Simone Plastrik: 1919 - 1999
Mills, Nicolaus
THE LAST TIME I saw Simone in the hospi tal, she had developed an infection as a result of her cancer treatment, and so for the entire length of my visit, I wore a surgical mask. The mask,...
...But the values that made her believe socialism was necessary were not just rooted in her commitment to justice...
...THE LAST TIME I saw Simone in the hospi tal, she had developed an infection as a result of her cancer treatment, and so for the entire length of my visit, I wore a surgical mask...
...But as in the hospital, our conversation roamed far and wide...
...They came from a passionate sense of everyday life...
...It was still daylight savings time, but I stayed until the fall sky over the Hudson turned gray and Simone became sleepy...
...94 n DISSENT / Winter 2000...
...Contributions to the Simone Plastrik Memorial Fund for Dissent may be sent to F.S.I.S.I., 521 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1700, New York, N.Y...
...She would have viewed it as a betrayal of implicitness, a death-bed loss of nerve...
...She had ended her cancer treatment by now, and she was very weak...
...Then I tip-toed out of her bedroom, whispering a goodbye I am not sure she ever heard...
...A third party watching from the corridor might have seen this as escapism, but Simone, I believe, would have found solemn conversation at this moment anathema...
...A week later I saw Simone at her apartment for the final time...
...NICOLAUS MILLS 'S most recent book is The Triumph of Meanness: America's War Against Its Better Self...
...10017 and are tax-deductible...
...The mask, which kept slipping under my nose and made me feel as if I were doing a bad imitation of the doctors on AVA*S*H, did not hinder conversation, however...
...Simone and I talked about Dissent, her grandchildren, the woman I am seeing, French politics, and Irving Howe's love affair with baseball...
...For Simone, life and socialism were inseparable...
...To feel the joy of the ordinary was for Simone to realize the need for sharing that joy, for making it as accessible as possible, and so for her, socialism was in the deepest sense something she breathed and cooked and broke into pieces of conversation...
...From the doorway, her breathing was too faint to detect, but there was no mistaking her calm...
...It was the calm of someone who knew how much her life had mattered, who hated the idea of dying without ever fearing death itself...
...It was clear now that Simone was not going to beat the cancer she had been struggling with, but it did not occur to either of us that this was a time for summing up or for my telling her what she meant to me...
...For her, there was never a reason to stop and sum up...
Vol. 47 • January 2000 • No. 1
