The Collected Stories

catch the name of the city the driver had announced. I got the key to my room. Someone had already left my suitcase there. A bit later, I went down to the dining room. All the tables were full, and I didn’t want to sit with strangers.
    As I stood, a boy who appeared to be fourteen or fifteen came up to me. He reminded me of prewar Poland in his short pants and high woolen stockings, his jacket with the shirt collar outside. He was a handsome youth—black hair worn in a crewcut, bright dark eyes, and unusually pale skin. He clicked his heels in military fashion and asked, “Sir, you speak English?”
    “Yes.”
    “You are an American?”
    “An American citizen.”
    “Perhaps you’d like to join us? I speak English. My mother speaks a little, too.”
    “Would your mother agree?”
    “Yes. We noticed you in the bus. You were reading an American newspaper. After I graduate from what you call high school, I want to study at an American university. You aren’t by chance a professor?”
    “No, but I have lectured at a university a couple of times.”
    “Oh, I took one look at you and I knew immediately. Please, here is our table.”
    He led me to where his mother was sitting. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, plump, but with a pretty face. Her black hair was combed into two buns, one at each side of her face. She was expensively dressed and wore lots of jewelry. I said hello and she smiled and replied in French.
    The son addressed her in English: “Mother, the gentleman is from the United States. A professor, just as I said he would be.”
    “I am no professor. I was invited by a college to serve as writer-in-residence.”
    “Please. Sit down.”
    I explained to the woman that I knew no French, and she began to speak to me in a mixture of English and German. She introduced herself as Annette Metalon. The boy’s name was Mark. The waiters hadn’t yet managed to serve all the tables, and while we waited I told the mother and son that I was a Jew, that I wrote in Yiddish, and that I came from Poland. I always do this as soon as possible to avoid misunderstandings later. If the person I am talking to is a snob, he knows that I’m not trying to represent myself as something I’m not.
    “Sir, I am also a Jew. On my father’s side. My mother is Christian.”
    “Yes, my late husband was a Sephardi,” Mrs. Metalon said. Was Yiddish a language or a dialect? she asked me. How did it differ from Hebrew? Was it written in Latin letters or in Hebrew? Who spoke the language and did it have a future? I responded to everything briefly. After some hesitation, Mrs. Metalon told me that she was an Armenian and that she lived in Ankara but that Mark was attending school in London. Her husband came from Saloniki. He was an importer and exporter of Oriental rugs and had had some other businesses as well. I noticed a ring with a huge diamond on her finger, and magnificent pearls around her neck. Finally, the waiter came over and she ordered wine and a steak. When the waiter heard I was a vegetarian he grimaced and informed me that the kitchen wasn’t set up for vegetarian meals. I told him I would eat whatever I could get—potatoes, vegetables, bread, cheese. Anything he could bring me.
    As soon as he had gone, the questions started about my vegetarianism: Was it on account of my health? Out of principle? Did it have anything to do with being kosher? I was accustomed to justifying myself, not only to strangers but even to people who had known me for years. When I told Mrs. Metalon that I didn’t belong to any synagogue, she asked the question for which I could never find the answer—what did my Jewishness consist of?
    According to the way the waiter had reacted, I assumed that I’d leave the table hungry, but he brought me a plateful of cooked vegetables and a mushroom omelette as well as fruit and cheese. Mother and son both tasted my dishes, and Mark said, “Mother, I want to become a vegetarian.”
    “Not as long as you’re living with me,” Mrs. Metalon replied.
    “I don’t want to remain in England, and certainly not in Turkey. I’ve decided to become an American,” Mark said. “I like American literature, American sincerity, democracy, and the American business sense. In England there are no opportunities for anyone who wasn’t born there. I want to marry an American girl. Sir, what kind of documents are needed to get a visa to the United States? I have a Turkish passport, not an English one.