The Tongue Set Free, page 5
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A few months earlier, in January 1911, my youngest brother had come into the world. The delivery had been easy, and my mother felt strong enough to nurse him herself. It was quite different from the previous time; little ado was made over this birth, perhaps because it had gone so easily, and it remained a center of attention only briefly.
I did sense, however, that great events were in the offing. My parents’ conversations had a different tone, they sounded resolute and earnest, they didn’t always speak German in front of me, and they often mentioned England. I learned that my little brother was named George, after the new king of England. I liked that because it was unexpected, but my grandfather cared less for it, he wanted a biblical name and insisted on one, and I heard my parents say they wouldn’t give in, it was their child, and they would give it the name they wanted to give it.
The rebellion against the grandfather had probably been going on for a while; the choice of this name was an open declaration of war. Two brothers of my mother’s had started a business in Manchester, it had flourished quickly, one of them had suddenly died, the other offered my father a partnership if he came to England. For my parents, this was a desirable opportunity to free themselves from Ruschuk, which was too confining and too Oriental for them, and from the far more confining tyranny of the grandfather. They immediately agreed to the partnership, but it was easier said than done, for now a fierce battle commenced between them and my grandfather, who refused to give up one of his sons for anything in the world. I did not know the details of this battle, which lasted for six months, but I sensed the changed atmosphere in the house and especially in the courtyard, where the members of the family had to meet.
Grandfather grabbed me in the courtyard at every opportunity, hugging and kissing me, and, when someone could see, weeping hot tears. I didn’t care at all for the continual wetness on my cheeks, although he always proclaimed that I was his dearest grandchild and he could not live without me. My parents realized he was trying to bias me against England and, counteracting that, they told me how wonderful it would be. “There all the people are honest,” said my father. “When a man says something, he does it, he doesn’t even have to shake hands on it.” I was on his side, how else could I have been, he didn’t have to promise me that I would start school immediately in England and learn how to read and write.
Grandfather behaved differently to him, and especially to my mother—differently than to me. He regarded her as the author of the emigration project, and when she once said to him, “Yes! We can’t stand this life in Ruschuk anymore! We both want to get away from here!,” he turned his back to her and never spoke to her again; during the remaining months he treated her like air. As for Father, however, who still had to go to the store, he assaulted him with his anger, which was terrible and became more and more terrible from week to week. Then he saw there was nothing he could do, and a few days before the departure, he cursed his son solemnly in the courtyard, in front of the relatives who were present and who listened in horror. I heard them speaking about it: Nothing, they said, was more dreadful than a father cursing his son.
Part Two
MANCHESTER
1911–1913
Wallpaper and Books Strolls along the Mersey
For a few months after his death, I slept in my father’s bed. It was dangerous leaving Mother alone. I don’t know who it was who thought of making me the guardian of her life. She wept a great deal, and I listened to her weeping. I couldn’t console her, she was inconsolable. But when she got up and stationed herself at the window, I leapt up and stood next to her. I put my arms around her and wouldn’t let go. We did not speak, these scenes did not take place with words. I held her very tight, and if she had jumped out the window, she would have had to take me along. She didn’t have the strength to kill me along with herself. I felt her body yield when the tension waned, and she turned to me from the despair of her decision. She pressed my head to her body and sobbed louder. She had thought I was asleep, and strove to weep quietly, so that I wouldn’t awake. She was so absorbed in her sorrow that she didn’t notice that I was secretly awake, and when she got up very quietly and stole to the window, she was certain that I was fast asleep. Years later, when we spoke about that period, she admitted that she was always surprised each time I stood next to her right away and threw my arms around her. She couldn’t escape me, I wouldn’t give her up. She let me hold her back, but I sensed that my watchfulness was burdensome to her. She never tried it more than once in any night. After the excitement, we both fell asleep, exhausted. Gradually, she developed something like respect for me and she began treating me like an adult in many ways.
After a few months, we moved from the house on Burton Road, where my father had died, to her older brother’s home on Palatine Road. This was a large mansion with many people, and the acute danger was past.
However, the period before that in Burton Road was not just made up of those dreadful nightly scenes. The days were calm and subdued. Towards evening, Mother and I dined at a small card table in the yellow salon. The table, brought in specially (it didn’t really belong in the salon), was set for the two of us. There was a cold snack consisting of lots of little delicacies, it was always the same: white sheep’s cheese, cucumbers, and olives, as in Bulgaria. I was seven, Mother was twenty-seven. We had an earnest, civilized conversation, the house was very still, there was no noise as in the nursery, my mother said to me: “You are my big son,” and she inspired me with the responsibility I felt for her at night. All day long, I yearned for these suppers. I served myself, taking very little on my plate, like her; everything proceeded in gentle movements like clockwork, but as much as I recall the motions of my fingers, I no longer know what we talked about; I have forgotten everything but the one, frequently reiterated sentence: “You are my big son.” I see my mother’s faint smile when she leaned towards me, the movements of her mouth when she spoke, not passionately as usual, but with restraint; I think that I never felt any sorrow in her during these meals, perhaps it was dulled by my sympathetic presence. Once she explained something about olives to me.
* * *
Previously, Mother hadn’t meant very much to me. I never saw her alone. We were in a governess’s care and always played upstairs in the nursery. My brothers were four and five and one-half years my junior. George, the youngest, had a small playpen. Nissim, the middle son, was notorious for his pranks. No sooner was he left by himself than he got into mischief. He turned on the faucet in the bathroom, and water was already running down the stairs to the ground floor by the time anyone noticed; or he unrolled the toilet paper until the upstairs corridor was covered with it. He kept devising new and worse pranks, and since nothing could stop him, he was dubbed “the naughty boy.”
I was the only one going to school, to Miss Lancashire’s in Barlow-more Road; I will tell about this school later on.
At home in the nursery, I usually played alone. Actually, I seldom played, I spoke to the wallpaper. The many dark circles in the pattern of the wallpaper seemed like people to me. I made up stories in which they appeared, either I told them the stories or they played with me, I never got tired of the wallpaper people and I could talk to them for hours. When the governess went out with my two younger brothers, I made a point of staying alone with the wallpaper. I preferred its company to anyone else’s, at least to that of my little brothers; with them there was nothing but silly excitement and trouble, like Nissim’s pranks. When my brothers were nearby, I merely whispered to the wallpaper people; if the governess was present, I simply thought out my stories, not even moving my lips to them. But then everyone left the room, I waited a bit, and then started talking undisturbed. Soon my words were loud and agitated; I only remember that I tried to persuade the wallpaper people to do bold deeds, and when they refused, I let them feel my scorn. I heartened them, I railed at them; when alone, I was always a bit scared, and whatever I felt myself, I ascribed to them, they were the cowards. But they also performed and uttered their own lines. A circle in a highly conspicuous place opposed me with its own eloquence, and it was no small triumph when I succeeded in convincing it. I was involved in such an argument with it when the governess returned earlier than expected and heard voices in the nursery. She quickly entered and caught me in the act, my secret was out, from then on I was always taken along on strolls; it was considered unhealthy to leave me alone so much. The loud wallpaper fun was over, but I was tenacious and I got used to articulating my stories quietly, even when my little brothers were in the room. I managed to play with them while also dealing with the wallpaper people. Only the governess, who had set herself the task of weaning me fully from these unhealthy tendencies, paralyzed me; in her presence the wallpaper was mute.
However, my finest conversations in that period were with my real-life father. Every morning, before leaving for his office, he came to the nursery and had special, cogent words for each one of us. He was cheery and merry and always hit upon new antics. In the morning they didn’t last long; it was before breakfast, which he had with Mother downstairs in the dining room, and he hadn’t read the newspaper yet. But in the evening, he arrived with presents; he brought something for everyone, on no day did he come home without bearing gifts for us. Then he stayed in the nursery for a longer time and did gymnastics with us. His main feat was to put all three of us on his outstretched arm. He held the two little brothers fast, I had to learn to stand free, and even though I loved him like no one else in the world, I was always a bit scared of this part of the exercises.
A few months after I started school, a thing solemn and exciting happened, which determined my entire life after that. Father brought home a book for me. He took me alone into a back room, where we children slept, and explained it to me. It was The Arabian Nights, in an edition for children. There was a colorful picture on the cover, I think it was Aladdin and his magic lamp. My father spoke very earnestly and encouragingly to me and told me how nice it would be to read. He read me a story, saying that all the other stories in the book were as lovely as this one, and that I should try to read them and then in the evening always tell him what I had read. Once I’d finished the book, he’d bring me another. I didn’t have to be told twice, and even though I had only just learned how to read in school, I pitched right into the wondrous book and had something to report to him every evening. He kept his promise, there was always a new book there; I never had to skip a single day of reading.
The books were a series for children, all in the same square format. They differed only in the colorful picture on the cover. The letters were the same size in all volumes, it was like reading the same book on and on. But what a series that was, it has never had its peer. I can remember all the titles. After The Arabian Nights came Grimm’s fairy tales, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Tales from Shakespeare, Don Quijote, Dante, William Tell. I wonder how it was possible to adapt Dante for children. Every volume had several gaudy pictures, but I didn’t like them, the stories were a lot more beautiful; I don’t even know whether I would recognize the pictures today. It would be easy to show that almost everything that I consisted of later on was already in these books, which I read for my father in the seventh year of my life. Of the characters who never stopped haunting me after that, only Odysseus was missing.
I spoke about each book to my father after reading it. Sometimes I was so excited that he had to calm me down. But he never told me, as adults will, that fairy tales are untrue; I am particularly grateful to him for that, perhaps I still consider them true today. I noticed, of course, that Robinson Crusoe was different from Sinbad the Sailor, but it never occurred to me to think less of one of these stories than the other. However, I did have bad dreams about Dante’s Inferno. When I heard my mother say to him, “Jacques, you shouldn’t have given him that, it’s too early for him,” I was afraid he wouldn’t bring me any more books, and I learned to keep my dreams a secret. I also believe—but I’m not quite certain—that my mother connected my frequent conversations with the wallpaper people to the books. That was the period when I liked my mother least. I was cunning enough to whiff danger, and perhaps I wouldn’t have given up my loud wallpaper conversations so willingly and hypocritically if the books and my conversations about them with my father hadn’t become the most important thing in the world for me.
But he stuck to his purpose and tried William Tell after Dante. It was here that I first heard the word “freedom.” He said something to me about it, which I have forgotten. But he added something about England: That was why we had moved to England, he said, because people were free here. I knew how much he loved England, while my mother doted on Vienna. He made an effort to learn the language properly, and once each week a woman came by to give him lessons. I noticed that he pronounced his English sentences differently from German, which he was fluent in since his youth and usually spoke with Mother. Sometimes I heard him pronounce and repeat single sentences. He uttered them slowly, like something very beautiful, they gave him pleasure and he uttered them again. He always, spoke English to us children now; Ladino, which had been my language until then, receded into the background, and I only heard it from others, particularly older relatives.
When I reported to him on the books I read, it had to be in English. I think that this passionate reading helped me to make very rapid progress. He was delighted that my reports were so fluent. What he had to say, however, had a special weight, for he thought it out very carefully to make absolutely sure there was no error, and he spoke almost as if he were reading to me. I have a solemn memory of these hours, he was altogether different than when he played with us in the nursery and incessantly kept inventing new antics.
The last book I received from him was about Napoleon. It was written from a British point of view, and Napoleon appeared as an evil tyrant, who wanted to gain control of all countries, especially England. I was reading this book when my father died. My distaste for Napoleon has been unshakable ever since. I had started telling my father about the book, but I hadn’t gotten very far. He had given it to me right after William Tell, and it was a small experiment for him after the conversation on freedom. When I soon talked excitedly to him about Napoleon, he said: “Just wait, it’s too soon. You have to keep reading. It’s going to turn out quite different.” I know for sure that Napoleon hadn’t been crowned emperor yet. Maybe it was a test, maybe he wanted to see if I could resist the imperial splendor. I then finished it after his death, I reread it countless times like all the books I’d gotten from him. I had had little experience with power. My first notion of it stemmed from this book, and I have never been able to hear Napoleon’s name without connecting it to my father’s sudden death. Of all of Napoleon’s murders, the greatest and most dreadful was of my father.
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On Sundays, he sometimes took me strolling alone. Not far from our house, the little Mersey River flowed by. On the left side, it was edged by a reddish wall; on the other side, a path wound through a luxuriant meadow full of flowers and high grass. He had told me the English word “meadow,” and he asked me for it during every stroll. He felt it was an especially beautiful word; it has remained the most beautiful word in the English language for me. Another favorite word of his was “island.” It must have been very important to him that England was an island; perhaps he thought of it as an Isle of the Blest. He also explained it to me, much to my astonishment, over and over again, even when I’d known it for a long time. On our last stroll through the meadow by the Mersey River, he spoke altogether differently than I was accustomed to hearing. He asked me very urgently what I wanted to be, and I said without thinking: “A doctor!”
“You will be what you want to be,” he said with so much tenderness that both of us stopped in our tracks. “You don’t have to become a businessman like me and the uncles. You will go to the university and you will be what you want most.”
I always regarded that conversation as his last wish. But at the time, I didn’t know why he was so different when he uttered it. It was only when finding out more about his life, that I realized he had been thinking about himself. During his schooldays in Vienna, he had passionately frequented the Burgtheater, and his greatest desire was to become an actor. Sonnenthal was his idol, and young as he was, he managed to get in to see him and tell him of his desire. Sonnenthal told him he was too short for the stage, an actor couldn’t be so short. From Grandfather, who was an actor in every utterance of his life, Father had inherited a theatrical gift, but Sonnenthal’s pronouncement was devastating for him, and he buried his dreams. He was musical, he had a good voice and he loved his violin above everything. Grandfather, who ruled his children as a ruthless patriarch, thrust each of his sons into the business very early; he wanted to have a branch, managed by one of the sons, in every major city in Bulgaria. When Father spent too many hours with his violin, it was taken away from him, and he came right into the business against his will. He didn’t like it at all; nothing interested him less than what was to his advantage. But he was a lot weaker than Grandfather and gave in. He was twenty-nine by the time he finally succeeded, with Mother’s help, in fleeing Bulgaria and settling in Manchester. By then, he had a family with three children, whom he had to take care of, so he remained a businessman. It was already a victory from him to have escaped his father’s tyranny and left Bulgaria. He had, of course, parted with him on bad terms and he bore his father’s curse; but he was free in England and he was determined to treat his owns sons differently.
