Arnold Zable - Cafe Scheherazade

Back cover

The legendary Queen Scheherazade told her seductive tales for a thousand and one nights. The characters in Arnold Zable's haunting book emerged from the chaos of World War ii to tell their own stories of profound love and loss.

When Martin Davis, a journalist, sets out to discover those narratives he has no idea of the remarkable people he will meet: Avram and Masha, the proprietors of Cafe Scheherazade: Yossel stalking the streets of Warsaw and Shanghai: Laizer exiled to vast Siberian forests; and a gentle Zalman, searching for the moment when all journeys end.

All cast their spell in the cafe by the sea. A cafe whose name will itself reveal the moving story of how Avram and Masha met and fell in love.

At once fable and history, _Cafe _Scheherazade takes the reader on a journey which ranges from Kobe to Paris, from Vilna to Melbourne. It remains faithful to the experiences of Jewish survivors, whose lives reflect the courage of refugees everywhere, and confirms Arnold Zable's status as a master storyteller.

Arnold Zable is a widely published writer, storyteller and educator.

Formerly a lecturer at Melbourne University, he has worked in a variety of Jobs in the USA, India, Papua New Guinea, Europe, South-East Asia and China. His books include Wanderers and Dreamers, and the acclaimed Jewels and Ashes, which won five literary awards. He is also the author of two children's books.

Zable performs as a storyteller, drawing on his experiences, travels and knowledge of Yiddish culture. He has worked with Aboriginal elders on educational projects. He has conducted writing workshops in universities, schools, community centres and with migrants and refugees.

Arnold Zable lives in Melbourne with his wife and son.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

While all dates and historical events have, wherever possible, been checked and authenticated, this is not a book about history.

Rather, it is a homage to the power of storytelling, a meditation on displacement, and on the way in which the after-effects of war linger on in the minds of survivors.

Whenever I hear of another outbreak of conflict somewhere on the globe, whenever I see images of columns of refugees snaking across war-ravaged landscapes, my thoughts turn back to the tales of survivors, living in Melbourne, many of whom I have known since my childhood.

For the record: Scheherazade restaurant and cafe does exist.

Founded in 1958, it still trades at the same venue, 99 Acland Street, St Kilda. There have been a number of partners over the years, but the business was principally owned and managed by Avram and Masha Zeleznikow for forty-one years. Since their retirement in 1999, the business has passed into other hands.

While Cafe Scheherazade is based on actual events, and upon tales that Avram and Masha and others have told me, I have reshaped and re-imagined them. Yossel, Zalman and Laizer are composite characters, whose fictional journeys are based upon tales I have heard from many survivors. The image of the old man and his songbird, on the banks of Suzhou Creek, is partly derived from a scene I observed while travelling in China in 1985.

Wolfke's restaurant, otherwise known as Velvkeh's, did exist and I have met people who spent time there in pre-war Vilna; but in this novel it is a fictional place.

I have augmented some of the tales with information gleaned from a number of texts. In particular I wish to acknowledge the following books: __From That Place and _Time: A Memoir 19381947, Lucy Dawidowicz, WW. Norton & Co., New York, 1989; __Secret War in _Shanghai, Bernard Wasserstein, Profile Books, London, 1999; _Far _from _Where, Antonia Finnane, Melbourne University Press, 1999; The Fugu Plan, Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz, Paddington Press, New York, 1979. And, for inspiration, Erich Maria Remarque's Arc de Triomphe, first published in 1945.

The remarkable story of Chiune Sugihara has only recently been told in full. It is a complex and intriguing tale, the details of which can be found in Hillel Levine's __In Search of _Sugihara, Free Press, New York, 1996.

I was assisted in my translations of Russian songs, and of H.

Leivik's poem "On the Tracks of Siberia", by Romek and Rivke Mokotow. The translations of the Yiddish songs are mine.

I wish to thank Pinche Wiener, Sevak Kushnir, Romek Mokotow and Alex Skovron for their support and the time they put into responding to the manuscript. I have many other people to thank.

Because of their wish for anonymity, and because I have woven them into the text, many of them must remain unnamed.

Michael Heyward of Text has been a marvellous editor and publisher, with a sharp eye for both the detail and the overall tenor of the book. He grasped what I hoped to achieve from the moment I contacted him.

My wife Dora, and son Alexander, have supported me in many ways.

I cannot imagine writing the book without them.

As for how the stories are told, the reader has only the author to blame.

To Melbourne's first storytellers: the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people.

And to all those who are still in search of a haven, A place they can call home.

King Shahriyar, ruler of the ancient kingdom of Persia, having discovered the infidelity of his queen, resolved to have a fresh wife every night and have her beheaded at daybreak. This caused great consternation in the land. Fully aware of this grave situation, Scherazade, the daughter of a senior court official, the grand vizier, contrived to become Shahriyar's wife. She so amused him with stories for a thousand and one nights that the king revoked his cruel decree. The courageous queen also gained the love and gratitude of her people and, to this day, audiences the world over are seduced by her tales.

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In Acland Street, St Kilda, there stands a cafe called Scheherazade. As to how it came to have such a name, therein lies a story. Many stories in fact, recounted at a table in the back room where the proprietors, Mr and Mrs Zeleznikow, Avram. and Masha, sit most nights of the week and eat, hold court, greet customers, check accounts, argue and reminisce. What else is there to do on this rain-sodden Melbourne night, as pedestrians rugged in overcoats stroll on pavements glistening grey, past shops laden with slices of Black Forest cake where they pause, and hesitate, before succumbing to the temptation to buy, well, just one slice. Perhaps two. What harm can it do?

This is how it is in Acland Street, an avenue of old-world dreams. This is how it is in Scheherazade, a cafe of old-world tales. And, of the countless stories which would not exhaust even a thousand and one nights in the telling, the most fascinating of all is how it came to pass, that in 1958 Avram and Masha decided to call their audacious venture Scheherazade.

For it was audacious to come in from the cold, with barely a penny to spare, to begin, in mid-life already, an entirely new enterprise, a cafe of all things, in a shop front where for many years had stood a milk bar called O'Shea's.

When Avram and Masha insisted on renaming it Scheherazade their friends told them this would be suicide. The business would be doomed to failure from the start. Their clients would riot be able to pronounce such a name, let alone be drawn towards the continental cuisine which, in time, began to grace the menu. "Call it Masha's. Or Avram's. Or Babushka's even, if you must have an exotic name. But Scheherazade? Even we have trouble pronouncing it."

Scheherazade it remained.

"Martin, it could not have been otherwise," Masha tells me, as a waitress delivers the main course of chicken schnitzel and potato latkes to the proprietors' permanent table in the back room.