All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [124]
Dr. Rosenblum and his wife visited too. I met them at the airport and would have loved to have taken them to dinner, but I had no money. They guessed as much, so instead they invited me to their hotel room for anchovy sandwiches. It was the first time I ate anchovies.
Paula Mozes, the Old Man’s daughter-in-law, was the next to inform me of her impending arrival by train from London. She came with a compliment: “I read the article in which you said that Paris is the only city in the world where the first day of spring is front-page news, so I came to see.” I would have liked to have shown her the hospitality she deserved, but I was still broke.
I was having increasingly violent migraines, and if that was not enough, a toothache was killing me. I found a dentist on the Place de l’Opéra, a royalist who regularly flew into a rage at the mention of the word “democracy.” While working in my mouth, he preached the virtues of monarchy unopposed.
At about that time I discovered the vast resources of the film industry. I wrote Hebrew subtitles for the film Clochemerle and was paid for each line approximately what Yedioth paid for an entire article. Through Marc Gutkin, I found yet another job to make ends meet. He introduced me to Aaron Poliakoff, a Yiddish actor originally from Warsaw, who wanted Marc to publish a Yiddish monthly to be called “The Mirror of the Theater.” He suggested I work with him on the project. “For the moment we’re not exactly Rothschild, so we can’t pay you a real salary, but …”
“But what?”
“You’ll have a real title: editor in chief.”
“Who else is on the editorial board?”
“Very prestigious names, I promise you.”
“Like who?”
“Well, you. And maybe me.”
I liked Poliakoff. He had charm and a sense of humor that reminded me of all that was most appealing in Eastern European Judaism. In fact, he was so persuasive that I agreed to become the new monthly’s secretary, typist, reporter, commentator, critic, and editorialist. There was just one outstanding practical question: Had he rented editorial offices? “Of course.” Where? “Come with me.” We went to a corner café, took an outside table, and ordered a café-crème. We talked about Yiddish culture and literature, Yiddish playwrights (of whom I knew little) and actors (of whom I knew even less). After about an hour I grew impatient. When were we going to the office? Poliakoff laughed. “We’re here.”
Once a week we met at the same café to plan the next issue. Poliakoff and his wife belonged to a famous family of actors, and they initiated me into their world with tact, talent, and tenderness. I loved hearing their anecdotes, amusing or sad, about the stars of the Yiddish stage. I read the plays of Ansky and Leivik, Pinski and Hirschbein, became familiar with the names of Adler and Granach, Kaminska and Schwartz. And so I became the head of a Yiddish theater review, even though I had attended perhaps three Yiddish productions in my life. It’s amazing what one will do for a “real” title.
Around the same time another idea occurred to me. Why not launch a French-language Jewish weekly patterned on Time? This would be nothing like “The Mirror of the Theater,” in which I wrote under ten different names, but a real magazine, with a real editorial team. I discussed the plan with Ilan, an Israeli friend, a sound engineer by trade, as ignorant of my craft as I was of his. I sounded him out simply because we happened to cross paths that evening. For my sake he declared himself enthusiastic, and we sat over our café-crèmes dreaming of years to come, when Henry Luce would be knocking at our door seeking advice. All we needed was a millionaire backer ready to invest in youth.
Interviewing an Israeli industrialist, I