here. Pack it up and go!”
“Oh, where the hell is a waiter? Your clothes are wet, you haven’t eaten—” And to calm me down he reached across the table and took hold of my hand. “Just hang on—
waiter!”
“Hands off, clown! I don’t want lunch—
I want you out of my life!
Like Christian Dior, like Johnny Carson and the portable toilet—
out!”
“Christ, you’re on a short fuse, Philip. You’re a real heart-attack type. You act like I’m trying to ridicule you, when, Christ, if I valued you any more—”
“Enough—
you’re a fraud!”
“But,” he pleaded, “you don’t know yet what I’m trying to
do.”
“I
do
know. You are about to empty Israel of the Ashkenazis. You are about to resettle Jews in all the wonderful places where they were once so beloved by the local yokels. You and Walesa, you and Ceauescu are about to avert a second Holocaust!”
“But—then—that was
you,”
he cried. “
You
were Pierre Roget! You tricked me!” And he slumped over in his chair at the horror of the discovery, pure commedia dell’arte.
“Repeat that, will you? I did what?”
But he was now in tears, second time since we’d met. What
is
itwith this guy? Watching him shamelessly carrying on so emotionally reminded me of my Halcion crying jags. Was this his parody of my powerlessness, still more of his comic improvisation, or was he hooked on Halcion himself? Is this a brilliant creative disposition whose ersatz satire I’m confronting or a genuine ersatz maniac? I thought, Let Oliver Sacks figure him out—you get a taxi and go, but then somewhere within me a laugh began, and soon I was overcome with laughter, laughter pouring forth from some cavernous core of understanding deeper even than my fears: despite all the unanswered questions, never, never had anybody seemed less of a menace to me or a more pathetic rival for my birthright. He struck me instead as
a great idea
… yes, a great idea breathing with life!
___
Although I was over an hour late for our appointment, I found Aharon still waiting for me in the café of the Ticho House when finally I arrived there. He had figured that it was the rainstorm that delayed me and had been sitting alone at a table with a glass of water, patiently reading a book.
For the next hour and a half we ate our lunch and talked about his novel
Tzili
, beginning with how the child’s consciousness seemed to me the hidden perspective from which not just this but other novels of his were narrated as well. I said nothing about anything else. Having left the aspirant Philip Roth weeping in that empty hotel dining room, crushed and humiliated by my loud laughter, I had no idea what to expect next. I had faced him down—so now what?
This, I told myself:
this
. Stick to the task!
Out of the long lunchtime conversation, Aharon and I were able to compose, in writing, the next segment of our exchange.
___
R OTH : In your books, there’s no news from the public realm that might serve as a warning to an Appelfeld victim, nor is the victim’s impending doom presented as part of a European catastrophe. The historical focus is supplied by the reader, who understands, as the victims cannot, the magnitude of the enveloping evil. Your reticence as a historian, when combined withthe historical perspective of a knowing reader, accounts for the peculiar impact your work has—for the power that emanates from stories that are told through such very modest means. Also, dehistoricizing the events and blurring the background, you probably approximate the disorientation felt by people who were unaware that they were on the brink of a cataclysm.
It’s occurred to me that the perspective of the adults in your fiction resembles in its limitations the viewpoint of a child, who, of course, has no historical calendar in which to place unfolding events and no intellectual means of penetrating their meaning. I wonder if your own consciousness as a child at the edge of the Holocaust
“Oh, where the hell is a waiter? Your clothes are wet, you haven’t eaten—” And to calm me down he reached across the table and took hold of my hand. “Just hang on—
waiter!”
“Hands off, clown! I don’t want lunch—
I want you out of my life!
Like Christian Dior, like Johnny Carson and the portable toilet—
out!”
“Christ, you’re on a short fuse, Philip. You’re a real heart-attack type. You act like I’m trying to ridicule you, when, Christ, if I valued you any more—”
“Enough—
you’re a fraud!”
“But,” he pleaded, “you don’t know yet what I’m trying to
do.”
“I
do
know. You are about to empty Israel of the Ashkenazis. You are about to resettle Jews in all the wonderful places where they were once so beloved by the local yokels. You and Walesa, you and Ceauescu are about to avert a second Holocaust!”
“But—then—that was
you,”
he cried. “
You
were Pierre Roget! You tricked me!” And he slumped over in his chair at the horror of the discovery, pure commedia dell’arte.
“Repeat that, will you? I did what?”
But he was now in tears, second time since we’d met. What
is
itwith this guy? Watching him shamelessly carrying on so emotionally reminded me of my Halcion crying jags. Was this his parody of my powerlessness, still more of his comic improvisation, or was he hooked on Halcion himself? Is this a brilliant creative disposition whose ersatz satire I’m confronting or a genuine ersatz maniac? I thought, Let Oliver Sacks figure him out—you get a taxi and go, but then somewhere within me a laugh began, and soon I was overcome with laughter, laughter pouring forth from some cavernous core of understanding deeper even than my fears: despite all the unanswered questions, never, never had anybody seemed less of a menace to me or a more pathetic rival for my birthright. He struck me instead as
a great idea
… yes, a great idea breathing with life!
___
Although I was over an hour late for our appointment, I found Aharon still waiting for me in the café of the Ticho House when finally I arrived there. He had figured that it was the rainstorm that delayed me and had been sitting alone at a table with a glass of water, patiently reading a book.
For the next hour and a half we ate our lunch and talked about his novel
Tzili
, beginning with how the child’s consciousness seemed to me the hidden perspective from which not just this but other novels of his were narrated as well. I said nothing about anything else. Having left the aspirant Philip Roth weeping in that empty hotel dining room, crushed and humiliated by my loud laughter, I had no idea what to expect next. I had faced him down—so now what?
This, I told myself:
this
. Stick to the task!
Out of the long lunchtime conversation, Aharon and I were able to compose, in writing, the next segment of our exchange.
___
R OTH : In your books, there’s no news from the public realm that might serve as a warning to an Appelfeld victim, nor is the victim’s impending doom presented as part of a European catastrophe. The historical focus is supplied by the reader, who understands, as the victims cannot, the magnitude of the enveloping evil. Your reticence as a historian, when combined withthe historical perspective of a knowing reader, accounts for the peculiar impact your work has—for the power that emanates from stories that are told through such very modest means. Also, dehistoricizing the events and blurring the background, you probably approximate the disorientation felt by people who were unaware that they were on the brink of a cataclysm.
It’s occurred to me that the perspective of the adults in your fiction resembles in its limitations the viewpoint of a child, who, of course, has no historical calendar in which to place unfolding events and no intellectual means of penetrating their meaning. I wonder if your own consciousness as a child at the edge of the Holocaust
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