26
9 Feb.
92
Yesterday
I got a call from Mikis aunt Fela. She almost never calls me. She always sends
me a card twice a year, for my birthday and for New Years; then I call her to
thank her, and we chat for a little while. (She also sends Betty and Daniel
birthday cards, each time with a check for ten dollars times their age.) So
when I heard Hello Mireille in her unmistakable accent, only a month since
our last chat, I knew that something was afoot.
Some days
earlier she had received a call from a certain Maurice (she said the name in
the Polish version) Rozowski. It turned out that his father was a first cousin
of Leon (and therefore of Mikis mother) so that he is Mikis second cousin. He
was born in Poland (he spoke to Fela in Polish) and educated in Argentina, and
is now living in Spain. She told him about Daniel and Betty, and expects him to
call Daniel.
Two weeks ago
I had dinner with Greg and Marcia. Of course we talked about our kids, and I
mentioned that while D was in Montréal he had gone out with an old friend from
NAA, a girl named Megan Kenner. G and M looked at each other and then at me
without saying a word, until Greg opened up. Megan Kenner, he said, was now a
porn star named May Green. I remembered what George had told me about her (his
cousin in the second degree), that she was sexually precocious, so I wasnt
shocked. I asked Greg if the matter was known in Harveys circle and he said he
had in fact found out from Harvey. He said that Megan never was a part of
Harveys circle but she was known as Daniels girlfriend around the end of
Grade 12. Her movie just came out recently and Harvey gave Daniel a cassette of
it.
I asked them
if they had seen the movie, and they looked sheepishly at each other before Marcia
said that they had. Its pretty hot, she added.
Then Id like
to see it too, I said, and thats when I finally told them about Bob. A good
ten or fifteen minutes worth of information.
And hes
kosher too, Greg said. Mazel tov, Mireille.
Marcia asked
if they could meet him, and I said that I would check with him, but I couldnt
see why not. So we got together last Friday. Dinner at Bobs. He had prepared
most of the food the night before, and it was fabulous: an enormous array of
Middle Eastern appetizers, lamb tagine, rice, several different desserts that G
& M appreciated (I havent got much of a sweet tooth), and Algerian wine to
wash it down with. But Bob was tired, as he often is when he has to travel on
business during the week. He was not his usual witty self, at times he even
bordered on surly, and his English lacked its normal fluency. This would have
been no problem with just Greg, whose French is pretty good, but Marcias is
not (she is from Toronto). So I dont know yet, my journal, what kind of
impression G & M came away with. I will ask them the next time I speak with
either or both of them. Am I anxious? Of course I am. This was the first time
that I was with the Bermans and a man whom I openly presented as
well, I said
my friend Bob but I had already told them about him as the new man in my
life.
What Bob told
me after G & M had left was that he too was feeling anxious, inquiet
as he put it once we reverted to French, after waiting a year and a half to be
introduced to my friends (other than Tina). Then I explained my own
anxiousness, and we had what he called un échange dinquiétudes. I
didnt stay long. I am having my period (a little prematurely) and he was
tired. I will see him again next Wednesday. It will be all right, my journal.
Family
Megans reply came about a week into February. She
explained her foray into porn quite logically and dispassionately. She had met
Dick Somers it was his real name at a party. He openly told her that he was
a porn actor, and when he discovered how much she liked sex that shouldnt
be news to you, Daniel, she wrote parenthetically he asked her if she was
interested in joining him in an upcoming project. The pays good, he said. And
she could think of no reason to say no. In fact, given her specialization in
economics, she was looking forward to doing research, and perhaps even writing
a thesis, on the economics of porn.
He
had not quite finished reading the letter when the telephone rang.
Is
it Daniel Vilner? a relatively high-pitched Hispanic possibly South American
voice asked him.
Yes,
he said.
I
am Mauricio Rozowski. It sounded more like Rososki, but Daniel had no
doubt that the reference was to Felas married name, which was the maiden name
of his paternal grandmother. Are you grandson of Daniel Vilner that was
married with Sonia Rozowski?
Yes.
It occurred to Daniel that he ought to help Mauricio by switching the
conversation to Spanish.
Then
we are familiars. It was obviously an attempt to translate somos familiares.
Si
quieres, podemos hablar en español, Daniel said.
¿Hablas
castellano? ¡Estupendo! The accent was undoubtedly Argentine, what with
the singsong and the aspiration of the s sounds, though Mauricio said hablas,
with the stress on the first syllable, and not hablás as Argentines
would say it to one another.
Mauricio
went on to explain that he was calling from Miami, where he was attending a
symposium of the Hispano-American Psychiatric Association. He had grown up in
Argentina, but was now living and practicing psychiatry in Barcelona. He had
been born in Poland.
As
Mauricio launched his narration, Daniels mind began to not only translate it
into English, but reword it in the form of a journalistic account the way he
might write a class paper or perhaps, in the future, a New Yorker
article in which Mauricios references to himself and his
family members (yo, mi papá, mi mamá, mi hermana)
were replaced by the corresponding names.
His
father, Oscar (Oskar?) Rozowski, was a first cousin to Leon and Sonia, but had
never known them. Oscar was born in Łódź. His father, Motek
(originally Mordechai), had become estranged from his family because of his
far-left anti-Zionist sympathies he was a member of the Bund and moved to
Łódź, where he worked in the textile industry and tried to unionize
Jewish workers. (¿Sabes lo que es el Bund? Mauricio asked. Sí,
Daniel said; he had heard about the organization from Fela and her friends.)
As
an adolescent before the war, Oscar had done his father one better by becoming
a Young Communist. During the war he survived the Łódź ghetto and
various concentration camps. He was, as far as he knew, the only one of his
family to survive the war, which ended when he was nineteen. After the war he
enthusiastically returned to Communist Poland, where he studied psychology at
the university and married a non-Jewish fellow student, Maria. In 1950 they had
a daughter whom they named Anna, and in 1956 a son whom they named Maurycy. But
in the 1960s, when the Soviet bloc took the Arab side in the Middle East
conflict, anti-Zionism became official policy, and in Poland this quickly
reverted to anti-Semitism, directed even at people like Oscar Rozowski who were
themselves anti-Zionist and had nothing to do with the Jewish community. Oscar,
who was now a professor of psychology, was passed over for the promotions for
which his research qualified him. His doctoral students were taken away from
him. His foreign travel was restricted. But he had been invited, some years
before, to spend a semester lecturing at a university in Argentina; like a
typical Polish Jew, he knew many languages, and Spanish was among them. That
invitation had already been approved, and to cancel it might have provoked a
diplomatic incident with Argentina. Oscar managed to get his wife and son out
of the country and they began a new life in Argentina. Anna, who was already
eighteen and was about to enter the university, chose to stay in Poland. (También
había un chico del que estaba enamorada, Mauricio added with a laugh.
Daniel wondered why Mauricio his second cousin once removed, as he calculated
it found it funny that his sister was in love, but didnt ask.) Maria took
repeated trips back to Poland to visit her daughter and, eventually,
grandchildren, but Oscar could not bring himself to return to the country that,
he felt, had betrayed him.
The
twelve-year-old Maurycy quickly became Mauricio, a typical Argentine boy
interested in soccer, music and girls. At the university he chose to study
medicine, but knew from the beginning that his interest was in psychiatry. And,
just as he was beginning his clinical studies, the Dirty War began. (¿Sabes
lo que fue la Guerra Sucia? he asked Daniel. Yes, Daniel knew about it; he
knew about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo he had heard U2s Mothers of
the Disappeared and had seen La historia oficial. It occurred to
him that he now had a topic for the term paper in the modern Latin American
history class that he was taking.)
By
virtue of his background foreign, Jewish and Communist Oscar Rozowski was
an obvious target for persecution by the military dictatorship, but he was too
prominent to be targeted directly. And so, eventually, the decision was made to
go after his son. One evening the secret military police raided his apartment.
He happened to be out, but his girlfriend Lucía was there, and she was
arrested. Mauricio, when he heard about the raid, went into hiding and, with
the help of friends, managed to get out of Argentina and eventually made his
way to Barcelona, where he got a chance to continue with his residency.
Meanwhile
it turned out that, unbeknownst to Mauricio, Lucía was carrying his baby. She
was sent to a special facility for pregnant women. She was not tortured, but
was kept there with no news of her whereabouts until her time came, when
the baby was taken away from her before she was released. (Shades of La
historia official, Daniel thought.)
When
democracy was restored Mauricio, now a licensed psychiatrist, came back to
Argentina, but could not restore his relationship with Lucía, whether out of
her resentment over his abandoning her or his own guilt about it. Maria,
moreover, had decided to return to Poland for good. Shortly after her departure
Oscar had a heart attack, from which he recovered, but his health was never the
same again, and he died a few years later, at the age of sixty-five. Mauricio
then moved back to Barcelona, partly in order to be closer to his mother and
sister. He now found himself the only surviving Rozowski, until he found out by
accident that a woman named Fela Rozowski was living in Montreal. After some
inquiries, including a call to Fela, he figured out the family connection:
Daniel was his sobrino tercero. From Fela he got Daniels telephone
number. Allá estamos, pues, he concluded.
Daniel
thought it interesting that a second cousin once removed was called a third
nephew in Spanish, but what he asked Mauricio was if there was any possibility
of their getting together. Not at this time, Mauricio replied; he was returning
to Spain the next day. Could Daniel visit him during Easter vacation?
Daniel
thumbed through the calendar hanging above his desk, and saw that Easter was
late that year, a month after spring recess. He explained that his spring
vacation would be in the third week of March. ¡Estupendo! Mauricio
said again. Entonces podremos ir a Valencia a ver las fallas.
What
could Mauricio have meant? Falla, as far as Daniel knew, meant fault
or defect. But why would one go to Valencia to see them? He expected another
inquiry as to whether he knew what the word meant, but there was none. Instead,
Mauricio, seemingly exhausted by his long narration, proceeded to give Daniel
his address which turned out to be not in Barcelona but in a nearby beach
town named Sitges and telephone number, and after an almost perfunctory Hasta
luego he hung up.
Daniel
felt perplexed. After sitting in his chair for another minute he got up and got
his Collins Spanish-English, English-Spanish Dictionary, second edition, from
the bookcase. He learned that another meaning of falla was huge ornate
cardboard figure burnt in Valencia at the Fallas. Fallas, in turn,
meant ‘Valencian celebration of the feast of St
Joseph.’ That feast,
Daniel knew, was March 19; Canadian Catholics celebrate St. Josephs Day as the
feast of the patron saint of Canada.
The
thought of watching huge ornate cardboard figures burned in Valencia was
exciting, But the perplexity remained. It had been a strange phone call.
Mauricio never stopped to ask Daniel about himself. Was he, as a practicing
psychiatrist, obliged to ask people about themselves as part of his work, and
did he feel dispensed of the obligation in a private conversation? Perhaps.
Perhaps Fela had already told him some things about Daniel. Not that there was
much to tell. He was, in several ways, like Mauricio: son of a Jewish father
and a nominally Catholic mother; a sister as the only sibling; fond of music,
soccer and girls. But of course he had not lived through the experiences of
exile and persecution that Mauricio had; the adventure of his life, the
many-leveled search for his father, was still in the future.
But
what about Miki Wilner? Now there was someone who had lived, no less than his
second cousin Oscar Rozowski. And yet Mauricio asked no questions about him
either. Had Fela also told him all about Miki? Daniel had to know. He called
Fela.
Daniel!
Im so happy to hear from you. You know, someone just called me yesterday
I
know. He just called me. Did you know anything about him?
Not
about him. But many years ago Leon mentioned an uncle Motek that moved away and
lost touch with the family. Or maybe the family cut him off.
Like
me and my mothers family, Daniel said with a laugh. Family estrangement:
something else he had in common with Mauricio.
Fela
did not respond. And this Maurycy
she went on. Daniel was about to correct
her as to the name when it occurred to him that Mauricio had probably spoken to
her in Polish. But Fela paused anyway.
Did
you tell him much about my father?
No,
not very much, just that he disappeared in Israel.
Disappeared!
What a word to use with someone who had lived through the Dirty War! But maybe
it sounded different in Polish.
Did
you speak with him in Polish?
Yes.
His English is not very good.
I know.
I spoke with him in Spanish. He lives in Spain, you know, and I plan to visit
him during spring break.
When
is that?
The
third week of March.
So
you wont be coming to Montreal? Fela laughed. Thats when Purim is, so you
wont get my homentashn.
Save
me some for when I get back, Daniel said, laughing along with her.
It was time to take Claire up on her offer to show him how
to book travel with his computer. She seemed surprised to hear from him only
three days after their last date, but eagerly agreed to come over. Before they
went to bed he had mastered the use of O.A.G., Eaasy Sabre and Travelshopper,
and used the last-named to book a round-trip flight to Barcelona on TWA. I
wish I could go with you, Claire said. He answered her with a kiss.
The
next day he found in his mailbox a thick envelope bearing the Jewish Agency
return address, with K. Litov handwritten above it. He called her number
immediately, but a message told him that she was in Israel and would be back in
her office on March 23. That would be just after his return from Barcelona.
The landing at Barcelona airport at nine in the morning,
after a stop in Madrid and a decent airline breakfast, was smooth. Daniel had
sent Mauricio a photograph of himself and, sure enough, as soon he came out of
the customs area into the terminal he saw that a smiling brown-haired man,
holding hands with a very shapely ash-blond young woman, was walking in his
direction while waving his free hand at Daniel. The man was dressed casually in
jeans and a dark pullover, but the woman wore a white bolero jacket over a
knee-length navy-blue dress and high heels, a surprising getup for a
Saturday-morning trip to the airport. Perhaps, Daniel speculated, they had gone
out on the town the night before and she had spent the night at his place
without bringing a change of clothing. Another sign of that possibility was the
ponytail into which her matte, wavy hair was casually, perhaps even hastily,
pulled back.
As
they came nearer, Daniel saw that the man looked to be in his mid-thirties, as
Mauricio was, but the woman was considerably younger, more like someone that he
would call a girl probably not much older than Daniel. She was quite pretty,
with a tawny complexion betraying a not-quite-faded suntan and an oval face
that reminded him of Greta Scacchi, though without Greta Scacchis sculptured
movie-star features. But he thought that if he were to tell his friends in New
York that his cousin in Barcelona has a girlfriend who looks like Greta
Scacchi, he would not be too far off.
Hola
Daniel, Mauricio said and opened his arms. Daniel let go of his bag and
the cousins embraced. After two seconds Mauricio stepped back and, pointing at
the girl, said, te presento a mi amiga Victoria. From the handholding,
Daniel would have guessed that she would be a novia or compañera,
not a mere amiga.
You
can call me Vicky, the girl said in a pure RP accent. She reached both hands
out to him, and when he took them she bent over to kiss him on both cheeks. He
reciprocated, and the sensation reminded him of his meeting with Brigitte.
Es
medio inglesa, Mauricio remarked.
Half
English, half Spanish, but all Catalan, Vicky said. And, addressing Mauricio,
she repeated herself in Catalan: Mig anglesa, mig espanyola, però tota
catalana. Then, turning once again to Daniel, she said, he doesnt speak
Catalan, and refuses to learn it.
Why
I need it? Mauricio said, picking up Daniels bag. Everybody espeak
Espanish.
Daniel
took his bag from Mauricio, pulled out its handle and began to roll it as the
three of them began to walk out of the terminal toward the parking lot, with
Daniel following Mauricio and Vicky. This time they did not hold hands.
After
some bilingual banter trilingual if one included Vickys occasional Catalan
asides to Mauricio, seemingly half-malicious in intent as if to point out his
ignorance of the language they reached Mauricios car. Daniel put his bag in
the trunk and seated himself on the drivers side in the backseat. To his
surprise, Vicky joined him in the back.
As
they drove out of the airport, passing through what seemed to be an
industrial park, Mauricio turned in the direction opposite to Barcelona.
They were evidently taking the road to Sitges. The industrial park was
now on the left, while on the right there were lush fields of artichokes
and strawberries, ready for picking.
Do
you also live in Sitges? Daniel asked Vicky.
I
do weekends, yes, she answered. My mum and dad live there, and I live with
them, and my younger brothers. During the week, when Im at university, I live
in Barcelona. She paused. My mum and dad, by the way, own the hotel where
youll be staying, she added with a laugh. I hope you like it.
What
are you studying? Daniel asked.
Linguistics,
she said.
Cuéntale
tu otra carrera, Mauricio said.
What
other career? Daniel asked.
Vicky
laughed. Carrera means not just a career but a program of studies. And
I got a certificate in tourism. Its a two-year program, but I did it in one
because I already knew the languages.
Es
muy buena guía turística, Mauricio said with a laugh,
Which
languages? Daniel asked Vicky
English,
French and German. My French is pretty good, and I had enough German to pass
the exam.
Really?
German is my major, with a history minor. He wasnt sure if Vicky was familiar
with the North American concepts of major and minor, but she did not stop to
inquire, so he went on. Et jsuis Canadien français, tu sais.
Cest
vrai? Sans blague! But you speak English like an Anglo-American!
Well,
Im bilingual, like you. Or I should say trilingual, in your case.
Thats
right. Catalan really was my first language. My mums from Valencia, but she
was brought up speaking Spanish. When she moved to Barcelona, she took a class
in Catalan, and thats where she met my English dad, who was a journalist doing
a report on Orwell you know, Homage to Catalonia and all that. It was
during the last years of Franco, and by then Catalan classes were allowed, as
long as they were private. And so my parents have always spoken Catalan with
each other and with us kids.
Your
dads a journalist?
Was.
Thats
what I want to be. By the way, he went on, are you on vacation this week?
No,
of course not; our spring holiday is always during Holy Week. But if youre wondering
if Ill be going to the Fallas, of course I am. I wouldnt miss them for the
world. My uncle Alberto, my mums brother, always goes away at this time he
cant stand the noise so we can stay at his flat.
The
road was now bordered by fields on both sides, but soon reached what seemed to
be a beach resort; it was lined with hotels, mostly on the seaward side,
Daniels left, where gazing through the side streets he could see the sea a few
blocks away. Was this Sitges? Probably not; Mauricio gave no sign of slowing
down.
In
fact they passed through the town. To the right, in the background, were
scrub-covered hills with a few scattered houses. Vicky was now facing forward,
and in profile she was even more reminiscent of Greta Scacchi. Her jacket was
open, and her breasts, while not large, jutted out proudly under the tightness
of her scoop-necked dress. What a lovely girl, he thought. He wondered if
Mauricio, by dating someone so much younger, was exhibiting the beginnings of
Trudeau syndrome. But he quickly remembered that Miki Wilner and Mireille
Bouchard, when they made him, were almost exactly the same ages as Mauricio and
Vicky.
They
next passed through a large beach town whose name, as he could tell from the
signs, was Castelldefels, and then a village with a beach and a fishing port.
Now the road ran directly beside some cliffs going down to the sea, shimmering
in the hazy sunshine. It then came to yet another village with a beach and
nondescript houses except for a remarkable structure standing beside the road.
It was built of gray stone, probably granite, and would have looked like a
small Medieval castle were it not for the quirky modern architecture, with
asymmetric gables and arches, a wrought-iron gate looking like a fishing net,
odd-shaped battlements and turrets built like multi-leveled birds nests.
¿Qué
edificio es éste? he asked, addressing Mauricio, who had not
participated much in the conversation.
Es
de Gaudí, Mauricio answered. Las bodegas Güell.
¿Bodegas?
Daniel asked, thinking of the New York meaning of bodega, a neighborhood
grocery store of the kind that in Quebec is called dépanneur, even by
anglophones.
Its
a winery, Vicky explained, or rather it was. Have you heard of Gaudí?
Vaguely,
Daniel said.
As
the road began to wind along the hillsides overlooking the sea, Vicky lived up
the reputation of good tour guide that Mauricio had proclaimed for her. By turn
humorous and serious, she told Daniel about the life and works of the architect
Antoni Gaudí. About the Güell family who had been his patrons and whose wealth
came from the slave trade. About the artistic movement called modernisme
that, strangely enough, was called Art nouveau in English and Modern
style in French. About the buildings by Gaudí and other modernista
masters that she would show him when they would be in Barcelona, Monday and
Tuesday.
Every
so often a train could be seen running on the tracks that stretched below the
road. Thats the train that well take to go to Barcelona, she said.
The
road began to crisscross over the tracks and soon entered an urban zone. Estamos
en Sitges, Mauricio announced. Vickys commentary now smoothly switched
from Barcelona to Sitges its history, its monuments, the brackishness of its
tap water and its status as a gay resort. This was something that Daniel
already knew: when he mentioned to Roger Lehmann that he would be visiting a
relative who lives in Sitges, Roger commented, I dont know about the people
who live there, but in the summer its full of guys like me.
After
a turn on a roundabout and several more turns on one-way streets, the sea came
into view once again. On a palm-lined street with buildings on one side some
weathered and some freshly painted facing a small beach, Mauricio stopped in
front of one of the freshly painted ones, in a warm yellow. The sign read Hotel
Marisol. Here we are, Vicky said.
A
dark-haired, sturdy-looking middle-aged man came out and opened the rear
passenger door, letting Vicky jump out and give him a kiss on the cheek. Hola,
papá, she said. The man reached into the car to shake Daniels hand.
Hello, Im John Renshaw, he said; his accent was more regional Midlands,
perhaps than Vickys RP. Daniel got out through the right door, and Vicky
went around the front to the drivers window to give Mauricio who released
the trunk latch with the remote control a perfunctory kiss. John Renshaw got
Daniels suitcase and placed in on the sidewalk, and once Vicky and Daniel were
there as well, Mauricio drove off. Hes just going back to his place and will
join us later for lunch, Vicky explained while her father shouted, Marisol,
ja han arribat! as he wheeled the suitcase inside.
Vicky
noticed Daniels bemusement over the identity of the hotels name and that of
the person John Renshaw was calling. My mum is called Marisol, she said.
They spent their first weekend as lovers here, because of the name. Years
later, long after they were married and I was born in that order, but just
barely they were getting tired of their professions my mum was a dance
teacher and when they found out the place was for sale, they bought it and
became hotelkeepers. My brothers were born here.
How
old are they?
Twelve
and ten. David and Oscar. My parents picked names for us that would work in
English or Spanish or Catalan Victoria, David and Oscar.
Oscar
that was Mauricios fathers name.
Really?
He never told me. Well, Daniel thought, there was no particular reason why he
should have told her. It was different with him, of course: Oscar was the first
cousin of Daniels maternal grandmother.
How
long have you known him?
About
a month. We met when he came to the hotel to book a room for you. We started
talking about organizing your visit, and got to like each other. She laughed.
Thats your room up there, she said as she pointed to a window on the floor
below the highest one, right under mine. Our flats up there on the top
floor.
Daniel suddenly became aware of being
extremely tired. He had catnapped intermittently during the flight, but the
effect of the breakfast coffee had now worn off. I think Id like to get up
there and rest a little, maybe even sleep, and then shower, he said to Vicky
as they entered the small lobby. A pretty, somewhat plump blond woman (who
might, when she was young, have had a dancers body) sat behind the desk,
speaking in Spanish on the telephone. Hola, mamá, Vicky said to her.
So she got her blond hair from the Spanish side, Daniel thought, not the
English. Marisol waved at him and handed his room key to Vicky, who in turn
gave it to him. He noticed that his bag stood beside the elevator door. You
can take the lift up to your room, she said. Ill take the stairs. Ciao! He
would gladly have taken the stairs with her his bag wasnt very heavy but
he really did feel exhausted. Ciao! he said.
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