Carol Bergman

I was sitting in the Writing Center at a two-year community college where I had been hired as a professional tutor to help students with their essays and other assignments. The college has a wide catchment area, urban and rural. I am new to the area having just moved from New York City about a year ago, and am still trying to figure out the culture. There is a lot of poverty, a lot of struggle, big houses alongside shacks and trailers, the gentry coming up from the city to buy up cheap property and ride their bikes on weekends on the narrow country roads. In other words, the community, and this particular college, and the writing center within the college, is a microcosm of our divided country with its huge income gap between rich and poor. I've had affluent overseas students, and students whose families have been in the county for generations leading hardscrabble lives. I've had veterans suffering from PTSD and a young mother who is going back to school for the first time since she dropped out of high school. So when a young man walked into the center wearing a fancy head set, which he did not remove, I was hopeful that either I, or one of my colleagues that day, would be able to help. But he was not in the center to get help with an assignment, apparently, though he obviously needed help, of a different kind. His movements were erratic, impulsive; he seemed unstable and troubled. He said hello to my two colleagues and then he swiveled, stopped in front of me, pointed his finger and said, "Jew." Immediately I questioned whether I'd heard him correctly.

"What did you say?" I asked him.

But he didn't answer my question.

How did he know I was a Jew? I look Semitic, but I could be Iranian, I could be a Cree from Saskatchewan, I could be Greek. Where did he pick up his racist ideas? His racist impulse? What radio programs or internet sites had he been ingesting without understanding their meaning and import?

I had just finished reading Eli Saslow's book, "Rising Out of Hatred," about the infiltration of mainstream political culture by the white supremacist movement. But the student who had called me a Jew was African American, so I was puzzled. Had he experienced so much racism and brutality himself that his scrambled mind now turned it on others? Maybe it wasn't music playing on his headset but a racist screed urging him on? Maybe he imagined himself to be white, or didn't know who he was, or where he was. What might he have hidden in his backpack?

The proliferation of weapons, the proliferation of foul ideas, one feeding the other as they take root in a mentally ill man, albeit an African American man. As a part-timer I'd missed the most recent lockdown drill, but had reviewed the various protocols before the term began; there have already been 22 school shootings in the USA in 2019. I am used to tight security at NYU where I have been an adjunct since 1997, and puzzled by the lax security at this public college which has an "open door, open campus" policy. Even members of the community can wander onto the campus, walk their dogs, or use the library. But this utopian ideal can be ruined by one terrible incident. The non-discriminatory policies enshrined in the Americans with Disabilities Act that protects students' rights and applauds access for all, education for all, is non-negotiable, as it should be. But what about the rights of the faculty, the other students, and the ancilliary staff?

My mind flashed to the "safe" closet just steps away, but we were all sitting, and this big, strong young man was standing, blocking the aisle. He rushed away and then turned back. Now he was standing in front of me again, jabbering nonsensically, and staring at me intently. I should have done a lot of things in that moment, but I was paralyzed. I'm a Jew, I thought, how does he know I am a Jew? Has he heard about synagogue shootings this year, seen the images on television? Does it make a difference that I am a secular Jew? That some of my European family are, in fact, Catholic? Is he going to hurt me?

My colleagues were watching, but didn't seem as alarmed as I was. Neither of them is Jewish, so how could they understand the iconic terror that had been unleashed in me? How could they understand that I still feel my parents' and grandparents' terror the day that Hitler marched into Vienna and my grandmother, Nanette, was forced onto her knees to scrub stones? She had been at work that day and was on her way home. How did the German soldiers know she was Jewish? She wasn't religious, did not wear a wig. How did they know?

Finally, the man left and I reported the incident to my supervisor who sent an email I wrote to document the incident to campus security. The Director of Safety and Security Services and the Dean of Students arrived to talk to me immediately and discussed what could be done. They were kind, professional, reassuring. The student has been suspended for now, they said, and there will be a hearing in a few days time. They didn't think he was dangerous, but one never knows. "I've been profiled based on my appearance," I told them. "Something triggered him. I feel shaken."

My father often said that we mustn't bring more Jewish children into the world only to be killed. He argued for assimilation, for secularism in the American diaspora. I was relieved to marry a man from Polish/Russian/Jewish ancestry who does not "look" Jewish, who would not be singled out and could—and this was probably an unconscious thought—protect me. And I was relieved when my daughter did not inherit my Semitic nose and then married a British man, an Anglo Saxon, and changed her name, all of these also unspoken thoughts. In fact, I am the only one in my immediate family to carry Middle-Eastern and/or North African genes on my face. Although I experienced anti-Semitism in England for the first time in my life, I had always felt safe in America, until I wasn't.

I am not sure if this is a tragedy or a comedy, but I think it is a comedy. I have just been informed that I am entitled to Austrian citizenship. In legal lingo it's called "the right of return." This will be another chapter to write, a treasure trove of story.

My family was originally Austrian, most of them slaughtered in the Nazi genocide, and now, as a descendant, I, too, can receive an Austrian passport. All I have to do is apply and prove that my parents and/or grandparents and/or great grandparents were native Austrians. How lucky am I. Bless them. Not only am I entitled to an Austrian passport, I am, by extension, entitled to an EU passport. And I don't have to relinquish my very precious Amerian passport, or reside in Austria, a country I scratched off my list as a vacation destination after my second tumultuous visit there. I've written about my experience of both visits in my memoir, "Searching for Fritzi." (Please read the e-book version as it has a very interesting addendum.)

Why is my tongue in my cheek as I write today? Why am I amused? Or bitterly amused? Well, as all things Austrian, this offer has arrived ein bissel späte. That's German for "a little late." The Germans have done better; they made great efforts immediately after WW II. Not so the Austrians. No great effort for a long time; they considered themselves "victims" of the Nazi war machine. We all know this, definitively, to be untrue; they were happy collaborators, happy perpetrators.

My mother, father and stepfather collected restitution checks until they died, but the checks were from the German government, not the Austrian government. Interesting, nicht?

I wonder what my murdered and displaced relatives might say if they were alive to accept this benevolent offer from their once-loved nation. I try to imagine a return to their favorite haunts—the alps where they skied, the coffee houses where they read the daily newspaper and met their friends, the opera, the university. I can't imagine any of this without feeling a very big sadness and a very big anger. (The definition of sarcasm is tearing flesh. I am tearing flesh.) And so, during this Yom Kippur week, I will say this to Austria: there is no atonement, none at all, for a genocide. Thanks for the gesture but I am not interested.

 

 

 

Listen to us and the great good spirit will reward your goodness. If you should finally shut your ears may that great spirit forgive you.

 

Hendrik Aupaumut in a letter to the New York State Legislature, 1790

 

 

We were sitting under a big white tent on Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, NY on land that many still believe belongs to the descendants of the indigenous people who settled here more than 7,000 years before the Europeans arrived. It was an historic occasion, and an emotional one. Henrick Aupaumut's letter had been presented to the historic site as a gift, and it tells a complicated story within and between it's formal, diplomatic words. Written after the American Revolution, it argues for the restoration of land stolen by the Dutch, British, and French Huguenot colonists from the indigenous inhabitants of upstate New York and beyond. Hendrik Aupaumut  had fought on the American side during the war; he expected to be heard.
 
So vast and diverse was the land on which the indigenous population once roamed, that historians can define swaths of settlements, but no clear borders. Nomadic, intermarried, culturally and linguistically connected, the suvivors of war, disease and even enslavement, migrations and diplomatic councils were constant, more so after the Europeans arrived. Once eracinated and dispossesed, there was little hope of return to sacred land, a concept the tribes still hold dear. Their rich history is still not properly taught in our schools. 
 
Mary Etta Schneider, President and Board Chair of Historic Huguenot Street, and a French Huguenot descendant herself, got up to speak. I have heard her speak before, but never with so much feeling. "We are on a journey," she said. "We are learning. And we want to get the story right."  The audience went silent. Perhaps they were expecting a sterile academic lecture and nothing more. Indeed, there was a lecture, eventually—and a fascinating one—by  scholar Lisa Brooks, but first there was a ceremony. Two councilmen from the Stockbridge-Munsee band of the Mohican Nation were in attendance—they had traveled from Wisconsin—as well as the tribe's Preservation Officer, Bonney Hartley, who sits on the HHS Board.
 
As in times of old, Algonquin was spoken and translated by the speakers themselves, which in itself was startling, that this language is still extant and used.

 

Mary Etta Schneider's hand went over her heart as she returned to her seat after the gifts were exchanged. This is a continuing and permanent partnership, she had promised. The flag of the Munsee-Stockbridge Band will now fly on a pole on Huguenot Street.
 
It was an important gathering—truth and reconciliation—and one I will remember for a long time. I congratulate Historic Huguenot Street for their continuing efforts at re-interpretation of the fault lines in our history that haunt our historic sites, and this particular site in the town I now call home.

 

A deer crossed my path as I began my walk down Huguenot Street yesterday. I was not startled as I am used to them by now. We also have coyotes, bears and ground hogs in abundance in these mountains. Very few are hit on the road, which is gratifying. People are careful, respectful, even reverent. These creatures live among us, we live among them; we share the environment. And we are, presumably, stewards of this shared environment.

 

It was early morning and parishioners were arriving for a Sunday service at the Dutch Reformed Church. The sky was overcast and it was still a bit foggy. Then a squirrel joined me, and a white moth, and a couple of hawks, though one of them might have been an eagle.

 

Afterwards, I went to see an exhibition called "Tonalism: Pathway from the Hudson River School to Modern Art" at the Dorsky Museum on the SUNY campus. Though I am familiar with the Hudson River School and Whistler's work, I had never heard of Tonalism and I did not recognize the other painters. The canvases were luminous and as calming as my walk. All of them were landscapes without a human presence. Interestingly, Tonalism emerged after the chaos of the Civil War; it was contemporaneous with Impressionism in Europe.

I wondered what the analogy to a Tonalist's vision might be in writing. Perhaps lyrical landscape poetry. And then I wondered if a "school" of writers or painters will emerge as an antidote to the chaos and worry we are experiencing—the extreme storms, the droughts, the wars, the inhumane politicians at the helm of too many nations, including our own.

How can we restore our weary spirits? Is it possible to retain a contemplative, creative persona in the midst of chaos? If we stop to observe a deer crossing our path, metaphorically speaking, will our creative life flourish?

I was the only one in the gallery, and I could have stayed there all day, though the guards—all young women, all students, all dressed in black—followed me around. I surrendered to their human presence and asked them questions: Do you have a favorite painting here? What are you studying? And so on. It was my choice to connect—my journalist persona, or educator self, I suppose.

The beginning of the term is difficult for working writers who are also teachers as there is a lot to prepare. I have started two book projects—one fiction, one nonfiction—but did not make enough headway during the summer with either of them. Because I am the co-owner of a publishing business, and also have private students, there are manuscripts to read all year long. Therefore, I must intentionally carve out time and space to proceed with my own work. My students have the same struggle as most of them have demanding jobs. We discuss the challenge often, though I offer no remedy; everyone has to find their own rhythmn, their own antidote to chaos and the obligations of daily life if they/we are to remain committed to the writing life.

 

 

Loss doesn't matter unless you care.

 

Andy Goldsworthy talking about his "Walking Wall"  at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO in an interview with Jeffrey Brown on the NEWSHOUR 8/30/2019

 

 

Our ideas about climate change are evolving rapidly; we are more knowledgeable. Or perhaps we've hit the tipping point and cascaded like a waterfall. In larger numbers, we've moved from acceptance to panic to action in just a few short months. Maybe it was the photos of Katrina, or Puerto Rico, or Haiti, or the Bahamas, that finally pierced the scrim of  complacency. Or the deepening sensation of constant threat, a clock ticking, or a loved one, or acquaintance, or a friend of a friend flooded and homeless. We join a rescue team, fill sandbags, cook soup, donate money, take in a family member, canvass for politicians who care about the future.

 

Because all writers  live in heightened awareness—whether  there is a crisis or not—we need only review the oeuvre of our favorite authors to find a roadmap from past to present, even to the future. Jonathan Franzen is a novelist but he is also a birder. Read his nonfiction pieces from three, four, five years ago, and weep. Read Dickens' descriptions of London blighted by coal, a fossil fuel. His stories were more than entertainments; they were warnings about industrialization and callous government.

 

All art is protest, all of it. We create because we care, we feel the losses, celebrate the accomplishments and joys. We may have agendas of one sort or another, or unconsciously tap into the political discourse, but our stories are documents, collectibles of a certain time and place. We know that polemical screeds are less affective and effective than stories even if they are angry or demanding, so we write in the active voice and always remember that we are telling fiction—or nonfiction—stories.

 

Art and writing about climate change and environmental conservation and degradation are all around us now,  everywhere and ever present. We need only step into it to remain in balance with ourselves and with nature as we decide what one small action we can do to help. At the "Composed to Decompose" site-specific installations at the Unison Arts Center in New Paltz, NY, I felt both elated and repulsed by the artists' visions, as I am sure they intended. I went late in the summer when the weather had cooled and was taken round by Helene and Stuart Bigley, co-founders of the center. Much had already shifted in the landscape, the leaves beginning to turn, the water drying in the stream. The sculptures were also transforming in their embedded locations, ruffled by wind, pelted by rain.

 

My favorite was a "living quilt" by Maria Lupo. Created from discarded tea bags and seeds, and being a tea drinker myself, I was drawn to this piece. It was just there, hanging from the branches of a tree, in the same way as we were just there standing on the wood chip path. I could walk up to the quilt and touch it, or turn to Helene and Stuart and ask a question or  two, or not. There was no barrier or guard rail, no instruction, just a contemplative space to think about our connection to the natural world and one another.

Once I believed that the any expression of civility was only possible face to face, eyeball to eyeball, and voice to voice. And though I have not stopped believing that civility and kindness is best articulated in this way, like everyone else in our fast-moving, post-industrial, digital world, I've had to adapt to cold media—text, email—if I want to stay humanly and humanely interfaced with others of our species.

But I am not a robot, nor do I want to behave like a robot, or to continually answer insincere questions about my anti-robotic nature on security-enhanced medical portals, for example. Am I entering websites and portals, dear reader, or are they entering me, forever changing my neural pathways to resemble... robots? Are the decisions we are making amplified or diminished by the erosion of three-dimensional connections? A rhetorical question.

The other day I arrived at the small, human-scale gym where I work out only to discover that it/they/the franchise owner had decided to "go 24-7." The emergency pull cords were being tested while I was on the bike listening to Annie Lennox—deep, throaty Scottish voice—and I had to dis-mount the bike and hold my ears for the duration of the test. Having been interrupted, I decided to interview the owner. His explanation makes complete (financial) sense—to him. "I wouldn't be able to retire unless I did this," he said, meaning a gym run nearly remotely and robotically with only minimal managerial hours. "It's the "new business model for gyms," he said.

"No more SUNY students at the front desk?"

"They weren't that reliable. The gym can almost run itself."

"Robotically?"

"I wouldn't go so far."

"I found the students congenial and helpful," I said. "They smile, they speak. When this desk is empty, it feels strange. Strange and cold."

"You'll get used to it," he said.

I doubt it.

And there's more, all of it connected to the state of our economy, our education system, and our exploited labor force, a labor force that has little security, works more than one job, has no paid vacation, and is in debt. Every one of the half dozen or so student workers I have met at the gym are struggling to maintain their financial equilibrium while they are studying. Any job is important to them. Most are on scholarship or have loans. Their parents are often struggling. In a small town where opportunities are scarce, the gym once provided a few hours of employment for a handful of students, a contribution to their future, and ours.

Fake news. Fabricated stories. Fantasies. It is well documented by now that it is not immigrants who are threatening our jobs, it is robots. By definition, they have no social conscience.

 

"Every time I make a film, the film also makes me."

 

Nanfu Wang, documentary filmmaker, "One Child Nation"

 

in a New Yorker interview by Han Zhang,  8/27/2019

 

 

I know many readers who devour books, read one after the other, swat them away like flies. Two women at the outdoor pool where I swim read one book a day, from what I can tell. They sit and read as their legs dangle in the water and chat to the lap swimmers as we walk down the steps to the lanes. I call them our "literary sentinels." Their reviews are pithy. This one is good, this one not so good. I have not dared to tell them I am a writer for fear that my books will also get swatted away in an instant. Do they have any idea of the effort it takes to write a book? I once belonged to a book club of voracious readers, none of whom were writers, and when they suggested one of my books, I foolishly agreed. They liked it more or less—that wasn't the point—it was the cavalier way they talked about it that hurt me and the speed with which they moved onto next month's choice. I can't even repeat their questions and comments here; I have suppressed them.

A kind and friendly neighbor told me she'd be reading "Say Nothing" on her journey across the ocean for her summer holidays. "Plenty of time on the long flight," she said "I'll take notes and let you know what I think about making it better. Then I'll write a review on amazon." When I said that I was grateful she'd bought the book, she was pleased. But when I continued with, "It doesn't matter to me whether you like it or not," she was not so pleased. I tired to explain without being crude or rude: "You're an avid reader, therefore you are my audience, but you are not a writer, you are a mathematician. I only pay attention to what writers and editors say to me about improving my work."

She was undaunted. Soon after her return she stopped me as I was taking out the garbage and started to ask me questions about one of the plot points. She didn't understand why the character was leaving bones as clues. I launched into my usual lecture about "reader response theory," which in a nutshell is this: The book/story does not exist until it is in your mind. It belongs to you. I am glad you have had a response to my work—good, bad, or bewildered—but I am not going to explain the choices I made to tell this story. And so on.

Then I realized I was wrong in one respect: marketing. I don't usually concern myself with marketing or audience as I am writing fiction. I suppose I should, but I don't. Of course I want to sell whatever I write—thus you may call me a "professional" writer—but if I think about selling as I am creating, I cannot create; I feel stymied, observed, discouraged and judged. And if I think of an "approving" audience as I am writing, or the accolades I may receive, I would develop a writer's block in an instant.

My conviction that it is necessary to keep one's process and work private until it is published has strengthened over the years. I encourage my students not to show their drafts to any wannabe editors—friends, families, significant others. And I suggest they develop a line or two as a rebuttal to a request to see a work in progress, or if it is easier, to blame me: "My professor says I shouldn't show you my work in progress."

Recently, a colleague published a literary memoir about her childhood that included a chapter about a sexual abuse she endured and survived. She did not want this one chapter of the book highlighted in a press release, nor did she want to talk about it during interviews despite the fact that interviewers and reviewers would undoubtedly go for the jugular in this #metoo moment. I admired her resolve; she'd written all she wanted to say on the subject. How she will fare during interviews and during Q & A's at readings is still unknown. This is her first book, her first exposure to the public. It's not always easy.

 

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.

 

From "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

 

 

I thought of this famous Robert Frost poem as I walked down Huguenot Street the other day and snapped black and white photos, my end of summer dolce far niente creative exercise. Of course we are never doing niente/nothing, but to allow the mind and spirit to rest for an hour, or two, or three a day, during these hard times, and very humid climate, that is important I am sure you would agree, dear reader. I continue to read and write through all weathers, political weathers included, but I also need to rest. I'm up to a half-mile in the lap lane and get out for hikes between storms. Lightening is fierce here, exposure more dangerous than in the protected environment of the city, and one must be careful getting in and out of a car, for example.

 

Niente. Not exactly, despite long, peaceful days of reading and writing, it's not niente, not the way the Europeans mean it. I've started work on a book, a project that should carry me through the academic year, and I'm keeping a companion journal to record my progress, research, questions and conundrums. I have been inspired, partially, by the publication and reception of my first murder mystery, "Say Nothing," and by the history of enslavement in the Mid-Hudson Valley and its lasting impact on one small town—New Paltz—where I now live. The whole town is a monument to the French Huguenot slave owners. Their descendants are still here, not so the descendants of their slaves. They fled, migrated, disappeared. It seems an appropriate subject to study and re-interpret in 2019, the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of slaves in the colonies. I recommend the New York Times' 1619 project, a formidable contribution to the discourse. Read slowly. There's a lot to digest:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

 

As for mending walls: there's work to be done and not just on the southern border. We'll need all the fortitude we can muster to face the challenges in the months ahead and to repair what has collapsed within our beleaguered nation and within ourselves.

 

 

Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be in exile in your homeland, in your own house, in your room.

 

        Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet, (1941-2008)

 

 

Malak Mattar, now just nineteen years old, is still what many would call a "naive artist," mostly untrained desipite the mentorship of her uncle, Mohammed Musallum, who teaches art in the only art school in Gaza. So I will begin there, in Gaza, during a 51-day Israeli bombing siege, in a household where a girl of 14 who has never drawn or painted before, is trying to stay sane during the Second Intifada against the brutal Israeli occupation. Watercolor and paper on the kitchen table, Malak starts to paint, mostly portraits of the women in her family and her community. She is gifted.

 

I had the good fortune to hear about Malak through a Palestinian friend who went to see her recent art exhibition in New York. Sponsored by the Palestine Museum US in Woodbridge, Ct., Malak was granted a two-week visa to show her work in three locations— Connecticut, DC, and New York, before her return to Istanbul to continue her studies on a full scholarship in political science and international relations at the Istanbul Aydin University. She misses her family in Gaza but cannot return during holidays as there is no guarantee she can get out in time to travel back to Turkey before classes begin. Though Gaza has been administered by Hamas since 2007, it is still under "indirect" Israeli occupation; Israel controls its electricity, telecommunications and borders.

 

I try to imagine this pressure, not as an ordinary American student worried about grades and financing, but as a student in exile from her beleaguered homeland, worried about her family and friends. How brave she has been, truly exemplary. She has had to learn both Turkish and English as her classes are in English, and struggles to maintain her bank account and grade point average. She travels wherever she is invited to show her work. "I will never stop painting," she told me with confidence. "Life is not easy in Gaza. This is what I portray in my work. I want the world to understand."

 

 

 

For more of Malak's story:

 

https://wearenotnumbers.org/home/Contributor/Malak_Mattar

 

Malak on Facebook:

 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004339966663

 

For more about Palestine and Israel:

 

Human Rights Watch Report

 

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/israel/palestine

 

Yousef Bashir, "Words of My Father" 

 

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062917324/the-words-of-my-father/

 

Mahmoud Darwish Poems

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=darwish+poems+on+amazon&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKlffslorkAhUqwlkKHax7CuUQsxgIMA&biw=1024&bih=710#spd=13109659742047301644

 

Palestine Museum, Woodbridge, Ct.

 

https://www.palestinemuseum.us/

 

 

 

We work to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth, and dignity are denied.    

      

              --Amnesty International's Mission Statement

 

 

Iain Levine was the Amnesty Representative to the United Nations when I met him nearly 20-years-ago now. It was his story about working as a nurse in the Sudan that got me started on "Another Day in Paradise; International Humanitarian Workers Tell Their Stories" with a foreword by the human rights activist, John Le Carré. In between his travels to war-torn countries, Iain had taken a one-day workshop at Gotham Writers Workshop and pulled together his journal notes from his months in Sudan. Iain is an avid reader and compelling talker. His finished narrative became one of the chapters in the book proposal, which we sold easily, and then the lead chapter in the book itself. It is still in print, more relevant today than ever before. It did well on four continents--North America, Australia and Europe--and recently was also published for a second time in China.

 

When I saw the Amnesty Travel Advisory about the United States this morning on Facebook, I decided to contact Iain to corroborate my intuition that this advisory, echoing the State Department's travel advisories for other countries, was unprecedented and real. Though he is in the UK for a family reunion, and has just resigned from his more recent position as the Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch to teach at Columbia, Iain wrote back to me right away. He confirmed that the advisory is unprecedented and it is real. As soon as Donald Trump was elected, Amnesty mobilized their 2.2 million activists in 150 countries to monitor the new president, and hold him accountable for his so-called policies and executive orders.

 

We may never know whether or not the president and his cohorts care about this censure from a highly respected international organization, but, at the very least, the story has now been told and broadcast : The United States of America is no longer a safe haven for refugees, asylees, immigrants, tourists, or ordinary citizens trapped in a new American nightmare.