by Dasia Black
At this time, my mother Gita was becoming increasingly sad after her long years of widowhood. She leaned heavily on me and made constant demands to do with what she expected of a dutiful daughter. She also continually predicted her own death. I phoned her most days to ask how she was and tell her about my day. If I either forgot or was unable to talk to her, she would explode with You are not a good daughter. Every one of my friends has a daughter better than you. You think only of yourself.
When I told her I had been to a great party and had come home late because we had enjoyed ourselves so much, she would respond in her most mournful tones, telling me how unwell she was and suggesting that it was inappropriate for me to have fun. I felt trapped by the heaviness of both my husband and my mother.
Although I made space for myself by taking overseas work trips, what I really wanted was the freedom to breathe and to play. I kept asking myself: Who is going to be my partner in a joyous life?
In 1976, I took a month-long study leave at the University of Houston, Texas, and combined it with a three-week organised adventure trip through Mexico. The professor, who was assigned to host me and another three visitors from overseas, took us out to dinner and then drove me back to my hotel. His name was Jay. We sat in his car and talked for a long while, about our work, our passions, about everything. I think both of us felt a natural affinity or perhaps a mutual attraction, as if we had known one another all our lives. The next day I had a meeting with him to discuss my proposed PhD thesis. I may have talked then about my restlessness within my marriage, for on returning home I received a letter from him. He said that when he met me he knew that I was a woman he could have loved, but that he had recently divorced a good woman, one with whom he no longer wanted to live for the rest of his life, and married a woman who was his soul-mate. He quoted a poem by a man who had been a prisoner and then went through a number of experiences which he found equally constraining, until at last he found a place he could feel free. But he recognised that it too could be viewed as a prison, even though he had chosen it. I reread Jay’s letter many times.
My travelling companions on the Mexican adventure were mainly teachers from Canada, Britain and Australia. One evening at an outdoor restaurant at Oaxaca, at which I drank perhaps one Margarita too many, I put a scarf around my head and approached the Spanish-speaking men and women parading up and down the square with offers to read their palms. I do not remember their reaction, but I was in my element.
I returned home, of course, but within a year, that terrible year 1977-78, the year of my 39th birthday, Richard and I separated. During that year I had felt increasingly distant from my husband and spent a great deal of time on the phone talking to friends and going out with them. I was in the grip of an overwhelming impulse to grab anything that gave me joy. At no stage did I actually think rationally about my actions, each of which undermined our marriage, nor of their likely repercussions.
Richard’s response was I want a woman who puts me at the centre of her life. I am how I am and – you must accept that. But I didn’t accept it! Richard tried his best to rally by turning to various self-esteem-building encounter groups. I suffered from frequent heart palpitations and my doctor told me that I must change my life, otherwise they would become chronic and damaging.
Richard took the initiative. He told me that we could not go on like this. We decided on a trial separation. There was to be no trial coming together.
During this period, the one steady point in my life remained my commitment to my sons. This kept me grounded. I will never know how my absences from home really affected the boys, though I imagined them busy with their own lives. At least I hoped so. Richard moved out on a Sunday morning in December 1978, a couple of months after our 21st wedding anniversary. Early that afternoon I went off to Manly Sailing Club to have my first lesson in sailing small boats, including setting a spinnaker. A few weeks later Richard wrote me a beautiful letter, expressing his gratitude for the happiness of the first seventeen years of our marriage. We divorced in early 1980.
A few months later we agreed to a get, a divorce document which, according to Jewish law, must be presented by a husband to his wife as a first step towards their divorce. It was necessary if either of us ever wanted to marry again under Jewish law. I had heard that the procedure of the get is humiliating for the woman but I had no idea how true that was. On a late summer’s day we presented ourselves at the Beth Din, a Jewish ecclesiastical court, where five bearded rabbis sat on a raised platform. The get had been prepared by a professional religious scribe, on the explicit instructions and with the approval of my husband. Some questions were asked of Richard regarding his intent to divorce me and the document was handed to him. He then had to drop it into a funnel formed by my loosely cupping each hand and holding one on top of the other. My role was to catch the get as it fell from his hands. Its physical receipt into my hands as the wife was required to complete and validate the divorce process.
The essential text of the get was quite short: You are hereby permitted to all men, meaning the husband acknowledged that he no longer had rights over his wife and that the laws of adultery no longer applied. Though at the time I did not know the exact wording of the get, I did feel as if I had stepped back into an ancient patriarchal society where the woman was a chattel. My insides churned. Once outside, Richard and I sat in the car, embraced and sobbed. For what? I suppose for the death of a dream, a commitment and a family life.
Our sons reacted differently to our decision. Simon was relieved. He had been so affected by the tension at home that he had been thinking of moving out himself. Jonathan, seventeen years old, was deeply distressed. He kept telling his friends that it was only a trial separation. He retreated into his room and spent his time making lists about what he wanted from life, planning how he would go about achieving his goals, and reflecting on the meaning of it all. I merely observed his actions, unable to save him from the reality and – yes – the pain of our situation.
X
A Single Woman
When Richard and I separated, I knew that I was escaping from the melancholy and heaviness of our marriage, but I had no idea where I was heading. I had not anticipated the full impact of leaving a man I had loved, with whom I had brought up children and shared twenty years of family life with all its entrenched habits. I found the experience of being without a husband in a world of couples, unprotected by the status of marriage, if not the actual strength of a partner, quite devastating.
I feel no grief, no joy. Just pushing on, confused, tired, fed up with living alone and carrying all the burdens, I wrote in my diary. I tried hard not to let my mother see my misery. She had warned me against divorce, such a shameful action in her eyes since there has not been a divorce in our family since the time of King David. Her critical attitude did not help me.
During this period I participated in a psychodrama workshop with an experienced psychotherapist, which had a dramatic outcome. At one point I had to pick a person from the group to represent my mother. When I turned towards her during the psychodrama, I did not see my mother but a figure representing the power of oppressive authority. There stood religion, tradition and judgmental society, making demands, setting rules and conditions for acceptance and love, and threatening punishment. The authority figure, the epitome of a punitive God, kept on stating what her rules were in a chillingly cold voice. I maintained my role as a reasonable supplicant, pleading for understanding. The authority figure did not reciprocate. Then something in me boiled over. I threw myself at her, beating with my fists and crying in rage. I was screaming: Enough! It was lucky for her that she was protected from me by a mattress she held up.
The following day I wrote and hand-delivered to my mother a letter in which I told her that I was an adult and needed to lead my own life, making decisions and mistakes regardless of her approval. I can still recall the terror I felt as I walked up the passage towards her front door. But I did it. She did not speak to me for weeks and
when we met again at the synagogue for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, she cold-shouldered me and told me that I was a very confused girl. She could never be wrong. Did she care about Ester, the person I was, or just the person who filled the role of her daughter?
Our friends really did not know what to do with us, since we were one of the first to go through the ‘shame’ of divorce. Richard and I were still being invited together to various formal functions, such as weddings and Bar Mitzvahs and were often seated together. At one such function, three months after we had separated, Richard whispered in my ear that he had found a good woman who loved him and that our marriage was definitely over. Our friends observed the ‘intimate’ whispering and assumed that we were getting together again. I was stunned, but managed to whisper back: I am happy for you. I went home and sat for hours in the living room in the dark, in deepest despair. I had been abandoned again. I felt quite sick. I went to bed for twenty-four hours and sobbed, just as I did a year later, the day of Richard’s remarriage.
I had an acute sense of walking on a razor’s edge between carrying on and falling into an abyss. But there was something in me that would not allow myself to fall. It was the thought of my boys who were living with me.
I needed to borrow money for a new home, since my share of the money from the sale of our house was not sufficient for a suitable place for me, Simon and Jonathan. At the bank, I explained my financial situation to the manager, listing my assets and my rising salary as a university lecturer. This was the bank where my parents and I had done business since our arrival in Australia thirty years before. So you are a single lady? remarked the manager. I was furious. What had this to do with my ability to repay a loan? I walked out, marched across the street to another bank, told them what I wanted and asked about the best interest rate they could offer. I got a loan at a much better rate.
Over the following weeks and months, I became aware of my growing sense of competence. I could make a life for myself and provide a good home for my sons. I learned to manage my own finances, not to rely on a husband to change light-bulbs, to negotiate with real estate agents and prepare tax returns. I was not going to be beaten by the prevailing gender bias.
In choosing our new home, I took into consideration that both my sons were now at university, Simon studying Law and Jonathan in his first year of Medicine. That meant that we needed to be close to public transport and that the place had to accommodate two young men whose intellectual and social horizons were rapidly expanding.
I bought a three-level, light-filled modern townhouse, close to transport and beaches. It was not as desirable as our family home, meaning in one of the high-status suburbs where my friends and acquaintances lived. But it had large terraces at front and back and extensive views of the eastern beaches from Bronte to Coogee. It would be a great place for entertaining. In front there was a sheltered, sun-filled courtyard, where we could eat most of our meals, especially in spring and summer.
The actual day the boys and I moved in, however, was one of unrelenting grief. The physical dismantling of the furniture in our marital home, the carefully-chosen decorations, the rugs, lamps, vases and paintings and the shelves and shelves of books, the pots and pans, the china, the boys’ toys and sporting equipment, Jonathan’s shell collection and Simon’s camping gear, took a huge toll on me. But I did not anticipate my reaction to the day itself. I could not stop crying. The new people moving in, who dropped in to assist me and the removalists all tried to calm me. I was blinded by a waterfall of tears. Simon and Jonathan were at university, so when the removalists and I arrived at the townhouse, I called Richard. I’m not coping. Can you help me unpack? Without hesitation, he said that he would come over in half an hour, and he did so.
I continued crying for the next forty-eight hours. It seemed as if the tears would never stop. The woman who had been living in her marital home was still a Mrs, though no longer married. The woman who was moving into the townhouse was Ester, a divorcée. It was a huge transition.
I certainly had freedom but also felt desolate. A week later, having feverishly unpacked and found room for most of our surplus possessions in a large attic area right under the roof, I had a terrifying experience. I woke one night with a choking feeling. I saw myself quite clearly, trapped in a sealed capsule from which I could observe what was happening around me, but from where I could neither be seen nor heard. It was like being inside a silent tomb. My mind raced and my heart beat fast.
I knew I would not survive long in this state. What to do? One option was to wake the boys, who were asleep in their rooms next door. But how could I? They both had exams the following day. So I went upstairs to my study and wrote points for action as soon as the next day dawned: 1. Call the doctor for a tranquiliser. 2. Work on my current project. I knew that if I could just live through the dark hours until morning I would be all right. I spent the night walking up and down the attic, listening intently for any sounds that might come from Simon’s or Jonathan’s rooms to indicate that they were awake. Then I would feel able to ask them for help. But they continued sleeping soundly. It was just as well.
After this I rolled up my sleeves and threw myself into lots of activities which I enjoyed. I asked my friends to help me make our modern townhouse a green oasis. We planted a large ornamental grape vine which invaded the boys’ bedrooms on the first floor through the sliding doors and took over their balcony. I grew cumquats in large stone pots, herbs in the garden bed surrounding the courtyard and azaleas on the front terrace. I put a small table and some chairs on the first floor terrace adjoining my bedroom, where I could sit and sip a drink, looking out over the distant horizon along the eastern coast. I could even see the surf breaking on Bronte Beach. We came to love the place.
I joined a ski lodge and went to the Kosciusko snowfields where I learned to ski moderately well. I did a sailing course and got myself invited sailing to go out with friends who had yachts. I worked at my university job with renewed vigour. I entertained and had a number of relationships, none significant or lengthy. The first was with a Polish man who had all the externally attractive attributes which I associated with living joyfully. He was a superb skier, sailed, climbed mountains and was a great handyman. But it turned out that he lacked integrity and proved disloyal. As Simon put it in his succinct way: He is certainly good at hammering in nails.
The move to the townhouse also changed the relationship between me and my adult sons. We were no longer Mum and her boys, but three adults sharing a home. All of us needed to adjust. I learned to let go, a challenge for me, and trust their decisions about social activities, romantic involvements and career moves. I persuaded them to take greater responsibility for household chores. We agreed that one night a week, dinner would be prepared by one of them. Simon’s menu was without fail cottage pie, while Jonathan excelled in anything smothered in tomato purée.
In an attempt to assert the greater equality between us, one evening when distributing the dessert of strawberries, I allotted the same number to each of us. This was quite different from my years-old habit, inherited from my parents, of always giving more of what is precious and rare and tasty to the children. They gazed at me, stunned. I explained that this was our new way of living, with equal rights and responsibility. But we thought you didn’t like strawberries, they said.
They developed an endearing habit of coming into my bedroom to say goodnight. I would say Give me your paws, and then kiss their outstretched hands.
This was a good time for me and I believe for them.
In October 1980, towards the end of the year in which the divorce came through, I took a ten-week sabbatical at Penn State University in the United States, where I started researching my PhD. I met interesting people and made friends, and enjoyed a madly stimulating week at Harvard University, learning about moral development in men and women and meeting the person who was to become an examiner of my thesis. One of the woman academics I befriended looked at a photo of my Polish boyfriend a
nd immediately observed: What a narcissist!
I also enjoyed the glorious colours of autumn in the north-eastern United States. With the arrival of winter, I delighted in the sunlit snowscapes, the pine trees and the fresh, cool air reminiscent of my birthplace in Poland and walks with my adopted father in the forests around Stuttgart.
Jonathan flew to Philadelphia at the end of his first year of university and we spent some unforgettable time together exploring the foundations of the United States in places such as the Independence Hall and the Benjamin Franklin Museum. In New York, in Manhattan, we walked up to ten streets a day, from the World Trade Centre to Fifth Avenue, continually popping into art galleries or staring into the bejewelled windows of Tiffany and Cartier. We absorbed a fraction of the wealth of the offerings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Museum and shopped at Bloomingdales. Though I caught a bad cold during these ten frantic and exhilarating but also bitterly cold days, I remember them as a special interlude in my life with my son, for which I am grateful.
When I returned home, I broke off the already tenuous relationship with my Polish friend. Subsequently I dated some interesting men, most of them doctors, but none a man I could see as a potential life partner. There was a recurring pattern to my relationships in this period. I was introduced to a suitable man (Jewish, professional and in the right age range), and if we found each other attractive, we started dating. Too soon, however, I would cast them in the role of protector, someone who would take care of me, would be emotionally accessible and would commit to a long-term partnership. I refused to accept the fact that protectors who wanted to commit were a rare breed in my age group.