

Refugees were hurling
cans of kosher corn beef

at steel helmets.

I saw one of the sailors being clubbed.

I saw a 16 year old boy

whose parents had been
wiped out in the camps

get shot in the face.

He died with Palestine on his lips.

I picked up a potato.

I threw the potato.

Suddenly everything that had happened

in the past seven years was
released in me through potatoes.

I threw potatoes for my child.

I threw potatoes for Yussel,
for mama and I was screaming.

I was exhilarated.

I was almost happy.

And my aim was good.

I was wiping out Mr.
Bevins boys with potatoes.

Now I saw someone aim a gun at me.

And then I was on the ground.

Sonny was on top of me.

He'd thrown me to the
ground, a bullet whizzed past

over our heads, and Sonny dragged me

into a corner where there was no fighting.

And he kissed me.

His lips tasted of flesh.

Yussel's tasted of cherry vodka.

He said, I just saved your life.

I looked at him, I hated him for it.

So the British had the boat, the hulk,

the remains of the boat.

The Royal Navy towed us into the Harbor.

We were entering Palestine at last,

but we were under arrest.

We started to sing Hatikvah.

Listen, Hatikvah is not the Marseillaise.

But as national anthems
go, it has too many verses

and nobody knows the words,
but the Jewish settlers were

on the docks waiting for us.

And they knew the words and
their voices blended with ours.

It was just another hallucination.

But this time with a musical score.

Sonny grabbed my hand.

He was crying.

All the Americans were crying.

But the refugees weren't crying.

We were too tired.

Was it ever going to end?

We landed.

The mandate police came on
board and took us off the boat

in single lines.

Goodbye sardines, hello cattle.

Palestine didn't look like much.

It was dirty and hot.

And there were insects everywhere
and strange looking Arabs

in robes and headgear
and camels and jeeps.

And the settlers were cheering
us as we marched past.

And suddenly the woman in front

of me fell to her knees on the ground

and screamed Palestine.

And I thought, what a
sentimental fool she was.

And then I felt dirt grazing my chin.

And I realized I was

on the ground and my lips
were touching the dirt.

And I thought the earth
tasted of cherry vodka

but that was in my mind.

And I didn't know why I was on the ground,

and I didn't know why I was crying.

And the police pulled me up
and marched me back into line.

They marched us to another
ship and then they took us

to another ship and we
sailed away from Palestine.

It had been a mirage, five
hours in the promised land,

a stopover on a cruise ship,

a quick package tour to salvation.

And now we were headed

for Cyprus where they had, guess what?

Camps.

Camps for illegal immigrants.

The Americans were on our boat as well,

and Sonny, the next morning, Sonny,

who understood a compass realized

that we were not sailing
to Cyprus after all.

We were on the open seas
heading back to Europe

and Sonny was agitated by this.

I mean, the Exodus had created a scandal.

The entire world was watching us, he said.

The British had overplayed their hand.

They had a public relations
disaster on their hands.

I looked at him stupefied.

If you have just been
through a war in Europe

not to mention a Holocaust,
you weren't exactly sure

what public relations meant.

Soon after that we landed in Hamburg.

We refused to disembark.

British soldiers burst onto
the boat and clubbed us.

They were getting quite good at that.

And they dragged us off the boat

and they took us to a train.

A woman screamed when she saw the train,

it had barred windows.

I was hustled onto the train.

It was chaos.

I didn't see Sonny, but
he was with the Americans.

So he was free.

Suddenly, there was a lot of steam.

The train started to move very slowly.

And I saw Sonny running
alongside the platform.

He was shouting, shouting my name.

I went to the door, which was still open.

This is ridiculous, he shouted,
jump off the train, Rose.

Jump off and marry me.

I'll take you to America.

Then we can go to Palestine
later, jump Rose, jump.

I didn't know what to do.

My heart was barely alive.

If my body jumped it,
wouldn't bring love with it.

And maybe I still had a husband.

After all, how did I really
know that Yussel was dead?

Someone saw him marching and
aligned towards a machine gun

but did they see a body?

On the other hand, how
could he have survived job?

Jump, he screamed.

The train was leaving the platform now.

It was the train to nowhere,

at least I think it was leaving.

You know, maybe this was a movie.

How often had I seen this
scene, with the platform

and the steam and the lovers.

America, he cried.

I leaned out of the train,
but how could I have a future.

America, America.

I shut down my mind.

I closed my eyes.

Why did it matter.

I jumped, he caught me,

then he dropped me.

And then we were surrounded
by soldiers with guns

who were shouting at us.

And I watched that train,
the train to nowhere

disappear into the mist, into what my kind

would later call, the old country.

Papa would be proud.

I take medicine now for the breathing,

for the cholesterol, for the
kidney, for this or that.

I'm doing what Papa dreamt
of doing for so long.

I'm dying.

Not specifically, but when you're 80,

you are in essence on the way out.

Isn't it strange that I'm still alive?

How many times I closed my eyes and said,

now, now, take me now.

I can't go on.

If there is a God, you'll take me now.

And at that moment, I
really believed in him.

And then I opened my eyes.

I didn't, but that's God.

He's like a policeman, never
there when you want him,

and he arrests you when you're innocent.

Why do I spend so much time
talking about something

I don't believe in.

The problem is

I, I can't swallow pills.

Once I choked on an
aspirin and almost died.

And that is not how I wanna die, right.

I wanna go quietly in
the middle of a sentence.

So I chew my pills.

The problem is they taste
like donkey droppings.

So I have to kill the taste.

Voila!

Okay.

This is a peanut butter vanilla.

It's a new flavor.

I like to be au courant.

I know, I know, I'm eating ice cream

to take a pill for cholesterol.

I'll tell you something, who cares.

So, okay.

Hmm, Hmm.

That's good.

The first time I ate ice
cream was in Atlantic City.

Ice cream and frozen custard.

There was a frozen custard
stand on the boardwalk

in front of the burlesque
house, near the pier,

just across from the
beach where I sold chairs.

Sonny was born in Atlantic City,

which I guess he must of told me

during the,

which I'm sure he told me on the boat

but I usually wasn't listening to him.

And as a result, I knew nothing about him.

Hmm.

Well maybe he told me
during the endless days

when we argued with the soldiers

and the immigration officials,
and the bureaucrats.

The endless days of filling in forms

when frankly, all I could think of was,

what am I doing here?

Why didn't I stay on the train?

Who is this man?

Finally, the Americans were
very nice to us though.

Sonny had an uncle in some Bureau,

and I finally received a paper
which said that I existed

and the Jewish chaplain
married us in Berlin.

And then I was back on
a boat with a husband

who was seasick all the time.

Which he hadn't been on the Exodus.

But I nursed him.

And I asked myself, who is he?

Sonny's parents had a
few who is she questions.

Who is she?

That boy runs away to be a pirate.

When he comes back without
a catatonic shtetl girl.

When all they ever wanted was a nice,

Jewish-American
daughter-in-law called Sheila.

Or Arlene.

Well, one who at least spoke English.

Which is a little weird if you ask me

because they had never
bothered to learn the language

but I was fluent within a year.

But if his parents spoke
Yiddish, they were not alone

because Atlantic city was Warsaw on sea.

Which was ironic because if
ever a people were not built

for bathing suits, it's ours.

The air smelled of
aspirin and chicken fat,

and suntan oil, because
the Jews who made the city

their summer playground,
they were the fortunate ones

who had, had the good
sense to get out of Europe

when the going was good.

And of course the guilt hung in the air.

And my presence disturbed them.

I mean they were relieved
that I didn't have

a number tattooed on my arm.

But they were not interested
in the images in my brain.

They didn't want to know.

Of course, I didn't wanna tell them.

Oh no.

Once I overheard a woman saying,

these people go on too
much about the past.

I mean, nobody has it easy.

This life is not easy for anyone.

She was wearing a mink
coat and it was July.

She was a guest at many of the,

the art deco palaces that
pretended they were hotels.

Palaces from another age.

An age of Scott Fitzgerald, a jazz age.

Beautiful and hideous
at one in the same time.

For $1 a boy pushed you on a
rolling chair on the boardwalk.

A rolling chair was a chair that rolled.

All the terms in Atlantic
City were literal.

As you past the art deco
palaces and the dancing waters,

which were colored water that sprouted

in different formations, hence dancing.

The Steel Pier.

Which had two movie
houses, a vaudeville house,

a dance hall and a diving horse.

Which was needless to say a
horse that dived into the ocean.

Then you past the arcades,
and the fortunetellers,

and the store selling saltwater taffy,

which ruined Jewish teeth
for the next two generations.

Yeah, so.

The first night in Atlantic
city, my first night

in Atlantic city, Sonny
took me on a rolling chair

and halfway down the
boardwalk, we passed a store

selling nuts, and we were
approached by a six foot peanut

with a huge peanut head who
danced over to our rolling chair

and kissed me on the forehead
and said, hello, little lady.

And then I knew that I was
foolish ever to have thought

that I would leave my
hallucinations behind

when I arrived in America.

And I wondered if I
had survived the sewers

of Warsaw so that I could
be groped by a giant peanut.

Why hadn't I stayed on the train?

And returned to a nice
sensible displaced prison camp.

Sonny's father owned several
beach chair concessions

and he gave Sonny,

he gave one of them to Sonny
and he gave one of them

to Sonny as a startup ladder.

That's an American expression.

Although I couldn't
imagine what beach chairs

would actually lead to.

We rented our beach chairs by the hour

to the sunburn crowds.

Sonny and I would schlep the
chairs to a designated spot

in the blazing heat, which
often meant Sonny tripped

over a chair, both of them flying off

in different directions at once.

At night, there were
attempts at lovemaking,

but he was as clumsy in bed
as he was on solid ground.

And our love making was
silent like my parents.

And in the morning I would
be sullen and distant,

and cruel.

And when I became pregnant, I panicked.

How could I have another child?

A child I would not be able to protect.

I thought throwing myself down the stairs

but I could never act
on my baser instincts.

And so Abner was born.

Sonny wanted me to call him Asher

but how could I say Asher
every day and not remember?

So we called him Abner.

It was close enough.

And it was so American.

It could even be the name of a cowboy.

I mean, Sonny and I still
dreamed of Palestine

except it was no longer Palestine.

Now it was Israel, a nation at last.

And we knew we belonged there,

but I could not face
another long boat trip,

or I couldn't face another long journey.

Not just yet.

For once in my life I wanted to stay put

if only for a few years.

Sometimes we would go out at night.

There were the Harlem
Follies at the jockey club

and the burlesque house, which was fun.

Mainly because the comedians were Jewish

and told Jewish jokes.

But then the comedians on
television were all Jewish

and Yiddish words entered
the English language,

words like schmuck and schlep
and schmatta and schmooze,

and chutzpah.

And we saw Yiddish magicians
pulling little Jewish rabbits

out of a hat.

And we heard chzanas, female cantors

who sang melancholy shtetl melodies.

And I remember the lilac tree.

And finally understood.

And Molly Picon came once to entertain.

She was tiny and depressingly energetic.

And she sang.

♪ Yiddle mit a fiddle ♪

As if she was still simulating shtetl life

on a Warsaw screen.

We went to the Yiddish theater
and saw plays in which demons

and goblins haunted the shtetls.

And one night we saw "The Dybbuk"

the play about a young girl

whose body is possessed by
the soul of her dead lover.

When the curtain came
down I was trembling.

Sonny asked what's wrong.

I didn't answer.

I couldn't bear to look at him.

I ran onto the boardwalk
and onto the beach.

And I stared at the ocean,
which was bathed in Moonlight.

I could just rush into the sea

and find that spot
where the horizon ended.

Sonny came, rushed up to
me, took me in his arms.

No, there's another answer.

I thought, no, I would
bring Yussel back to me.

I would make Yussel's
spirit possess my body.

Now, if Yussel was really gonna possess me

I needed to give him a push.

So, yeah, so I decided to dye my hair red

and wear one long earring
as well as trousers,

which was not the accepted
fashion for women in those days.

Some kind of prudence stopped
me from gouging out one eye.

I expected Sonny's
parents would be outraged

by my new appearance,
but no, they approved.

They thought I looked less Russian.

Which was a good thing because
thanks to Senator McCarthy,

Russian was definitely out of fashion.

And my old more severe look
was suspicious to them.

The hysteria over reds under
the beds was in high gear.

And actually communists was
just a code word for Jew.

There was even a Congressman
who made a speech

in the house of representatives claiming

that communists had betrayed
and killed Jesus Christ.

Which as metaphors go was none too subtle.

As Americans were no
longer very good on horses.

They committed their
programs around committee

tables and under television lights.

I wasn't too concerned about myself.

I knew that the
politicians were mesmerized

by state department and show business

but I didn't think they were too panicked

about the beach chair industry.

Still Sonny's parents were relieved

when I assumed my non
Russian madwoman look,

which annoyed me because the whole point

about possession is that everyone
around you recognizes it.

Yussel's persona within me was not there.

It was only skin deep.

Right? He needed inducement.

I found a book about Cabala and in it

the perfect magic spell for
summoning a dead spirit.

Now it involved semen, which is tricky,

but finally one night as Sonny
fumbled around inside of me

I asked him to please pull
out and cum on my stomach.

As soon as he'd finished,
I scooped up the semen

on a piece of cardboard.

I ran into the kitchen
and I mixed the semen

with chopped chicken neck
and olive oil and cloves.

Sonny stood in the doorway watching.

I knew he would never forgive me.

Instead he was smiling in
a way I hadn't seen before.

My fascination with his semen was a boon

to his manhood, seemingly.

He then offered to assist me smearing it

on the bedroom door, little dreaming

that he was helping me to
summon my first husband,

but Yussel was curiously
uninterested in Sonny's semen.

Maybe if I started to
behave more like Yussel,

and that will give him
a push in my direction.

So I started to swagger
a bit around the house,

and I took up painting.

And once when Sonny
returned from Abner's room,

we'd been reading him a story,

I accused him of deserting me.

And his joy, Sonny's joy was uncontained.

He thought that I had missed him.

Okay.

Okay. I thought.

Maybe, maybe it would help if
I started noticing women, huh?

Because I remember walking with Yussel

down Grabowska Street, which
was near the Muranow Theater

and all was filled with young actresses,

and Yussel insisted
that I walk on his left,

so that if I looked at him sideways,

I would only see his glass eye.

Supposedly I would be
unaware that his other eye

was checking out every
pretty girl who past.

Yussel was never faithful to me.

I wouldn't admit it
then, but now that I was

almost him I knew it was so.

One night I placed my hand on Sonny's

sister-in-law's right breast.

I knew that I had gone too far

and the entire family would know

that Yussel was trying to return.

But his sister-in-law was thrilled.

She asked me to meet her the next day

at the cotton candy
store on the boardwalk.

The more I became like Yussel,

the more people liked me.

Yussel had become the most
popular woman in Atlantic City.

But still he eluded me.

He wasn't inside.

So then Miss America arrives.

The Miss America pageant
officially ended the summer season

in Atlantic City.

And it was a big deal for
the beach chair trade.

Since the pageant began with the parade

the beauty queen of
every state rolled down

the boardwalk on an individual float.

And thank God onlookers
had to sit on something.

You booked one of our
chairs a month in advance.

It was that popular.

All the ladies from the hotels

put on their best summer
dresses and they oohed and awed

over the pretty shiksas.

And the parade began with a little band.

And then the first girl, Miss Alabama.

Because it was alphabetical
and people cheered and whistled

and were especially excited
if the girl was from

their home state.

And the perky little Protestant
faces glided slowly by.

Abner was playing in
and around the chairs.

He was three.

Dangerous age.

The age of Esther.

But I wasn't too worried
because I knew that both

Yussel and I were looking after him.

Yussel wasn't inside of me yet.

But oh he was close

I could feel, he was in the vicinity.

It was a blazing hot day.

Sonny decided to buy us ice cream sodas.

So he crossed over the boardwalk

in front of Miss Colorado and
disappeared into the crowd.

I lay back and closed my
eyes and I began to drift.

I opened it again and
there was Miss Delaware

and I closed them again.

And then suddenly I heard Abby,

daddy, daddy.

I looked across the boardwalk
as Miss Iowa waved to me.

Sonny was lurching through
the crowd, on the other side.

He was holding three cans of cream soda.

He dropped one can and he picked it up.

He dropped another, oh,
we lost his balance.

He stepped on a woman's foot.

She screamed, he dropped the third can.

People were laughing at him.

He started to cross to
us but he lurched again

and collided with Miss Massachusetts.

Well rather the bottom of her float

he was down for the count.

Miss. Massachusetts didn't miss a beat.

She just kept waving, smiling,
and smiling, and waving,

and totally ignoring
the funny man sprawled

at the bottom of her float.

And someone in the crowd
shouted the guy's drunk.

And I knew that wasn't true.

Sonny never touched alcohol.

And then in a flash, it happened.

The miracle.

Everything I had been waiting for

I felt a shutter near my heart.

And then someone was pushing
their way into my body.

Oh, it was Yussel.

Yussel was here.

Yussel had taken possession of me,

Miss New Hampshire driving past

had she seen Yussel dive inside of me?

And over there in the
distance was Miss New York

was she gonna point and
say, dybbuk, dybbuk.

And the crowd was applauding.

But some of it was, it was,
it was not as I imagined it.

I thought that I would
speak in Yussel's voice.

I thought that I would maybe,

I thought that I would
hear Yussel's voice,

perhaps even speak with his voice.

But certainly I would think
his thoughts, but no, no.

He took possession with his eye.

He entered my own eyes

and they saw through his good
one, my eyes, Yussel's eye.

Brought Sonny into sharp focus

and saw that Sonny
wasn't clumsy after all.

Sonny wasn't drunk, Sonny was ill.

Sonny had some disease.

Sonny was maybe gonna die.

I took a deep breath and I ran
to Sonny and I helped him up.

And he said, I don't know
what's wrong, sweetheart.

I said, no, it's nothing.

It's just the sun.

But inside of me, inside,
I said goodbye Yussel.

Because I knew now that he had
to leave and leave forever.

And I felt his good eye release

its hold on my brain.

And I felt his spirit
lift up through my body

and out of my body and
fly over Miss Oregon

and Miss Pennsylvania
and fly still further

over the Steel Pier and the
diving horse and fly further

still off into the humid New Jersey air.

I don't know what the
good of taking pills is

if they don't help you.

I think these pills
are just made of sugar.

Okay.

Eight years later, I'm the
owner of a hotel in Miami Beach.

Well, that's America, go
figure, what could I do?

I had a husband who required
a lot of medical attention.

Americans tend to think
about illness as unhealthy,

it costs, so I had to go out and hustle.

I took a job, ordering food
for the Majestic Hotel.

And soon I was running the kitchen,

and soon I was managing the place.

The guests loved me.

I understood them and their complaints.

And I was pleasant when I had to be

and cruel when it was necessary.

And it was easy because it
allowed me to protect Sonny

and Abner as well.

So I could do for them what
I had not done for Esther.

Maybe that's why Yussel's
eye had shown me the truth.

Maybe who knows.

Sonny's was a rare neurological disorder.

It had been building
slowly through the years.

When he fell at my feet on the ship

he was not only manifesting love.

And now it would accelerate.

Motion, speech, thought
would slowly disintegrate.

The doctors could do nothing,

our dream, our fantasies
about going to Israel

had to be tucked away like his personality

in a distance closet.

Abner grew.

We called him Abby now.

And by the time he was seven

his little thin voice would
make the evening announcement

over the majestics loudspeaker.

That dining room is now open for dinner.

The guests were intrigued by me,

because of the Exodus that gave me cache.

It spelled adventure.

Unlike the death camps,
which were too dark,

and too threatening to
be even thought about.

A boat they could deal with.

But I didn't tell them about anything else

nor did I tell Abner.

I didn't tell him about the ghetto,

and not even about Yultishka.

And I made sure that the
guests never spoke directly

to him in Yiddish.

I wanted Abby to be an all American boy.

I stopped dressing like a demented gypsy.

My suddenly tasteful wardrobe stood out

from the clashing colors
of the majestic clientele.

They knew, they knew
I didn't quite belong.

But what finally cemented my popularity

was the one true gift
that Sonny had given me,

apart from my life, which was my name,

because who could forget Rose Rose.

What they did forget was the majestic.

Soon they were saying
you're going to rose roses

for the summer?

And that's those who still
came to Atlantic City.

They were now black ghetto
surrounding the hotel strip.

And since victims of prejudice
often seem susceptible

to the same disease themselves.

Atlantic City just packed
up and moved to Florida.

The Jersey shoreline was desolate.

Mr. Peanut stopped dancing.

The burlesque house closed,

and salt water taffy became extinct.

The owner of the Majestic, Mr. Feldstein,

he asked me to become his partner

in a new hotel in the
booming sunshine state.

He couldn't afford to lose Rose Rose.

And so the Double Rose Hotel opened

on Collins Avenue and
every so often, Abby and I

would turn on the television
on our tropical veranda

in Miami Beach and watch on the news

as another abandoned palace hotel

in Atlantic City was demolished.

The boardwalk was littered with rubble.

Like the streets of
Dresden, where I once saw

a child with no arms.

Now every summer, a
group of young Israelis

came to the hotel and
gave us a presentation.

It's unfair to say that
they were a glow with youth

because it was so much more than that.

There was a passion and
belief in the future

that I had not encountered before.

Future, future wasn't even
a concept in Yultishka,

or Warsaw, or even in
Atlantic City or Miami Beach.

Somehow on some subconscious level

we knew we were skipping over quicksand.

But the Israelis, oh, they
seem to lack subconscious.

They, they were an entirely up front

and present with no
dark or hidden corners.

They showed us slides of their kibbutz.

They sang, they danced the hora

and collected money from our guests.

And each time they urged
us to follow them back

to join in that great adventure.

Each time I wanted to go so badly,

I wanted to be on the edge again.

But now I was Rose Rose
with responsibilities.

So, instead of giving
myself, instead I gave money

to plant trees in the name of my family.

I thought it was gonna be rather suitable

that mama would be a tree.

I hoped it would be a lilac tree.

Abby made friends with the Israelis.

Particularly a young
couple, Noam and Rutie.

And when he was 16 I
let him spend the summer

on their kibbutz.

He left with acne and returned
with a clear complexion.

And I knew that he had
discovered not just olive groves

and irrigation ditches, but sex as well.

Two summers later, Egypt invaded Israel.

Abby begged me to give him
the airfare to Tel Aviv.

How could I refuse?

His father had only been
a couple of years older

when he ran off to the Exodus.

Abby went to Noam's kibbutz
and worked in the fields

while the men were away.

It famously took Israel
six days to win the war.

It was unreal.

Miami Beach was jubilant.

We had an all night
party at the Double Rose.

We were all warriors.

There would be no screams
behind walls again.

The Exodus would not be towed away again.

I cried that night as I
had never cried before.

And I wasn't sure why.

The next day, Abby phoned me.

He wanted to stay.

I wasn't surprised.

I told Sonny that our child was living

on a kibbutz that he
had in essence achieved

our dream for us.

Sonny's hand shook his eyes were vacant.

The nurse fussed.

A few months later, his heart gave up.

I sat shivah and mourned, not his death

but his life.

Abby returned for the
funeral and promptly fell

in love with one of the
nurses at Sonny's hospital.

She was blonde and sweet
and her name was Kim.

Definitely not Jewish.

Abby stayed on to court her and very soon

Kim was as much in love with Abby's dream

as Abby, himself.

She took instruction
and converted to Judaism

and changed her name to Chava.

And they were married under
the chuppah at the Double Rose.

And soon as if it hadn't
happened at all, they were gone.

I was alone.

My husband was dead.

My son was gone.

Sonny had been a vegetable for years

but at least he was my vegetable.

Abby had stopped listening
to me a long time ago

but at least it was my voice
he was not listening to.

Now.

Now there was such silence.

Not even the sewers have been that silent.

Mr. Feldstein tried to make conversation.

He was kind and at a
certain age kindness counts.

Two years later, I married him.

Abby and Chava had a family.

Rafi first, then Irit, then Doron.

Beautiful children, born
with the olive features

of their land.

As if the earth itself had conceived them.

I went to visit.

My first time since I kissed the ground.

Wasn't like my memory.

Ah, I fell in love with
the land, with the desert,

and the hills, and the
amazing sense of green,

green planted by pioneers,

green transforming arid earth.

And I loved to the feeling

that everyone in the country
looked like my relative,

even in some odd way, the unamused faces

in the Arab villages we
drove horridly through.

That was something in the
eyes that I recognized.

A look, a look I remembered
from the sardines on the Exodus.

When I arrived at the airport,
Abby said welcome home mama.

And of course he was right.

It was home.

I cried when he said it

and I cried two weeks later
when I left for Miami Beach,

and my husband and my hotel.

Which was not doing so well.

Many of our customers had died,

and others were now too
old to have anything

to take a vacation from.

The neighborhood had changed as well.

It had suddenly become
Cuban with loud salsa music

which was nice, and cocaine
dealers, which was not so nice.

And so I suggested we convert the hotel

into a retirement home, and our guests

would just stay on forever.

And end their days quietly by the sea.

Albeit to a Latin beat
with the occasional sound

of bullets to spice up the night air.

We redecorated, we hired nurses,

and Double Rose was in business again.

Mr. Feldstein and I had
our own apartment nearby.

He was an amiable companion
and he knew to leave me alone

when I had my moods.

Every summer, I returned to Israel.

Every summer I'm marveled,
dazzling innovation.

But it was changing.

The milk was slightly sour.

The honey, a bit tart.

There was a war on, a few
miles away in Lebanon.

And Jews were being killed again

but this time Jews were killing as well.

And we weren't really sure
if it was in self-defense.

And we saw photographs
of women and children

picking their way through the rubble,

and the rubble wasn't ours.

It was next door.

And we were confused.

And our little boys had grown up,

and started a beard and had wet dreams,

and carried a gun, and
marched down the road

into another land.

Abby and his friends on
the kibbutz hated it.

Noam and Rutie were in despair.

There were sabras, after all,

and they had virtually created
this land, but not for this.

They said not for this.

But Chava, Chava was
fervently in favor of the war.

Chava, Kim had the
passion of the converted.

She knew what the Bible
said about enemies.

And she became increasingly religious.

She started to keep a kosher house.

She cut off her hair and wore a wig.

Abby was appalled and then confused

and then hostile.

The kibbutzniks and the
religious despised each other,

and Abby and Chava didn't
look for common ground.

They pushed each other away.

Their house was choking with tension.

One day, a theater in Haifa
brought a play to the kibbutz.

It was a play designed
for a young audience.

And indeed it was about
teenagers in the Warsaw ghetto.

Rafi, Irit, and Doron
wanted me to go with them.

I had no desire to visit the
ghetto, even in make-believe.

Enough already, but I
did want my grandchildren

to understand our past.

So I thought, okay, knowledge
is more important than pain.

So I went.

Now at one point, a
teenage boy leaves his home

to go underground and fight the Nazis.

And his grandmother an old
fat lady in a babushka,

and talking with a heavy
accent calls after him

using his Yiddish name.

Yitsalah, she calls.

Yitsalah.

A strange noise began to circulate

around the audience.

Yitsalah she called.

The noise grew louder.

Yitsalah, Yitsalah.

And suddenly the sound
was crashing about my ears

like a tidal wave waiting
to sweep me out to sea.

It was, it was laughter.

The kids were laughing.

The kids from the kibbutz
were laughing at the name.

The kids from the kibbutz
were laughing at the name.

Laughing at Yitsalah.

Laughing at the grandmother,
laughing at Yiddish.

And my grandchildren were laughing too.

And they were looking at me wondering

why I was not laughing.

I said to Abby, they thought it was funny.

So what, he replied.

But it's their culture, I said.

No, not in the longer, he replied.

Certainly not if they're
Sephardic or African.

Mama, we don't speak Yiddish
here, didn't you notice?

We speak Hebrew.

Yiddish was unnatural.

It was a mutant, a
mongrel, medieval German,

and a bit of Russian and Turkish
and French mixed together

in a blender with a little
seasoning and spice.

Whereas Hebrew is our very source.

It's the language of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And after all those years
we have reclaimed it.

I was stunned.

I actually thought his description
of Yiddish was beautiful

and explained why it was so special.

On the other hand, I
understood his meaning.

And from his perspective, he wasn't wrong.

He was marching into
the future, wasn't he?

Oh, that word, future, future.

Every conversation about
Israel has that word in it.

Still, how could I argue?

Well, I tried, it does
represent something, I said.

An entire civilization, a way of life,

a way of thinking that's
inspired this novel,

and that symphony, and
the theory of relativity,

and the science about the subconscious,

and maybe even ideas about
collective living that have

in turn inspired your kibbutz.

And if that is lost completely

then if it is utterly wiped away

isn't that Hitler's final victory.

That's just meshugge, he said.

I looked at my son, meshugge
is a Yiddish word, I said.

He laughed and walked away.

Time passed.

I stopped dying my hair.

The Double Rose began to lose money.

Mr. Feldstein had a heart attack.

I nursed him for two years
and then he passed on.

I finally sat shivah for
someone who had not died

before their time.

Made me feel so grown up.

Meanwhile, Miami Beach
had transformed yet again.

And suddenly it was overnight.

The chic and swinging center of America.

Collins Avenue was prime real estate.

And I sold Double Rose for a fortune.

And the new owners liked the name.

So now Double Rose is
the hottest club in town,

filled with gymnasium bodies
and a drug called ecstasy.

I kept my apartment.

It's good for them to see
an old person I figured.

And besides Rafi likes to visit me here.

Rafi and his sister Irit
left Israel some years ago.

Their parents are divorced by then.

Chava remarried a
settler on the West Bank,

a man with a Bible, a beard, and a B-59.

Irit moved to Rome.

Married a Catholic writer
and has two children.

Neither of whom are raised as Jews.

Rafi moved to Los Angeles.

He's a film editor.

He has, do I have to say it,
long hair, and an earring,

and in addition, a boyfriend.

A few years ago I went to
visit Rafi in Los Angeles

and he showed me how he works.

Well once I understood about
fast forward and jump cutting

I realized there was nothing
unusual in my hallucinations

and that movies were just
catching up with our minds.

And he took me to a hill
that overlooked the city.

And I reminded him that this
abnormal metropolis exists

as it is because a dozen immigrants,

Jews from the old country, made
their way here 75 years ago

and founded an industry.

What people called a dream factory,

and that, that in turn created
an image of American culture.

It, it printed visions on our minds.

They were Cossacks riding
through the shtetl,

became Indians attacking a wagon train.

And these images seeped into

into all existing
cultures, enriching them.

And, and, and I could see
his eyes were glazing over.

He wasn't interested.

I hugged them anyway.

That's when we went to Arizona.

I wanted to see the real west.

It wasn't so real.

There were no cowboys or Indians,

no stage coaches riding around the bend,

just airless towns and unending desert,

and an occasional technicolor canyon.

One day we drove for hours in emptiness

and wherever you looked there was nothing.

In the scale of nothing was awesome.

Finally, we reached a little
souvenir shop that stood alone

in the nothing.

Rafi's car was overheating.

So he went inside for some water.

I walked around the front of the store.

The windows were covered with tired

touristy watercolors of the desert.

I walked inside.

An old man stood behind the counter.

He was shouting at his
son in the stock room,

and the son was middle-aged and disturbed.

Desolate I would say.

Old man's voice was too rough.

I could hear a slight accent.

I looked at some more of the watercolors

and they were terrible.

Rafi was arguing with the old man.

The old man refused to
give Rafi any water.

I joined Rafi at the counter.

Maybe an old lady would get some water.

And I noticed the old man's hands.

They were filthy and chapped by the sun.

And then I saw his arm.

There was a faded number tattooed on it.

I felt dizzy.

I would never have
expected that in Arizona,

in the middle of nothing.

The old man was shouting at
his son as well as at Rafi.

And I wanted him to shut up.

My gaze swept up his arm to his stomach

which was gross and his
neck, which was sagging.

And then to his face, which
was leather and his eye,

his false eye that
looked right through me,

and his other eye, his real eye,

which was more like a heart.

A heart that had been shattered long ago.

We looked at each other for
a long time and didn't speak.

And then I turned and
ran out of the store,

pass the dreadful watercolors
back into nothing.

And I stared at nothing
for a very long time

and then returned to the car.

Rafi was beside me, a
pail of water on his lap.

He asked me what was wrong.

I could not answer.

And I looked out of the car
window and coming towards us

across the prairie was a tumbleweed.

And it rolled towards the car and passed,

and out again into the
desert and disappeared.

Even though the doctor doesn't believe me

about the breathing, he
insisted, helps to sip water

all the time.

And, and I do, I forget to sip.

I don't remember what I was talking about.

Oh yes.

Yes. Shivah.

Abby is angry with me for sitting shivah.

He was on the phone this
morning screaming at me

from Tel Aviv.

He lives in Tel Aviv now that
the kibbutz has gone caput.

It's not your business, he said.

You're not one of us.

And he's right.

On the other hand, Chava
lives on the West Bank

in a little settlement that adjoins

an ancient Palestinian
village, fig trees and rock.

It is of course in the Bible,

also an ancient Hebrew village.

She took Doron her youngest
with her when she left Abby.

I went to visit several years ago.

I wanted to see my grandson
who was still the sweetest boy.

But it was odd being on land

that didn't want me.

Where I felt that
ethically I didn't belong.

Remembering how Noam and
Rutie drinking too much

one night on the kibbutz told me

that dispose of war were a curse.

I didn't wanna be here.

I didn't wanna be there.

And Chava did not make it any easier.

She kept saying forefathers,
forefathers this,

and forefathers that.

And then in front of my grandchild,

she would praise the memory of this man.

This Baruch someone, who massacred a group

of worshipers in the Hebron mosque.

I told Chava that was sinful.

She reminded me of the
countless Jews who were

themselves massacred on this land.

I know, I know, I said.

And I mourn them with
a depth that even you

cannot understand, but
that still does not excuse

this Baruch person.

We're supposed to be better than that.

We're supposed to carry a
moral light into the world.

We, she screamed.

We?

How can you say we?

You don't deserve to call yourself a Jew.

I thought, well, my
dear, about the same time

my entire family were being
wiped out because I was Jewish

you, my dear were being
baptized in Kansas.

I didn't stay long.

And I did not see Doron again,

until last night.

When I put on the television
news and I saw his sweet

handsome face, sweaty
and strained and defiant.

There had been a riot.

The settlers in the villages.

Someone attacked someone,
someone threw a stone.

Someone was knifed, a settler
fired on the villagers.

A little girl had been
swept up in the crowd.

Well maybe, maybe she had
been throwing a stone.

She was nine.

A bullet struck her in the forehead,

and it caught her in
the middle of a thought.

Her name was Nora, Nora el-Kareem.

And they interviewed the
man who fired the shot.

Well, he wasn't a man.

He was a sweet faced boy, Doron, my blood.

Son of Yultishka.

Son of the lilac tree.

Child of Warsaw. Doron.

He killed a little girl.

He killed Nora el-Kareem.

His grandfather sailed the
ship to a promised land.

Doron. My blood.

So today I sit shivah for Nora el-Kareem.

It is of course a totally
empty gesture, I know that,

but I had to do something.

And at first I thought I
would write to her parents

and tell them I was mourning their child.

But they would hate me
for patronizing them.

Just as I would have hated the grandmother

of the soldiers who shot
Esther had she dared

to make a gesture towards me.

Esther, whom I never really mourned.

Because I was too busy staying alive.

Esther,

whom I never sat shivah for
on a proper wooden bench.

So now I'm sitting
shivah for a little girl

and it is meaningless.

A little girl who died
with Palestine on her lips.

When I talked Norm in Yiddish,

I say, it's all right.

Abby is furious.

Why are you doing this, he asks?

Because it's wrong.

Jews don't kill little girls.

Everyone kills little girls, he shouts.

It is horrible, but every nation does it.

But you are still an
occupying territory, I say.

Yes, we are, he replies.

And although it's not nearly as simplistic

as you make it out to be,

I strongly object to it.

In fact, it tears me in half.

And I know that if we
don't solve this soon

we are all of us headed for
disaster, but it is our problem.

My problem, not yours.

But Israel belongs to every Jew, I say.

Only in theory, he
replies, what did you do?

You bought a few trees.

You'll send some money.

You paid a few visits,
but did you taste it?

Did you taste it every day?

It is the difference between casual sex

and a relationship, he says.

It could have been yours.

You kissed the ground before any of us,

but you chose to live as an outsider,

a very comfortable one, but
an outsider nonetheless,

just as your ancestors did for centuries.

So I'll condemn my own son
if I choose to which I do.

But here in my own country

I won't let the rest of
the world tell my son

if he's wrong or right.

And I won't let you tell me that Jews

have to be better than everyone else.

I'm not the rest of the world, I say.

I'm part of you.

No!

You're part of chopped liver
and dybbuks, he replies.

That's something different.

That's in the past.

This is the future.

Now I know you hate that word,
but it is our only future.

We have nothing else.

Do you understand everything else is gone?

And then suddenly he starts to cry.

My Abby starts to cry.

You have to let us go, mama.

Your shadows will choke us to death.

We can't carry you with us.

Your world is dead.

And then he's silent.

And I can tell he's embarrassed.

And then he says, you
think you're sitting shivah

for this girl?

That's not what you're sitting shivah for.

What then I ask.

You tell me, he says.

There's no more water.

What was I saying?

I should get another bottle.

Haven't the energy.

I hear laughter outside.

Nighttime in Miami Beach.

Someone is always having a good time.

Probably chemically induced.

I don't belong here.

Abby is right, but did
I belong in Yultishka,

or Warsaw or anywhere?

Maybe there is a joy in not belonging.

Restless minds.

What did I say?

A restless people produce restless minds.

Maybe God is just a question
like everything else.

I'm thirsty.

Oh, the truth is that wooden benches

are very uncomfortable but,

I have to mourn this little girl, don't I?

Shall I sing you a song?

A movie I saw in Warsaw
on Krochmalna Street.

With Yussel.

We had just been to a cafe.

I think there was some
kind of fight over poetry.

Stupid.

No, maybe somebody owed
some money or that slept

with someone's friend,

I don't remember.

Anyhow, in the movie

Molly Picon was making a fool of herself.

It took place in a shtetl

but it was a shtetl made of cardboard.

It was a set.

Maybe it was Yultishka.

And Yussel put his hand under
my blouse while she sang.

♪ Yiddle mit a fiddle ♪

And his hand pinched my breast.

What was I saying?

♪ Yiddle mit fiddle ♪

I think that song is a
silly thing to remember.

On the other hand.