And the Sea Is Never Full (38 page)

Ed Koch, New York’s mayor, informs me that in light of all this attention, the police department has decided it must protect me with “close security.” I have the right to two plainclothesmen, who will scrutinize anyone who comes close to me. They accompany me even when I go to synagogue for Sukkoth. It all seems surreal.

A funny episode: The telephone rings. A pleasant voice asks me whether I am ready to accept a call from the commissioner. The refugee in me still trembles—commissioner to me means commissioner of police. Is it a crime to become a Nobel laureate? I take the phone: “This is Peter … Peter Ueberroth. We met in Madrid a few years ago.” The knot in my throat loosens: “What can I do for you?” Solemnly he announces: “We have decided to bestow a great honor on you, the greatest that … Very few people are given this honor.” I feel a tug at my heart: So the Nobel is not the “greatest” honor after all? “We invite you to throw out the first ball in the first game of the World Series.” I think quickly. Should I tell him I know nothing about baseball? No point in offending him. I ask: “Why me?” He laughs. “Because …,” and he says some nice things. I fall back on the calendar; with a little luck I’ll be busy that day. “And this big game, when is
it?” He tells me the date, and I thank the Lord: Thank you, God, for commanding us to celebrate our festivals. “I’m terribly sorry,” I say, “but it’s the second day of Sukkoth.” He doesn’t know what that is or how it could be connected to baseball. I give him his first lesson in Judaism: “A practicing Jew is not allowed to travel or play any sport on a religious holiday.” “What a shame,” he says. Then he asks whether I couldn’t get some kind of exemption from a rabbi.

Elisha comes home from school just as I’m saying good-bye to Ueberroth. His eyes open wide: “You were talking to Ueberroth? Peter Ueberroth?” I confirm this. “The baseball commissioner?” Yes. Himself. “What did he want?” I make a report. “What? You refused to throw out the first ball of the World Series? You turned it down?” He can’t stand still. He seems to be personally stung in his honor as an American adolescent. “Do you realize what my friends will say if they hear of your blunder?” He wants me to call back Ueberroth, tell him I’ve changed my mind, that I’ve found a way of sidestepping the traditional laws. I stand firm. Thank God, Ueberroth calls back: “In consideration of your religious constraints, which we respect … here is a new proposition, which we hope you will accept. This year, exceptionally, no one will be invited to throw out the first ball of the first game, but you could throw out the first ball of the second.” Elisha is still in my study. He follows my end of the conversation. He begs me, orders me to accept: “Yes, yes, say yes!” I ask: “So there’s a second game?” Ueberroth chokes with laughter. I say: “This second game, when is
it?”
He tells me the date. I glance at my calendar, and I mumble: “It’s the Sabbath.” “What does that have to do with baseball?” asks Ueberroth, slightly irritated. He now gets his second unexpected lesson in Judaism. Elisha is devastated. He makes it clear that he’ll never forgive me. I explain to him that though I have the right to violate all the laws of the Sabbath in order to save one life, any life, I do not have the right to violate the law for the—for me, dubious—pleasure of throwing a ball in front of a crowd of baseball fans.

Ueberroth saves me by calling a third time: “I’ve checked with an Orthodox rabbi. After nightfall you have the right to travel, so you can come to the stadium. With a police escort you’ll get there in time….” Elisha is jubilant. Many of his friends and classmates are invited. Suddenly his jaw drops: “Do you even know
how
to throw a ball?” No, I don’t; they never taught me that in Sighet. Never mind—he’ll teach me. Still, some 75,000 paying spectators will be watching me, plus all the television viewers whose number will exceed 30 or 40
million; I must not bring shame on my son. Am I a good pupil? Suffice it to say that the team that receives my first ball amid deafening roars loses the game. And the following day, for the first—and surely the last—time in my life, my picture adorns the first page of the
New York Times
sports section.

At the synagogue, people are mercifully discreet. I am grateful. I am given an aliyah, the honor of reading from the Torah. Cantor Joseph Malovany chants a special blessing. Rabbi Sol Roth contents himself with wishing me
mazel tov
. In the face of God, we are all His creatures. Evidently the Nobel doesn’t count for much in heaven.

With a Nobel Prize come quite a few lessons. For one, you learn who is a friend and who is not. Contrary to popular wisdom, a friend is not one who shares your suffering, but one who knows how to share your joy. I was pleasantly surprised by some and sadly disappointed by others.

There are envious and jealous people everywhere; they are part of the human landscape. Some who praised my writings when I was poor and unknown now resent me for being “rich” and “famous.” Others were faithful to me as long as I wrote for a limited public; now it bothers them to see my name on pages other than literary. Sadly, some “admirers” turned against me after the Nobel, as though to punish me for a success some of them had actually helped me achieve. These betrayals hurt me the most. I cannot explain them.

In my first volume of memoirs I told of I. B. Singer’s account of the offensive and heinous jealousies he endured after he was awarded the Nobel. Singer laughed as he spoke of them; it made him happy that these people were not. I also think of Camus’s years of depression after the Nobel. Olivier Todd, his biographer, describes that period with tact and honesty.
^*
Intellectuals from the left and from the right constantly made him feel that he owed them something. As for me, I try to follow Spinoza’s advice: not to laugh or weep, but to understand. Of course, I endured instances of sheer malice I shall never understand.

Never mind. I can take it. At this point in my life a few petty personal attacks in the press will not change anything for me.

•   •   •

During the intermediate days of Sukkoth, Marion and I fly to Moscow, invited by the Soviet authorities. Sigmund Strochlitz and Michael Melchior accompany us. The official purpose of the trip is to prepare for Soviet participation in an upcoming international Holocaust Memorial Council conference in Washington. Also, thanks to the Prize, I hope to be able to help Ida Nadel, Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Slepak, and other dissidents.

To the journalists welcoming us at Moscow Airport, I speak of my total solidarity with Andrei Sakharov and announce my intention of visiting him in Gorki. Yes, my main concern is for the refuseniks, but the Soviet Nobel Prize winner’s exile to me epitomizes injustice. I return to this theme two or three times a day, at every opportunity, at every meeting with officials and the foreign correspondents posted in Moscow.

My official hosts are unhappy. They can accept my pleading on behalf of “my” Jews but not my associating Sakharov with them. “Sakharov is a scientist,” they tell me with irritation. “He was sent away from Moscow for reasons of state: He’s in possession of nuclear secrets that the government must protect. In short, this is not your business.” Stubbornly I argue: “He is your only Nobel Peace laureate. It’s normal for me to want to meet him.” They refuse my request.

Everybody tells me that the final decision is Gorbachev’s. With her usual logic, Marion advises me to take a direct approach: “Why don’t you ask to meet him?” I stare at her; did I hear her right? “Meet him? To whom, do you think, should I submit such a request?” As always her answer is clear and simple. “Write him.” Fine—I’ll write him a letter. And then what? “Then you give it to Andrei [the young official in charge of our security]. He’ll know what to do.” It sounds so simple when Marion says it that I feel disarmed. Anyway, I have nothing to lose. On a piece of hotel stationery I write a note to the secretary-general of the Communist party. Handing it to Andrei, who has just arrived to take us to a meeting, I say: “This is for your boss.” He looks incredulous as he glances at the envelope. “Stay here. Wait for me,” he tells us, “I have to leave for a few minutes.” He returns an hour later. I ask him: “Well?” He answers only that we’re late for our appointment at the Veterans’ Ministry. I understand; he can tell me nothing.

In the evening he whispers to me that my letter has been delivered to the Kremlin; it is being dealt with at the highest level. To Marion, I say: “You’ll see; nothing’s going to come of this.”

The next day, while we’re having breakfast, Andrei asks me to
step into the corridor: “I have the answer. It is positive.” I can’t hold back a cry of surprise. Andrei puts his finger to his lips; best to keep quiet.

We go to the synagogue on Arkhipova Street. It’s Simhat Torah. Let’s forget our dealings with the authorities. Let’s celebrate.

The huge synagogue is brightly lit. It is also packed. Thousands of faithful jostle one another. Tradition has it that we must celebrate to the point of ecstasy. What if one is not in the mood? Force yourself, says the Law. Simhat Torah—the celebration of Torah—is different from other festivals; it is the essence of joy. We are commanded to dance, sing, get drunk on hope and nostalgia. One pleads with one’s soul to rise to heaven, and the soul, docile and gentle, is happy to obey.

And so am I happy. Yes, really happy. Vladimir “Volodia” Slepak, the oldest of the refuseniks, is with me. I’ve kept the promise I made to him years earlier; I’ve returned to “my” Russian Jews.

The congregants are pushing forward and backward while they observe the procession of the Torah as it slowly makes its way around the synagogue. Clutching the scrolls to my chest, I greet people—here and there I recognize a face. One is that of an old man who, as on an earlier visit, stuffs a piece of paper into my pocket. It is hot; I have trouble breathing. I am afraid to slip, to fall. I am afraid I shall wake up far from these Jews yearning for freedom and tradition.

This is my fourth trip to the Soviet Union. It was during the first, in 1965, that I discovered the “Jews of Silence.” They talked to me with their eyes. In them I read the history of their suffering, their solitude. Even on that Simhat Torah eve long ago, they did not seem afraid. They were the first—and let us never forget that—to reject the reign of terror; the first to defy the Kremlin; the first to openly demand their right to be different, to be free, and to remember.

Since then things have changed. The Kremlin has had to open its gates, thanks to pressure from abroad, and thousands of Jews have emigrated to Israel. And ever since 1965, these young people who fill the streets and declare their pride in belonging to the Jewish people have modified the character and the mentality of their elders by showing them their example of defiance and hope.

My admiration and affection for these youngsters are constantly renewed. Seventy years of Communist education and dictatorship have not stifled their Jewish identity. Without schools or cultural centers, without formal infrastructures, the kind that have long been
offered to other ethnic minorities, how do they manage to safeguard their Jewish particularity, to educate their children? There are courses in Jewish history, Hebrew lessons, biblical commentaries, circles for talmudic study, religious initiation, lectures on literature. If these exist today, it is largely thanks to these people.

They never cease to surprise me. Take Volodia Slepak. In a way he is freer than people in the free world. I ask him: “Aren’t you afraid? Afraid of prison?” He shrugs. No, he’s no longer afraid; he knows prisons. And forced exile. And brutality. And threats. Not easy? Who says being a Jew, and particularly a Jew in the USSR, is easy?

Nevertheless, the strength radiated by my friend Volodia is surprising. I call him the moment I arrive at the hotel. We embrace. We have been waiting for this moment a long time—seventeen years. Seventeen years of a “relationship” interrupted only by forced silences on his part. Seventeen years of anguish, and of hope. Marion and I adopt him and his wife, Masha. We take them along everywhere. Never mind that the officials and our guides don’t like it.

A political dissident and human rights activist, Volodia was an example to a great many young Jews whom he urged to return to Judaism. Anatoly Shcharansky, who owes his Jewish involvement to him, was actually apprehended as he was leaving the Slepaks’ apartment. Slepak, too, was arrested. Despite imprisonment, five years of Siberian exile, persecution of every kind, Volodia did not give in.

Every day I request permission to visit Sakharov. Again and again I am refused. Why? Nobody knows. Many years later, when I was introduced to Sakharov, he held my hand in his for a very long moment; he told me he knew how hard I had tried to see him.

How have all these people—perhaps a hundred of them—succeeded in losing their “shadows” and coming together in this Moscow apartment? And who has been in touch with every one of them? I ask no questions. I am too happy to meet, at last, these refuseniks whom until this moment I have known only by name or photo: a famous professor whose visa has been refused for the past ten years and a well-known chemist whose visa has been refused for more than twelve years. We chat freely, but the same question keeps coming back: “How long are we going to live like outcasts?”

There are some old acquaintances in the crowd. A teacher accosts me in Hebrew: “I saw you in 1966, but I didn’t dare speak to you.” A woman breaks in: “Do you remember me? In 1979….” Yes, I remember. “It was at the doctor’s house.” She smiles: “Imagine, he’s
here now….” I start: “Here? Dr. Kogan is here?” Someone calls him, and he hurries over; he looks older, but I would have recognized him anywhere. “I promised you we’d meet again,” I tell him. “Promise me our next meeting will be somewhere else,” he says. I promise him. I would promise him anything.

A shy-looking, youngish man pulls me into a corner. He wants to tell me a secret: “Look,” he says in a husky, excited voice, “a few years ago I translated your first book—in samizdat, of course—I’ve kept a copy for you…. I knew that one day we’d meet.” How do you thank a man who has risked his freedom to let others know your work? I’m still thinking this over when he hands me an envelope—and then he’s gone.