tremendous amounts of pain, sorrow, and guilt. But at the same time, a complete erasure

of the past is impossible, and, unconscious as it may be, he also has another strong need

to have around him empathic others who know about the ordeal he went through. As a

result, he chooses his love objects from his past and creates with them a perfectly isolated

world.

 Obviously, Herman's marriage to Yadwiga is driven by his dire need for safety

and protection. The Brooklyn apartment he shares with her is his sanctified comfort zone

where he is like an innocent child, for he is protected and cared for no matter what

happens outside its narrow confines. The apartment is filled with the aroma of home-

cooked meals Yadwiga prepared by recalling his mother's recipes; the apartment

recreates the pre-war, pre-Holocaust past. The twittering sound of parakeets, their pets,

also endows the place with Edenic qualities. As if to enhance the dream-like atmosphere

of this artificially created, infantile world, the amusement park in Coney Island envelops

his home with its noises of merrymaking and carousels. Furthermore, his wife Yadwiga is

a simple, Gentile Polish peasant with no heavy burden associated with the tragic Jewish

history. No wonder he discourages her interaction with Jewish neighbors and looks upon

the developing bonds between them with suspicion.

 Herman's complete retreat to his isolated life with Yadwiga in the Brooklyn

apartment, which is his American version of the Lipsk hayloft, can be figuratively

explained as his regression to the earliest, infantile stage of life. In a sense, the self-

sufficient, encapsulated apartment is like a womb; the apartment is completely severed

from the outside world, without even a phone. It is also maintained and nurtured by a

woman absolutely devoted to his well-being. Plagued, exhausted, and defeated by the