Dad’s hours teaching cello were long. Often, his days began at 8:00 a.m. and didn’t end until 10:00 p.m. He often picked me up from kindergarten at six in the evening and took me back to the school where he was giving cello lessons to his gifted students late into the night. We would have supper in his tiny studio apartment. Our meals were very simple. We usually drank tea with some day-old bread with dried salami and maybe an apple, if they were in season. I was just happy because I had my dad all to myself. I was also eager to help my father in any way I could so I could stay with him longer. I began helping him wash his socks and undergarments in a small sink by his room after I saw him struggling to do this simple task with one hand. I always helped him fix our supper and cleaned up afterward so I could prove to him that I was useful and could take care of things around his place.
I used to wonder why the divorce judge didn’t award custody of me to my dad, since he did his best to look after me. It never occurred to me that the judge looked at him and saw a man with one arm who worked long hours trying to make ends meet. Dad was living in a small one-room apartment, sharing a common bathroom with three other tenants. Though this was not ideal for a little girl at age five, obviously the judge didn’t know that my father could do more with his one arm than most people could with two.
Mom got a job at a café in Budapest and started to make some money. I knew she got good tips from male customers because she was attractive and fun to be around. She also received child support from my father, which she apparently spent mostly on new clothes and going out with friends. I don’t believe she did that to hurt me in any way; she was just young and irresponsible. I also think she simply wanted to be independent and enjoy her life. She never finished high school but was curious, smart, and eager to learn about the world around her. She was young and beautiful and loved all the attention she got because men were attracted to her. Although her formal education was not completed, she loved to read and was knowledgeable about the arts.
She met her second husband while working at the café in Budapest. He was everything my mother wanted at the time. He was good-looking and well-educated, very sophisticated in my mother’s eyes. She became totally obsessed with this man. His name was George, and he took Mom to the theater, opera, poetry readings, and the horse races (later I learned he was addicted to both gambling and sex). Unfortunately, this relationship hastened a long downward spiral for my mom.
I remember always asking my father to let me live with him because it was unbearable when George was around my mother. I was losing my mother completely to this man. I also started noticing that we had less and less furniture in our flat. I learned later that Mom had started to sell some of the furniture, giving the money to George to feed his gambling habit.
In our one-bedroom flat there was very little room for me, and it was apparent that George didn’t particularly like having me around. Often I would take the long bus ride to the suburbs of Budapest where my grandmother and grandfather lived, just to get away from him. I was too embarrassed to tell my father all the things that went on between my mother and George at home, but I was always asking Dad to take me to his place. I never complained about his long working hours as long as I could be there with him.
One day my father sat me down and told me that things needed to change so I would have more stability in my life. He told me it was very important that I get a good education so I could be successful when I grew up. He said that he had arranged for me to move into the Jewish Orphanage in Budapest in the fall of 1953. I would be six years old. Since technically I was not an orphan, I was getting some special considerations and Dad would pay a nominal fee for my keep. He was allowed to come to see me twice a week to give me cello lessons, which I was about to start during my first year in school. He also promised me that every summer when school was out we would spend our vacations together.
This was a very confusing time for me. I thought, If I have a mother and father, why do I have to be in an orphanage? What have I done that my parents don’t want me to be around? Why don’t they love me? I also wondered why, if I was baptized Roman Catholic, I was going to a Jewish orphanage. I was certain that there had to be something wrong with me. Was I being punished for something? I spent so many sleepless nights praying and wondering what I could do so my mom and dad would get back together again and want to be with me.
When my mother found out that Dad was enrolling me in the Jewish Orphanage, she became very upset. For a very brief moment I thought she might fight for me and would decide to look after me after all. Sadly, I think that she was upset because she was about to lose the child support that Dad paid her for my care. After I moved into the orphanage these payments would no longer be required, and she would lose part of her monthly income.
I recall my last Christmas at home on Vaci Street before moving into the orphanage. Mom and I were decorating the tree with George. My father was coming over to visit and celebrate Christmas with us in the afternoon, and I was both excited and nervous because he was going to meet George, whom I hated with a passion. This man was destroying my secret dream that somehow my parents would get back together and we would be a normal family once again. I was also sad for my father because I didn’t know how he would feel seeing my mother so close to another man in the same home which they had shared together.
When my father arrived I was overjoyed. I just ran into his arms and hung on for dear life. He had a little box for me, and in it was a beautiful little Danish doll. The minute I took the doll out of the box I loved it more than anything in the world. That Danish doll was going to be my most special possession.
There was also a beautiful doll from France under the tree in a big box. Mom said the doll was a special gift from George to me. Now, it was very important to me that my father knew how much I loathed George and wanted to get away from him. I also wanted my mother to know that I hated the French doll and didn’t want to stay with her and George. So I took their fancy doll and tore the clothes from her body, pulled her head off, and literally destroyed her within seconds.
After my father left I got spanked for ruining the French doll, but frankly, I didn’t care. I just had to do something to show my anger and pain. I also intuited that the French doll was not a gift from George, that really Mom had bought it and told me it was from him in an effort to get me to like him. Unfortunately, George stayed in my mother’s life for many years. Mom told me, when I was an adult, that the physical attraction between them was so powerful that she simply didn’t have the willpower to leave him. Even after she lost her home and everything that my father left for her, she kept George in her life for a long time.
The little Danish doll my father gave me was my treasured toy for many years. She was my friend, and I took her with me everywhere. When I moved into the orphanage I took her to my grandmother’s place for safekeeping, so nothing would happen to her. Every time I stayed with Grandma I would play with my little Danish doll for hours on end. She was dressed in the traditional Danish clothing with lots of underskirts, a printed blouse, a vest, a colorful apron, and a traditional Danish hat. She had lace socks and clogs. Her beautiful blond hair was braided and long. I would redo her hair and redesign her clothes over and over.
I made many outfits out of her underskirts and apron and was always trying to come up with different looks. Grandmother used to watch me and say, “I wonder what you are going to be when you grow up?” Little did I know (and I never would have dreamed it then) that most of my professional life would be spent in the fashion industry, dressing people, doing runway shows, and making regular fashion presentations on a popular morning television program in San Francisco!
Love’s Orphan
Chapter
Love’s Orphan
Chapter 3
Love’s Orphan
Chapter 3
Love’s Orphan
Chapter 3
Love’s Orphan
Chapter 3
My classmates from middle school. My best friend Bea is in the second row, fourth from the right; I am in the last row second from the left.