game. But I could tell that Audrey wasn’t joking. She really thought
sirens signaled danger. at you have to take cover. Without meaning
to, without any conscious awareness, I had taught her that.
What else were we unconsciously teaching our children, about
safety, values, love?
e night of Marianne’s high school prom, she stands on our front
porch in her silk dress, a beautiful orchid corsage on her wrist. As she
steps off the porch with her date, Béla calls, “Have a great time, honey.
You know, your mother was in Auschwitz when she was your age and
her parents were dead.”
I scream at Béla when Marianne has le. I call him bitter and cold,
I tell him he had no right to ruin her joy on her special night, to ruin
the vicarious pleasure I took in her joy. If he can’t censor himself, I
won’t either. If he can’t bless our daughter with happy thoughts, I tell
him, then he might as well be dead. “e fact that you were at
Auschwitz and she’s not is a happy thought,” Béla defends. “I want
Marianne to feel glad for the life she has.” “en don’t poison it!” I
yell. Worse than Béla’s comment is the fact that I never talk to
Marianne about it aerward. I pretend not to notice that she is also
living two lives—the one she lives for herself and the one she lives for
me because I wasn’t allowed to live it.
* * *In the fall of 1966, when Audrey is twelve, Marianne a sophomore at
Whittier College, and Johnny, ten, fulĕlling Dr. Clark’s prediction that
with the right support, he could be physically and academically stable,
I have time again to devote to my own progress. I return to school. My
English is now good enough to write my papers without Béla’s help
(when he helped me, the best grade I got was a C, but now I earn As).
I feel that I am ĕnally getting ahead, ĕnally transcending the
limitations of my past. But once again the two worlds I’ve done my