Letter from my Father

by Dasia Black

  My friend Anne, who had worked with Aboriginal people in Western Australia, came to visit. Sam came to dinner. He outlined his views but made little headway with us, two knowledgeable women on the same wavelength. When he left, I expected Anne to say: How can you be in a relationship with a man who doesn’t understand our experience? But instead she said: Ester, what a gorgeous, fine man. Grab him. After all, there are at least a hundred academic friends with whom you can discuss theoretical issues. But where do you find a man of such character and goodwill?

  It took me a long time to accept that Sam’s life experiences meant he knew the world in different ways. My son Simon soon passed his own judgement: Mum, Sam is one of the best men I’ve met.

  On our first holiday together at a magnificent lodge on Lord Howe Island, with a backdrop of sunset, the sea lapping at our feet, I tried to get him to understand that my knowledge of the challenges Aboriginal people faced and ways to ameliorate their poor conditions had more credibility than what he had read and learned. He was puzzled by my insistence on continuing the argument rather than just enjoying the moment, but he persevered with me.

  We shared some lovely moments together. There was the absolute bliss of feeling my body and senses come alive as we lay at peace in each other’s arms on late afternoons, enjoying the mellowing of the bright summer light.

  Within three months of our meeting, Sam indicated that he wanted a relationship that would lead to living together, to lifelong commitment – in fact, to marriage. I panicked. This was not what I had envisaged. I had not lived with a man full-time since my divorce from Richard twenty years before. My part-time relationship with Henry seemed to have offered all the advantages of companionship without the day-to-day mutual irritations and compromises.

  No, this was not what Sam wanted. He wanted a full time wife. I baulked. Simon and Ruth were on Sam’s side. As Simon put it: Mum, here is a steady yacht which welcomes you aboard and wants to take you sailing into the smooth waters of a sheltered bay. Why not take this opportunity to ease your life? I protested that I had built my own raft over years of hard work, determination and tears, and had come to trust it to keep me afloat in troubled waters. How could I be expected to leave it for the yacht? I liked my raft, my independence, my self-reliance, my network of close female friends.

  Jonathan came up with a solution: Mum, step aboard the yacht, but tie your raft to it and tow it along. There is no need to abandon it. That made sense and reassured me.

  Sam was romantic, sending me beautiful flowers and surprising me with special treats. He gave me a card showing a magic carpet, a promise of exciting travel. Our sets of children seemed to be delighted with our getting together, and they all got on well.

  Thirteen months after that first walk in the park, Sam bought a large, luxurious, light-filled apartment in a new building. It had extensive views of the Harbour and the eastern beaches. It was a place for us to move into together. I took the plunge and we did. Though at times we felt that its size, few walls and lots of glass and its open plan design were too modern and rather cold, we managed to warm and soften it with furniture from each of our previous homes, rugs and a collection of paintings.

  We found that we had similar tastes, though I was initially more adventurous. The process of looking at, discussing and selecting the various necessities and adornments for our new home, the weaving of its texture, brought us closer. Right from the start we had the sense to allocate the two spare bedrooms as an office for each of us. These studies were entirely our own domain, furnished to our individual tastes, kept at a temperature that suited us and left tidy or untidy according to our own level of comfort.

  That first year was, however, a challenge. At times it was very difficult. We were two people who had lived independently for years, each boss of their lives, suddenly thrown together every day into a common area. Sam, a natural hoarder, wanted to display all the little acquisitions from his travels or inherited from his grandparents, parents and aunt, while it was plain to see that there was absolutely no room for all these knick-knacks (my description). Admittedly, many were pleasing to the eye – but there were too many. Sam agreed to comply with my suggestion that they be given away to family or charity, but months later I found his drawers crammed full of the little treasures he had managed to salvage from the razor-gang – that is, from me. Though we argued and got angry and irritated with one another, performing the Ester–Sam bickering act that our friends and family came to witness with some amusement, a bond grew between us and a commitment to each other’s happiness.

  In the middle of May 2000, we set out on a carefully-planned journey to Europe, Israel and the United Sates, a journey which was one of the light-filled interludes in my life. In Paris, Sam savoured a sole meunière in a little bistro while I enjoyed a perfect pear tart on our way to view Monet’s paintings at the Musée Marmottan. It took our breath away to see them shimmering with light and colour on the walls of this elegant mansion. An evening at the Opéra Garnier, seeing Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande under Chagall’s ceiling and parading at interval among its mirrors and chandeliers on Sam’s arm, filled me with delight. Attending Verdi’s Requiem, the music literally soared up to heaven through the church’s lofty ceiling lit by the late afternoon light pouring through the Gothic stained-glass windows. I had never seen Sam so engaged.

  The following two weeks we spent in two charming places in Provence. One morning after breakfast, as we were standing by the stone wall surrounding the outdoor paved breakfast area, Sam said casually: Why don’t we get married? I replied, equally casually: Let’s see how things develop.

  We went on to Israel, where I met Sam’s sister and he met my cousin and his wife at their respective kibbutzim, as well as my other cousins in Tel Aviv. Each family approved and, in fact, embraced the prospective partner to whom they were being introduced.

  The last leg of our trip took us to Seattle, where I participated in a political psychology conference as part of a panel discussing contributions we had made to the newly-published book Light from the Ashes. I met its editor, with whom I had enjoyed an email correspondence for years. Our session went very well, as each of us talked about the impact of writing our chapter for the book. Though mine was probably the most revealing presentation in terms of the emotional impact of my childhood experiences, during the session I remained icy cool.

  At dinner that evening with the inspiring group of cocontributors, we talked about the bond that had developed between us as we had exposed our motives and our scars to each other in the book, in the formal session, and now as we shared experiences that for years had remained dormant. Sam was moved by this experience and I was glad to have him with me at this professional (as well as deeply personal) event.

  Sam again mentioned marriage during one of the few breaks from the conference as we were resting on the bed in our hotel room before the next activity. This time I answered: Yes, let’s go ahead. Though from time to time I panicked and wondered whether I was being foolhardy, mostly I felt that marrying Sam was what I was meant to do.

  We came home and began to organise the wedding for the end of that year. We held it in our home, in the presence of our four sets of children, my step-daughter Kim and our twelve grandchildren. Our living room with its Harbour views and extensive terrace was full of flowers and the table was beautifully decorated. Rabbi Apple, who had been closely associated with both our families for Bar Mitzvahs and weddings, carried out the religious ceremony under the chuppah (canopy), with three grandchildren holding each of the four flower-decked poles. Tears were shed, but it was a true celebration of the marriage of a man and a woman who had suffered misfortunes but again were saying yes to happiness.

  At the feast which followed, a son from each side of our families proposed a toast. Simon said that when he was taken home from St Luke’s hospital as a week-old baby, he never imagined that he would be making a speech at his mother’s wedding. Twelve-year-old Zak also welcomed Sam to our family, ref
erring to him as a mensch, a widely-used Jewish word for a person of integrity and honour, a most apt description.

  After lunch we spilled out on to the terrace to dance the horah, the most popular of Jewish folk-dances. It has long been used by Jews to express joy and other shared emotions. Everyone forms a circle and dances holding hands, to the music of Hava Nagila (Let Us Rejoice). We had photographs taken amid lots of hugging and kissing. Sam’s six-year-old twin grandsons were intrigued when their grandpa actually kissed the bride.

  And so I boarded the yacht.

  Sam’s and my time together took on the shape of what is called a normal life. I cooked meals more to his taste than mine, though I did not always succeed since he was used to, and preferred a heavier cuisine. We spent quiet evenings reading and chatting, watching television, attending theatre, concerts and movies, entertaining and being entertained by his, mine, and soon our friends. We celebrated family occasions, attended to our separate financial affairs, planned and went on some wonderful holidays while decorating our home with purchases of furniture and art.

  I tried to bring the two sets of families together by inviting them for Friday night dinners in different combinations, but found after a while that this effort at family building did not work. All of them had at this stage of their lives developed their own particular friends and social lives, so I stopped trying.

  Sam and I were thrilled in the early years of our marriage when the whole family gathered at our place for a special celebration such as the first night of Passover, to see our grandsons and granddaughters all rapidly growing towards their teenage and adult years. They spread themselves all over our living room, chatting, playing games or just making fun of their grandparents, the young couple. It was regrettable, of course, that Sam and I did not have sons and daughters and grandchildren in common. I observed among my long-married friends how central to their life as a couple were their shared concerns and activities related to the welfare of their children. Though Sam and I became very fond of one another’s children, they were not our children.

  My life with Sam was good and promising. Waking up in the arms of a loved and loving man was blissful. I felt grateful to have been given another chance.

  Five years into our marriage, my son, my Jonathan, died suddenly. I will not write about this unthinkable chapter of my life at this stage. Not yet.

  XXII

  Die Liebe bleibt

  A few years later, I followed a powerful urge to write my life history. And as I wrote I came to the startling realisation that it was I who had lived through all these traumatic events. This was my story – all of it. As a psychologist, I understood that I was finally beginning to own my life. Perhaps for the first time I was able to acknowledge that it had been defined by more than loss and grief. Along with the losses, there was resilience. I had laughed and cried and frivelled and climbed mountains. I had known physical passion. I had experienced beauty, the satisfaction of productive work, deep friendships and connection with a diverse range of people.

  My life had been defined by love as well as by loss. There was the love of my parents Szulem and Chana, who gave me away so that I would live. There was the love of my adoptive parents Gita and Welo, who above all wanted to protect me from risk and danger, offering me survival love. I had known love within each of my marriages. There was the love of motherhood as I saw my sons, my saplings, grow into independent trees with their own young shoots. And now Simon’s and Jonathan’s love is living on in their children.

  Memories of so many moments of love came flooding in, starting with the memory of that powerful embrace by my father Szulem when I was very young. And of course his plea that his little daughter, his infant branch be saved is at the centre of my being. I recalled the walks in the forests of Stuttgart with my father and teacher Welo, who brought out the best in me with his love and infinite patience. I remembered the overwhelming feeling of love and happiness as my newly born baby sons were put in my arms. I remembered my first sight of my grandsons and granddaughters.

  Isabel Allende wrote in The House of the Spirits:

  My observation is that if grief, rage and terror – any of the primitive emotions – are experienced with enough furious intensity, some unanalysable critical point is likely to be reached. Then something occurs. It can be a glance, a word, a blow, an incident. The mind flips over, changes its set and without the intervention of the will, perceives the possibility of a new direction.

  I visited the Galapagos Islands to which Jonathan had travelled as a young man. He had come back with Mum, it is paradise. You must go there. I felt compelled not to delay any longer. I travelled with my friend Lea, since Sam was not able to climb and walk the rough terrain. Lea and I had shared a tent on my second trek to the Annapurnas.

  The volcanic Galapagos Islands are rich in wildlife and best known for the species that were studied by Charles Darwin. Their isolation has ensured the survival of ancient animals such as giant tortoises, marine iguanas, sea lions and the wondrous albatross, as well as the blue-footed booby. The absence of man-made noise creates a sense of timelessness. The islands provide a direct encounter with the laws of nature, survival of the species at all costs, necessitating adaptations to changing environments, fighting off competitors and creative methods of camouflage. Our small group of humans was able to walk about and observe the doings of these animals as if we were invisible. On the rugged and starkly beautiful Espanola Island we saw some albatross nesting. They mate for life, forty to fifty years. The male of one such couple was standing by while the female sat incubating its one large egg, with dignity and patience. She was engaged in the one vital task that needed to be done at that point, attending to her young. No multi-tasking. No search for the meaning of life.

  Another incident affected me deeply. We landed in our tender on a beach with the whitest of sands and deep blue waters, to find a colony of sea lions, the adults mostly sunbathing and the pups frolicking, diving in and out of the water and feeding. Some of the female lions had gone off for up to ten days to forage for food and fatten up, leaving their pups to fend for themselves. During this period the pups did not eat and became visibly thinner. We noticed one pup approach a cow which already had a couple of her own pups suckling at her teats. The pup lay down and started feeding along with the others. Instantly the mother turned, growled fiercely at him and pushed him away with a blow from her powerful flipper. He was not family.

  The pup retreated and stood forlornly on the beach some distance from the shore, quite alone. Suddenly something in the water caught his eye. We followed his gaze and saw in the distance a cow swimming towards the shore. He focused on what we guessed was his mother returning from her hunt. He waddled as fast as he could towards her, using his flippers to propel himself. Mother and pup reached the edge of the water at the same moment and their whiskered mouths touched. The exhausted mother then collapsed on the beach. Her pup did not immediately seek to feed. Rather he moved in a relaxed and playful manner around the resting figure of his mother.

  I had spent years learning about the significance of attachment between children and parents but had rarely seen this so powerfully demonstrated.

  On our last day, on Floreana Island, we walked along the rugged coastline to arrive in the late afternoon at an isolated beach. As I stood taking in the darkening water and sky and the frigate birds hovering above the cliffs, so remote from the hassle of our lives, I felt a rare sense of tranquillity. I thought about the struggle for survival we had witnessed in the Galapagos and the privilege of life.

  Back in Sydney Anna asked if she could interview me for a school project on Holocaust survivors. She came over one Sunday afternoon and, in the quiet room, wondered aloud about the impact on four-year-old Ester of her parents disappearing from her life. I began to talk about what I had written in Light from the Ashes, then stopped and said: I suppose it is this fear of being abandoned, a fear that is often overwhelming. Even though my brain tells me that my father and mothe
r never abandoned me – in fact, nobody did, my parents with every fibre of their being wanting to save their child – still part of me, the child part, feels abandoned. My brain has to keep on talking to my feelings.

  With tears in her eyes, Anna nodded her head in understanding. We were joined in empathy for that four-year-old. I could not bear her sadness, so continued: Ester has had a lot of sorrow in her life, but there are also positives. She turned to me and quite forcefully exclaimed: How can there be anything positive in all these bad things?

  I told her that while there was absolutely nothing positive in unkind acts and painful losses, I still believed that my experiences gave me the understanding and motivation to work with people who have been targets of prejudice and racism. I have empathy for and am able to work with children who are hurt or damaged by powerful adults.

  Last Friday night, my family came for dinner. In preparing it, as always I considered each of my grandchildren’s food likes and dislikes and catered accordingly. I would never embark on Friday night without preparing Adrian’s favourite carrot fritters or Anna’s and Rachel’s strawberries. According to our tradition, the table was decorated with colourful napkins, the traditional plaited bread covered with a special embroidered cloth and white candles in silver candlesticks waiting to be lit.

  As the family, including Ruth’s mother, arrived, I observed how each of my granddaughters and grandsons was a bit taller or sporting a new haircut or outfit. They assured me that I had become a little shorter since they last saw me. I warmly embraced and kissed the girls, who readily reciprocated, while the boys either brushed my cheek or avoided altogether such unmanly behaviour as kissing their grandmother. But I could rely on Simon to give me a life-affirming hug.