“I think I understand that today after having been back myself. I would not have years earlier.”
Another pause in our conversation was a silence of reflection, not one of awkwardness.
There is one more thing I’d like to say about the experience I’ve just had,” I added after a moment.
“If that’s o.k., that is.”
“Of course, go ahead.”
“I have often wondered why I cannot recall a single horrific experience during the war or after that, during the escape with my mother. It’s like it was in a file, which has been deleted.”
“I understand your point. But the human mind, like our bodily organs, has a capacity to heal. And healing requires the dark and toxic cells to be banished into oblivion,” Edi responded.
“However, that’s not really my point, “ I continued.
“The real point is that while I feel no link to present day Liberec and everything in it and around it, I do feel a strong connection to the telltales of the past, the landscapes and streetscapes, the per chance encounter with someone I connect with through the past – all that was meaningful, even if it took me several trips back to figure it out.”
“What do you think made the difference this time?”
“Without question, what I read in the family papers my mother left me before going back. Without it – and the few images I have preserved from childhood – there would have been little benefit to being there. These new insights made it all worthwhile, brought a sense of closure as I said earlier, even greater joy with where I am today. So I will treasure this experience.”
“Anything specific you are thinking about?”
“Being in the opera theatre and noticing the plaque and inscription to our grandfather, which appears in my father’s manuscript. Looking up the side of the ‘Jeschken’ and wondering whether I was close to the place where my parent’s footsteps took them across the mountain. Sitting in the dining room of the ‘Zlaty Lev’ and wondering whether some of the guests at my grandfather’s silver wedding anniversary party had been at the same table and who they might have been. Those were the special moments.”
“My God, do I know, more than you might think.”
Edi’s expression had taken on a particular softness, his eyes moist.
“Are you thinking of going back again?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. If I did, I know it would be for one reason and one reason only.”
“And what would that be?”
“A sort of pilgrimage through the same villages and towns, remnants of camps - if anything is still there – through which my mother led us to freedom until we arrived in Hamburg however many weeks or months later.”
“Probably by yourself?”
“Almost certainly – unless either Simon or Natalie would join me. But that’s unlikely.”
“If I was any younger, I would have offered to join you.”
“And I would have gladly accepted.”
Chapter 4
Halifax, November 2006
I returned to Halifax after toying with the idea of traveling to Hamburg following the stay with Edi in Munich. Perhaps to visit the Ohlsdorf cemetery, one of the world’s largest, where my parents ashes were interred. I had not been there in quite some time and wondered, whether I could still locate their grave site. Although I had spent most of my youth in Hamburg from 1946 until 1959, in the end I rejected the idea as emotional overload. The trip to Reichenberg and the days in Munich had been more than enough stimulation.
My parents clearly had endured great hardship during their lives. All of these papers, the preservation of every important family document and my mother’s notes for her journal during the roughest days of their lives.
What did it all mean?
And then it struck me – it meant comfort and solace, it meant remaining connected to events of the day by committing them to paper while perhaps seeking refuge in the private confines of the personal papers. Trying to work through the aftermath of what they had been through, as evidenced by my father’s unfinished manuscript. It also spoke to me of a family bond so strong that none of the evil forces had been able to destroy it.
It was already unseasonably cold for early November. But the sun had broken through the grayish-white clouds, which hung low for most of the day. I pushed myself away from the desk, exited through the back door of the lobby and began walking purposely, yet without knowing exactly where my feet wanted to take me. Perhaps the German baker at the ‘Gingerbread House’ around the corner had some freshly baked apple crumble.
Halifax, January 2007
I rushed from the bathroom to pick up the receiver on the fourth ring, wrapping the towel tighter around my waist.
“Hello”, which sounded more like “piss off!”.
The caller seemed unperturbed.
“Hallo, hier ist Muenchen!”.
I checked the wristwatch I had deposited near the phone. It showed 8:05 p.m. German long distance rates dropped to next to nothing after midnight. It was Edi’s favorite time to call.
My voice had lost all of its earlier irritation.
“Und hello, hier ist Halifax - Guten Abend, Edi!”
I grabbed another towel and continued drying my hair while reaching for clothes and slippers.
“So, it’s my favorite cousin,” I added.
It had only been several months that we had seen each other, but I was glad to hear from him.
Thoughts strayed back to my last visit with Edi in Munich.
I missed our rambling walks along the Isar River. None of these ever had a clear destination, but we would talk from the moment we left Edi’s house until our return. We would make sweeping loops through the narrow suburban side streets, where much of Munich’s professional elite was residing now, cocooned away in large free-standing villas with ornamental fences and manicured grounds. Not like Edi’s tiny row house on the bustling thoroughfare to the ski resorts further South. At some point, a road would disgorge us onto a narrow footpath, moving through a few acres of meadows and thin stands of leafy trees not yet sacrificed on the altar of suburban development.
Turning just a few hundred feet before the railroad tracks, we would double-back on the wide path through the ‘Hoellenkriegel’ forest, where cyclists were navigating skillfully around all manner of pedestrians - singles, couples, joggers, people with pets and without, some dragging along toddlers.
I had been amazed at the sight. This country, which had invented official ordinance with near obsession for exact rule and order, had failed miserably to keep chihuahuas from being crunched under mountain bike tires and toddlers being scared silly at the sight of muscular German shepherds. Edi had been amused - wandering about freely anywhere and anytime was still a teutonic right of passage - he explained. Some of these walks has lasted well over two hours – at least until our last encounter, when Edi was no longer up to it.
Good God - it won’t be that much longer before I get there myself. The years had seemed to get markedly shorter. I wasn’t sure, when I started feeling that way – probably around sixty-five.
Edi would turn eighty later this year, I not much short of seventy.
I had finished toweling and was still looking around for items of clothes dispersed in various places.
“Mine