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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 sit shivah for the dead.

"Shivah" sounds like
the name of a Hindu god.

(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)
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 unforgiveable.

And... on the eve
of a new millennium,

I stink of the past century.

(SIGHS) 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,
the ultra-Orthodox will, of course,

but something like shivah,
in reality,

is not religious.

It's just Jewish.

Eh, you sit on a wooden bench
for a week.

You laugh, cry, you 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 sore behind,

and it reminds you that you are from
a people, a culture,

a race of sore behinds and complaints

and heated discussion
and-and minds in turmoil

and minds in flight

and minds exploding like the atom.

Which I never understood, but...

..it 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 produced restless minds?

When you don't belong anyplace,
your mind doesn't belong anyplace.

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.

(GASPS LIGHTLY)

(GROANS SOFTLY)

(GASPS RASPILY) Mm.

(CLEARS THROAT)

Can't catch my breath.

(COUGHS LIGHTLY)

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

Mm.

(GULPS)

Ah.

(EXHALES HEAVILY)

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, ah, I remember
every single thing about yesterday!

Nothing happened yesterday.

No, trust me!

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYS)

But 70, 75 years ago, Yultiska,
a lot happened.

But I'm not so sure what.

Yultiska 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?

Huh.

Mud roads.

Tiny dwellings.

I-I-I'm not gonna call them houses,
but then I don't wanna say "huts",

so... so "dwellings".

Pink trees.

Well, the blossoms were pink.

And carts and wagons.

Comings and goings.

Traffic, but no exhaust fumes.
(CHUCKLES LIGHTLY)

We had an ozone layer in those days.

A pity nobody told us,
we could have enjoyed it.

Yultiska - just a little pimple
on the face of the Ukraine.

If you squeeze it, it would 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 gojim kept killing each other
and er...

What do you call it?

Uh...

..usurping sovereignty.

Ha! Sovereignty!

Ukraine - why would anybody want it?

And what would it be like today,
Yultiska?

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 goyishe 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.

Cos 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 Trebela, 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 curses... 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.

(SIGHS)

And doctors came from miles around.

Always melancholy.

And they brought him medicine.
Gifts!

Cos Papa never paid for
any of his hopeless cures.

And then people came from
neighbouring villages

and brought 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 kabbalist came
and talked of devils

and mentioned exorcism,

which made Papa smile,

because he had a soft spot
for hocus-pocus.

But the saint - mm! - 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'd been put on this earth
to perpetuate a higher moral force.

For her, it was just black and white.

And ironically, that made her seem
even more of a Christian.

By the time I was ten, I was
selling fruit from the roadside.

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.

(CHUCKLES)
You only had to look at it.

Melons and berries
were luscious then.

I can only imagine
what they're like now...

..in Yultiska, wherever it is now,
mutating from fallout.

Asher went to the yeshiva.

It was honourable 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 memorised large Russian words.

And invented new Yiddish ones.

I became pretentious
in several languages at once!

And Asher, Asher came home
from the yeshiva

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 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 is supported
by the Bible.

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 pogrom

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 don't... I close me 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 surrounded us.

Mm! 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 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.

(EXHALES HEAVILY)

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.

And I heard a voice.

It was singing.

Singing in an unknown tongue.

I... went a little nearer,
to hear this delirious sound.

It was uh... 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 on to 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 woods,
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 a Christian again.

I had to get away from Yultiska.

But Asher beat me to it.

He married a girl
from the next village.

Her name was Hiya,
and she was a catch.

Her family were merchants.

And the parents gave them money,
and with it they moved to Warsaw.

(INHALES SHARPLY)

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.

"Hiya could use some help
around the house.

Come, if you can."

He wrote to Mama,
"Send Rosella to Warsaw.

She can take a train from Kiev.
Send her to Warsaw."

Mama looked at me.

A 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.

It 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 saved.

"For when it's life and death."

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

"Yes, it is," she said.

(COUGHS RASPILY) Oh...

(INHALES DEEPLY)

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.

(GULPS)

Mm.

(EXHALES SLOWLY)

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!

The artists and prostitutes,
and-and-and pickpockets,

and... and those funny little men
who sold lottery tickets -

you could win an American eagle
made of chocolate

or three coloured pencils.

And...
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 Hiya was in a good mood for once.

And the room seemed to go round and
round, 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.

Youssel'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 bed springs 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 Youssel and me,
there was so much noise.

Moaning and groaning and shouting
and screaming

and... and... and...

No, no, no. No. I...

And we lived happily ever after.

(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)

(SNIFFLES)

Now, Youssel 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 gojim,

oh, they love nothing better
than a naked man

in a sadomasochistic ecstasy,
strung up on wood,

or... or... a-an arrow
piercing his nipple.

Sex and God are very confused
for the gojim.

But for Jews, they're quite separate.

We can't see our god,
so we can't 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.

(SIGHS)

But with Youssel 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.

(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)

We loved Westerns.

The canyons and the desert and the...

..tumbleweed blowing into
an empty town

and the stagecoach
riding round the bend.

And we liked those silly
Yiddish movies.

The shtetl movies with Molly Picon
dancing around the shtetl, singing...

# Yidl mitn fidl

# Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay

# Y... #

And sometimes
Youssel 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 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!"

(SIGHS)

When we made love,

h-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 Yultiska.

And I would worry about Mama
and Rivka.

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... I wasn't too worried.

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

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

(CHUCKLES GENTLY)

And my feeling was,
"Can the Germans be any worse?"

(CHUCKLES)

(SIGHS)

I don't remember the ghetto.

(SIGHS)

Well, OK.

(BREATHES HEAVILY)

We were packed together.

We were taken out of our homes.

And relocated in a small area.

Then they built a wall around us.

12 Jews to a room.

Uh... Maybe it wasn't 12. I...

I don't remember.

But I'll tell you what hell is.

Hell is 12 people snoring
in the same room.

Youssel 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?

How did this happen?!

Yesterday, we were walking across
the Gravettian 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 don't know if there 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?

I should be in Yultiska,
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 Hiya...

..were in a room with nine people.

They had lost their child to cholera.

When I entered the room,
Hiya was screaming.

And Asher told me to ignore her.

But I couldn't ignore her.

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... 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 friendly to Jews

and took on more than she needed.

(SIGHS) But only women.

And then... Oh, then Hiya
started to beat her breast.

And Asher took a rope
and tied her hands.

Wh-what were we doing here in Warsaw?

What were we doing here in Warsaw?

And then Hiya 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 Youssel
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 work in the factory.

They escorted you out in the morning
and escorted you back at night.

Youssel 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.

(FIRE CRACKLES)

Some of the women fainted.

I... I lost control of my body.

(CRACKLING INTENSIFIES)

I shat myself.

Youssel and Esther
were in the ghetto.

(SCREAMING)

And we could hear screaming f...

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

(SCREAMING STOPS)

That night,
we returned to the ghetto.

The streets were filled with bodies.

The buildings were burning.

SS men were walking with dogs.

I found my room.

Everything in it
had been smashed to pieces.

It was empty.

Where were Esther and Youssel?

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-I knew what it was like.

I went to Asher's room.

It was empty.

Asher was gone, Hiya was gone.

A hand pulled me off the sidewalk.

It was Simcha,
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 Youssel had handed Esther to him.

Said, "Take her to the cellar."

But Youssel had stayed behind.

How could he slip unnoticed
through the streets,

with his red hair and his earring?

So, he said to Simcha,
"Tell my wife... Tell Rosella..."

"..to protect our child."

Thank you, Youssel.

Thank you very much.

Love of my life.

Later, someone told me

they saw him marching
in the left line of prisoners.

The... The line for useless people.

The line for one-eyed men.

They marched them into the woods
where the machine-guns were.

Fertiliser.
They made the bodies into fertiliser.

(SIGHS) I wonder what they did
with his earring?

I don't remember any of this.

Simcha 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 Simcha.

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 blond Ukrainian.

He could have been from Yultiska.

Stalin and Hitler were friends...
for the minute.

The Ukrainians helped the Germans
to guard the ghetto.

But why soup today?

Simcha 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 have been from Yultiska.

H-he was just passing by.

Simcha started to cry.

Esther's body lay
in front of the soup.

It was just water.

It wasn't really even soup.

I kicked S...imcha in the stomach.

I was supposed to protect her.

Thank you!
Thank you very much, Youssel!

Simcha fell to the ground.

I ran out into the street,
and I don't know what happened next.

(GASPS RASPILY)

You know, if I were a Buddhist,

this would count as points
on the next life!

(CHUCKLES)

(BREATHS SHAKILY)

(SPLUTTERS)

Yes, it's almost time for my pill.

(BREATHES DEEPLY)

For the breathing.

(CLEARS THROAT)

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 Simcha in the stomach.

But, on the other hand,

I still needed rituals.

So, I sat a kind of mental shivah

for Esther, for Youssel,

for Asher, for Mama and Rivka,

because somewhere inside
I knew that they were gone.

Later, I met someone
from a village near Yultiska,

who described the end of our shtetl.

The Nazis marched all the Jews
into the schoolhouse,

locked the door...

..and burned it down.

Easy.

Screams from behind the walls, again.

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

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

but... but once there,
oh, yes, I remember everything.

There were 30 of us.

I was numb.

Novocaine.

Two years.

You do things in order to stay alive.

I remember everything.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYS)

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.

(BREATHES DEEPLY)

Well, then... the war was over.

One day, Nazis were marching
into Warsaw,

and the next day, 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?

Ah-ha! 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.

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 "centre",
but it was a camp.

(CHUCKLES)

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".

Ha! I could have told them that
long before!

The camps...
Oh, 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 heroine 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 travelled 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 harbour.

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 harbour.

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 1,500 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 bo...

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 away.

Then I...
Then I saw children throwing a ball.

A little girl playing hide and seek.

A tiny little...

No.

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 realised the chest was attached
to a sailor, who was smiling at me.

Why was he smiling at me?

(CHUCKLES NERVOUSLY)

There was a chill from the sea,
and he put on his shirt.

Except he was clumsy, an-and he put
his head into the hole for his arm,

and he was stuck.

Suddenly, my body
went into convulsions.

My spine went into spasm.

My stomach jumped.

There was an electric current
across my breast.

And I knew this was it.

Finally... (SPLUTTERS)

..I was going to die.

And then, I heard this... this noise,
a sound from my throat.

A strange heaving sound.

(INHALES SHARPLY)

(COUGHS)

And I realised I...
I realised what was happening.

I w... (SPLUTTERS)

I was laughing!

I had forgotten.

I hadn't laughed
since the cafe in Krochmalna Street.

Something Youssel had said.

He kissed my cheek,
which was wet from tears of laughter.

(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)

Had that really happened?

And now... here I was,
on the open sea,

in another life.

And this silly sailor,
with his head in the arm hole,

had made my body scream, "Ha-ha-ha!"

Who invented that sound?

Those... syllables? Huh?

If "ha-ha-ha" is a word,

then it's the only one that exists
in every language.

And then... then the sailor,

who had produced this "ha-ha-ha",
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.

Youssel was very direct.

On that first night in the cafe,
he said to me,

"I think we should fuck."

Well, 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.

Most of the sailors on the boat
were Americans.

(CHUCKLES) 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,

w-with "Injuns" and tumbleweed.

And he said, "No, New Jersey."

Which made me like him less.

And 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-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 tear gas.

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 corned 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 Youssel,
for Mama.

And I was screaming.

I was exhilarated.

I was almost happy!

And my aim was good -

I was wiping out Mr Bevin's boys
with potatoes.

Now... 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.

Youssel'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 harbour.

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,

and... 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 realised 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-a stopover on a cruise ship.

A-a-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,

realised that we were not sailing
to Cyprus after all.

We were on the open seas,
heading back to Europe.

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 had 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.

(TRAIN SLOWLY PUFFS)
And I saw Sonny

running alongside the platform.

He was shouting. Shouting my name.

(TRAIN WHISTLE BLASTS)

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!"

(TRAIN SPEEDS UP)

I-I didn't know what to do.

My heart was barely alive.

(STUTTERS)

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 Youssel was dead?

Someone saw him marching in a line
towards the machine guns,

but did they see a body?

On the other hand,
how could he have survived?

"Jump!" he screamed.

The train
was leaving the platform now.

It... It was the train to...
to nowhere.

At least I think it was leaving.

You know, maybe this was a movie.

How often had I seen this scene?

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.

What did it matter?

I jumped!

He caught me.

Then he dropped me.
(CHUCKLES LIGHTLY)

And then we were surrounded
by soldier 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.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYS)

Papa would be proud -
I take medicine now.

For the breathing.

For the cholesterol.

For the kidney.

For this.

For that.

(PILLS RATTLE)

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 open 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 uh... I can't swallow pills.

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... (CLEARS THROAT)

..I chew my pills.

The problem is,
they taste like donkey droppings,

so I have to kill the taste.

Voila!

(CHUCKLES)

OK.

This is uh...

..peanut butter vanilla.

It's a new flavour.

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...

(CRUNCHING)

OK.

Mmm.

Mmm. It's good.

Mmm.

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.

(SIGHS)

Sonny was born in Atlantic City.

Which I guess he must have 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.

Mmm.

So...

..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.

Mmm.

Sonny had an uncle...

..in some bureau, and...

..I finally received a paper
which said that I existed,

and a Jewish chaplain married us
in Berlin.

And then I was back on a boat.

(CRUNCHING)

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?"

(CHUCKLES)

Sonny's parents had a few
"who is he?" questions.

"Who is she?"

The boy runs away to be a pirate

and he comes back with
a catatonic shtetl girl?

When...

..all they ever wanted was a nice
Jewish-American daughter-in-law

called Sheila.

Or Arleen.

(CHUCKLES)

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.

Of course, the guilt hung in the air.

And my presence disturbed them.

(PILLS RATTLE)

I mean, they were relieved
that I didn't have...

that I did haven't a...
a number tattooed on my arm.

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

They didn't wanna know.

Of course, I didn't wanna tell them.

Oh...

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 one of 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 and the same time.

For one dollar, 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.

And you passed...

..the art deco palaces
and the dancing waters,

which were coloured water that
sprouted in different formations,

hence "dancing",

and the steel...

..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.

And you passed the arcades...

..and the fortune tellers

and the stores
selling saltwater taffy,

which ruined Jewish teeth
for the next two generations.

Ah... So, the first night
in Atlantic City,

my first night in Atlantic City,

Sonny took me on a...
on a rolling chair.

And halfway down the boardwalk,
we passed a store selling nuts.

And we were approached by
a 6ft 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 person camp?

(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)

Sonny's father owned
several beach chair concessions,

and he gave Sonny a...

He gave one of them to Sonny,

and he gave one of them to Sonny
as a start-up ladder.

That's an American expression.
Although... (SIGHS)

..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 love-making,

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 of 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.

I... I...

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.

But 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
enter the English language.

Words like "schmuck" and "schlep"
and "schmatta"

and "schmooze" and "chutzpah".

We saw Yiddish magicians pulling
little Jewish rabbits out of a hat.

And we heard hazzanas -
female cantors -

who sang melancholy shtetl melodies.

And I remembered the lilac tree

and finally understood.

And Molly Picon came once
to entertain.

She was tiny
and depressingly energetic.

And she sang....

# Yidl mitn fidl... #

..as if she was still simulating
shtetl life on a Warsaw screen.

We went to the Yiddish theatre
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-I could bear to look at him.

I ran onto the boardwalk,
then 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,
he took me in his arms.

"No, there's another answer,"
I thought.

"No!"

"I would bring Youssel back to me.

I would make Youssel's spirit
possess my body."

Now, if Youssel was really
gonna possess me,

I needed to give him a push.

So... 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.

Eh!

I expected Sonny's parents would be
outraged by my new appearance.

But no, they approved.

They thought I looked less Russian.

(SCOFFS) 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.

Th-th-the hysteria over
"Reds under the beds"

was in high gear.

And actually, "communist"
was just a codeword 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.

And as Americans were no longer
very good on horses,

they committed their pogroms
around committee tables

and under television lights.

I wasn't too concerned about myself.

I knew that the politicians
were mesmerised

by State Department and showbusiness,

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 mad woman look.

Which annoyed me, because
the whole point about possession

is that everyone around you
recognised it.

Youssel's persona within me
was not there.

It was only skin deep.

"Right."

He needed inducement!

I found a book about kabbalah,

and in it, the perfect magic spell
for summoning a dead spirit.

Now, it involved semen,
which was 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 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 Youssel was curiously
uninterested in Sonny's semen.

Maybe if I started to behave
more like Youssel

that would give him a push
in my direction.

So, I started to...

..swagger a bit around the house.

And I took up painting, and uh...

And once, when Sonny returned
from Abner's room,

where he'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.

"OK."

"OK," I thought.

Maybe... Maybe it would help
if I stared noticing women?

Huh? Because I remember walking
with Youssel down Grabowska Street,

which was near the Muranow Theatre,

and always filled
with young actresses.

And Youssel 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 passed.

(CHUCKLES)

No, Youssel 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 Youssel 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 Youssel,
the more people liked me.

Youssel had become the
most popular woman in Atlantic City,

but still he eluded me!

He...

He wasn't inside.

So, then, Miss America arrives.

("THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC"
PLAYS)

The Miss America pageant
officially ended the summer season

in Atlantic City,

and it was big deal
for the beach chair trade.

since the pageant began
with a 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 aahed
over the pretty shiksas.

And the parade began
with a little band,

and then the first girl,
Miss Alabama!

Cos 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
Youssel and I were looking after him.

Youssel 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 them again,
and there was Miss Delaware,

and I closed them again.

And then... suddenly I heard Abbie.

"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, he 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 and smiling,
and smiling and waving, and...

Totally ignoring the funny man
sprawled at the bottom of her float.

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'd been waiting for.

I... I felt a shudder near my heart.

And then someone
was pushing their way into my body.

Oh, it was Youssel.

Youssel was here.

Youssel had taken possession of me.

Miss New Hampshire driving past,

had she seen Youssel
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 somehow it was... i-it was...
it was not as I imagined it.

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

Uh...

I thought that I would maybe...

I-I thought that I would hear
Youssel'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, Youssel'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.

(SNIFFLES)

I took a deep breath,

and I-I-I ran to Sonny
and I helped him up.

He said, "I don't know what's wrong,
sweetheart."

I said, "No, it's nothing.
It's just the sun."

(BREATHES SHAKILY)

But inside of me, inside, I said,
"Goodbye, Youssel."

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.

(GASPS)

(GASPS)

(GROANS SOFTLY)

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.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYS)

Mm.

OK, so...

..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.

(WATER POURS)

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 Youssel's eye
had shown me the truth.

Maybe. Who knows?

(SIGHS) Sonny's was a rare
neurological disorder.

It... 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 dreams, our fantasies,
about going to Israel

had to be tucked away,
like his personality,

in a distant closet.

Abner grew.

We called him "Abbie" now.

And by the time he was seven,

his little, thin voice
would make the evening announcement

over the Majestic's loudspeaker.

IN YOUNG VOICE: "The dining room
is now open for dinner."

The guests were intrigued by me,

because of the Exodus.

That gave me cachet.

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.

I didn't tell them
about anything else.

Nor did I tell Abner.

I didn't tell him about the ghetto.

Not even about Yultiska.

And I made sure that the guests never
spoke directly to him in Yiddish.

I wanted Abbie to be
an all-American boy.

I stopped dressing like
a demented gypsy.

My suddenly-tasteful wardrobe
stood out

from the clashing colours
of the Majestic clientele.

And 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, "Are you going
to Rose Rose's for the summer?"

That's those who still came
to Atlantic City.

There were now black ghettos
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 saltwater 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, Abbie 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 aglow 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 Yultiska.

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 seemed to lack subconscious.

They... They were 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 their great adventure.

And 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...

So, 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.

Abbie made friends with the Israelis.

Particularly a young couple,
Noam and Ruti.

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.

Abbie 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.

Abbie 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.

(INHALES SHARPLY)

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, Abbie 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.

Abbie 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.

Abbie stayed on to court her,

and very soon Kim was as much in love
with Abbie's dream as Abbie himself.

She took instruction
and converted to Judaism

and changed her name to Hava.

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
and my son was gone.

Sonny had been a vegetable for years,
but at least he was MY vegetable.

Abbie had stopped listening to me
a long time ago,

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

And now...

..now there was such silence.

Not even the sewers
had 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.

Abbie and Hava had a family.

Rafi first, then Irit,
and 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.

(GASPS)

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, too, 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 hurriedly through.

There was something in their eyes
that I recognised.

A look.

A look I remembered
from the sardines on the Exodus.

When I arrived at the airport,

Abbie 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 neighbourhood 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.

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 marvelled at 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-defence.

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.

Abbie and his friends on the kibbutz
hated it!

Noam and Ruti were in despair.

They were sabras, after all, and they
had virtually created this land.

But not for this!

They said, "Not for this!"

But Hava, mm!

Hava was fervently in favour
of the war.

Hava - 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.

Abbie was appalled.

And then confused.

And then hostile.

The kibbutzniks and the religious
despised each other.

And Abbie and Hava
didn't look for common ground.

They pushed each other away.

Their house was choking with tension.

One day, a theatre 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.

(CHUCKLES LIGHTLY)

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, "OK, 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.

"Yittele!" she calls.

"Yittele!"

Well, a strange noise began
to circulate around the audience.

"Yittele!" she called.

The nose grew louder.

"Yittele, Yittele!"

And suddenly, the sound was crashing
about my ears like a tidal wave,

waiting to sweep me out to see.

It was... It was laughter!

The kids were laughing.

The kids from the kibbutz
were laughing at... at the name.

The kids from the kibbutz
were laughing at the name.

Laughing at Yittele.

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.

They...

I said to Abbie,
"They thought it was funny!"

"So what?" he replied.

"Well, it's their culture," I said.

"No, not any 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-a-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 civilisation.
A way of life.

A way of thinking that's inspired
this novel and that symphony

and a theory of relativity

and a 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 i-if it is utterly wiped away,

isn't that Hitler's final victory?"

"That's just meshuga," he said.

I looked at my son.

"'Meshuga' is a Yiddish word,"
I said.

He laughed and walked away.

(SIGHS)

Time passed.

I stopped dyeing 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 centre 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.

(SIGHS) I kept my apartment.

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

And besides,
Rafi likes to visit me here.

Rafi and his sister, Irit,
left Israel some years ago.

Their parents had divorced by then.

Hava 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... (CHUCKLES)

..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 worked.

Well, once I understood about
fast-forward and jump-cutting,

I realised 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..
It printed visions on our minds.

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.

(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)
He wasn't interested.

I hugged him 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 stagecoaches
riding round the bend.

Just airless towns
and unending desert.

And an occasional
technicolour canyon.

One day,
we drove for hours in emptiness,

and wherever you looked,
there was nothing.

And 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 watercolours of the desert.

I walked inside.

An old man stood behind the counter.

He was shouting at his son
in the stockroom.

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 watercolours,

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.

Past the dreadful watercolours,
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.

Then I looked out of the car window,

and coming towards us,
across the prairie,

was a tumbleweed.

And it rolled towards the car,

and past...

..and out against into the desert
and disappeared.

(COUGHS GENTLY)

(GASPS LIGHTLY)

Even though the doctor doesn't
believe me about the breathing,

he insists it helps to sip water
all the time.

And I do, I forget to sip.

Ah.

I don't remember
what I was talking about.

Oh... Oh, yes. Yes, shivah.

(EXHALES SHARPLY) Abbie 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 kaput.

"It's not your business," he said.

"You're not one of us."

And he's right.

On the other hand...

..Hava 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 Abbie.

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.

I remember how Noam and Ruti,

drinking too much
one night on the kibbutz,

told me that the spoils of war
were a curse.

I didn't want to be here.

I didn't want to be there.

And Hava did not make it any easier.

She kept saying, "Forefathers."

"Forefathers this,"
and, "Forefathers that,"

and uh... and then,
in front of my grandchild,

she... she would praise the memory
of this man, this Baruch someone,

who massacred a group of worshipers
in the Hebron mosque.

I told Hava 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 are 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 baptised 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 and the villagers.

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-Karim.

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 Yultiska.

Son of the lilac tree.

Child of Warsaw, Doron.

He killed a little girl.

He killed Nora El-Karim.

His grandfather sailed a ship...

..to a promised land.

Doron...

..my blood.

So, today, I sit shivah
for Nora El-Karim.

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

but I had to do something.

(SNIFFLES)

At first, I thought I would write
to her parents

and tell them
I was mourning their child.

But they would hate me
for patronising them.

Just as I would have hated
the grandmother

of the soldier 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.

I talk to Nora in Yiddish.

"It's beseder, bubeleh," I say.

"It's all right."

"It's beseder, bubeleh.
Shlof mayn kind."

Abbie 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 said.

"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, huh?

You bought a few trees, you sent
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 is wrong or right,

and I won't let you tell me

that Jews have to be better
than everyone else."

"But I... 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 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 Abbie 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?

(SIGHS)

I should get another bottle.

I haven't the energy.

I hear laughter outside.

Night-time in Miami Beach.

Someone is always having a good time.

Probably chemically induced.

I don't belong here.

Abbie is right.

But did I belong in Yultiska?

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.

(GROANS)

(CHUCKLES LIGHTLY)

The truth is that wooden benches
are uncomfortable, but...

(GROANS SOFTLY)

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

(SIGHS)

It's beseder, bubeleh.

It's beseder, bubeleh.
It's beseder.

Shlof mayn kind.

Shlof mayn Nora.

Mayn Esther.

Shall I sing you a song?

(SPEAKS YIDDISH)

(SPEAKS YIDDISH)

(SNIFFLES)

A movie I saw in Warsaw,
on Krochmalna Street.

With Youssel.

We had just been to a cafe.

I think there was some kind of fight
over poetry.

Ha!

Stupid!

No.

Maybe somebody owed someone money

or had slept with someone's friend.

I... I don't remember, but...

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 Yultiska.

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

# Yidl mitn fidl

# Arye mitn bas

# Yidl, shmidl

# Yidl, sh... #

And his hand pinched my breast.

(INHALES DEEPLY)

(MOANS SOFTLY)

(GULPS)

What was I saying?

# Yidl, shmidl

# Yidl... #

I think that song
is a silly thing to remember.

(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)

On the other hand...

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYS)

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