world.”
I took up courage to say more.
“Hitler’s stormtroopers are now burning books in the university courtyard.”
I wondered if they were burning a copy of the paperback book I had sent her.
“What strikes me so forcefully in your books,” I said, “is the hope that women will help end the horror and create peace. Men make wars, not women.”
“Once,” she said, “we had such hope for the world.”
The words rang in my head. Such hope for the world.
I stood up. Half an hour had passed. I knew I should not take more of her time. I bent over and shook her hand.
“Thank you so much. Your writing gives me the will to write as a woman.”
She nodded, “Thank you.”
Leonard took my arm and led me out into Tavistock Square.
I returned to my hotel and swiftly jotted notes in my notebook, though I needed no notes to remember this day. I would remember it all vividly for the rest of my life. I was in rapture. I had met Virginia Woolf.
It was late October 1935 when I left London and sailed home on the SS Normandie. In the busy New York harbor, I looked around the pier. No one was there to meet me. I guessed my family was getting used to my comings and goings. I tossed my suitcase into the trunk of a yellow cab, and in the taxi’s back seat clutched my camera bag and checked my briefcase to make sure that my notebooks and the Virginia Woolf book were all safe.
Driving through Manhattan, then across the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn, I kept breathing the air. Free air. Everything seemed peaceful, serene. The crowded streets seemed purely American with pushcart sellers selling fresh vegetables, while other vendors shouted, “Bargains, everybody. Come get your bargains here,” as they pointed to the housedresses hanging from racks. The dark shadow of war had not yet crossed the Atlantic.
I had scarcely rung the doorbell on Harmon Street when Mama opened the heavy black gate, kissed me, and said, “You must be starving.”
“Not at all.”
“Come in the kitchen anyway.” Mama, in a starched white apron, hurried me inside. “I prepared a whole meal for you.”
To Mama, food was love. I knew I was home.
In the sun-filled kitchen-dining-living room, Papa sat at the head of the table, waiting for me. I kissed him as he put his arm around me. “Thank the Almighty you’re safe,” he murmured. I took my favorite seat at his right. Mama was already filling our soup bowls with hot chicken noodle soup; and then she sat down to join us.
“We were so worried about you,” Mama said, “when we got your letters from Germany, Poland, Russia. All you hear on the radio is Hitler with that little mustache. He looks like Charlie Chaplin. Who goes to those countries now? Nobody. Only my mishuggeneh [crazy] daughter.”
She looked at Papa to make sure he agreed. He said nothing but smiled at me. Mama went on, “My aunt Mirel in Poland wrote us you left a lot of your clothes with her granddaughter Hannah.”
“I wish I could have brought her to America. She’s fifteen. In a couple of years, they’ll marry her off. What future does she have?” I turned to Papa. “What future did you have in Odessa?”
Papa stroked his white mustache for a minute. “I had to leave Odessa,” he said, “when I was sixteen. That’s when the police picked you up, put you in the army, and nobody ever saw you again.”
I decided it was safe to tell them something I had never written about to them, knowing how worried they would be. “In your shtetl , Mama, I was sitting with all your relatives who wanted to know about everyone in America until two o’clock in the morning. Suddenly two Polish policemen came banging on the door. One of them, a fat one, said, ‘We hear you have somebody from America.’ He pointed a club at me. ‘Open your bags.’ I opened my suitcase and watched him silently holding everything, even my panties and bra, up to the candle light. Then he went into my briefcase, opened every book, even a copy
I took up courage to say more.
“Hitler’s stormtroopers are now burning books in the university courtyard.”
I wondered if they were burning a copy of the paperback book I had sent her.
“What strikes me so forcefully in your books,” I said, “is the hope that women will help end the horror and create peace. Men make wars, not women.”
“Once,” she said, “we had such hope for the world.”
The words rang in my head. Such hope for the world.
I stood up. Half an hour had passed. I knew I should not take more of her time. I bent over and shook her hand.
“Thank you so much. Your writing gives me the will to write as a woman.”
She nodded, “Thank you.”
Leonard took my arm and led me out into Tavistock Square.
I returned to my hotel and swiftly jotted notes in my notebook, though I needed no notes to remember this day. I would remember it all vividly for the rest of my life. I was in rapture. I had met Virginia Woolf.
It was late October 1935 when I left London and sailed home on the SS Normandie. In the busy New York harbor, I looked around the pier. No one was there to meet me. I guessed my family was getting used to my comings and goings. I tossed my suitcase into the trunk of a yellow cab, and in the taxi’s back seat clutched my camera bag and checked my briefcase to make sure that my notebooks and the Virginia Woolf book were all safe.
Driving through Manhattan, then across the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn, I kept breathing the air. Free air. Everything seemed peaceful, serene. The crowded streets seemed purely American with pushcart sellers selling fresh vegetables, while other vendors shouted, “Bargains, everybody. Come get your bargains here,” as they pointed to the housedresses hanging from racks. The dark shadow of war had not yet crossed the Atlantic.
I had scarcely rung the doorbell on Harmon Street when Mama opened the heavy black gate, kissed me, and said, “You must be starving.”
“Not at all.”
“Come in the kitchen anyway.” Mama, in a starched white apron, hurried me inside. “I prepared a whole meal for you.”
To Mama, food was love. I knew I was home.
In the sun-filled kitchen-dining-living room, Papa sat at the head of the table, waiting for me. I kissed him as he put his arm around me. “Thank the Almighty you’re safe,” he murmured. I took my favorite seat at his right. Mama was already filling our soup bowls with hot chicken noodle soup; and then she sat down to join us.
“We were so worried about you,” Mama said, “when we got your letters from Germany, Poland, Russia. All you hear on the radio is Hitler with that little mustache. He looks like Charlie Chaplin. Who goes to those countries now? Nobody. Only my mishuggeneh [crazy] daughter.”
She looked at Papa to make sure he agreed. He said nothing but smiled at me. Mama went on, “My aunt Mirel in Poland wrote us you left a lot of your clothes with her granddaughter Hannah.”
“I wish I could have brought her to America. She’s fifteen. In a couple of years, they’ll marry her off. What future does she have?” I turned to Papa. “What future did you have in Odessa?”
Papa stroked his white mustache for a minute. “I had to leave Odessa,” he said, “when I was sixteen. That’s when the police picked you up, put you in the army, and nobody ever saw you again.”
I decided it was safe to tell them something I had never written about to them, knowing how worried they would be. “In your shtetl , Mama, I was sitting with all your relatives who wanted to know about everyone in America until two o’clock in the morning. Suddenly two Polish policemen came banging on the door. One of them, a fat one, said, ‘We hear you have somebody from America.’ He pointed a club at me. ‘Open your bags.’ I opened my suitcase and watched him silently holding everything, even my panties and bra, up to the candle light. Then he went into my briefcase, opened every book, even a copy
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