Another drawer contained a virtual pharmacy of medications for ailments that might be encountered. Many of these were outdated. Some were even empty, perhaps for show. Mom could always be counted on to have the appropriate pill or lotion for all of our ailments. Most, however, concerned Mom’s constant struggle with headaches, back pain and sleep. Only recently did she include pills prescribed to her for cancer. From this she never recovered.
I suddenly realised that Mom’s preoccupation was not with order but was to be prepared for any eventuality. Mom was even prepared for the unlikely event of being ousted from her own home. She never unpacked.
It was this thought that was on my mind during her funeral. Was it only in death that she finally found home? In the eulogy, I spoke of her incessant search for a home. Since age five (or six) she was forced into hiding from Nazi persecution. In fact, my precise words were “…from those fuck’n Nazis.” It just came out. I could’ve said “dammed” or “cursed” but only “fuck’n” came to mind. People attending the funeral were very polite in understanding my unfortunate choice of words. Sara and Mike, however, understood the deep frustration we all felt about Mom’s insecurity.
We knew few details of her traumatic past. It was partly overshadowed by Dad’s vivid accounts of the concentration camps. Mom rarely talked about her experiences during the war. We knew that she had been hidden in various farmhouses in Germany, as a Christian. There was something about hospitals, a monastery and the Displaced Persons, D.P., camp in Bergen-Belsen, where she eventually met Dad and married. That’s about it.
Enquiries into her past usually left us more confounded than before. At times, Mom’s peculiar reactions made me wonder. The sound of glass breaking was one of them. Shattering glass transformed Mom into a frightened little girl on the verge of tears. With clenched fists she would strike at the air in desperate attempts to subdue a deeper feeling of anger, fright and panic. Dumbfounded, we quietly gathered the shattered fragments as Mom secluded herself in the bedroom. This was her reaction to stress. She sought solace in darkness, solitude and migraine headache pills. Sometimes it would last for hours. At times, Mom would only emerge after days as if nothing had occurred. I knew this had something to do with the war but never asked. Was there never a right moment?
Mostly, however, the war was felt in the problems with Dad. As a child, I recall hearing Dad’s frightful screams of fear and pain at night. Mom would gently awaken him from his hellish dreams by calling out to him in Yiddish, “Chaim, Chaim, du traumt sich Chaim.” Eventually, I didn’t even awaken at these nocturnal shouts. It is, however, for this reason that I never invited friends to sleep over, as is popular in childhood.
Only once did Dad reveal the content of a dream to me. I had expected frightening recollections of the hellish world from which he had survived. His dreams were much worse. Dad had envisioned himself strapped to the front of a powerful, speeding locomotive. It was heading for certain catastrophe into a brick wall. His struggle to get free made the engine’s fire burn more intensely. Imagination could not possibly conjure up the hell from which this dilemma was moulded. I was as helpless as he was in finding a way to comfort him. We were paralysed with concern.
Mom helped us cope with Dad’s tormented soul in many ways. At ten years old, I recall wanting to buy Dad a special gift for Father’s Day. Stubbornly, I would choose the surprise on my own. It was a new set of pyjamas. I carefully wrapped the gift and coloured in a card saying,” Especially for you, Dad!” Dad received the gift early Sunday morning while still in bed. As he un-wrapped the surprise, I saw shock and horror in his eyes. He threw the partially unwrapped gift at my feet and sent me to my room crying out, “You stupid boy! You stupid boy!” over and over and over again. I was confused. What could I have possibly done wrong? I had no idea. Mom gradually consoled him in a similar manner in which she would awaken him from his dreams. It was no surprise to me, then, that this had something to do with the war. It seemed ages until Mom finally entered my room. She gently lifted my head from the tear-soaked pillow and explained how the striped pyjamas had reminded Dad of the war. Unintentionally, I had handed him his concentration camp uniform. “But, how was I to know?” I pleaded. “You know your father,” she replied,” it’s the war…the war. No one’s at fault, it’s the war.” This was the secret password for forgiveness. It was non-debatable, incomprehensible, unpredictable and totally un-fair. Mom comforted me, consoled Dad and helped me choose a more appropriate gift. It was never discussed. The matter was anything but closed.
As with most immigrant families, home life was vastly different than life outside. At home, Yiddish was spoken. We children tended to respond in English. Occasionally, Mom and Dad would entertain fellow survivor friends at home. The children played together in an adjacent room while the grown-ups sat at the table full with tasty delicacies of herring, salami, pickles and cheese. They spoke Yiddish. We played freely as our parents joked and even argued politics at the table. Inevitably their conversations became more solemn. As it did, so did our play. Like barometers we sensed the heavy atmosphere of the war nearby. Some would concoct arguments, or even cry, forcing their parents to break the circle of pain and attend urgent matters at hand. We, however, were curious intruders. I wanted to be invisible; I wanted to listen yet be somewhere else.
Outside the home, I tried to become as American as possible. I recall refusing to go to school in the first grade because there was no American Flag displayed at the entrance - as I had seen in my older sister’s school. When the reason for my reluctance became clear, Mom approached the head of school to complain. It had been sent for cleaning and forgotten. Only when the flag was re-installed did I agree to enter.
Television became the only acceptable intrusion of American Life into the home. Otherwise it was mostly ‘us’ against ‘them’. Old European customs clashed with the traditionally American values of waste, comfort and easy living. Mom and Dad worked hard to provide the means in which we could succeed in the rejected world around us.
Food, of course, was paramount. There would be no quick- fix meals of hamburgers, hotdogs or instant cheese casseroles, as I secretly enjoyed at friend’s homes. Arriving ‘unhungry’ for dinner was unthinkable.” So,” she would accuse,” you prefer McDonalds to me.” So, we ate. Hungry or not, we ate with vigour. At home Mom would prepare schnitzel, soup, boiled potatoes, broiled chicken and red cabbage kept warm in a casserole dish in bed until Dad came home from work. Little care was taken in tableware. The ‘good dishes’ were saved for a special occasion that never seemed to arrive.
Mom worked part time as an assistant in a local Bakery shop on 171st St. Occasionally she’d return with baked delicacies remaining at the end of the day. We never ran low of Rye bread, sugar cookies and, on Fridays, a chocolate cake. Workers at the Bakery would ensure that particular items were left at closing by hiding them in unsuspecting places during the working day. Mom seemed to enjoy this game. It was a small victory.
Dad worked hard cutting leather for ladies pocketbooks - until saving enough to establish his own small enterprise. Together, Mom and Dad would run the business. It was, I think, their happiest years. His first enterprise was a light delivery service. He purchased a van and called the company ‘SADAMI’ after the first two letters of our names (SAra, DAvid and MIchael). Strangely, we began receiving obscene phone calls until someone was kind enough to explain the similarity of SADAMI to SODOMY. Every few years Dad would feel an urge to move; I never really understood why. Only in Sacramento, California did I realise the need to pack up and relocate. Right wing racists had placed a warning bomb in the mail slot of our front door.
We were having dinner in the kitchen of our home, when a loud ‘bang’ was heard. We ran out to the street, to see what had happened, only to find that our neighbours were doing the same. They were, however, running towards our house. “Are you all alright?” they asked. Looking over our shoulders, towards our house, was a frightening scene;
The front door and some of the windows were shattered. Red-painted graffiti screamed, “JEWS OUT!” Within several days a representative of the local Jewish community approached us. He explained that the culprit had been found. He was none other than the son of the local Chief of Police.