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Friday December 21, 2007

‘Polish Woman’ is wry, tortured glimpse at post-Holocaust Jewry

by jesse hawkins
correspondent

Eva Mekler’s latest novel, “The Polish Woman,” is a romance in the “Casablanca” tradition: boy meets girl, boy suspects girl, boy gets girl, boy must choose between love and sacrifice.

It’s graced with Mekler’s marriage of realism and idealism, bang-on descriptions, and even some moments of wry humor. But further, it takes an unflinching look at the us vs. them feelings that may still be closer to our hearts than any of us would like to admit.

The book takes place in 1967, when the wounds left by the betrayal of countless Jews by their non-Jewish neighbors were still fresh and stinging. Through a series of coincidences, a beautiful Polish Catholic artist arrives at the office of Philip, a handsome, moody, cautious Jewish lawyer. When Karolina tells Philip that she might be a relative, he is left to weigh the possibilities: that she’s telling the truth, is after his uncle’s considerable inheritance or is just clinically insane.

Philip is a tough customer. He listens, observes, inquires, demands and inspects his tuna sandwiches as if they might be withholding evidence. Mekler hints that he could be funny, but with the responsibility that comes with being the son of Holocaust survivors and a divorced father of one, who can be bothered to laugh often? Despite being put off by his initial suspicions, Karolina finds Philip’s tenacity both helpful and attractive.

Despite being turned off by her Catholicism, Philip falls in love with Karolina because she’s at least as tormented as he is. Pain, it seems, is the great unifier, at least until the higher callings of political righteousness and cultural identity suggest that we might put our lusty pursuits aside and get busy making the world a better place.

Mekler’s writing ranges from fun to painfully beautiful: An older man wears a “Perry Como cardigan” and Karolina’s father figure is a “big, square man in his soiled sheepskin coat, silently kneading his cap in his hands, waiting for his kiss goodbye.” Little old Jewish men speak in the prodding, nagging syntax that might be an offensive stereotype if it weren’t so accurate.

When not bouncing around the Polish countryside, our heroes inhabit a pre-Giuliani New York City, which still pretends to welcome everybody, from everywhere, and celebrates its artistic pretensions. Karolina says, in her strained English, “I see from your newspapers that art world is the same in New York. Perhaps I should tie myself naked to a hammer and sickle.” Lower 86th Street and Lichtman’s bakery stand stoic in the Upper West Side Jewish tradition, whitefish is bought in the outer boroughs, weather is inclement and we are transported.

Philip’s investigation into Karolina’s claim is complicated by the era: Those who survived the Holocaust are alive to give information and add mystery, but Polish democracy and restitution are still just fantasies.

Anti-Semitism is still alive and well in Eastern Europe, but Philip must also overcome his deeply ingrained separatism, a knee-jerk defense mechanism inherited from generations of persecution, that manifests itself even in the instinct to cross the street when walking past churches.

Philip wishes not only to become a real Jewish hero — which, let’s face it, we all want to be — but to achieve that heroism by conquering an evil specific to non-Jews. Here, Mekler begins to dissect Philip’s — all Jews’ — proclivities toward finding their strength in anger and resentment. She asks if heroism is really heroic when dug up out of generations-old grudges and if we’re really better off fighting ancient enemies rather than the hatred and insidious prejudices that continue to defeat us all.

One might wonder if Philip is really being a hero when he says, “We can’t make the goyim like us. We can only keep them from hurting us.” It’s difficult to get behind an army whose battle cry is simply “Shields up!”

In the end, though, Mekler promotes the nobility of fighting the good fight and the start of a beautiful interfaith friendship.

“The Polish Woman” by Eva Mekler (250 pages, Bridge Works, $21.95)

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