Sayed's complaint - Haaretz

Subscribe to Print Edition

Thu., February 07, 2008 Adar1 1, 5768

Israel Time: 17:54 (EST+7)

web haaretz.com

Back to Homepage

Rosner's Domain

Diplomacy

Defense

Jewish World

Opinion

National

Print Edition

Advertising

Books

Arts & Leisure

Business

Real Estate

Easy Start

Travel

Week's End

Anglo File

Sayed's complaint

By Sayed Kashua

It was as though I had always lived here, in New York, even though this was the first time I had dared to fly to America. I arrived in the big city late at night. Everything looked so familiar. A Pakistani taxi driver took me from JFK Airport to midtown Manhattan. White steam rose from manhole covers in the streets, homeless people huddled by subway ventilation vents to get warm, African-American youth drove SUVs with music blaring, and a drowsy Hispanic hotel clerk sent me to a modest room on the fifth floor.

I was afraid of the hotel and I was afraid of New York. If what I had learned from the movies was right, I knew that any minute a gang of thugs armed with baseball bats and pistols would break into my room, make off with my computer and my money and leave me bleeding on the floor with no one to call 911. I finally managed to fall asleep in the menacing hotel after remembering that Spiderman lives nearby. I saw him hanging from threads, flying through the city skies and flitting through the window to save me from the cruel marauders.

	Advertisement

My anxieties faded when I went down for breakfast to a small storeroom called the "Dining Room." I then discovered that pretty much all the occupants of the hotel looked more or less like me - tourists who wanted somewhere cheap to stay, saw promising photos on the Internet and found themselves in a place out of a Hitchcock movie. I took some American coffee and went outside for a smoke. I had prepared myself for nippy weather but hadn't imagined how cold New York could be. A cloudless sky and an ear-freezing cold that burns the lungs with every drag on the cigarette. I pulled my scarf tightly around my neck and buttoned up my jacket all the way. No cold was going to stop me from finishing my morning smoke.

Just like in America, women strode by quickly, a Starbucks coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Nearly all the Americans were walking with a Starbucks in hand. On the opposite sidewalk was a fire hydrant, of a kind I had thought existed only in Spike Lee movies. Even the fire escapes, which descend from one landing to another, zizagging from right to left and left to right, are real, an inseparable part of the local cityscape.

I didn't stay long in New York, just one day. Actually, I came there from San Francisco just so I could fly back to Israel with a female friend who had come for a family wedding. I wasn't up to flying that distance alone. So, a one-day wait in New York - what could be bad? I crushed my cigarette underfoot, touched my frozen ears to make sure they hadn't fallen off and stuck out a thumb for a taxi. Within a second a yellow cab with an ad on the roof pulled over. From my notebook I read out the address of my first meeting, on the Upper West Side. Seventy-Ninth Street and Amsterdam Avenue, I told the driver with an American accent I noticed I had adopted and hoped did not sound out of place.

I arrived five minutes early. Because of the no-smoking laws championed by the world's tobacco manufacturing superpower I decided, despite the cold, to suck on another Marlboro from the duty-free before heading into the cafe. I had the feeling the guy wouldn't show up. Why should he? Who am I that he should want to meet me? But it was too important for me not to try to be at the right place at the right time and to verify first-hand that he didn't show, even though I knew it was a waste of time. The gloveless hand holding the cigarette turned into a solid lump, making the work of getting the cigarette into my mouth torture that made me want to kick the habit now. I had managed only two drags when I saw him, taller than I had imagined, looking like the photos I was familiar with, the most recent of which was probably 20 years old.

Philip Roth entered the coffee shop and I hurried in after him.

"Mr. Roth?" I said behind his back as he was taking off his heavy coat in the entrance.

"Sayed?" he asked. I nodded. We shook hands.

"Nice to see you," he said, and invited me to sit at a table by the window. Terrific, what now? Here I am, sitting in a Manhattan cafe-restaurant with a French name, across from Philip Roth, whom I greatly admire. What are my chances of not screwing up now? And what, exactly, is the meaning of screwing up here? What was I expecting, anyway?

"So you're enjoying yourself in New York?" he asked, perusing the menu. I nodded mutely.

"First time?" he asked, and I nodded again, certain that the nod was the right way to cover up shallowness and lack of literary talent.

"So, what do you want?" he asked.

I didn't know where to begin. What do I want? For him to autograph my copies of his books, to tell me everything about Portnoy, about Zuckerman, about Operation Shylock, about Mickey Sabbath's theater, about how he got started, about how it was with Saul Bellow. What do I really want? I know very well what I want. I want to know what it's like to feel like a public enemy, how a writer copes with attacks from the very people to whom he belongs. All I really wanted was for him to tell me how to deal with that kind of criticism, how to live with the feeling that the people who are closest to you have become your persecutors. I wanted to ask him how he had felt when the entire Jewish-American leadership attacked his work. What had he done then, and what's it like now? But how do I even begin, I reflected, embarrassed when he shattered my deep, tongue-tied consternation.

"So what do you want?" he repeated, and I was about to open my mouth and ask fateful questions when he interjected, "They have very good breakfasts here. Do you want one?"

"Ah," I said, snapping out of my reverie. "I want tea, I guess, tea with mint, if they have that here."

Bookmark to del.icio.us


	Get a job
	The Interior Minister tells the ultra-Orthodox to find work and enlist in the IDF.


	Trapped in Gaza
	An Irish woman and her daughter are stuck in Gaza after Egypt seals the border.

Today Online


	Seven Gazans killed in IDF raid; 7 Qassams hit Negev
	Responses: 51


	Barak vows harsher IDF response to Qassam fire
	Responses: 69


	Senator: U.S. to shun UN racism meet over anti-Israel agenda
	Responses: 40


	Israel Harel: Barak refuses to learn that only an invasion can stop rockets
	Responses: 30


	Vatican rejects criticism of new prayer for conversion of Jews
	Responses: 57

More Headlines
17:45 Israel to begin reducing power supply to Gaza


13:20 Barak vows harsher IDF response if Qassam fire continues


16:26 Egyptian FM: Whoever breaks border will have his legs broken


14:35 Seven Palestinians killed in IDF raid in Gaza; 7 Qassams hit Negev


15:55 Vatican rejects criticism of new prayer for Jewish conversion


12:26 Kadima MK Yitzhaki resigns over Winograd report on Lebanon war


09:02 Senator: U.S. to boycott UN anti-racism meet due to anti-Israel agenda


16:59 Haifa, T.A. domestic airports suspend plans halt weekend civil aviation


17:17 AG rejects leniency claims in jail sentence of ex-MK Omri Sharon


02:25 PM, ministers approve recommendations on streamlined conversion


06:08 Freed African refugees are expected to flock to Tel Aviv


09:38 Education Ministry mulls starting English study as early as 1st grade


04:24 Water Authority: Israel is rapidly losing its water sources