History undresses everything

Margie was asleep when I arrived. I let myself in and read her newspaper while I waited for her to wake up. She was a bit taken aback to see me sitting in her living room when she woke up. She said my name immediately, but it took her a while to put the pieces together. “What day is it?” 

Wednesday.

“Oh yeah, Wednesday. Here you are.”

When we went for coffee, she was still disoriented. She talked about her parents, asked me if her sister ever married. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever married herself. I told her. She asked me what her mother did in her old age. When I said her mother and father retired and lived in Florida, the memories started flooding in: oh yes, Florida! They had a little house with an orange tree and a couple of flower beds. Oh yes, her father worked as a part-time bookkeeper in his retirement, and her mother….

Then I got out my camera, and she gazed up into the trees. Out of nowhere she declared, “People will try to bamboozle you. If you were there, you know what the truth is. But if you weren’t there, you might believe, um, what do you call it when the government lies? It starts with a P.”

Starts with a P, I mused. The past? 

“No, the lies they tell you about the past.”

Publicity? Propaganda?

“That’s  it. Propaganda. Everybody wants to tell you propaganda to make you buy what they’re selling, but if you were there, you know the truth. History undresses everything.”

History undresses everything. I love that. Can you say more about it?

“History undresses everything? I mean like the war in Europe. If you were alive during that war, you know what it was about. Fascism. Nazis. Hitler. But you can sell young people a bill of goods. They don't know because they weren't there. Like Israel.”

Israel?

“Herzl. I remember him. All the Jews in the Bronx thought that was a bad idea. Jews could just live in New York and retire to Florida like my parents. But he built up this whole story. All Jews are victims and they should move to Israel because of what Hitler did. If you weren’t Observant, you didn’t fall for it. If your parents grew up here, you didn’t fall for it. Who wants to go live in the desert?”

Wow, I said, history undresses everything.

“That’s good,” she nodded, “Who said that?”

You just said that. 

“I did? I probably heard it somewhere. But yeah, it’s true.”