It was when our aristocratic waitress returned to ask if I wanted more that I snapped. I took the plate heaped with hot food and hurled it across the floor, smashing it into dozens of small pieces that flew across the room, along with clumps of rice and meat and vegetables. My family sat, horrified at my uncharacteristic display of rage, aware that the entire dining room had turned to stare at us. Even the well-meaning countess was speechless, her gracious smile faded, and she looked as if she were about to cry.
I demanded to know where my cake was—my birthday cake from Groppi’s:
“Mais où est-il?” I asked my bewildered parents and siblings. “Où est le gâteau d’anniversaire?”
My mother tried to level with me. It wasn’t possible to get me a birthday cake this year, she said. It simply wasn’t possible. Besides, I wasn’t a child anymore. At seven, she said, I was old enough to understand how much our circumstances had changed: “Loulou, nous sommes à des milliers de kilomètres de chez Groppi”—Loulou, we are thousands of miles away from Groppi’s.
My father rose slowly—it was difficult for him to get up from a chair these days. He motioned to me to follow him.
Together, we walked out of the Richer. I could feel all eyes on us. We strolled silently up the streets near Poissonière, passing countless fur wholesalers featuring luxuriant mink and sable coats in their windows—items that no one in the neighborhood could afford, produced for an outside clientele we never saw, who didn’t deign to venture on to our street.
We continued walking until we came to a small bakery, the size of a broom closet, with a simple display of baguettes in the window.
Inside, a glass case featured a modest selection of cakes. They couldn’t have been more than a couple of inches wide, but they were delicate and elegant in the manner of all French pastries, decorated with waves of frosting, cherries, strawberries, and puffs of Chantilly cream.
“Combien, madame?” my father politely asked the woman behind the counter.
She went through the price list with us. He finally pointed to a small cake with cream frosting and nodded. She placed it in a square white box, tied it with string, and handed it to my father, who in turn gave it to me to carry. I took the box, but I didn’t say a word.
I had begun to feel horribly guilty and ashamed, as it finally dawned on me that my father had spent much of the family’s allowance simply to get me to stop crying. It was then that I understood that life as I had known it was never going to be the same. While most children mature many years later, my coming-of-age took place on the afternoon of my seventh birthday, outside a small Parisian bakery.
CHAPTER 15
The English Lesson
One morning, we had an important appointment with HIAS. Before we left the hotel, my father insisted my two brothers join him in reciting the morning prayers. Both refused. “Sali, sali” (Pray, pray), he kept screaming at them, as Mom, Suzette, and I watched, paralyzed. By the time my brothers joined him and read—sullenly and by rote—more than an hour had passed, and we missed the meeting. HIAS officials were furious. If it ever happened again, they warned, we would be immediately cut off from any assistance.
Immigrating to the United States had turned into an ordeal, a painful, drawn-out process filled with bureaucratic land mines. While Israel, which took in all Jewish families, would have welcomed us, we had to persuade HIAS officials that we, in effect, deserved to live in America.
From the start, it was my father’s job to engineer our entry.
French society was intensely patriarchal and accorded husbands and fathers an inordinate say in a family’s affairs. We trooped along with him when he was asked to report to HIAS offices on rue Lota in the tony sixteenth arrondissement. We found ourselves in a neighborhood of vast, expensive tree-lined streets with private mansions and residential buildings set back behind tall gates. None of us said a word as we walked. We felt small and lost and thousands of miles removed from the grittiness of Montmartre and the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière.
This was the Paris, elegant and graceful, that we had expected to find when we’d left Egypt, the city Mom and I glimpsed when we went to Parc Monceau. But as with our visits there, we were being granted only an evanescent glance before being forced to turn back to our dilapidated quarters.
At HIAS, we were met by social workers who overwhelmed us with forms to fill out and barraged us with questions. Why were we so intent on moving to New York? they’d ask us again and again. Why had we left Egypt?
As if they didn’t know.
My father told of the anti-Jewish sentiments we had witnessed toward the end, the fact that one by one all our relatives and friends had left, and even he, who felt an abiding love for the city and country of his youth, had come to realize our lives were in danger.
“I could no longer provide for my family,” he told Mademoiselle Cygler, our caseworker; “my children had no future in Egypt.” Unlike Madame Dana, her counterpart at Cojasor, the HIAS social worker seemed to have taken an intense dislike to all of us; she clearly resented our inability to make up our minds, our chronic unhappiness.
By the late fall of 1963, my father’s efforts to get us approved for America had turned into a nightmare. HIAS and Cojasor seemed delighted with my older brother and sister, and were eager to let them emigrate. They were seen as exceptionally promising candidates. The problem was Dad. They were prepared to deny us all entrance because of their misgivings about him.
My father, the Cary Grant look-alike who had made beauties swoon and forced business rivals to heel, was deemed undesirable for America.
Too old, HIAS said. Too sick. Too infirm. Too beaten down. No prospects. Leon looked considerably older than he was in his weather-beaten raincoat and with the wooden cane he now relied on to walk. In the eight months since we had left Egypt, he seemed to have aged by almost as many years.
HIAS pointed out his limitations, the fact that he was so frail. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for him to find a job, they said. He would be unable to support the family, and then what would become of us?
“I worked until the day we left Egypt,” my father coolly reminded them, seemingly unperturbed by the harsh put-downs. “I will work again.”
He added: “Le bon Dieu est grand.”
He wouldn’t back down, and on that afternoon, the bureaucrats and social workers saw flashes of the indomitable will that had guided my dad through six decades, they caught a glimpse of the man of iron who had been born in one country, settled in a second, found himself exiled to a third, and was now determined—or perhaps merely resigned—to start life in a fourth.
But no matter what he said, the social workers kept reminding him of his physical limitations, the fact that he had trouble walking.
“I don’t only walk—I can run,” he cried out. And he looked as if he were suddenly going to bolt, wooden cane and all, out of the town house on the rue Lota and down the avenue Foch to the Champs-Elysées, and all the way back to…to where?
Anywhere but here, anywhere but this city that didn’t want him to stay, yet had nowhere for him to go.
His most passionate arguments fell on deaf ears. In their internal deliberations, the resettlement czars were even more blunt in expressing their misgivings. Leon would never be a productive member of American society, they told each other in aerograms and telegrams that flew back and forth across the Atlantic. We were destined to be wards of the state because Dad wouldn’t find work.
Suzette and César posed no such conundrum. They were energetic, well-spoken, healthy, and, above all, young—precisely what America wanted. All they lacked was the ability to speak the language. They had to start studying English immediately. We all had to—with the exception of my father.
Off we went to English class, with orders to learn to speak and read as rapidly as possible.
I was permitted to tag along. I was delighted: after months of feeling left out of adult decisions, I eagerly proclaimed my desire to take English
lessons.
Classes, which were held close to the avenue Foch, were taught by a pretty American expatriate named Nancy Hakimian. Miss Hakimian was so perky and charming, César spent most of his time looking at her instead of paying attention to what she was teaching. My sister, always a diligent student, took careful notes. If Isaac came, I didn’t see him. Mom, who went occasionally, stared forlornly out the window.
Miss Hakimian would begin each class with a dramatic stunt designed to get our attention: holding a large white porcelain mug high up in the air.
“Cup,” she’d say.
We had to repeat after her: “Cup.”
Then, in a feat that never ceased to amaze me, no matter how often I witnessed it, the teacher would take the cup and smash it in two.
“Broken cup,” Miss Hakimian cried.
We were supposed to chant, “Broken cup,” with the emphasis on “broken.”
Those were my first English words—not “hello” or “my name is Loulou” or “good morning,” but “cup” and “broken cup.” The following session, she would begin the lesson by holding up the same cup and take us through the drill all over again.
The cup seemed to have magical regenerative powers—no matter how often it broke, it reappeared in one piece the next time.
As we advanced, Miss Hakimian expanded her repertoire of breakable objects to include saucers, plates, and glasses. She’d smash the saucer against the blackboard, fling a dish to the ground. They all made a comeback at the lesson that followed, and Miss Hakimian would smile mysteriously as if she alone knew the secret of their healing power. My English vocabulary grew to include “saucer” and “broken saucer,” “plate” and “broken plate.”
César, though beguiled by the lovely Miss Hakimian, seemed unable to grasp the most basic words or phrases. He was asked to take an aptitude test to determine what he should do when we reached New York. He was sixteen years old, and back in Cairo, he had studied to become an accountant, and hoped to go into business like Dad. The test was rigorous and took several hours to complete. In addition, he met with vocational counselors.
The verdict came in at last—César had technical skills, he was told, and was urged to pursue a career as an auto mechanic. My brother, who didn’t have the least interest in cars, who couldn’t even drive, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Unlike my employable siblings, Leon had no need for any English lessons. Even the bureaucrats marveled at his raffish British accent. They couldn’t help wondering how he could converse in the King’s English, while his children seemed ignorant of the most basic elements of the language. But they weren’t prepared to cut him any slack. Convinced he would take from the system rather than contribute to it, they balked at letting him come to America.
At last, an obliging French doctor helped my father overcome a crucial hurdle. He certified that in his professional opinion, Leon was both healthy and fit to hold down a job. In form after form, the amiable young physician, Docteur Sananes, testified that Leon would indeed be able to work full-time, provided the employment was “sedentary.” He downplayed the effects of Dad’s broken leg and gave an upbeat, if not exactly rousing, endorsement.
Still, any celebration would have been premature; we had no idea when we would be checking out of the Violet Hotel. The quest to find us a home in America dragged on. Even after we heard we were approved in principle to settle there, the process seemed fraught with complications. HIAS launched a desperate search for relatives in the United States who would sponsor us, employ us, support us, welcome us into their homes, help us in any way. The cables crackled as officials contacted long-lost cousins from Brooklyn all the way to San Diego.
HIAS was encouraged that one relative had already stepped up to help—my Milanese cousin Salomone. Dad’s nephew sent word he was prepared to give several hundred dollars to defray the costs of our move and had begun sending checks over to HIAS.
Our American cousins seemed to react altogether differently; admittedly, the initial requests from HIAS were ambitious. Could anyone subsidize our initial stay until we found our footing? The answer came back, a clear-cut no. Even a close family member like my mother’s half sister Rosée complained that she and her children in Brooklyn were barely making ends meet.
HIAS proceeded to ask whether these relatives would take us in, allow us to live under the same roof for some weeks or months. Again, the answer was a resounding no. There was no room in anyone’s cramped American dwelling for my family.
The agency drastically scaled back its demands. Would our relatives in New York at least help look for a suitable apartment for us? Once more, the answer came back no. My mother’s relatives said they would try, but were too busy to find us a place to live.
HIAS made one other intensely modest request. Would someone, anyone, come greet my family at the pier?
There was no reply.
News of their balkiness reached my mom, who was thoroughly wounded. She had always adored her half sister Rosée, and spoke fondly of how warm and welcoming she and her children had been back in Cairo. What had happened to make them so distant and self-absorbed—so emotionally stingy? Was that one of the dangers of becoming an American?
Perhaps that was another English lesson, one that involved not shattered dishes but familial bonds that were irrevocably broken.
WE STILL HADN’T UNPACKED by the early winter of 1963. Whatever progress the resettlement agencies were making on our behalf seemed painfully slow. My sister, in particular, despised the lowly secretarial job she had finally landed at a nearby textile shop, which was off the books. One day, she discovered she had misplaced an entire month’s salary: the money had been either lost or stolen. The episode only underscored her sense of futility.
A local furrier hired my younger brother, Isaac, now thirteen, to work with him in his small factory near the Violet Hotel. César, meanwhile, was racking up tips doing odd jobs, running errands and delivering packages for a fabrics store situated on the passage Violet. Its elderly Romanian owner developed a fondness for my oldest brother and dispatched him all over Paris to deliver bolts of the fine wool he imported from England. Generous tips made it easier for César to enjoy his nocturnal escapades with his new friends, other teenage refugees staying in nearby hotels. His greatest joy was when he received a shiny five-franc coin from wealthy clients—two francs more than the daily allowance allotted for each of us by the Cojasor. The large tips only intensified his sense of having arrived at a city of endless possibilities.
Late at night, César and his friends would amble over to lively Montmartre, where the cafés were always open and welcoming. At a bar near the lobby of a local hotel, he noticed two elegant, intriguing-looking women in heavy makeup and expensive clothes, night after night having drinks together. It took a while before my brother and his friends realized that the chic women were men, and they understood they were a million miles from Cairo.
Near the Violet Hotel was another landmark, the Folies Bergère, the music hall that was as iconic a symbol of Paris as the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre, and whose gorgeous showgirls were renowned the world over for their sex appeal and glamour. César took to meeting his buddies by the Folies Bergère in the evenings. They’d stand on the corner in their blousons noirs, trying to look suave as they smoked Gauloises and eyed the dancers sauntering in and out. Occasionally they had a gig inside. The manager had spotted the youths loitering by the theater, and he hired them on some nights to prime the audience. While enjoying front-row seats, my brother and his friends were paid to clap loudly and cheer as the showgirls performed their numbers. It was delightful work, a far cry from the dismal routine of a refugee, and it also gave César a window into the mysteries of the legendary showgirls. Onstage, they sparkled and smiled and performed with exceptional grace and agility. But up close, my brother noticed with dismay, they were a lot older, more jaded—more ordinary—than he could ever have imagined. Stripped of their glittering costumes, the beauties of the Fol
ies Bergère weren’t even that beautiful.
If he were more introspective, César could have viewed the experience as a metaphor—for Paris and women and life beyond Cairo. He could have pondered how beauty invariably disappoints, and how nothing in this world, not even the most dazzling city and its most delectable women, ever lives up to expectations.
César in his blouson noir(black leather jacket), Paris, 1963.
But with his extreme literal-mindedness, my brother walked away from his work as a shill for the Folies Bergère only with a vague distaste for showgirls.
One night, as he stood with his friends eyeing the crowds gathering in front of the dance hall, he spotted a tall man in a dark luxuriant wool coat and top hat, walking out the door with a beautiful woman clinging to his arm. He recognized him at once. It was Maurice Chevalier, the movie star who was as much a symbol of Paris as the Folies Bergère. But unlike the showgirls, Maurice Chevalier didn’t disappoint a bit. He cut a striking figure, as dapper and distinguished as in his movies. My brother and his friends could only stare as he flashed his famous smile their way, doffed his hat, and kept on walking. César had again the sensation of living in a dream city, and whenever he’d think about our time as refugees and how we had survived and what he had loved the most about Paris, he would conjure up the night he saw Maurice Chevalier.
My mother didn’t care for any of this.
She was deeply disturbed that her eldest son was staying out all hours of the night and languishing on street corners like a hoodlum. She was the first to realize, even before my father, that she and Leon no longer exerted the same power over their children as before. In the world outside of Egypt, my siblings were either too alienated or too rebellious to heed what my parents had to say.
She turned to the social workers at the Cojasor for help, and they duly recorded her sense of desperation in Dossier #45,135. But Madame Dana and her colleagues confessed there was nothing much they could do. We were in a state of limbo. There were restrictions about working full-time, and it was impossible for César or Suzette to go to university because we could leave France any day. The social worker could only counsel patience.
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit Page 20