But You Did Not Come Back Read online

  You had chosen France, she isn’t the melting pot you’d hoped for. Everything is getting tense again. We’re called “French Jews”; there are also French Muslims, and here we are, face-to-face—I who had hoped never to take sides, or at least, to simply be on the side of freedom. I’ve listened to threats that sounded like echoes from the past, I’ve heard people shouting “Death to the Jews” and “Jews, fuck off, you don’t own France,” and I’ve wanted to throw myself out the window. Day by day, I’m losing my convictions, the nuances, some of my memories; I end up questioning my past commitments; I see policemen outside of synagogues but I do not want to be someone who needs protection.

  I lived because you wanted me to live. But I’ve lived the way I learned to back there, taking one day at a time. And there were some beautiful days, in spite of everything. Writing to you has helped me. When I talk to you, I don’t feel consoled. But I release what is clasped tightly in my heart. I would like to run away from the history of the world, from this century, go back to my own time, the time of Shloïme and his darling little girl. That way I can return to my childhood, to the adolescence that was stolen from me, and that’s normal at my age.

  Two years ago, I asked Henri’s wife, Marie: “Now that we are approaching the end of our lives, do you think it was a good thing for us to have come back from the camps?” “No, I don’t,” she replied, “we shouldn’t have come back. But what do you think?” I couldn’t say whether she was right or wrong; all I said was: “I’m starting to think like you.” But I hope that if someone asks me that question just before I’m about to die, I’ll be able to say, “Yes, it was worth it.”

  * La petite prairie aux bouleaux (The Birch-Tree Meadow), 2003 (Trans.)

  † The final movie, made in 1986, in a trilogy by Axel Corti (Trans.)

  About the Author

  Marceline Loridan-Ivens was born in 1928. She has worked as an actress, a screenwriter, and a director. She directed The Birch-Tree Meadow in 2003, starring Anouk Aimée, as well as several documentaries with Joris Ivens. Now 87 years old, she lives in Paris.

  Copyright

  First published in the USA in 2016 by

  Atlantic Monthly Press

  an imprint of Grove Atlantic

  154 West 14th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  First Published in the UK in 2016 by

  Faber & Faber Limited

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2016

  Copyright © Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 2015

  Translation copyright © 2016 by Sandra Smith

  Cover design by Faber

  Cover photographs © Robert Doisneau/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images and © Imagno/Topfoto. Author photograph: JFPAGA © Grasset

  The right of Marceline Loridan-Ivens to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–32803–1