Since I was feeling lousy – with a bad back and a sinus cold, I stayed home and did nothing. But I kept thinking I should be writing a story. Instead, I wrote this:
Why I Don’t Seem Able To Write Jewish Fiction
You just don’t make stories like that up. There are so many little memories in my life of things happening to Jewish people that I find any fiction to be fantastical, sometimes even verging on the heretical. Such a range of untold history, so many fragments that can’t be fit into the frame of a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. My mind, rushing in with little flashes, tiny fragments I can find no way to corroborate or develop, no longer allows me leisure for fiction.
Take, for example, the stories of refugees who came to the U.S. in the years after the war. We had just established our own residence, having left the aunt who reluctantly sheltered us from 1948, when first arrived in America, and the first thing my parents did was to arrange to house refugees until they could find their bearings. I think now that perhaps my parents were helped to arrange a mortgage for this house, because it had an attic with three rooms that could accommodate entire families, and my family certainly couldn’t have afforded such a home.
On the other hand, it was a pretty primitive home, with a wood furnace in the basement, that had to be fed frequently and regularly and a refrigerator that demanded frequent visits from the ice man because it had no electricity. There was a cold cellar for storing the preserves we manufactured over an open fire in the garden: Borsht, Schav, cherries, peaches, strawberry jam. One vat for food and one vat for sterilizing bottles.
The plenty and the generosity of sharing all of it, despite the other economic hardships, were the basis of my memories. Filling the loss with food.
Before every family of refugees came, a man called Sam would appear. In the right pocket of his wrinkled trench coat was a Hershey bar for me, and I sat on his lap as he discussed the details of the arrival of new people with my parents. Money must have changed hands. My parents were struggling – and my private Hebrew school was sponsored by the Rochester Jewish council. And now I realize in retrospect that the second-hand cut-down clothes I wore were also charity and the rare occasions when new shoes were purchased also involved complaints about big feet as well as negotiations with the shop owner.
But it was the stories of the people who came to live with us that were more amazing, the few details I could surmise, tantalizing. Three families stand out. There were three thin people who spoke only German and communicated nominally with my parents. The daughter, Margot, was much older than me, twelve, and had no interest in any form of communication. They lived like shadows in our attic for months and always made it clear that they were better than we were. As far as I know there was no forwarding address, but I always remember her, with her straight blond hair, and her head leaning against her father’s coat. Other children, closer to my age, and from Rumania and Poland, were housed near us and I was sometimes called to acclimate them. All of them were very pleased to make friends and would run out to greet me, but Margot always remains a puzzle – was she snobbish, shy, or shell-shocked? I’ll never know.
Another German family came soon after, but although there was the same barrier of language, somehow with our Yiddish and their willingness, we managed to make contact. The father, whose mangled hands clearly indicated he had been tortured in order to work, because three ‘operative’ fingers were left on each hand, seem to enjoy my company more than that of his son, and dealt with my inability to learn mechanical tasks with enormous patience. He would run after me, hanging on to my bicycle, for months, his straight auburn hair flying behind him. I remember that picture well, because I was always looking back to see if he let go, because as much as I wanted to ride, I was terrified of being abandoned and falling, and couldn’t really concentrate on the road. With my parents at work all day, and engaged in community activity all evening, Ignaz was like a father, and our families remained in contact for many years. They were both skilled laborers, were absorbed into the work force quickly, and after a few months, moved into a home of their own.
But it was the last tenant who won our hearts. And broke them. Willy Neisner was a small single man with suits much too big for him and ears that matched the size of his suits. All of us fell in love with him, although I can’t remember why. My father became close with him, and it surprised me because my father had never shown affection for someone outside the family. After a few months he moved to the Jewish ‘Y’. We would see him occasionally at community events, and my brother and I would surround him and tease him about his single status. One Sunday morning my father went to visit and found him in his room hanging from a rope.
Since then, I’ve been told that there were many survivors who committed suicide, from the guilt of surviving, and Willy was just one. But he was someone who had no one to tell his story, and my father never told what he knew and I was only 9.
I don’t know if I want to tell you about this. It is, after all, the most romantic place I could imagine in the area to have an anniversary breakfast. Not many people seem to know about it, and that’s part of its wonder. it’s called “Hapina Hayeruka” translated as the green corner. My friend, Naama, brought me there a while ago, and I fell in love. So it was appropriate that I would bring my lover there on the day of our 41rst wedding anniversary. If you insist, I’ll post more pictures, but I’m not as good a photographer as Ezi is. 