The Golden Willow (20 page)

I gave my time willingly and gladly. This was something I might have dreamed about or fantasized over. It wasn't quite real, but I loved every moment of it. I was never so flattered as when I was asked to give a talk at the 92nd Street Y. I had been there often when I lived in New York to hear some truly great literary figures speak,
such as Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, and others, and to be asked to speak from the same platform as they had was the height of any ambition I might have had.

Obviously, there was as much interest in the author as in the book, and that isn't surprising. How often was it that a ninety-six-year-old man made his debut as a writer? I was, to be sure, an oddity, and Sarina made the most of it for Random House, landing me on the
CBS Evening News
and coming close to getting me on
Tonight
with Jay Leno.

I messed that one up myself. I rarely look at TV and had never even heard of this particular show or its star host, so when a woman called asking if I'd be interested in coming out to California and being on the show, I said, “What kind of show is that? And who is Jay Leno?”

There was a long pause. I imagine there was quite a shock at the other end of the wire, and then her voice came again, saying quietly, “Are you serious?”

“Yes, of course I am,” I said. “And as far as traveling out to California goes, I'm afraid I can't travel, and if this Jay Leno wants to talk to me, he'll have to come out here.”

I guess that did it. She promised to call back later and talk further, but I never heard from her again, and the invitation was never repeated.

Just the same, the book itself did not suffer from lack of attention, and in fact received wide acclaim from reviewers in newspapers all over the United States, England, and the various foreign countries where it was published. The
Daily Mail
of England said it was “a compelling narrative of childhood survival… the tale has a freshness, a vitality and a relentless energy… extraordinarily powerful … a triumph of the human spirit over multifaceted adversity.”

What more could any writer ask for? And the
New York Times:
“A heart-wrenching memoir … brilliantly illuminates a family struggling valiantly to beat impossible odds.”

The Guardian
called it “an exceptional book.”

The book did not reach the best-seller list, but it was undoubtedly a literary success, and I had good reason to be proud of it. But occasionally a shadow was cast over all that as I realized that if Ruby had not died I would not have written the book or anything else.

I thought of that often and it hurt badly, and I tried to talk myself into believing that perhaps I was wrong and I might have written it anyway even if she had lived. Who knows, really, what men and women could be capable of in their nineties, what potential lies there in all of us? There are so few who live to such an age that it will not be possible to know until the limits of longevity are stretched much further than they are today and new medical knowledge enables us to go on even past the nineties and into our hundreds.

I
LIVE ALONE NOW, BUT
I
AM NOT REALLY ALONE
. M
Y MIND IS FILLED
with the people I have been writing about for almost five years. Now that this, my third book, is completed, I have told the full story of my life from the time I was born, almost, until the time I will have died, again almost. I am now close to one hundred years old, so my guess can't be far off.

My second book,
The Dream
, was published a year after
The Invisible Wall
. This, probably my final book, is called
The Golden Willow
because that beautiful tree expresses the love that Ruby and I had for each other. As you have seen, it is about the period when both Ruby and I reached our nineties together, and it looks back on the wonderful sixty-seven years of marriage we had. It tells also of how I carried on alone, and what it is like to be in your nineties with
all its loneliness and difficulties and physical impairments, but none of this without the hope and surprises that the nonagenarian years can bring—in my case, fulfilling a lifelong ambition to become an author, to write books that have won acclaim in the United States, England, and many other countries.

I feel a deep satisfaction in having accomplished all of this. It compensates a good deal for the loneliness I have felt, the sense of abandonment that came with being the sole survivor of all the members of my family, of all my friends and relatives, and especially of my wife.

I have finally experienced that touch of glory that I always yearned for, that perhaps everyone does, and at no time in all these last surprising years of mine, when all I had expected was to live out the last few years of my life comfortably and peacefully, was I so gratified as when I began to receive awards for my books.

The one that pleased me most was the Christopher Award. It was given to me for the spiritual content of
The Invisible Wall
.

I have often been asked during interviews how I compare the world of today to that of the one in which I was born, nearly a hundred years ago. I could not think of a better example of how it has changed than this moment when I received the Christopher Award at a reception in New York.

The Invisible Wall
told of the small, cobbled street on which I was born and lived for twelve years, a street that was divided into two distinct parts by an invisible wall, with Jews living on one side and Christians on the other; rarely was there any crossing from one side to the other, or even any talking between people who lived on different sides. But here I was now, a Jew, receiving a plaque of honor from a Christian, a priest no less, together with a warm handshake,
and there was the large audience rising to its feet to give me a standing ovation.

Yes indeed, there have been many changes.

Can there be a better example of change in the world than a black man becoming president of the United States, a man who in my world of a hundred years ago would not even have been allowed to vote in certain parts of the country, and would have been subject to all kinds of humiliations and degradations? I tell my interviewers that I have seen a lot of changes for the better take place in the world of today, both materially and spiritually, and I have a great deal of hope that they will continue to do so.

Our street in Lancashire no longer exists, and that is another big step forward in the new world. Ruby and I went there to see the place in the summer of 1960, and as I've noted, we arrived just in time to see it being torn down to make way for a public housing project that would eliminate such things as walls and bring all people to live together, side by side.

M
OST OF THE TIME
, however, when I am lying in bed unable to sleep, I am thinking of Ruby, and the wonderful years we had together. It is now almost seven years since she died, and despite the fact that my mind has been occupied with my writing, thoughts about her constantly have intruded, and the longing for her is as deep as it ever was. Counselors and authorities on the subject of grief say that time is the best healer, but time has done nothing for me. I do not feel any lessening of the grief now than I felt on that September morning when Ruby died.

No matter how busy I have been with my writing, she is always
there with me still. I have never let go of her. I have her pictures all over the house, so I can see her no matter what room I am in. Her toothbrush is still in the bathroom. Her clothes still hang in the closet. Her shoes are there in the rack on the back of the closet door.

People tell me I am being foolish. They say I should dispose of these things, give her clothes to some charity organization and let some poor person make use of them, and all that will help me forget what has happened. I realize that is perhaps the rational thing to do, and yet I cannot bring myself to do it. I am afraid that I would lose her altogether, and so I cling to them along with the memories that keep her presence alive.

Among all the things that go through my mind on those nights when I lie awake are the regrets for things I have said and done that I know now were wrong, and I wish I could correct them. One of the things that bothered me a great deal was the time Ruby and I woke up after the thunderstorm to find our golden willow struck by lightning and lying uprooted on the ground in a shambles of golden leaves and branches.

I lay awake several nights thinking of this and remembering how Ruby wept over its loss. That tree meant a great deal to us. We had planted it ourselves, and we had watched it grow over the years with as much pleasure as we'd had watching our children grow. But the thing that troubled me most was that Ruby had asked if we couldn't plant another in its place, and I had said no, there wasn't enough time left for us to see it grow into maturity. She was silent afterward.

Why had I said that? It was the truth, yes, but did I have to remind her of it, and of her own mortality? That was probably what accounted for her silence. She probably sensed things about her illness
that we didn't know. The anemia was not getting any better, and she required blood transfusions more and more often. I used to go with her to the hospital for them, and I would sit by her bed while the bag of red blood cells emptied slowly through the IV into her veins. She would read and I would read during the hours it took, and we would have lunch there and make a picnic out of it, and during all this time she maintained her cheerful manner, as if it were nothing at all. But I know now there were thoughts going on inside her that we knew nothing about, and my refusal that day to plant another tree had only added to those thoughts.

I allowed myself to be tormented with regret over all this for several nights. I couldn't stop thinking of how my remark must have struck deeply inside her and how stupidly insensitive I had been. What would have been wrong with going along with her and saying we'd plant another tree to take the place of the one that had died?

Then suddenly it occurred to me that I could make up for it, to some extent, by actually planting another golden willow. So what if she could not have lived to see it grow to maturity? So what if I didn't live that long?

I decided that it would at least ease my conscience by planting a golden willow now to take the place of the one that had been struck by lightning. It would also serve as a memorial to her, and to the two of us after I was gone. I was still turning that over in my mind when a remarkable coincidence took place the following morning.

I was at breakfast when the doorbell rang. I got up from the table, took hold of my walker, and went to the door. Two workmen from the community maintenance crew were there, and as if they had been reading my mind while I was in bed last night, one of them said, “Where do you want us to plant the tree?”

I stared at them stupidly, openmouthed. “What tree?” I asked.

The same one, who was obviously in charge, explained that it had been decided to replace all trees destroyed in a storm during the past few years, and my tree was on the list.

Of course, once I got over the shock of this remarkable coincidence I was overjoyed. I took them over to the garden and pointed out the place where our golden willow had once stood. “Right there,” I said.

I watched as they went to their truck and took out one of the trees that were piled there. It was a thin, young sapling, much like the one we had planted years ago, but as I watched them dig the hole and then start to put the young tree into it I knew that there was something wrong. This wasn't a golden willow.

I grabbed my walker again and hobbled over to them. “Wait a minute,” I said. “What kind of tree is that?” I spoke to both, and it was the one in charge who answered.

“Ornamental pear,” he said, “like all the others we're putting in.”

“Mine was a golden willow,” I said. “That's what I should be getting if they're replacing the ones that were hit.”

“Sorry,” he said, “there's only one kind we're giving to everybody, and that's the ornamental pear. Anyway, they don't allow willows no more.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“They're water grabbers. Their roots go for water wherever they are, and they've been damaging the underground water pipes we use for the sprinkling system, and damaging them so bad we gotta keep replacing them. So they put a ban on all willows.”

I stared at him, aghast. What kind of crap was this? Whoever heard of putting a ban on willows, golden willows especially, the most beautiful of all trees? Perhaps the true reason was that golden
willows cost more than other trees. I said this, but he shook his head and said he was only carrying out orders, and I could take it up with the trustees if I wanted.

I let the ornamental pear stay where they'd planted it, and I went back into the house fuming. I knew one of the trustees, and I called him up on the phone and told him what had happened. He said he was sorry, but the gardener was right. They were giving out just one kind, and it was absolutely true about the ban on willows because of the damage they'd done to the sprinkler system. However, there was one way out of it for me. I could buy a golden willow myself and they'd let me plant it on the lawn at the side of the lake where there was no sprinkling system.

I thanked him. This was a good idea, and the lawn at the side of the lake appealed to me. This was where Ruby and I used to sit on a bench on summer evenings and watch the sun set on the other side of the lake, the whole world turning pink and our faces bathed in its color. It would sink slowly bit by bit and the trees would turn dark with patches of that pink color showing through the branches, and it was always very quiet, with only the faint sound of birds bedding down for the night breaking the silence.

We had already planted a tree there, a London plane, as a memorial to Esther and her husband, Nate, when they had died. It had grown huge and its branches shaded the bench in the hot afternoons. Our golden willow would be just right there and would make a memorial park out of the spot.