The Street
“A Yiddish newspaper fluttering on her massive lap, black bootlaces unravelled, my grandmother was ensconced in a kitchen chair on the balcony, seemingly rooted there, attended by sons and daughters, fortified by grandchildren. “How is it for the Jews in Europe?” she asked me.
A direct question from an old lady with a wart turned like a screw in her cheek and in an instant I was shorn of all my desperately acquired sophistication; my New Statesman outlook, my shaky knowledge of wines and Europea...n capitals; the life I had made for myself beyond the ghetto.
“I don’t know,” I said, my shame mixed with resentment at being reclaimed so quickly. “I didn’t meet many.”
Leaning against their shiny new cars, yawning on the balcony steps with hands thrust into their trouser pockets or munching watermelon, pinging seeds into saucers, my uncles reproached me for not having been to Israel. But their questions about Europe were less poignant than my grandmother’s. Had I seen the Folies Bergères?MoreLess
A direct question from an old lady with a wart turned like a screw in her cheek and in an instant I was shorn of all my desperately acquired sophistication; my New Statesman outlook, my shaky knowledge of wines and Europea...n capitals; the life I had made for myself beyond the ghetto.
“I don’t know,” I said, my shame mixed with resentment at being reclaimed so quickly. “I didn’t meet many.”
Leaning against their shiny new cars, yawning on the balcony steps with hands thrust into their trouser pockets or munching watermelon, pinging seeds into saucers, my uncles reproached me for not having been to Israel. But their questions about Europe were less poignant than my grandmother’s. Had I seen the Folies Bergères?MoreLess
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