270
DANIEL BELL
was eager for news of French literary developments and French
painting and theater. I told of the Mathieu exhibit I had seen in
Paris, of the Nathalie Sarraute novel I was reading, and of the
production of Genet's
Le Balcon,
which was the talk of my French
friends in the spring. M. had not seen the play but had read it. In
Warsaw, public performance of
Le Balcon
was forbidden, but a
theater magazine,
Dialog,
had printed the text, and private read–
ings had even been held! Again, a variant of the two cultures
theme: one for the masses, and one for the elite-so long as it
did not corrupt the masses!
In
answer to my question whether
Western books were easily available, M. took me to a bookstore and
reading room near her office. The reading room had the Paris
edition of the
H erald Tribun e,
and the London
Times,
the book–
store carried a small selection of English books, mostly Penguins,
including a lot of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh.
It
was a
lovely, warm day again, and I felt pleased to be walking down the
street with M.-she was still another reason Warsaw was such an
inviting place.
In the late afternoon, I met T., a friend of a journalist I
knew in Berlin. A tubby, muscular character, he suggested we go to
a club for a drink. I asked him if he wanted to walk or take
a taxi, and he said he had his motorbike outside. Since I had neve;
been on one in my life, he said that this would be a perfect occa–
sion, and off we went over the cobbled streets of Warsaw for a won–
derfully exhilarating ride. We sat in the garden of the club, a
pleasant place, and drank vodka. Because he spoke no English, we
conversed at first in French, but as he struggled with a message for
our friend in Berlin, I found his accent difficult. I asked him to
speak more slowly, and he looked at me slyly, and muttered,
"Ah,
goyishe kopf."
I laughed, and answered,
"WeT hut der goyishe
kopf?"
We both roared and began to talk volubly in Yiddish.
T. had been in the Soviet Union during the war, and had gone
with the Polish Army units to the Middle East. After the war he
lived in Palestine, but didn't find the place congenial. He returned
to Europe, wandered about for several years and then decided to
return to Poland. In every country, he said, everyone talked
ftgelt."
Money was the criterion of success, money alone enabled a man to
go to the theater, have books, and all the rest. In Warsaw, R. said,
