All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [223]
I am prepared to have my opinions challenged, to be accused, or even to be cursed. But I will not tolerate being treated as if I did not exist.
I feel no hatred for the Arabs. I don’t even feel hatred for the Germans. The time has come to put an end to the war in the Middle East. I came here tonight in the hope that we might begin a common struggle against war. That we might take our first steps together, that I might shake hands with men who, like myself, would say “No!” to death and evil. That even though I might look into his eyes with pain and discomfort, together we might denounce the forces that stifle hope. That I might weep with him—why not?—over all the evils and all the punishments we have inflicted on one another.
I am a man alone, alone as are my people. As my people were a month ago, facing threats of annihilation, while no nation came to their aid. Never again will I accept such solitude. If the Arabs agree to see me as a man, I will stay. Otherwise I will leave, for I will not play the game by their rules.
The war in Israel was not over, not really. It simply took other forms: the infiltration of saboteurs and terrorists from Syria and Lebanon; Egyptian artillery fire against the Bar-Lev Line along the Suez Canal; airplane hijackings. Then, six years later, came the Yom Kippur War, followed by Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, his speech to the Knesset, and the signing of the Camp David Accord. At the White House I shook the hands of Begin, Sadat, and Carter to convince myself I wasn’t dreaming. Later, much later, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat, in the presence of three thousand guests and millions of television viewers, exchanged handshakes. “Enough war,” declared the man who had won the Six-Day War. “Enough tears and funerals!”
In 1968 Paul Flamand brought me to Paris because, as he put it, “There is a chance that you may receive the Prix Médicis” (for A Beggar in Jerusalem, the first of my novels dedicated to Marion). As we sat in his office waiting for the jury’s decision, we spoke of politics, literature, Israel, America. Paul was impatient. I had never seen him so agitated. He stood up, sat down, telephoned his office. Still nothing. I was tired and jet-lagged, but calm. Unable to contain himself, he exclaimed, “How can you be so calm? Doesn’t this prize mean anything to you?” Of course it did. “It would be great to win the Médicis,” I told him, “but whenever something good happens to me, I remember where I was—now it is twenty-five years ago—and suddenly what seemed so good really isn’t anymore. And then again, when something bad happens to me, I also remember the past, and what seemed so painful really isn’t.” It all depends on your vantage point.
This doesn’t mean that I cannot be hurt by the wickedness of some people or that the respect of others affords me no pleasure. On the contrary, the survivor in me is at once vulnerable and strong. I am stung by the slightest offense, moved by the slightest act of generosity. But looking back on my life is enough to sustain me and keep me true to myself.
The Prix Médicis earned me two important encounters. One was with Marguerite Yourcenar, who had just been awarded the Prix Femina for her Oeuvre au noir (published in English as The Abyss) and the other with Albert Cohen, whose Belle du Seigneur won the French Academy’s Grand Prix for fiction.
Marguerite Yourcenar and I met at a book-signing. Sitting side by side, we exchanged memories and observations while writing “best wishes” to definite buyers and possible readers. She spoke little, contemplating as she did the world around her with a skeptically compassionate eye.
This woman whose smile seemed to contain its own secret is a writer whom one cannot read without entering her universe. Her historical novel Memoirs of Hadrian is a literary masterpiece that one reads and rereads with both an anticipation and a joy that never cease to renew themselves. It is not a coincidence that she became the first woman to be inducted into the Académie française.
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