Robert Roth: / Lolita
I had a short intense spectacular love affair with a woman from the Philippines when I was in Israel in 1983. Her name was Lolita. She was part of the Filipino servant class working there. Being with her and her friends I learned about an Israel I had never heard about before. I learned, for example, what was happening in the home of the Argentine ambassador to Israel during the Malvina/Falkland war. The ambassador was constantly sending and receiving faxes and his wife ate like a bird.
After our first night together, I woke up and saw her making breakfast for [me, us]. Wearing a Kimono efficiently cutting fruit. Making eggs. Boiling water for tea. When we first kissed she asked have you been with an Asian girl before? I mumbled a tangled no. The question seemed so fraught. That there was a question under the question. With no very good answer. I said there is a very famous book with your name. “Yes,” she answered, “it is about a prostitute. “No,” I answered, ”it's about...” “I know,” she said dismissing what I was about to say as if she had heard it all before but in no way was buying it. I was introduced to Lolita by her friend Monica who I met at a bus stop. I was wearing a red button that said “ANARCHY” on it. She approached me and asked with a barely concealed mischievous smile if I was part of the anarchy government. We both laughed and then talked and talked as we rode the bus together.
Lolita had five children in the Philippines who she sent money back to each month. Monica had two children. The separation from their children was agonizing. It all is flooding back to me now. I remember the impact of seeing Manila to Tel Aviv written in huge letters on Lolita's suitcase. I remember her telling me how she cried herself to sleep each night listening to love songs sung by English and American rock musicians.
As I was about to return home I mentioned meeting her to a sociology professor at Tel Aviv University. Someone whom I had met a few months earlier in New York at a protest meeting against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He was kind of a socialist peace now type. So I felt some affinity with him. He said, “Too bad you didn’t have an affair with one of our beautiful Israeli women.” Disgusting enough. Then a couple of minutes later he asked me if he could have Lolita's phone number. I was too stunned to answer. I could barely speak. To be there one second longer felt like an immense betrayal. I mumbled good- bye and left.
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