foundations behind the seeming fiction
Part of the benefit of moving away from the US was that it allowed a great distance between my grandfather and us, which worked for the benefit of my mother’s husband. While things were never safe in that household for myself, my grandfather’s presence in my life had given me protection as up until our move away, he was a constant presence in our life back in Florida where I was born and where we lived until the move away; he came often to visit during the week and could be relied upon to always arrive every Sunday, like clockwork with a paper bag filled with bagels, lox and cream cheese and whitefish. He was always there, safe and reassuring and no doubt why I became a huge fan of old black and white movies as I spent every Sunday afternoon watching them with him on television and listening to him tell me stories of old New York. Looking back, I see he was the real presence of a father figure. And I always thought he was that for all of us in, what once had been, a very big family with extended members always showing up, arriving from their New York lives for visits.
I only realized more recently that he did not really take such a personal interest in all the family, nor all his grandchildren. Indeed, not to my sister and not to his grandson who was my aunt’s son. Only looking back now it seems clear that his two favorites had been Pat and myself. I think his particular affinity came from the fact of our sullied birth; the two bastards lacking a father. Either ignored or mistreated by the legal stand-ins. But I was ignorant of all this during the time he was alive. Pat who had been my idol of whom I had emulated as a young girl; the hippie who overdosed, older than me by a generation. Her own father had been a French soldier who disappeared after the war and whom never would choose to recognize her even after she found him in France.
I suppose my grandfather feared I would suffer her fate, but soon after Pat died, just a few months after our grandmother had who had served as the family back bone and matriarch, these events which, looking back, I see, are what set into motion the desire for some break from that life we lived in that neat, shuttered, yellow house in Miami. And only now older have I really appreciated the way he singled me out as his favorite after Pat was gone because I never saw this until years after his death.
I only half believed Willem when he said he worked for the CID that day he bumped into me at the bar in the Netherlands, producing that business card for me to hold onto— that is, until he mentioned my grandfather. It was by the second rum and coke when he said my grandfather would not approve of me drinking, and maybe that was when I started to believe him and bothered to hear what he was saying. The fact that he knew details; not just about who my grandfather was, where he lived, was from, his first, last and middle name .... but he knew about the shouting in the flat where we lived in Amsterdam; he knew how I’d often run away down the street to the local hotels to hide, finding my way to the bars inside to find someone to talk to and feel safe for awhile. I think what made me really believe Willem was not when he said I should call the number on the card if I was ever in danger at home but the fact that one day my mother told me someone came to our flat to warn my ‘father’ that what he yelled could be heard through the floor and .... with a warning, left his card
I had known my grandfather had a tendency to hire detectives; he had done it with both his wild daughters and enabled Pat to find her biological father. He was a very clever man, well educated and inspired me to learn world history as he said if we don’t know of our past, we ignorantly repeat it. He kept up with news and the world and would quiz me like a stern headmaster, sending my letters back airmail often with my misspells circled in red, which I did not much like at the time (a dyslexic’s shame) but, at least he paid attention to me and cared.
There were many strange and mysterious occurrences over those years too; the uniformed police who often would stop me on my way walking home after my journey from school to question me, asking about my ‘spy father’ .... followed home often from my wayward flights escaping home life..... Did I believe Willem was hired to watch me? ....I never forgot him and I kept his card, though I never dared call. But then, I didn’t have to. The shouting stopped. Leaving only the uncomfortable veiled threats of my ‘father’ but now said in lowered tones.
The bugged phones at home; what was that about? The spy equipment I found in desk drawers; the papers in briefcases hidden in locked filing cabinets .... do I think he was a spy? Probably. A lot over the years that turned up supports the likeliness and the sudden exodus he left the Netherlands around the time of my assault ....who I am, not just to acknowledge but to bring home a point; has something to do with a high profile person considered by many to be one of the most dangerous men in the world when he was alive, and he was but, I believe with all that I have learned of him, for good. Sure he had his weaknesses and his slightly wicked ways, but he was a good man who got in the way of a dominant political mindset he meant to liberate and they took him down with his vices to set back and disarm all his causes

No comments:
Post a Comment