All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [106]
I had lost track of Shushani and François, but decided it would be a mistake to interrupt my studies on that account. I made a promise to myself: I vowed I would never spend less than an hour a day studying.
My first article was a portrait-interview of Emile Najar. The former lawyer and Egyptian Zionist activist, a minister-counselor to the Israeli embassy in Paris, a passionate talker and lover of political and literary anecdotes, took me on a grand tour of Franco-Israeli relations and the political and cultural situation in France. It was not a traditional interview—I was too shy to press my subject for personal revelations—but that didn’t matter. The important thing was being able to quote him.
With images of Sartre and Hemingway dancing in my head, I plunged deeper into the ambiance of Paris, picking a table at a sidewalk café at which to work, perhaps to be accosted by an unknown woman who would ask me in which language I was writing and whether I was a novelist. “No,” I would reply nonchalantly, “a journalist.” But no one showed any interest in my efforts.
I read and reread the published version of my article, “from our Paris correspondent.” I showed it to Israel Adler, who marked the event by treating me to coffee and a kosher salami sandwich. This became a tradition. Every time I had an article published, he would buy me a sandwich, which meant he was paying me about as much as the paper was. He knew I was broke, but he was almost as broke as I was.
I expected a note of thanks from Najar for all the nice things I had said about him, but instead he called me to convey his displeasure. I had described him as middle-aged when he wasn’t even forty. Terrified of losing a precious source of information, I began to stammer apologies, but he burst out laughing. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and as the years went by, this future ambassador to Tokyo, Rome, and Brussels, one of the most brilliant minds in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, continued to be generous with his time and his counsel.
Money remained the problem. Once again, Shlomo Friedrich, my angel of mercy, managed to steer some free-lance translations and editorial work my way. As a favor to him, a Hebrew monthly that would soon become a quarterly before disappearing altogether asked me for an article on any cultural subject I chose, provided it was long. I chose to write about Beethoven. Yerahmiel Viernik, the magazine’s editor in chief and sole staff member, stared at me as though I were mad. “Did I miss something here? Did Beethoven speak Hebrew? He was Jewish, maybe? What am I supposed to do with a biographical text about a poor deaf composer who had nothing to do with Zionism? Yehuda Halevy, Bialik, Jabotinsky, Herzl, Nordau—you forgot about them?” But since he had nothing else at hand, he had to make do. I never loved Beethoven as much as I did that day. Without him I couldn’t have paid the month’s rent.
I worked in my hotel room, a sunless cubicle overlooking the courtyard. Fortunately, the rent was on a par with the amenities. More than once I wondered whether the hotel rented rooms by the hour. I kept running into new customers on the stairway.
My press card, issued by the office of the Président du Conseil, was my most precious possession. It should have been all I needed, but the French were enamored of cards. In the United States the only document one carries is a driver’s license, but in France you are constantly called upon to prove your identity. Like all foreign correspondents, I had to obtain, in addition to the indispensable pass from the Préfecture de Police, a red card (for the theater), a blue card (for concerts), and a green card (for movies). These cards also gave me the right—this was France, after all—to bring along my legal spouse or lady friend of the moment. Most often I went alone.
Though he was a musician by training, Israel Adler had a passion for movies. And so it was he who most often