HERBERT GOLD
643
She looked at me with friendly, interested, concerned, blinking confusion.
"What
film,
Herb?"
"Nuit et Bruillard.
We saw it together."
"That means 'Evening Mist?' in French, doesn't it? I don't remember
that film. Who directed it, who was the
metteur-en-scene?"
"You don't remember, Charlotte?"
She was puzzled. She leaned toward me with her intense pale blue
eyes. She looked into my eyes with absolute honesty. "I go to a lot of
screenings, Herb, but I try to keep my mind clear and only remember the
good ones. I saw a darling Swiss-French film,
Claire's Knee,
or something, is
that the one? I mean, whatever's right, but if I went to a movie with you ,
Herb, surely I would remember, wouldn't I?"
Charlotte doesn't have to be like the man who wrote that he had
driven to a height overlooking the grand city of Los Angeles and sat there all
night with his revelation: Los Angeles is full ofJews; the Holocaust couldn't
have happened. Charlotte needs no revelation. She prefers adjustment.
There is too much to deal with and we have to make our comfort as we can.
In the economy that makes her moral metabolism go, all she requires is the
cut-off, the amnesia of convenience, working for her as efficiently as the tools
of her beauty and money.
In Russian, there is a verb which means to-perform-the-act-of-falling–
silent. The verb is active-a positive withdrawal. It's the last phrase in
Pushkin's play,
Boris Goudonov,
a stage direction as the crowd shrinks from
its awful feeling. The choice is forced , but it suits the crowd's needs.
Charlotte, not pressed in the same way, nevertheless has learned the human
talent of performing the act of convenient forgetfulness. Those of us who
have children have seen that this is a natural human talent. On the subject of
the Jews, there is plenty of incentive to practice the skill of making things run
right along.
Even Jews have difficulty imagining their history and matching their
lives to it. A few years ago a homosexual friend, an activist in gay causes,
normally sensible enough, sought free space at a Jewish community center
for a gay support group. For whatever reasons-perhaps , for all I know,
homophobic ones-the request was denied. The activist wanted to put an
advertisement of protest in a local Jewish newspaper, and the paper rejected
his ad. He feel into a state of violent despair. He had found an issue. He
wanted me to join his protest, perhaps to picket the newspaper. I asked to
see the advertisement in question.
It was headed : A NEW HOLOCAUST.
That word.
I exploded in a rage about selfishness, self-involvement, the misuse of
