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The Moth Radio Hour: Paul Bowles, Exile, and a Bar Mitzvah
00:53:40
A boy’s Bar Mitzvah becomes a family battle ground; three literary pilgrims search for the author Paul Bowles in Morocco; and a novelist decides that the only way to cure her writer’s block is to block out the world. Storytellers: Jeffrey Solomon,
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- [00:01]
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- [01:42]
George Dawes Green
From PRX this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm George Dawes Green, founder of the Moth, and I'll be your host this time. The Moth is true stories, personal stories told without notes, cooked up fresh before a live audience. This hour we have three stories for you. We'll hear about the civil war that erupts around a boy's bar mitzvah and the tale of three literary pilgrims lost in Morocco. And we'll hear of one novelist's intriguing solution to writer's lock yourself up and throw away the key. People always ask me if there's one rule to telling great stories, and I'd say that a powerful raconteur carries no shell, has no shame, and will talk freely about weakness and defeat. The best storytellers strip their lives naked to the world. The idea being, I guess, that if nothing else protects against the horrors of living, then perfect honesty might. At a moth in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jeffrey Solomon told us the story of his family in free fall. It wasn't an easy tale for him to relate, but it was a revelation. Here's Jeffrey Solomon.
- [03:11]
Jeffrey Solomon
It's less than 1/2 hour until my own bar mitzvah. For those of you who don't know, this is the sacred, the monumental rite of passage of a 13 year old Jewish boy into manhood. And I cannot stop crying. Outside of the synagogue, my older sister, Michelle, she's just shy of 18 years old. She rubs me on the back and she says, okay, look, Jeff, you don't have to go through this. If you want, we can just walk. Yeah, IHOP is half a mile down the road and we'll have pancakes instead. I turn and I still look towards the temple to see if war has broken out yet. See, my dad divorced my mom when I was 8 years old and he moved out of the house and he remarried one of my mom's close friends, Judith, amid accusations of infidelity from my mother. And in the months leading up to my bar mitzvah, my mother drew a line in the sand. She said, she's not welcome. You can tell your father he's not bringing that woman over my dead body. And all of our old friends, the Gellermans, the Levies, the Birnbaums, if I have to face them in a receiving line, I'll have a nervous breakdown. No, I've been humiliated enough. They're not welcome, you tell him. Also on the nervous breakdown inducing list, according to my mother, were all of my family from my dad's side. So during the one hour drive to my dad's house for his weekend, I just blurted out, I say, mom says that only you can come, not Judith and not anyone else, just you. And I wait for my father's anger, but he just says, okay, yep, all right. And I breathe a sigh of relief, grateful that my bar mitzvah will not become disputed territory. That I was perhaps a neglected child is evident from my bar mitzvah photo. I'm wearing a bow tie that is outlandishly large and I have a terrible bowl cut that makes me look like a gigantic nose wearing a yarmulke. But in the early morning light of the sanctuary, as my grandfather drapes the frayed and yellowing prayer shawl over my neck and shoulders, the same tallis that he wore at his own bar mitzvah in 1921, I'm filled with a sense of importance and awe. At 15 minutes past the hour, the guests begin to arrive. And suddenly my mother turns pale. Because there in the parking lot getting out of their car, are the Birnbaums, followed by the levies, a great gaggle of Solomon cousins, aunts and uncles, A shadow guest list of some 75 people invited by my father descends upon Temple Beth El and crashes the bar mitzvah. When my father arrives with Judith My mother's face becomes twisted with anguish. And as my stepmother enters the synagogue, she stops. She turns to my mother and she says, congratulations, Ruth. You must be very proud. And my mother says, drop dead. Go yourself, Jodi. I run. I run to the bathroom. I shove my mouth full of paper towels so no one can hear me sobbing. Our private divorce drama has exploded in front of everyone. On the most important day of my life, my older sister Michelle finds me huddling in one of the toilet stalls. She leads me out the back door of the synagogue and there I sit on a rock. I try to catch my breath. And now it's only five minutes until the bar mitzvah. And Michelle says, jeff, what's going to be bar mitzvah? Strawberry pancakes. I have endured seven miserable years of Hebrew school in preparation for this day. All of those people inside that synagogue are expecting me to go through with this. But. But I can't catch my breath. I say, I don't know. I don't know. I have to. I have to. And my sister says, sh. Okay, look, here's the plan. You're going to get yourself together, okay? And you go up there and you just do the very best you can do. And you know what? If it gets really bad and you feel like you're going to lose it, all you need to do is reach up, scratch your nose, and I will pull the fire alarm. Michelle was a hardened veteran of the divorce wars and she always knew how to build my morale, which she does now by performing a recent favorite moment from the sitcom Happy Days. Now, for those of you who are old enough to remember Happy Days, I have a question for you. Do you remember the episode where the Fonz survives a nasty rumble with a minor character named Riku owning by the mysterious intervention of a martial arts diva from the far east named Kathmandu? What I do remember very clearly was Kathmandu's signature pre combat focus ritual in which she would take thumb and forefingers in a yogic like stance, extend the hands up like a bird of prey, and then transforming her aura into panther, she, wolf, dragon. She'd let out a fire breath. Now, for some reason, my 12 year old brain found this unbearably funny at that time. And so my sister performed this moment for me as I just did for you. And it had its intended effect. I let out a few giggles through my tears and soon she was leading me into the synagogue and up to the bima, the altar. And my bar mitzvah begins. And at first I'm completely terrified and I stumble over my words. But then I find that the mournful Hebrew melodies provide some release. As I sing Baruch hathar Adonai Eloheinu Melecholom, I get through my Haftorah portion, and with growing confidence, I read directly from the Torah. And finally, I recite a speech I prepared, an impassioned but wholly unoriginal treatise on Israel's right to defend itself, as fed to me by my stepfather, Seymour. And I trash Hitler and I smite Hezbollah and I kick Arafat's ass. And it feels so good, but hollow, because I know that this is is not my war. To me, all of the Arab Israeli hostilities combined pale in comparison to the day my father arranged our early release from school so he could smuggle us to his wedding with Judith. Or my mother's interrogation of me and coerced confession about my father's plan, followed by our kidnapping and forced vacation to Story land in in Lake George to prevent us from attending that wedding. Or my father's relentless psychological campaign to persuade my sister to testify to social services about the unfitness of my mother as a parent so that we might be removed from her home and my mother's subsequent attempt to run my father down with her car. If only someone had just encouraged me, write what you know, I might have provided some genuine insight into the psychology of blood enemies in the Middle east who know that your enemy will never recognize your right to exist. Your enemy wants you dead. And then the unthinkable happens. The rabbi summons my father and my mother up to the bima, and they stand on either side of me, clutching my hands. They've not been in the same room together for four years. My father whispers, I'm very proud of you, son. And my mother shoots back, huh? Why wouldn't you be? Someone wonderful stuck around to raise them. And my father snarls, shut up, Rosie. And I reach up to scratch my nose. But before I get there, I'm stopped by the sight of my sister Michelle sitting in the front row and valiantly performing the sacred sitcom ritual that saved my bar mitzvah. Thank you.
- [13:28]
George Dawes Green
That was Jeffrey Salem. Jeffrey is a writer and performer, and he's grateful to his entire family for their love and for the epic stories. Jeffrey's bow tie looks like a giant tarantula in that bar mitzvah film. Check it out on our website, themoth.org In a moment, we'll be back with a story from Edgar Oliver and a journey to Morocco that becomes terrifying.
- [14:00]
Moth Producer
Support for the moth comes from constant contact with email marketing features like drag and drop editing and mobile friendly templates. Constant Contact is committed to helping small businesses and nonprofits become marketers. Learn more@constant contact.com the moth is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX.
- [14:21]
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- [15:09]
George Dawes Green
This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm George Dawes Green. Edgar Oliver keeps no secrets. He's a scrupulously honest man, and though some people imagine that his rather original manner of speech is affected or for theatrical purposes only, the truth is that Edgar Oliver talks like this all the time. He and I both hail from around Savannah, and I know folks who grew up with him, and they'll testify that he's always talked like that since he was a child. And as long as I've known him, he's always thought like that, mocking his own despair and his lightning passions and always taking these great journeys through his own mind. Somewhat perilous journeys. This is Edgar Oliver on the road in Morocco in a Moth story he told at New York's famous Cooper Union.
- [16:07]
Apple Representative
Hi everyone. 20 years ago I went to Morocco with my sister Helen and our dear friend Jason, a young man with whom I was madly in love. My love for Jason was an impossible love. He was not romantically inclined towards men. But I have always believed in impossible love, and Jason and I did have a passionate romantic friendship. Helen and Jason had both been avidly reading the works of Paul Bowles, the great writer who had lived in Morocco for years. At the time, I had read nothing by Paul Bowles, although I have since grown to love his work. But I loved the idea of going to Morocco, too. So we all three got on a plane and went. We landed in Marrakech, but we always knew that the end goal of our journey was to make it to Tangier and visit Paul Bowles. All we knew, really, was that Paul Bowles lived in Tangier and that this man we had met in a nightclub in New York, just before he had left, had said that he lived near the American Embassy. I should add here that the one thing that I did know about Paul Bowles work at the time was that from everything Helen and Jason had told me, I knew that his writing often had a lot to do with terrible fates that befell Westerners who went to Morocco. When we tried to leave our hotel in Marrakech, hordes of strangers flung themselves at us, wailing and beseeching us for help and trying to tear off pieces of our flesh as though we were made of gold. And we fled back into the lobby of the hotel, where they told us that to go outside we would need to hire a native guide. And it turned out to be true. If you had a native guide, you could go anywhere and people would leave you miraculously alone. So we quickly fell in love with Morocco. When finally we arrived in Tangier by bus, this charming man named Mohammed, who happened to be waiting by the bus stop, immediately claimed us as his Westerners. Mohammed told us that he was a great friend of Paul Ball's and that he, and only he, would be able to to introduce us to Paul Bowles. For some reason, this was the one thing that Mohammed told us that we absolutely did not believe. But Mohammed turned out to be a most excellent guide. However, we resolved amongst ourselves that in order to meet Paul Bols, we would absolutely have to escape Mohammed. So we were biding our time, waiting for our escape. Mohammed. Well, we were staying in the Medina, the old part of town, where it was strictly prohibited to sell or to buy liquor. But Mohammed taught us how to buy liquor on the black market from these illicit wine dealers who lurked in dark alleyways. One night, Helen and Jason and I had stayed up all night drinking. And at dawn, Helen had retired to bed, and Jason and I were still up drinking together. And something, probably the desperation of my love, drove us to quarrel. I fled the hotel, clutching a huge stash bottle of red wine and weeping, and I strode through the streets of the Medina, swigging my wine and sobbing wildly. And then I strode out of the gates of the Medina into the new part of town. And everyone whose path I crossed just recoiled from me and gasped in shock. And suddenly it dawned on me that I was in a part of town that I'd never seen before, and I had managed to cross a good part of Tangier completely alone, without a guide. And this suddenly gave me this feeling of ecstatic happiness. And when I found myself in this beautiful park that sloped down to the bay, just as the sun was rising. And I sat on a bench sipping my wine, gazing out across the bay. And I felt so happy, alone in this magical place. And then suddenly, this little boy appeared in front of me. He was about 6 or 7 years old, dressed in rags. And he was staring. He was gazing into my eyes and smiling. And he was dancing for me. And I gazed back at him, completely hypnotized. And then he began to dance away from me. But every few yards, he would look back over his shoulder. And I felt that he wanted me to follow him. So I did. And I thought, this is my guide. This child is my guide. And he led me straight into the clutches of his master, this boy of about 17, who was very handsome, but you have this very cold, cruel, commanding air about him. And this older boy dismissed the little boy with a sharp command. And then he said to me, follow me. So I did. And I was thinking, now, this is my guide, the master of the street urchins. So he led me through a series of narrow streets and into a crowded marketplace. And then through a series of rooms where these two much older turbaned men bowed down to him. And then he led me into a small room. And the two turbaned men began bringing rolled up rugs for me to inspect. But every rug that they brought, they set down on the threshold of the door, still rolled up, so that I was. This boy and I were rapidly being walled together into this room by this mounting wall of rugs. And the boy seemed very, very anxious for me to continue drinking. And I began to get the definite impression that I had been kidnapped. And then the boy looked at me and he said, so, you like the little boy? You can buy him. I'll sell him to you. And I got the distinct impression that he meant I could buy the little boy forever. And I wish to this day that I'd asked how much the little boy would cost. But I really had no money on me. And I felt very strongly that I needed to convince this boy that I had no money. So I said that. I said, I have no money. And he said, then what are you doing in Morocco? And I had no idea how to answer him. And then he said to me, what do you want? And he grabbed my hand and he placed it on his sex. And then I just rapidly stood up and I stepped on top of the wall of rugs and over the threshold. And the two turbaned men gasped and threw up their hands in shock as I walked between them. And I walked through the series of rooms and out into the marketplace without looking back. And then somehow I made it back to the hotel. And when I got back to the room, Helen and Jason were just getting up. And then one of us, I can't remember who said, this is the day we should go see Paul Bowles. And we all said, yes, quick, we have to get out of here fast before Mohammed appears. So we all three started getting ready really, really fast. And Jason was still swigging straight vodka. And I decided at that point that if Jason were going to be drinking, that maybe I should stop drinking. So I did. And then we all ran downstairs and we hailed a cab. We were just jumping in when Mohammed appeared screaming, wait for me. So he jumped in the cab and we screamed, step on the gas. And then the cab zoomed off with Mohammed chasing us. And then we screamed to the American Embassy, at which point Jason passed out. So I was holding Jason in my lap as we careened through the streets of Tangier. And we made it to the American Embassy, where we got out. We got Jason out of the taxi, and then we didn't really know what to do. But then I noticed a maid hanging up clothes while singing to herself in Spanish. So I went up to the gate and I called out to her in my best Spanish, and I asked her if she knew of an American writer who lived in the neighborhood. And she said, yes, he lives two blocks that way in an apartment building just above a bodega. So we went the way she had pointed, and we came to this apartment building with a bodega on the ground floor. So we went inside and we asked the man behind the counter if he knew of an American writer who lived in the building. And he said yes, he lives two flights up in apartment 215. So he went upstairs and we rang the bell of number 215 and nobody answered. So then we sat down on the floor, floor in front of Paul Balls door, and we began writing him a note. At which point Jason lay down on the floor and passed out again. So Helen and I wrote that we were Americans who loved his writing and that we were dying to meet him. And we said that we would come back in two days, in the afternoon. And then we managed to revive Jason, and we got him downstairs and outside. And then we found ourselves beside this embankment of rock that sloped up to this vast expanse of nothingness like the beginnings of the desert. So we all three set sat down on this embankment of rock, at which point Jason lay down again and passed out. So I was Cradling Jason in my lap. And we were sitting there in the sun, not really knowing what to do. And then we noticed that these groups of children were beginning to walk by on the top of the embankment. And as they passed by, they all stopped and began staring down at us. They were all about 10 or 11 years old. And then more and more of them began to collect there, staring down at us. It seemed as though school was letting out for the day. And then something strange struck me on the shoulder. And then something struck Helen. And then something struck Jason, although he did not awaken. And we realized that the children were throwing stones at us. And the stones began landing faster and faster. And we just realized that we were being stoned by children. And suddenly this taxi zoomed by. And a veiled woman in the taxi tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed to us. And then the taxi sped out of sight. And Helen and I were just cowering there, trying to shield ourselves and Jason from the stones, not knowing what to do. But then suddenly the taxi reappeared. The veiled woman had sent it back for us. So we managed to get Jason into the taxi and we fled. And then two days later, we returned as we had said we would. But this time, all of us sober to visit Paul Balls, and consequently very, very nervous. So he rang his doorbell. And a few minutes later the door opened. And there in the doorway was this tall, sort of hulking ogre like man with bushy black eyebrows who glared down at us. He seemed to be mute. And so he said, you know, we're here to see Paul Balls. And he growled something and gestured for us to wait. Then he shut the door. Then a few minutes later, he came back and he handed us a note. And the note said, I assume my man has told you that I was sick in bed, and I am waiting to be served my dinner. But if you'd like to come in, I will gladly receive you for five minutes. P. Bowles. So we followed this tall man inside and through a series of rooms. And we came to a door where he stepped aside and waited. So he walked through the door, and there, lying in the bed, was Paul Bowles, propped up by pillows with his hands lying on this thick sort of comforter. So we all three sort of lined up beside his bed, and he smiled at us and said hello, and we smiled back and said hi. And then we just didn't know what else to say. And then Jason said, we love your writing so much we just had to come to Morocco. And Paul Bors looked at us and smiled. And he said very sadly, I should have thought my writing would have kept you away. And we didn't know what to say to that. It made us all, I think, feel very sad. And we began sort of shuffling backwards in a line, you know, shuffling away from Paul Balls, who was just gazing at us. And the silence was lengthening and lengthening and I was just waiting for someone to say something. I was thinking, God, Jason, he's so brilliant. He can talk to anyone. And actually, Jason finally did blurt out, my stepfather has that exact same bedspread, while pointing to the comforter that was covering Paul Bowles. So Paul Bowles looked down and he said, ah, yes, I got this bedspread in San Francisco in 1958. And then Jason said, well, my stepfather got his bedspread in San Francisco too. And they proceeded to have this several minute long, sort of strangely poor, pointless conversation about Paul Balls bedspread. And then we bade Paul Bowles goodbye and left. So we walked downstairs, we walked outside, and we found ourselves beside the rocky embankment. And then we all suddenly just clapped ourselves on the forehead and we said, God, why didn't we tell Paul Bowles how we were stoned by children the other day when we tried to visit him? He would have loved it. It was straight out of one of his stories. But somehow it never occurred to any of us. And all of a sudden it was simply too late. Thank you.
- [36:03]
George Dawes Green
That was Edgar Oliver. Edgar is a legend of the New York Theatre, and his published work include A Portrait of New York by a wanderer there and the man who Loved Plants. To see a photograph of Edgar and his entourage on that Moroccan adventure, visit themoth.org in a moment. A Turkish novelist goes to extremes to conquer her writer's block. That story when we come back.
- [36:40]
Moth Producer
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the Public Radio Exchange.
- [36:48]
TurboTax Advertiser
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- [37:32]
George Dawes Green
The Moth Radio Hour. I'm George Dawes Green, founder of the Moth, and I'm also a novelist. And novelists constantly face the question, how are you ever going to finish this thing? There's always been distraction, but lately there's been more. There's this bombardment of social media, and how do you possibly escape it? How do you find the immense amount of solitude and space that a novel requires? All aspiring writers should listen closely to this brutally honest tale of the novelist who decided to lock the world out. Here's Elif Shafak live at the Mall.
- [38:22]
Elif Shafak
So years ago I used to live in Istanbul on a street called Kazanj. I was writing my new novel here, writing and sulking. I was walking a thin line between creating a book and destroying myself. The street was quite narrow and so steep that whenever it rained more than three inches, all the water that would accumulate up the hill would come down in a crazy gush. On such days it was a river more than a street, and we, the residents, were like passengers on a boat. I could not help but think that one could not settle down here for too long, but only sojourn for a while. And interestingly, the history of the street seemed to confirm this. Once this place had been a cosmopolitan hub of cultures and religions. Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Levantines and Muslims of every sect had lived here side by side over the years, not feeling at home anymore. Most of the non Muslim population had left, but a few of them had stayed. And then in early 1970s, an entirely different cluster of people had moved in. Transvestites, transsexuals, and also prostitutes. They had built a life here until they were driven out by the local authorities, but a few of them had remained. So when I moved into the street, one of my good neighbors was this old Greek lady in the opposite building, and the other one was a middle aged transvestite downstairs. Both of them were like relics to me, remnants of a past long forgotten. And this is where I was in the summer of 1999, writing a novel called the Gaze. The story was so different than anything I had imagined before and far more surreal. One of the main characters was this extremely overweight and tall woman, and the other one was a dwarf. There were lovers, but because they made such an impossible couple in the eyes of other people, they were also outcasts, running away from the gaze of the society. So this was the story I was working on, but all of a sudden I had hit a snag with the plot and the characters had rebelled against me. Even the side characters were now not taking me seriously anymore. Naturally, I was depressed. The novel was sucking me in little by little, and from then on, I had only two choices in front of me. I would either put the book aside and take refuge in the real world, or I would put the real world aside and plunge deeper into the story and write everything all over again. And I chose the latter. I decided neither to leave my flat nor to let anyone in until I had finished the first draft. Now, my flat was very tiny. It had one bedroom and a kitchen with ceilings so low that if you were to make pancakes, for instance, you could not possibly toss them up in the air. The bathroom was so narrow that when you took a shower, the steam would turn into a fog that wouldn't dissolve for hours. However, in one corner of the living room, if you put a stool in front of the window and you stepped on it and you craned your head in the right direction, you could. On a bright, sunny day, you could see the sea, you could see the boat sailing across the Bosphorus. So it was a flat with a view, as this real estate agent had once told. And this is where I decided to quarantine myself for an indeterminate period. Now, at this stage, I should probably tell you that I'm a rather restless person. Even when we go to a restaurant, I need to change seats a few times during the course of the dinner, and I don't like silence. And I usually write my books outside in noisy, crowded cafes, train stations, airports, always on the move. So for me, the decision to confine myself in this little space was a big decision and totally, totally out of character. Nonetheless, I was determined. I called my mother, my close friends and my boyfriend, and I told them, as calmly and as confidently as I could manage, that I would not be reachable for the next day, days, weeks, perhaps months. They asked me if I had lost my mind, and I said, look, everything is okay, but I need to make this sacrifice for my art. And I told them not to call me unless I called them first. My mother started to cry, and she told me to get married and have kids and live a normal life. I said. I said I didn't have time for that. I had a book to finish, for God's sake. Now, to their credit, they all respected my decision and agreed not to call, not to come, not to even send a postcard. Thus satisfied, I unplugged the phone, pulled the curtains, and turned the radio up. That summer, my favorite rock station used to play Santana at least 10 times a day, particularly this song, Corazone, Espinalo, Pierced Heart, and that became my personal anthem in this sublime endeavor. But I wasn't totally alone. I had a smoky gray cat that was named Smoky. She curled up on my desk and watched me carefully, eyes narrowed to slits, as if she knew things that I wasn't even aware of. And in this state, I began to write the book from the very beginning. Now, the first day went very well. I was quite productive and elated. The second day, not bad, though by the end of the third day I was having migraines and panic attacks, and the need to go out for a walk was overwhelming. By the end of the first week I had finished 75 pages, as well as all the food in the fridge, which wasn't a lot to begin with, and now I was feeding on salty pretzels and sunflower seeds, which I was okay with, really, as long as I had water and coffee, I was fine. But being a fussier creature, my cat was starving. Across from the house there was a little grocery store. The owner was a grumpy man who never talked to marginals and refused to sell alcohol or any newspapers or magazines that he suspected of being even slightly, slightly liberal. Every day when he went to mosque, he would put a huge sign on his door, as if he wanted the whole world to see where he was. So unlike his wife, who seemed privately spiritual to me, this man was publicly religious. Now, as I said, there was no food left in the kitchen. My cat was desperate, but I had made an oath. And also by now I had the psychology of a vampire. I dreaded daylight. I had not taken a bath in like 10 days. My hair had changed color. It was all oily and all tangled. But most importantly, I didn't want to break my promise, just go to the conservative grocery across the street. So nowadays, of course, it's so easy. We have the Internet and everything. We can do shopping without going anywhere. But back then, the people of Istanbul had found other techniques for this purpose, as those of you who might have been in the city would have realized. There are lots of apartment blocks there that have little shops at the entrance level. So what happens is the people living on upper floors, they usually take a basket, tie a string to it and lower it down, and the shopkeeper puts the required items inside. Then you just pull it up. So a lot of shopping, a substantial amount of shopping in the city is done in this way. The problem was my grocer's grocery store wasn't Situated at the entrance of my building. It was across the street. So here's what I did. I asked help from the old lady, from my Greek neighbor across the street. She was in the opposite building. And together we extended a laundry line between our windows. I sent her a basket, which she then lowered down. And through this complicated mechanism I was able to reach the grumpy grocer with a note that said. Bread brown, please. Cheese feta, please. Cat food with tuna, please. And a pack of beer, please. And it worked seamlessly, you know. The basket came back to me. Everything was in it except the beer. No problem. My spirits raised, I renewed my oath never to go out until I had finished my book. That night, at 3:00 in the morning, I woke up and the whole world was shaking. The walls, the ceiling and the floor. Having no experience before with earthquakes, I was totally unprepared. Like millions of others, I grabbed my manuscript, my cat, in that order, and I run out of the building. What I saw out there stopped me in my tracks. There was the conservative grocer sitting on the sidewalk next to the transvestite. There were lines of mascara across her face and she was sobbing uncontrollably out of shock. I watched him open a pack of cigarettes and offer one to her. I sat next to them. That night, my Greek neighbor was my transvestite neighbor. The conservative grocer and his head scarfed wife. Me and Smokey, we spent the night together. My cat was extremely nervous, as if she knew that more than 8,000 people had lost their lives. Later on, as we listened to the radio together and realized the magnitude of the tragedy, I looked at the manuscript in my hands. You know, all of a sudden it seemed so small, so trivial. What difference did it make whether I finished this chapter, Whether I found the twist in the plot? Tonight, in the face of death, we were all temporary brothers and temporary sisters. But tomorrow everybody would go their own way. The grocer would stop talking to the transvestites and the old same prejudices would re emerge. I was sure that Kazanji street would be back to normal. But I wasn't that sure that I could go back to my novel. It wasn't a writer's block exactly. It was something like a loss of faith which I had never known before. And which was deeper, darker and more sinister to me to this day. This is one of the toughest dilemmas in my work. To have the faith to. To have the belief that stories matter, that words make a difference and connect us across the boundaries and the sneaky suspicion that all art is in vain in the face of larger, darker world events. And between this optimism and pessimism, my heart is a pendulum. It goes back and forth, back and forth. In the weeks ahead, I joined the volunteers who were helping earthquake survivors by collecting blankets and food and so on. By the end of the summer, I was back in my flat again, writing again, and suddenly, through the open window, I heard a thud. Someone had sent a basket to me across the laundry line, and in it there were two cans of beer. I glanced at the opposite building to thank my Greek neighbor, thinking it was her, but to my surprise, it was not. It was the conservative grocer who had sent them. He waved at me, a tired smile on his face. I waved back and I understood that of the experience we had shared, something had remained. And perhaps at the end of the day, this is what we writers want to achieve with our stories. Something to remain a spontaneous bonding, a speck of empathy, and also the possibility of change. Thank you.
- [51:42]
George Dawes Green
That was Elif Shafak. Ms. Shafak is one of the most widely read writers in Turkey. Her books, which have been translated into more than 25 languages, include the Mystic Black Milk and the 40 Rules of Love. She lives in Istanbul with her husband and two children. To pitch your own story or to learn more about all our programs, visit themoth.org all the stories you've been hearing this hour are available at the iTunes store. Just search for the best of the Moth. That's it for the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.
- [52:37]
Moth Producer
Your host this hour was George Dawes Green. George is the founder of the Moth and the author of the novels Ravens, the Juror and the Caveman's Valentine. The stories in this hour were directed by Katherine Burns and Sarah Austin Janess. The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson and Meg Bowles. Production support from Jenna Weiss Berman and Brandon Echter. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argos Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from the Hit Crew, Moroccan Sounds of an Ancient Land and Santana. The Moth is produced for radio by Me J. Allison at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with help from Vicki Merrick. This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the Public Radio Exchange prx. Org. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth. Org.