And Then Life Happens (19 page)

Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed. I was at a loss. Barack wanted to learn more about his father, understand him better, and replace the phantom that had accompanied him his whole life with a man made of flesh and blood. But I myself didn't know whether I, who had spent my childhood and youth with that very man, had ever grasped him. How was I supposed to explain the contradiction my father embodied for me to Barack in such a way that he, unlike me, would not condemn him but would have the chance to arrive at understanding and perhaps even love?

I took comfort that evening in the thought that we still had several days together. Somehow I would manage in that time to give him a better understanding of his African family, especially his father.

Barack's meal was indeed delicious. I was excited that my brother apparently had a domestic side and was a good cook.

“Our father was someone from whom everyone expected too much,” I said when we had finished eating. “He didn't know how to defend himself against the many demands made on him. His sense of duty toward the larger Obama family was very strong. But the reverse was unfortunately not always the case.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Barack. We were now sitting in his living room. While we ate, I had tried to explain to my brother the phenomenon of the “chosen ones,” for he just couldn't understand how a single person could be expected to assume responsibility for an extended family.

“I understand that it's hard for you to grasp,” I replied. “I basically feel the same way. But it's simply what our tradition requires. There were times when there wasn't even enough money for my school fees, and I had to watch our father give away everything he had left to a relative. He was always confident that we would somehow get by.” Against my will, my words had sounded despondent.

“Did you ever object to that?” Barack asked sympathetically.

“Not really. As an African child, you're brought up not to argue with your parents or criticize them. But even if you dared to raise objections, our father always answered with the words: ‘I'll take care of everything.'” I sighed. “It was difficult with him. For just as he helped others, he expected that people would help him, too, when it was necessary.”

“And that didn't happen?”

“Not really, in comparison to what he provided,” I replied.

“Even relatives he supported for many years were not always willing to help him?” Barack looked at me uncomprehendingly.

“The old man, as our father was always called, was a prisoner of his own principles. He didn't want to back away from his position, according to which you always, whatever situation you were in at the moment, had to provide for the extended family. I found that this could lead too easily to exploitation and dependence. Those who had nothing didn't really feel responsible for getting themselves out of their misery.”

It was already pretty late, and Barack had to go to work early the next day. I had the impression, however, that he would have liked best to keep talking all night. But he looked tired. And I, too, was tired from talking so much.

“Let's continue tomorrow, Barack,” I said. “We still have several days ahead of us.” With those words, I stood up and stretched. My brother showed me how to convert his pullout sofa into a bed. Before he disappeared into his bedroom, I hugged him once again at the end of that unforgettable day and said good night.

“I'm glad you're here,” he said with an earnest expression.

*   *   *

The next morning we got up early. Barack took me with him to his office to show me where he worked. He also wanted to introduce me to his colleagues.

We entered a rather bleak-looking neighborhood. Flat-roofed, bungalow-like houses stood close together. Not far from there were apartment buildings with gray facades and dark entrances. Everything looked run-down and impoverished, entirely different from the part of Chicago I had seen on my arrival. Barack explained that we were “in the projects.”

“These are residential areas in which affordable housing is built for the lowest income groups and for welfare recipients. The people who live here have only a very low income or none at all and rely on public assistance.”

“It looks really poor here,” I remarked, surprised. I had a somewhat naïve idealized image of America in my head, the cliché of wealth and prosperity in the States that is widespread in my native country—but not only there.

“The people are poor, too. And unfortunately, most of them are black,” Barack went on. It pained me to hear that. In Germany, I fought daily against the many prejudices toward us black people, particularly against the idea that we were all in need of help. So I was not happy to hear now that this was actually how things were for a lot of black people in the United States.

“And what do you do here?” I asked Barack, eager to hear what solution he offered these people with his work.

“I try to help the poor people in this area deal with the authorities so that they receive the support they're legally entitled to.”

We had parked in front of a building that looked like a church community center. Barack explained to me that he worked for a priest and that his office and his colleagues' offices were in this community center. We went in through a side entrance, and shortly thereafter we stood in a large, very simply furnished room teeming with people. Barack went from one person to another and introduced me to his colleagues. Everyone greeted me very warmly. Afterward he led me into a room. He wanted me to meet his boss, an older white man with a charismatic aura. Finally, he showed me his own small workstation.

I liked the atmosphere in the community center. Everyone gave the impression that they believed in what they were doing. Their commitment was palpable. After we had stayed there for a while longer so that Barack could take care of a few things, he showed me the projects and described his work to me in detail. Meanwhile, we kept returning to the subject of our families. He told me about his little sister, Maya, his mother's second child. Maya's father was Indonesian, and she lived with her maternal grandmother in Hawaii.

“You'll like her,” he said. “She's charming.” It sounded as if he loved her.
Might he talk about me the same way one day?
I thought fleetingly.

“My mother lives in Indonesia. She's diligently doing research there for her dissertation,” Barack went on with a laugh. “And I think she'll stay there for a long time. She loves the country and simply can't stop pursuing her research. Anthropology is her life.” As he said that, he shook his head with amusement, as if he had long ago given up the attempt to understand her.

“I'd like to meet her. I've heard a lot about her from our father.”

“Did he talk about her? What did he say?” Barack asked with curiosity.

“Only good things. After Ruth left, he kept promising us that you and your mother would come visit us in Kenya.” I smiled somewhat wearily. “I believed him and waited a long time in vain for your visit.”

Barack looked at me with astonishment. “I knew absolutely nothing about that,” he replied after a brief silence.

“They wrote to each other. But you know that, right? Your mother always sent him your school report cards and regularly told him how you were doing. He always knew what was going on with you. He told us and anyone who would listen about you. From his descriptions, I knew you pretty well. So I thought at the time anyway.”

I couldn't interpret the expression on Barack's face, but I nonetheless had the sense that what I had just said moved him.

“But that wasn't enough,” he said finally.

*   *   *

It was evening and we were back in Barack's apartment. The day had gone by fast. We had done a lot, and my brother had shown me his neighborhood so that I would find my way around on my own while he had to work. He showed me the small shopping center and explained to me how to get to the city center and to nearby Lake Michigan, on the shore of which there were several museums.

We were again sitting on his couch and continuing to talk about our complicated family.

“Maybe you were even lucky that you didn't grow up with him. You missed his presence, but on the other hand, precisely because you didn't know him, you could also imagine him however you wanted. You didn't have to deal with him.” I began our conversation with a bold hypothesis.

“You're right.” Barack laughed. “Instead, I had my grandfather, my mother's father. I always called him Gramps. He assumed the role of father.” He paused briefly. “Do you have photos with you?” he suddenly went on.

“Yes.” I nodded and went to get my bag. In all my excitement, I had not forgotten to pack photos of our family to show my brother. Among them were some of our father. For fun, I had also brought old pictures of Barack himself, which his mother had sent our father. These were from the time he was studying at Occidental College in Los Angeles. One photo showed a serious-looking young man with a full Afro in a white blazer and a dark shirt with a wide collar, entirely in the style of the 1970s. He smiled confidently at the camera. It was probably taken for the school yearbook. Another showed him playing basketball. It had been taken at the exact moment he jumped up to shoot.

Barack smiled as he looked at the photos.

“That's right. I sent these photos to my mother.”

“Imagine,” I said, for I had suddenly remembered something amazing. “When I was studying German in Saarbrücken, a German city on the French border, an American exchange student was living with me in the residence hall. She happened to study at Occidental. One day, we were looking at my photos, and suddenly she pointed to this photo with the Afro. She recognized you as one of her classmates. Crazy, right?”

Barack nodded as he continued to look at the picture.

“Back then the old man was still alive,” I added, without knowing exactly why I did so. I suddenly wondered why I hadn't sought out Barack back then. I could have given the exchange student a message to pass on to him. Somehow it now struck me as strange that I always proudly had the picture of this younger brother by one year with me but hadn't done anything to get in contact with him when an opportunity arose. The only explanation that occurred to me was that I viewed Barack at the time as my father's business and feared opening another Pandora's box with the attempt to get to know him.

“You wanted to explain to me why our father was so complicated, at least from your perspective. Last night you started to go into it.” Barack put aside the pictures and leaned back on the couch. “I'd like to understand what drove him.”

I took a deep breath. It wouldn't be simple to explain who Barack Obama Sr. had been, especially to a son who had never lived with him for an extended period of time or had more in-depth experiences with him. It seemed to me that I had to go back a long way. I began to explain.

“Our father lived in two cultures. He was always straddling two worlds. Like almost all Africans, he was a victim of colonialism. This had destroyed the established tradition, and our father, in order to have a chance in the changed society, had been forced to adapt to a foreign, Western way of life, which was opposed in many ways to his customary existence. That intensified when he married Ruth, who represented this Western world in every respect. And although he was exposed to her lifestyle and even practiced it himself for a long time, our father was at the same time thoroughly Luo. He respected the traditions and adhered to them. Ruth, on the other hand, did not manage to adapt, might not have even tried to grasp his African roots. She had married the man she had met in her country, in America, who was a scholar, had the charm of a Romeo, and had assimilated so wonderfully, as far as her culture was concerned.

“I imagine that Ruth's ideal image of a happy marriage did not include another woman's two small African children, an extended family that constantly needed financial help, and all the African friends who took her husband away on many evenings to go out for a drink and sometimes stay out until the early hours of the morning. In his own house, these two worlds collided with full force, and the old man didn't know how these differences could be reconciled. It almost tore him apart. There was his old African identity, his new one as the husband of an American woman, and his traditional obligations.”

Barack looked at me inquisitively.

“As for why things didn't work out between our father and Ruth,” I continued, “one of his friends at the time once said something interesting to me about that: ‘To make Ruth happy, your father would have had to turn his back on his family and all his friends.' Yes, and I remember that during school breaks in those days Abongo and I were always sent upcountry to visit our grandmother Sarah. Probably so that Ruth, even if only temporarily, could have the semblance of a small nuclear family with her husband and the two sons they had together.”

I talked on and on, completely transported back in time.

“I will never forget the day when, after Ruth was gone, I found in a closet somewhere an unfinished letter she had been writing to her sister in the United States. In it, she had complained to her sister that she just couldn't relate to us, her husband's black children. She described to her, for example, how hard it was for her to bathe us, because she so disliked touching us. Imagine how awful it was for me to read that.

“Our father must have known what was going on and what Ruth thought of his family and friends. How could he have accepted that, without denying himself? His disappointment and bitterness must have been really intense, probably as intense as Ruth's.

“On top of that, there were his difficulties with work. As a young man, he had gone to America to complete his studies, which would enable him to help steer the development of his country. After he graduated, he was brimming with enthusiasm and devoted himself to his new duties full of optimism. And then, after a short time, he already had to face the fact that in Kenya one dictatorship had replaced another. And it seemed to continue the work of the colonial rulers: Through nepotism and favoritism, those in power divided the various ethnic groups and played them off against each other. With his work ethic and idealism in the ministry where he worked, our father made some enemies. Among them were colleagues as well as superiors, who mistrusted him. They could not understand why he didn't try as they did to enrich himself—according to the principle: ‘Now it's our turn.' I think he was basically a very lonely man.”