Hazy Memories

My father left Europe when he was in his early 30’s and first emigrated to Canada and then to the US. It was a whole new beginning. In North America, he was anonymous. No history, a fresh start. But baggage follows a person.

When I was 2 years old, my father was transferred to Germany by his company for a 2-year stint. So off we went, complete with our American refrigerator that my mother refused to be without. We could, at that time, have lived on the American army base in Wiesbaden as they were both American citizens by then.  My mother desperately wanted to. My father traveled all over Europe and was gone from Monday to Friday on business. She spoke no German and had only a 2 year old for company.

My father insisted that they settle in the very small town of Steinbach. And there we landed. No English speakers, no English books, no English television, no English radio, nothing. My mother was alone from Monday to Friday, completely isolated. Incomprehensible today, with the internet. My mother became so desperate that she reached out to my paternal grandmother, who came and stayed for over 6 months. In the second year, through sheer determination my mother managed to pass the incredibly lengthy and complex German driver’s license exam and got her license. When finances permitted, the two of us would travel to Wiesbaden to the base and eat American hamburgers and fries, while my mother revelled in being able to speak to another adult.

I have only a few hazy memories of that time, of a tall winding wooden staircase in our home, of a friend named Sigrid and a pencil box I was given by a trusted babysitter Sabina. My mother later told me that my father was unhappy and frightened and swung wildly between frenetic behaviour and depression from the moment we set foot on German soil until the moment we left.  No one knew who he was, but he knew who he was.  It was a two year reign of terror now real and manifested only in my father’s mind and ending only with our departure.