What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning.

My best wishes to everyone for a wonderful and bright New Year!

“What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from…

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time…

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.”

from “Little Gidding,” No. 4 of “Four Quartets” by T.S. Eliot

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Alan and Esther, Vienna, 1946

In 1944, my father got together with a dozen of his companions in a German forced labor camp. He knew what happened to his family, and he realized the only way out was to plan and implement an escape, however risky and dangerous.  They all agreed on a plan.  In the middle of the night, more than half dropped out, too afraid of the odds of near certain capture and execution.  There were now five including my father and they leaped over the fence under cover of night, somehow escaping the notice of the patrolling SS guards.  They wandered through the woods for days. For food and drink, they stopped at isolated houses belonging to local farmers. My father’s group had no weapons, but local villagers supplied them with water and an occasional crust of bread – more out of fear than sympathy.

They arrived in a German town on Christmas eve, where townspeople were celebrating along with SS officers.  My father’s group disguised themselves as Germans in an attempt to blend in.  My father knew German, although his accent was suspect and he was careful to avoid speaking.  The group of five found themselves in a tavern, where the locals and SS officers were singing Christmas carols in German.

I am reminded of the tavern scene in “Inglorious Basterds,” which was very well done and tense.  This, however, was not a movie, but part of a life story and an indelible memory for my father.  Everyone began to sing “Silent Night” in German, and the SS noticed that my father’s group was not singing.  The SS did not suspect my father’s group and encouraged them to sing along.  My father did not know the words, but he was able to mouth the words along with the group convincingly enough to stay alive.

The group arrived at a barn at the edge of the town – it appeared to be a good spot to spend the night. They gathered hay to make beds on the floor of the barn.  One of the group went outside of the barn to pee against the wall of the barn.  He did not notice the pair of SS guards that were patrolling nearby.  He unbuttoned his pants and the SS guards, who were quite drunk, began to laugh at the sight.  Suddenly, their mirth turned to shock – they noticed the man was circumcised.  They walked up to the man, who suddenly realizing his predicament, quickly buttoned his pants – but it was too late.  They put a gun to his head and demanded he expose himself.  The man unbuttoned his pants.  Inside the barn my father and the rest of his group heard loud gunfire piercing the night.  They were terrified and scrambled to hide.

The SS guards called for reinforcements, and there were now a dozen SS officers inside the barn.  One by one, the SS found each of the hiding men and forced them to strip.  One by one, each of my father’s group was executed, the sound of the gunfire followed by the thud of a falling body and the laughter of the SS troops.  My father lay motionless and undetected beneath a thick pile of hay, holding his breath for what seemed an eternity.  He was close to a horse that was in the barn, and felt that the horse knew of his presence.  The SS troops took one last look around, leaving the bodies in place, the blood soaking in the hay.  An SS officer went up to the horse near my father and began to stroke its mane. “What a beautiful horse,” the officer said in German.

My father stayed motionless under the hay until dawn without sleeping.  He carefully exited the barn and then raced through the countryside as fast as he could, getting as far away from the town as he could.  He wandered several more days in the woods, hungry and thirsty.  Suddenly he heard the voices of soldiers and dropped to the ground.  The soldiers were not speaking German, but another language, one that he did not know well but recognized.  It was Russian. My father emerged from the woods and walked up to the group of Russian soldiers, who were standing outside their truck.  They pointed their guns at him and he raised his arms.  “Who are you?” they shouted in Russian and then in German.  My father understood the German.  “I am a Jew,” he cried in his broken Russian.  The Russians laughed and lowered their weapons. “Who are you with?” they asked.  My father explained that he was the only survivor of his group.  “Have some water and something to eat,” they said.  “You are a free man.”  He drank water and ate chocolate and bread.

My father made his way back to his small home town in Czechoslovakia, in the Carpathian mountains.  My father today has a bungalow in the Catskills, and the rolling hills outside his bungalow resembles the Carpathian mountains of his youth.  My father was 21 when he became a free man in a forest in Germany – my youngest son is 22 and is attending film school in Manhattan.  My father surveyed his home town.  He was the only Jew in the town, half of whose population before the war was Jewish.  My father met a girl he knew from his youth, a gentile, whose family was kind.  He became engaged and the girl’s family looked forward to the wedding.  But my father wondered if there were other Jews who survived the war.  He spoke with his fiance’s father and said before he could marry the man’s daughter he needed to travel through Europe to learn whether any of his family or friends survived.  My father said he would return, but he never did.  He traveled through Europe and ended up in Vienna.  On a street corner, a bespectacled man with a briefcase approached him and handed him a leaflet.  The man was locating Holocaust survivors and organizing groups for eventual emigration to Palestine.  My father joined a commune in Vienna that was set up for displaced Holocaust survivors.  Everyone was young and the atmosphere was filled with joy and hope. My father met my mother there, and before long they were married.

Alan and Esther’s wedding, commune in Vienna, 1946

In 1947, my parents boarded a sister ship of the “Exodus” called the “Theodore Herzl” – named after the 19th century founder of Zionism, which was a movement that advocated the return of Jews to their ancestral homeland – and both ships were bound for Palestine.  As with the “Exodus,” my parents ship was stopped by a British blockade outside the Mediterranean port of Haifa.  The Jewish passengers through bottles and anything else they could find at the British, but the ship was turned back.  My mother was pregnant.

Alan with son Joe, Cyprus detention camp, 1947

The “Theodore Herzl” arrived  in Cyprus, where my parents lived in tents at a detention camp, with their future hopeful but uncertain.  My mother gave birth there to my oldest brother, Joe, and that was cause for great hope, joy and the affirmation of life.

Alan and Esther, with first son Joe, Cyprus detention camp, 1947

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Excerpt from a novel I have been writing called “White Sand Falling.”

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I continue to make progress in my efforts to rebuild my life, my business and my career.  But as I think about what my parents went through, I feel that what I am rebuilding is nothing.  My parents truly rebuilt their lives after they and their families were devastated in the Holocaust.

Angel of Death, Marc Chagall

My mother was a beautiful girl – just 16 years old – when she was rounded up and put on a cattle car bound for Auschwitz.  Her sister was even younger, just 13.  When her train arrived at Auschwitz, she was quickly separated from her mother and most of her brothers and sisters – they were never again to be seen and soon disappeared into the black smoke that rose from the tall smokestacks at Auschwitz.

My mother and her sister were forced to strip naked, their hair was cut and their heads were shaven and my mother watched with tears as her sister’s beautiful locks of curly hair fell to the ground.  Doctor Mengele, Auschwitz’s notorious “Angel of Death,” examined my mother each day as she stood in line and Mengele made his “selections” – who was to live and who was to die.

My mother had a boyfriend who was put to work in the crematorium and who knew the fate that soon awaited him.  He saw my mother and pleaded with her to do anything she could to get out of Auschwitz – anything.  He forced her to repeat the following words to him out loud:  “I will do anything to get out of Auschwitz.”  Soon after his warning, the German SS were rounding up the most beautiful girls to be taken somewhere – my mother did not know where but suspected the worst.  She remembered what her boyfriend had made her swear – he had already disappeared into the black clouds that hovered over the camp – and she raised her hand and called out to the SS soldiers and asked to be taken.  A fellow inmate was horrified and said to her:  “Are you crazy? Do you know where they are taking you?  For the pleasure of the Nazis!”  But my mother decided to keep her promise to her boyfriend.  Her instincts were to survive.

She survived.

Esther and Alan, Cyprus, 1947

After her liberation, she learned that her 13 year old sister had survived, too. They embraced in tears and in joy and the first words her sister exclaimed were: “I’m a virgin!”  My mother answered, “I am, too!”  And they hugged and cried on the street corner for a long time.  My mother told me this story, among many others.  I will never know what she had to do to survive, and it is possible that whatever she had to do, along with so many things she experienced, were just too shocking for even her to recall.  But she did have recurring nightmares throughout her life.

The worst nightmares she had, however, were in Auschwitz.  Sleeping on cold planks in barracks with hundreds of other starving inmates, she would awaken from her nightmares only to find herself in a reality that was even worse than her nightmares.

My mother passed away four years ago, from Alzheimer’s.  As she deteriorated from the disease, she began to mistake me for one of her younger brothers who did not survive the death camp and she called me by his name whenever she saw me.  I took her aside once and explained to her that I was her son, not her brother, and that her brother was murdered by the Nazis.  She laughed and claimed that I was speaking nonsense and said, “why would anyone want to murder my young brother – he was so sweet and innocent and just 12 years old – and besides I just saw him riding his tricycle and you are speaking complete nonsense that anyone would want to murder innocent people like my little darling brother for no reason.”

I did not cry when my mother lay in a coma for days at a hospice in Brooklyn in her final hours.  I did not cry at her funeral.  I cried when she sent me a birthday card shortly after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, while she was still able to communicate.

She wrote: “God has blessed me with a wonderful life.”

The photograph above is of my parents, taken in 1947 at a Cyprus detention camp, where my parents were refugees and waiting and hoping for a chance at a new life, in Palestine, soon to become Israel.  There is joy in their eyes, the joy of liberation, the joy of a new beginning – the joy of life.

“We were slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord took us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not taken our fathers out of Egypt, then we, our children and our children’s children would have remained enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.  Even if all of us were wise, all of us understanding, we would still be obligated to discuss the exodus from Egypt.” – From the Haggadah of Passover.

* * *

Excerpt from a novel I have been writing called “White Sand Falling.”

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My parents kept kosher and went to Shul on the high holy days. But while my father observed most of the customs, including fasting every Yom Kippur, he was quite open about his being fundamentally an atheist. God left him in a single moment; he was 17 years old and working as a tailor’s apprentice in Hungary when he received a postcard from his parents that had no return address. It read “We are being taken away by the Germans. We don’t know where. We don’t know if we will ever see you again.” My father knew he would never see his parents again – and he didn’t. He broke down crying, and could not understand how there could exist a deity, a God, that would allow such innocence – his hard working parents who always gave whatever they had to the hungry in the neighborhood – to be rounded up abruptly from their homes and herded into cattle cars that would take them to the gates and fires of hell. At that moment, that instant, God left him, and He has been gone for him to this day. My father had until then worn long side curls called payot that was a sign of orthodox observance. After receiving that note from his parents, he cut his side locks.

Rachel Goldstein was one of my closest friends at Lincoln High School. Rachel had a religious upbringing and we used to have a lot of talks about religion. I was always struck by how passionate Rachel seemed to be about it. I usually get annoyed when people try to convince me about matters of religion, but with Rachel, I always felt that when she talked about God, talked about the meaning of keeping kosher and respecting the Sabbath, she was sharing with me a part of herself, and it did not matter that I didn’t believe in the rituals. I believed in the sincerity that shone in her open and friendly green eyes. I asked her why not drive and turn on electric lights on Saturday, the Sabbath – how could that possibly be relevant to modern life – and how, in fact, does that constitute the concept of “rest” – as God rested on the seventh day. Rachel responded that the concept of rest was philosophical and spiritual – not literal. It was actually a great deal more physical work to walk up the 13 flights to her parents’ Brighton Beach apartment on Ocean Avenue than taking the elevator – how is that “rest?” For Rachel, respecting the Sabbath, resting on the Sabbath, meant taking one day, 24 hours, where one could remove oneself from the machinations and machines of daily life, as while the elevator was a comfortable ride, countless people had to work to provide the electricity to make the elevator work, and resting on the Sabbath meant respecting the separation from anything related to work, even if the work was not one’s own. I am not observant, but I do like the concept of one day off a week – no phones, no work of any kind. The only time I really adhered to that idea was the two years I spent writing my screenplay “Interrupted,” during which I worked from 5am to 10am Monday through Friday and all day Sunday – while skipping Saturday completely. I don’t know if that was spiritual or just good discipline, but the process worked for me.

I never felt comfortable around Rachel’s parents. Her mother, Leah, was a harsh and stern figure, and it never seemed possible to look at her without noticing the grim green tattoo of numbers branded on her arm. I couldn’t help but think that Rachel’s mother wanted you to be continually reminded of her sorrowful past, wanted you to feel guilty, and that made me resent her. She was in the same barracks at Auschwitz that my mother was in. Rachel’s father, Isidore, was quiet, and kept to himself. It was mind boggling to me that Isidore had been a member of the Irgun – the underground Jewish militant group in Palestine that was responsible for blowing up the King David Hotel and other acts of sabotage against the British authorities. A militant named Isidore – how ridiculous is that? When you spoke with Isidore about anything, he would look at you and mumble something about the past, which you couldn’t quite make out, but knew had to do with some unspeakable act of horror.

In her parents’ apartment, Rachel used to read me stories from the bible, and explain the significance, the hidden meaning of the allegories – Jonah being swallowed by the whale, Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. I didn’t believe the stories held any deep meaning, but it was comforting to know that she, at least, had faith in something, even if I did not. I never felt that Rachel was trying to indoctrinate me, or to convince me, and that made her special. She introduced me to her orthodox friends in Brighton Beach, and I found myself at parties in which I was the only guy not wearing a yarmulke. I never felt compelled to put one on in order to better blend in, and none of her friends ever made me feel unwelcome at their gatherings.

Rachel and I did not stay in touch after we both graduated Lincoln High. She married soon after high school and did not go to college. I was at her wedding but was not happy about her marriage. I should have been happy for her happiness – and maybe I would have, had I been convinced that her new husband would treat her well – but something about him rubbed me the wrong way. I wondered if she had the kinds of conversations with him that she had with me, the conversations of two young people with different upbringings, different values, who were genuine in their desire to get to know more of each other, although in our case as platonic friends. The wedding seemed phony, as all weddings are to me. Their joy was manufactured for the flash of the photographer’s camera, which would provide a framed frozen moment that would gather dust on a bedroom dresser for years.

I had not heard from Rachel for several years after her wedding. Then one night she called me, distraught. She had learned her husband was having an affair. He was rarely home, and she knew he went to Paradise Island for a few days with his lover, a blonde shiksa who was a paralegal at his law firm. What a piece of shit, I thought – I knew I got him right. Rachel was lonely, hurt and felt abandoned. She asked me if I would have drinks with her in Forest Hills, where she and her husband lived. I felt weird about it, but said “sure.”

We went to a Polish restaurant in Forest Hills and had pierogies and wine. Rachel surprised me when she took out a pack of Dunhill cigarettes and lit up. I rarely smoked but decided to join her – it felt rebellious and independent. She seemed more of a free spirit that night than the Rachel I had known years earlier. I felt close to her, and our rendezvous reminded me of our high school years, and of our warm, mystical talks about God and His designs. She looked as friendly and appealing as she did when she was fifteen. But she was now twenty-one – and as I studied her I wondered why I never before noticed that she was rather nice to look at. The last time I had seen Rachel, she was wearing the stiff white costume of her wedding day. Now she was wearing worn jeans with patches, sneakers and a knitted green top, which accentuated the color of her eyes.

We went to her apartment and she made a pot of tea, and we sat on the living room couch. There was something unsettling about being in an apartment that belonged to a married couple, yet something that was somehow exciting in a way I could not explain to myself or admit to myself. I asked her about her husband, and why he was such a shit. It was clear that she didn’t want to talk about him. We sipped tea, and for a long while there was silence. There was just the clinking of our cups against the saucers. Rachel looked down, and tears began to stream down her face. I felt bad for her; I knew she had been imprisoned in a home that was not a happy one. She then gathered herself, and apologized for being so morose and gloomy, and for inviting me to wallow in her cheerlessness. She said had not slept since the night before last, and was going to go to bed. It was late, and she invited me to stay over and sleep on the couch, and I accepted.

Rachel brought out some blankets, sheets and a pillow and made a comfortable bed of the couch in the living room for me. She apologized for the accommodations, and I told her she was apologizing too much, and it was not necessary. She said good night, and then went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. I was not tired, but I undressed and settled into the couch under the sheets and blankets and lay there. I heard the distant sound of the subway and some passing cars. But most of all I heard the sound of my own breathing. I could not imagine feeling more alone than she must have felt.

After a short while, Rachel came out of her bedroom and walked over to the couch. She looked slender and somewhat silly in her pajamas that were printed with various animals – it made me think of Noah’s ark. She sat down on the couch next to me. My heart began to race, and suddenly there was no air left in my lungs. She just sat alongside me without saying a word, and stared straight ahead at nothing in particular as I lay on my back, feeling her radiant warmth beside me. I looked at the way the waves of her long brown hair settled against her animal print pajama top and found the image somehow ironic. It was startling to me that her scent had not changed at all since she was in high school and memories of her then combined and united with the sensations of the present to form a jarring, exotic reality that seemed unreal. She then turned her gaze toward me, and I looked into her sad green eyes. She got up again, brushing my hand ever so lightly with her hand as she did so – I did not know if that brush was an accident, but there are no accidents – and walked tentatively back to her bedroom, without looking back at me. She left the door to her bedroom open a crack and I heard her climb back into bed and under her covers. This was one of those times when one must make a choice. And making no choice would be a choice, too.

I got into her bed and under the covers. We lay in bed a long time without saying a word, and without touching. The sound of my breathing was now the only sound I heard. My chest tightened unbearably. Rachel was wide-awake, and her face betrayed an expression of neither sadness nor longing, but perhaps wistful inevitability. I moved next to her, and she pulled the bed covers over both of our heads. We became submerged and our bodies intertwined in our own private domain of smothering darkness, breaths and the warmth of unimaginable sweet touch and scents that converged and amplified in an intoxicating intensity.

There is only one God, Rachel had told me years ago – and God is one.

* * *

Excerpt from a novel I have been writing called “White Sand Falling.”

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At Camp Vacamas one night, the boys in my cabin discovered that the girls’ shower shed had a small hole in the outside of its wooden wall. My cabin mates and I made an excursion at night, flashlights in hand, to get a peek at the girls’ shower. We were exhilarated and nervously excited – and the girls screamed when they found out we were peeping – but I really didn’t see anything but a blur.

When we got back to the cabin, our counselor, a tall, heavy set guy named Jack, was infuriated with us and felt we should experience the shame and humiliation he believed the girls experienced. He decided he was going to use me to make an example for the cabin and indeed for the entire camp. Why did he choose me? I will never know.

Jack said he was going to make me walk outside to the girls’ shower shed – which was about 100 yards from our cabin – completely naked. He said this would teach me and everyone else what it meant to be humiliated.

He directed me to take off my clothes. I stripped to my underwear. He said take everything off but my sandals. I removed my T shirt. He told me to remove my underwear bottoms. I hesitated and began to cry of fear, shame and shocking embarrassment. I looked around my cabin – everyone was sitting on their bed, and no one was laughing. In fact, everyone’s expression was stark. Jack shouted “let’s go!” I dropped my underwear bottoms to the floor and now I was as naked as a newborn baby. That I wore sandals made me feel even more naked. Words cannot describe my humiliation – and remorse. I was not angry with Jack, as I believed he was meting out punishment that I deserved.

Jack said he was going to have me practice to prepare for my excursion out in the woods in front of the entire camp completely naked. I was 11. He instructed me to walk up to each of the eight bunks in the cabin and circle each bunk before moving on to the next one. I did so, and completed a naked walk through my cabin, going from bunk to bunk, seeing each of my fellow campers wince at my indignity.

After I completed my round, Jack asked me if I was ready to step outside for the long walk to the girls’ shower shed, a walk of naked shame that would be observed by the entire camp – boys and girls. I just could not imagine going through with it. He opened the door and motioned me to step outside. I walked through the creaky door and out onto the cabin deck. I heard nothing but crickets and I could feel the cool night air on my exposed skin. I noticed nothing but the blackness of night. I stood motionless, staring into the blackness. Jack now called to me, “Had enough? Do you think you now know what it’s like to be seen naked?” I nodded yes. “Come on back inside, then.”

I was grateful for this reprieve. For many years I loathed myself for what I felt I had done. When I was in therapy in my mid twenties, we were discussing my inhibitions and I recalled this event to my therapist. He was mortified and expressed his view that I had been seriously abused. I was puzzled, as for fifteen years I felt that I was the abuser and was receiving just punishment.

When my mother was in Auschwitz, she was forced to strip completely naked each and every day and stand in the yard with hundreds of other naked women and men. And each day she was examined by Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death himself, who tapped my mother’s naked body with his wand as he inspected her and would make the selection that very moment as to whether she was going to live or die. This occurred each day of the several months my mother was in Auschwitz.

* * *

Excerpt from a novel I have been writing called “White Sand Falling.”

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I have never won an Academy Award, but there were a couple of times that I had hopes of being nominated – and was seriously disappointed when I wasn’t. I was privileged to be a friend of Gregory Peck and his lovely wife Veronique, and the closest I came to Oscar was holding both of Greg’s Oscars – one in each hand – for “To Kill a Mockingbird” as well as his Lifetime Achievement Academy Award. That was in Gregory’s study at his palatial home in Beverly Hills, and the stunningly beautiful Cecilia Peck, whom I had cast in my first movie, placed them in my hands – I was terrified that I would drop them. I came out of his study and Greg said to me in his deep, iconic voice: “You will win one yourself someday.” I protested his flattery, but he was sincere and I felt truly humbled.

Whenever I would think about the possibility of being nominated for an Oscar, I would inevitably think of my acceptance speech. And when I would think about standing at the podium wearing a stiff, uncomfortable tuxedo in front of hundreds of millions of viewers – trembling with regret that I didn’t consume at least two or three extra milligrams of Xanax – I would think of Julia. Winning an Academy Award was the only thing in the world I could think of that might impress the girl I was in love with when I was sixteen, and maybe fill her with regret.

All day, all night, in high school and at home, I thought about Julia. Her face was warm and round; her eyes were blue-green and inviting. Her dimples shone brightly when she smiled. Her light brown hair was cut in shaggy layers, a popular style in 1970. We were good friends, and I fell in love with her hair, her eyes, and those sugary dimples. She was not skinny, but that was ok, because then there was more of her. We were together in some after school clubs at Lincoln, and we became friends. I wanted more than a friendship, and I didn’t know if she did. But I was madly in love with her and I had to do something about it. I would ask her out on a date.

Julia liked me – I could tell. She liked my company, appreciated our talks together. I wanted to fall into her arms, caress her hair, kiss her lips, and more! But I could not just lunge at her in an after school club. I would have to date her. If I asked her out on a date, and she accepted, that would mean that she saw me as something more than a friend.

I agonized for weeks. At night I sat on my bed and stared at the black rotary dial desk telephone in my room. What if she said no? Could I live with the embarrassment and the humiliation? What if she said yes? Would I know what to do, where to take her? I would ask her to go out to a movie. Yes, I would be casual, and just ask her if she wanted to go see a movie with me. That way, it wouldn’t really be like asking her out on a date. It would be just asking for her company. It would be just like we were in school together – only it would be the weekend, and it would be night. I would be very matter of fact, so that it wouldn’t be obvious. Julia, I was thinking of going to the movies Saturday night. Would you like to come with me? That doesn’t sound like a date, does it? Well, maybe it does.

I dialed the phone. I stopped, out of breath, and put the phone down. My heart was racing. I took a deep breath. And another. I dialed again, with courage and determination. She answered the phone. She did not sound warm. Although I could not see her face I could tell that there were no dimples – her expression was undoubtedly frozen. I hesitated. I fumbled. I forced words into a question. “Julia… I was thinking of going to the movies on Saturday night, and… you know… I was wondering if you… basically… wanted to come with me.” Her response was quick, and was like a boxing blow to my head – like when my brother and I bought boxing gloves and tried them out on ourselves and he hit me real hard on my head and it pounded and throbbed and the world became dark – that was what it felt like. “No, I’m busy,” she said frostily. “Oh, I said. All right.” Maybe she’s just not available that night, I thought, or pretended to think, even though my quivering, queasy stomach knew what she was really thinking. But I had to go the distance and make the rejection definitive. “How about the following weekend?” I asked, with a forced pretense of cool and casual hopefulness. “I don’t want to go out with you. I don’t think of you… that way.” There. She said it. Such finality! There was no ambivalence, no equivocation and no hope. She was not interested in me that way. I mumbled “Ok” and hung up the phone. She tore my heart in pieces. It is now four decades later and I am still not over it, but maybe writing this will help me get there.

After that, I saw her at school, and my longing did not decrease, but rather increased. I wanted more than ever what I now could not have, what had been unjustly denied me. I saw the rosy roundness of her face and the way her ample thighs filled her denim jeans. I could not accept this rejection by her. My relationship with Julia would now be confined to fantasy. And there was no end of fantasy.

As the cruel trick of fate would have it, Julia went to the same college I went to in upstate New York. We were no longer friends and traveled in different circles. Every once in a while, I would see her at my college, and the painful feeling of regret and emptiness for a romance never begun would fill my heart. There was a very popular professor at my college, an internationally famous British playwright, in his forties, who taught writing and acting for the theater. The students in his classes were swept away by the professor’s charismatic, sexually charged intensity. I rather thought he was pompous and pretentious, but all the girls talked about him, and rumor was he slept with many of his female students, especially those in their first year. I saw Julia walking on campus with him, and it scalded my soul to see them, knowing they would soon be together in bed.

Near the end of my first semester, I learned that this British theater darling died of a heart attack while having sex with one of his students. Serves him right, I thought, having no sympathy, as I saw memorial leaflets posted all over the campus. Just then I spotted Julia walking by herself on the lawn of the campus, her eyes sunken and looking like a ghost. I suddenly realized: she was with the playwright the night he died!

The thought that Julia fucked her professor to death will hound me to the end of my days.

* * *

Excerpt from a novel I have been writing called “White Sand Falling.”

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My parents kept kosher and went to Shul on the high holy days. But while my father observed most of the customs, including fasting every Yom Kippur, he was quite open about his being fundamentally an atheist. God left him in a single moment; he was 17 years old and working as a tailor’s apprentice in Hungary when he received a postcard from his parents that had no return address. It read “We are being taken away by the Germans. We don’t know where. We don’t know if we will ever see you again.” My father knew he would never see his parents again – and he didn’t. He broke down crying, and could not understand how there could exist a deity, a God, that would allow such innocence – his hard working parents who always gave whatever they had to the hungry in the neighborhood – to be rounded up abruptly from their homes and herded into cattle cars that would take them to the gates and fires of hell. At that moment, that instant, God left him, and He has been gone for him to this day. My father had until then worn long side curls called payot that was a sign of orthodox observance. After receiving that note from his parents, he cut his side locks.

Rachel Goldstein was one of my closest friends at Lincoln High School. Rachel had a religious upbringing and we used to have a lot of talks about religion. I was always struck by how passionate Rachel seemed to be about it. I usually get annoyed when people try to convince me about matters of religion, but with Rachel, I always felt that when she talked about God, talked about the meaning of keeping kosher and respecting the Sabbath, she was sharing with me a part of herself, and it did not matter that I didn’t believe in the rituals. I believed in the sincerity that shone in her open and friendly green eyes. I asked her why not drive and turn on electric lights on Saturday, the Sabbath – how could that possibly be relevant to modern life – and how, in fact, does that constitute the concept of “rest” – as God rested on the seventh day. Rachel responded that the concept of rest was philosophical and spiritual – not literal. It was actually a great deal more physical work to walk up the 13 flights to her parents’ Brighton Beach apartment on Ocean Avenue than taking the elevator – how is that “rest?” For Rachel, respecting the Sabbath, resting on the Sabbath, meant taking one day, 24 hours, where one could remove oneself from the machinations and machines of daily life, as while the elevator was a comfortable ride, countless people had to work to provide the electricity to make the elevator work, and resting on the Sabbath meant respecting the separation from anything related to work, even if the work was not one’s own. I am not observant, but I do like the concept of one day off a week – no phones, no work of any kind. The only time I really adhered to that idea was the two years I spent writing my screenplay “Interrupted,” during which I worked from 5am to 10am Monday through Friday and all day Sunday – while skipping Saturday completely. I don’t know if that was spiritual or just good discipline, but the process worked for me.

I never felt comfortable around Rachel’s parents. Her mother, Leah, was a harsh and stern figure, and it never seemed possible to look at her without noticing the grim green tattoo of numbers branded on her arm. I couldn’t help but think that Rachel’s mother wanted you to be continually reminded of her sorrowful past, wanted you to feel guilty, and that made me resent her. She was in the same barracks at Auschwitz that my mother was in. Rachel’s father, Isidore, was quiet, and kept to himself. It was mind boggling to me that Isidore had been a member of the Irgun – the underground Jewish militant group in Palestine that was responsible for blowing up the King David Hotel and other acts of sabotage against the British authorities. A militant named Isidore – how ridiculous is that? When you spoke with Isidore about anything, he would look at you and mumble something about the past, which you couldn’t quite make out, but knew had to do with some unspeakable act of horror.

In her parents’ apartment, Rachel used to read me stories from the bible, and explain the significance, the hidden meaning of the allegories – Jonah being swallowed by the whale, Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. I didn’t believe the stories held any deep meaning, but it was comforting to know that she, at least, had faith in something, even if I did not. I never felt that Rachel was trying to indoctrinate me, or to convince me, and that made her special. She introduced me to her orthodox friends in Brighton Beach, and I found myself at parties in which I was the only guy not wearing a yarmulke. I never felt compelled to put one on in order to better blend in, and none of her friends ever made me feel unwelcome at their gatherings.

Rachel and I did not stay in touch after we both graduated Lincoln High. She married soon after high school and did not go to college. I was at her wedding but was not happy about her marriage. I should have been happy for her happiness – and maybe I would have, had I been convinced that her new husband would treat her well – but something about him rubbed me the wrong way. I wondered if she had the kinds of conversations with him that she had with me, the conversations of two young people with different upbringings, different values, who were genuine in their desire to get to know more of each other, although in our case as platonic friends. The wedding seemed phony, as all weddings are to me. Their joy was manufactured for the flash of the photographer’s camera, which would provide a framed frozen moment that would gather dust on a bedroom dresser for years.

I had not heard from Rachel for several years after her wedding. Then one night she called me, distraught. She had learned her husband was having an affair. He was rarely home, and she knew he went to Paradise Island for a few days with his lover, a blonde shiksa who was a paralegal at his law firm. What a piece of shit, I thought – I knew I got him right. Rachel was lonely, hurt and felt abandoned. She asked me if I would have drinks with her in Forest Hills, where she and her husband lived. I felt weird about it, but said “sure.”

We went to a Polish restaurant in Forest Hills and had pierogies and wine. Rachel surprised me when she took out a pack of Dunhill cigarettes and lit up. I rarely smoked but decided to join her – it felt rebellious and independent. She seemed more of a free spirit that night than the Rachel I had known years earlier. I felt close to her, and our rendezvous reminded me of our high school years, and of our warm, mystical talks about God and His designs. She looked as friendly and appealing as she did when she was fifteen. But she was now twenty-one – and as I studied her I wondered why I never before noticed that she was rather nice to look at. The last time I had seen Rachel, she was wearing the stiff white costume of her wedding day. Now she was wearing worn jeans with patches, sneakers and a knitted green top, which accentuated the color of her eyes.

We went to her apartment and she made a pot of tea, and we sat on the living room couch. There was something unsettling about being in an apartment that belonged to a married couple, yet something that was somehow exciting in a way I could not explain to myself or admit to myself. I asked her about her husband, and why he was such a shit. It was clear that she didn’t want to talk about him. We sipped tea, and for a long while there was silence. There was just the clinking of our cups against the saucers. Rachel looked down, and tears began to stream down her face. I felt bad for her; I knew she had been imprisoned in a home that was not a happy one. She then gathered herself, and apologized for being so morose and gloomy, and for inviting me to wallow in her cheerlessness. She said had not slept since the night before last, and was going to go to bed. It was late, and she invited me to stay over and sleep on the couch, and I accepted.

Rachel brought out some blankets, sheets and a pillow and made a comfortable bed of the couch in the living room for me. She apologized for the accommodations, and I told her she was apologizing too much, and it was not necessary. She said good night, and then went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. I was not tired, but I undressed and settled into the couch under the sheets and blankets and lay there. I heard the distant sound of the subway and some passing cars. But most of all I heard the sound of my own breathing. I could not imagine feeling more alone than she must have felt.

After a short while, Rachel came out of her bedroom and walked over to the couch. She looked slender and somewhat silly in her pajamas that were printed with various animals – it made me think of Noah’s ark. She sat down on the couch next to me. My heart began to race, and suddenly there was no air left in my lungs. She just sat alongside me without saying a word, and stared straight ahead at nothing in particular as I lay on my back, feeling her radiant warmth beside me. I looked at the way the waves of her long brown hair settled against her animal print pajama top and found the image somehow ironic. It was startling to me that her scent had not changed at all since she was in high school and memories of her then combined and united with the sensations of the present to form a jarring, exotic reality that seemed unreal. She then turned her gaze toward me, and I looked into her sad green eyes. She got up again, brushing my hand ever so lightly with her hand as she did so – I did not know if that brush was an accident, but there are no accidents – and walked tentatively back to her bedroom, without looking back at me. She left the door to her bedroom open a crack and I heard her climb back into bed and under her covers. This was one of those times when one must make a choice. And making no choice would be a choice, too.

I got into her bed and under the covers. We lay in bed a long time without saying a word, and without touching. The sound of my breathing was now the only sound I heard. My chest tightened unbearably. Rachel was wide-awake, and her face betrayed an expression of neither sadness nor longing, but perhaps wistful inevitability. I moved next to her, and she pulled the bed covers over both of our heads. We became submerged and our bodies intertwined in our own private domain of smothering darkness, breaths and the warmth of unimaginable sweet touch and scents that converged and amplified in an intoxicating intensity.

There is only one God, Rachel had told me years ago – and God is one.

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Excerpt from a novel I have been writing called “White Sand Falling.”

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“The goal is not to know what to do, it’s knowing that what ever you do you’ll be ok.”

Very helpful advice from Sean Stephenson tonight as I have important personal decisions to make.  Thanks, Sean.

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It was the day after the Vietnam Moratorium. I was on the steering committee that organized the march from Lincoln High School to the Brooklyn College campus for the anti-war rally. Marty, lanky with long, frizzy blonde hair, was the head of the steering committee, and he urged us to cooperate with the police. “They’re not pigs, man!” he told us.

Carla was a dark skinned girl with long, dark brown hair, and was on the steering committee, too, but we didn’t really talk with each other much. Eddie, a tall, thin, light-skinned black student with a large Afro who lived in the affluent community of Manhattan Beach approached me at the end of the school day. “Hey, you know that Carla’s got a crush on you, don’t you.” I was fairly mesmerized. “Carla? A crush on me? You’re joking, right?” “No, man,” Eddie replied. “Haven’t you noticed the way she looks at you?” I hadn’t noticed at all, in fact. “She really likes you.”

I walked home from school, the blood rushing to my head in a dizzying whirl. My normally deflated ego was pumped so high that I burst with excitement at the sudden joy of life. Carla, so dark skinned, and pretty – I never would have figured her as my girlfriend. I lay in bed at night, dreaming of being with her. I imagined walking her home to her glorious house in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn’s most exclusive neighborhood, where one could hear the waves crash against the large rocks on the shore and the concrete chunks of the broken esplanade.

I saw Carla at school the next day, and she was warm and receptive to my company and conversation. I didn’t feel like I was asking her out on a date, but somehow we soon had plans to go to the movies at the Avenue U theater to see “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” It felt very natural, and I was not awkward. That’s because Eddie told me she liked me, and he was right – I could tell that she did. It is a nice feeling to be liked by a girl when you are in the eleventh grade.

There was a long line at the Avenue U movie theater. I guess that’s because they started a new policy of charging only one dollar. After waiting a long time, the movie was sold out and we were turned away. Carla suggested we go to Manhattan Beach – she had a joint on her. I said that was cool. I was smoking pot fairly regularly in 11th grade, as was everyone else – but unlike the rest of my friends, I haven’t smoked since that time so long ago. We walked along the ruined esplanade, and the waves crashed thunderously against the jagged rocks along the shore. We found some comfortable rocks to sit down on from where we could watch the crashing of the waves, and the nearly full moon illuminating the clouds in the night sky, and the reflection of the moon on the glittering horizon. Carla reached into her jeans pocket and took out the joint. She lit up and took a deep drag. She handed it to me, and it was flavorful and moist from being in her mouth, and the smoke was delicious and the coarse burning sensation deep inside my throat was exhilarating. The moon and the water and the surf became an impressionist painting. Soon we were kissing, with deep feeling, and our arms wrapped warmly around each other, sheltering us from the ocean breeze and the ocassional light sea spray. I looked into Carla’s dark brown eyes, and I could see in them the bouncing reflections of the moonlit ocean. We kissed again. The night was warm and magnificent.

The next time I saw Carla was at a party she had at her house. I was not all that comfortable being in her house with a crowd of people, and I hit the hash pipe right off. The hash must have been opiated, as I don’t know how else to explain the complete delirium it produced in me. The night raced by in a flash, and I remember only fleeting images. I remember crawling on the carpet in a stupor. I remember the blurred look on the faces of the other kids, some amused, some annoyed, and some concerned. I remember hearing the voices of a couple of kids arranging for me to be taken home in a car. I remember being lifted and carried out the door. Most of all, I remember looking helplessly at Carla as I was being carried away from her house. Her face took on the expression of cold stone, and the angry and embarrassed look in her eyes stirred my heart out of its oblivion. Her face receded into the distance and disappeared as I was carried away, conscious enough only to recognize that Carla would never speak to me again. I landed in the seat of someone’s car with a heavy thud like a discarded object, and fell into a dark and painful sleep.

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Excerpt from a novel I have been writing called “White Sand Falling.”

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