Christmas celebration in our sleeping quarters. On the left is the lower bunk where Alex and I slept. On the right, the one where my parents slept. Our luggage lived on the upper bunks. My brother Alex is the small one in the middle, looking uncomfortable with the people sitting on his bed. My mother is in the top right. The whole space is about 6‘ x 7‘, so I cannot imagine how all those people got in there, but I guess they were used to it.
When I first started writing, almost ten years ago, shortly after I lost my husband to cancer, I was desperate to learn. I dove in: classes, workshops, writing groups, prompt writing, coaching. One guide suggested I put myself in the mind of the person whose experiences I was describing. I was reminded of that as I was digging through some old material yesterday. I was trying to write about my mother’s life, work that eventually led to my book Mother Tongue. Here are some of the first pieces I wrote, in her voice, about her years in a refugee camp in Trieste:
We were in a no-man’s-land, owning nothing, in a state that was less like life and more like a hospital waiting room. You knew you were waiting for a verdict, but you didn’t know when it would come, and you couldn’t do anything to speed up the operation. The state of limbo had to be tolerated one day at a time, the only dream—going to America—lying in someone else’s control. My husband and children were with me, but an entire life had been left behind: my father, my sisters and their families, my friends, most of my possessions—none of these could I go back to, and God only knew what lay ahead.
They stayed in that camp a lot longer than they ever expected.
My parents at the train saying goodby to my Uncle Shura and Aunt Galya, who were fortunate to get their visa a year before we did. Daria is my grandmother, who was to wait in France another year before coming to America. My father was the camp photographer.
After four years, two people who would never be the same arrived in America. A long and expensive trip, costly in more ways than perhaps I know to this day. When we left Yugoslavia, we had our youth, our homes, our jobs, and a lifestyle we felt good about. I had my dreams of raising at least four children and of their growing up with a huge family, including many aunts, uncles, cousins, and their grandfather, my adored Tata.
Those were the things we knew we were leaving behind. We didn’t know that we would never again live in a place where we weren’t foreign. That Tolya would have such trouble adjusting to America. That four years of homelessness would drain his ambition and some of his energy for new challenges. That he would be sad every day when he got on the 21 Hayes bus to go to downtown San Francisco and realize that he was a stranger and that, in this country, no one talked to strangers. That he would ride that bus for six years, every day at the same time, and never talk to one person other than his brother or, later, Uncle Zhenya. That he would be so slow to learn English and so hesitant to reach out in it.
My mother as a young woman in Yugoslavia, before it all fell apart.
And that, for a long time, America’s streets were not paved with gold for us. That being poor and foreign would be so hard. That America, in the end, would be our children’s country, their home, their opportunity. And we would always be people who had left their homelands behind forever but would never be natives of our adopted land.
Somehow it’s appropriate that I read this while sitting in my apartment in isolation, wondering if the world I know will ever be the same again. I learn that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has entered intensive care. That a tiger and some lions in the zoo were infected with coronavirus by humans. That we are supposed to wear masks, but our president refuses to do so. I overlook streets that are empty and go out shopping for groceries in stores that have long lines of people standing six feet apart.
And then I continue reading about life in the camp:
The barren dust between the barracks we slowly filled with flowers, and the men built a gazebo out of spare lumber they found somewhere. In its own way it became quite charming, especially in the summer when the vines and roses that surrounded it flowered. We spent many long evenings there when the weather allowed, eating our meals, drinking tea, talking, singing.
My brother was quarantined indefinitely with the flu. My parents believed it was because the hospital could earn more money from a sick refugee than a healthy one. So they kidnapped him from the hospital.
The enormous amount of time people had on their hands could’ve led to conflict and pettiness, but it didn’t seem to. The situation brought out the best in many people. Help was always available. Deep friendships were developed, many of which have lasted till this day. When one family got settled in America, they were ready to sponsor, and support, the next. It was a bond that was forged across all economic and educational levels and lasted over multiple migrations to all the continents.
And I understand, deeply, that my mother attacked life with a positive attitude, in spite of all the challenges life threw at her, and planted that spirit deep inside me. I am so grateful.