Exodus: A memoir (35 page)

“I don’t care about what your parents did,” I said. “I want to live in the present. I want my life to be filled with love and understanding and forgiveness. I don’t want to get stuck with those old grudges and prejudices like the way I grew up. I want to get past it.”

“Yes, but it’s easier for you, perhaps,” she said. “Only the forgiving can speak this way. The guilty cannot simply say that they want to get past it.”

We were walking along the lake the next afternoon, Markus and I, and a gentle breeze was ruffling the leaves on the trees and creating small ripples in the ponds and streams that collected the lake runoff. I had a sudden memory of my childhood: It was summer, in the Catskills, and I was standing at the edge of an enormous
open field of uncut grass. I started to run, and I sprinted across the entire field, my movements like a cat’s, my whole body like a well-oiled machine. The wind picked up my hair and brushed across my cheeks. I had felt gloriously boundless in that precious stolen moment.

I broke out into a run then, to recapture that feeling that I had forgotten about. I ran the length of the road and then doubled back to meet Markus.

“You have good form,” he said. “I expected you to run like a girl, knees out, slapping the ground—but you’re a real runner. And you looked so happy and free, with your hair flying out behind you.”

“I’m not a runner, though. No one has ever told me I can run.”

“If you run like that without any training, then you’re definitely a runner. You should try it, see what happens.”

Later he played soccer with Isaac, teaching him to kick, to dribble, to pass. I sat on the lawn and watched. The late-afternoon sun glowed brightly from across the lake, blurring their outlines until they became shifting shadows against the light, as if they had disappeared into another world, another dimension. I was stuck as if behind a glass, viewing.

This feeling, of fitting together in a way that felt suspiciously part of some grand design, some greater story I couldn’t quite recall but that filtered into my dreams as if from a past life, scared me for precisely that reason. Such a feeling was dangerous; its power did not promise happiness, but rather the opposite. There was love that nourished you, I thought, and then there was this kind of love, that grew independently like a tumor on your soul, starving your spirit until it disappeared. The feeling was too big for me.

I drove them both back to the airport that evening, feeling
numb. I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel once he was gone. At the drop-off point, Markus looked at me and said, “It’s like going skydiving. You know you have a parachute strapped to your back, but it still feels like falling to your death. That’s what it feels like to be leaving you right now.” He laughed weakly, his eyes tired. I saw in his face the same exhaustion I had felt earlier. The feeling was too strong, too intense—there was no way he wasn’t feeling knocked off his balance like I was.

“We’ll be fine,” I said briskly. “The parachute will open. We’ll go back to our routines.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.” He watched me drive off from the curb, holding his backpack with both hands. In the rearview mirror I glanced back at his forlorn face, just once. I was still numb then, and stayed that way for the whole way home, and slept that way, too, turned away from where his body had been the night before, like some inexhaustible furnace to which I had been drawn for warmth.

I went down to the lake later that week, to watch the sunset. We had sat there a few days before and picked flowers, and I had cried.

“I’m scared to keep going,” I had said. “Won’t it hurt less if we stop now?”

“Why do you have to cut the rope already?” he had asked.

Because that’s all I’m good at.

Now I watched as a heron skimmed the still waters for fish. The lake was silent. There were no boats, and most of the houses that fronted it were empty of their summertime residents. This time of year the lake began to feel like my private property.

I thought about distance, then, about my pattern of forming attachments to people who lived farther and farther away that had formed itself over the last few years. I wondered if it was as simple as perpetuating my own alienation, or if somehow I understood that by moving the goalpost ever farther, I was galvanizing myself to travel as far from my roots as possible.

In my life, I have expended so much effort in order to put distance between myself and the place I come from, and yet there still seems to be this chasm lying ahead of me, reminding me how far I truly have to go before I sleep, as Frost put it. Yet I wonder now if it is fair to say that I was pushing myself toward my dreams all along, instead of alienating them, in this process of assigning myself such long journeys.

These people that come from far away to breathe newness into my life; they move me. It is as if I am a playing piece on some enormous chessboard, inching along to victory in the grip of a shrewd mastermind intent on taking the long view. The strategy seems unfathomable at times, but I cannot deny that I am still on the board, advancing in the direction of an end goal. Though what awaits me on the other side I cannot guess, what a marvelous thrill it is, at times—contemplating that unknown shore toward which my inner compass invariably strains.

I find my young self now—sinking into my consciousness suddenly and heavily like quicksilver—twelve years old, sitting outside the principal’s office. Even at that age, I’m getting into trouble for things I can’t quite understand.

This time I know the rabbi will call my grandfather, my
grandfather will call my aunt, and I’ll get weeks of lectures and intense supervision because of something I said, or wore, or did in school without noticing. I’m sitting on the hard wooden bench swinging my legs, and my shoulders are hunched and I’m looking at the scuffed floor, and I can feel my eyes stinging, because I’m sad and weary, and I feel it’s unfair.

I start to pray. I have one prayer, Psalm 13, which I say over and over when I find myself in difficult situations. I’ve memorized it by now. I whisper it now to myself, in Hebrew:

How long, O Lord, wilt thou forget me forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart by day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Behold Thou, and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; lest mine enemy say: “I have prevailed against him”; lest mine adversaries rejoice when I am moved. But as for me, in Thy mercy do I trust; my heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because He hath dealt bountifully with me.

And then, sometime after the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth iteration, the door to the office opens, and it’s the secretary, saying the principal is too busy to see me today, and I should head back to class.

Oh the joy I experienced on that short walk back to the classroom, knowing I had been saved from certain punishment! How to describe the wonder in fathoming that with my prayer I might have reached over some looming wall to something powerful and magical on the other side that could save me! Still today I search within myself for that spirit, rendered lost and aimless by my
subsequent alienation from all things familiar, clinging to the belief that somewhere in there is still the ability to manifest the impossible, see the invisible, touch another dimension.

In March of 2013, I attended the annual Poets & Writers fund-raising dinner, where it was a long-standing tradition for each table to have its own writer as a host. At the beginning of the event, an MC announced each writer, asking us to stand up and be introduced to the audience, and I watched as brilliant and acclaimed authors rose from their seats, one by one, to be applauded. My name was called between Erica Jong’s and Siri Hustvedt’s, and as I stood up between the two of them and realized suddenly what my standing meant, my knees buckled and I had to hold on to the table to stay upright. I was standing beside writers I had worshipped and adored as a reader for so many years. I had never actually stopped to consider that I was a writer now too, that it was real, and I had made the transition into that community, giving back to the world with my words, with my voice.

And I went back to the little girl in the purple dress then, and asked her with a smile, “Did you ever think this is where we’d be?”

And I know, for a fact, that she never did. In that moment I gave her my hand to hold, and together we sat there on the stoop, looking out onto the empty street of our past. We were finally reunited, she and I, and everything was fine, just like I had promised.

First I must thank my agent, Patricia Van der Leun. I can’t believe we’ve worked on two books together now; it seems just yesterday that we met in that café on 74th. When I am too stuck in my own story to see things clearly, you light my way through the fog. I don’t know if I would have the fortitude to continue along this path without that kind of support.

I would also like to extend my sincere, heartfelt gratitude to my publisher, David Rosenthal. You met me at my most naïve and vulnerable and somehow sniffed out an ember of potential, which you fanned into a flame. I won’t say the process has been entirely painless, but I feel privileged to be under your eye and wing. I hope to continue to learn from you in the years to come.

Thank you so much, Sarah Hochman, for your consistent and unparalleled faith in my voice, for helping me find my narrative direction through much trial and error, and for your shrewd literary judgment. Liz Stein, thanks above all for making me laugh—and for making this book that much more fun to write! You were such an asset to the creative process. I hope we can work together again.

A very special thanks is owed to all the wonderful people at Blue Rider Press who had a hand in making this book the best it could be in every way. Aileen Boyle and Brian Ulicky are people I’ve been lucky
to know for quite some time, and I must say it’s awfully nice to work with them on such a personal level. I’m so grateful for all the efforts of this most excellent publicity department. I’m also really appreciative of Phoebe Pickering and Rebecca Harris for handling the everyday back-and-forth with such aplomb—it really does make the business of being a writer that much more appealing when you have such dedicated people on your side. Thanks to Marie Finamore for her keen eye, Meighan Cavanaugh for the beautiful design, and Linda Cowen for making the whole legal thing the opposite of a nightmare. For the marvelous cover, kudos is owed to Gregg Kulick.

I feel so lucky to have fellow travelers in my wanderings: Richard, who never ceases to inspire me; Odd and his family, who beckon like a welcoming lighthouse on distant shores for myself and many others; Kat and Scotty, for showing me that even the unconventional can find a sense of home and belonging; Milena and Audrey, those glamorous Jewish denizens of Paris—you’ve expanded my sense of what’s possible, and my sense of self as well; Esther Munkacsi, a kindred spirit I met in Budapest—who, despite her Jewish-sounding name, did not actually need to be Jewish to show me the kind of solidarity and understanding the likes of which I have rarely come across—I want to commend your capacity for empathy despite seemingly intransigent limitations; Zoltán Janosi, Gabi Losonczi, and Farkas Bacsi—those few days I spent with you all in Nyíregyháza were some of the most poignant and transformative of my life. I will never be able to repay your immense generosity and kindness.

An additional thanks is owed to the lovely community of people who have made returning home after my wanderings a truly wonderful and welcoming experience. This is certainly new for me. Thank you, Dan and Debbie Sternberg, for your wise words, for your patience . . . and for turning my tears into laughter. Carol and Carlo Huber, I owe you a debt for generously inviting Isaac and me into your home and heart, and for broadening our cultural horizons in the process. Thanks to Julie and
Mike Zahn for being so supportive and helpful and for hosting sleepovers and playdates when I couldn’t find a sitter. To all the people at my son’s school who have helped us both feel at home and among family, I am truly grateful.

Per, thank you for helping me translate that file, even though it was written in old Swedish. Gina, those few days that you hosted us in Murnau were transcendent. Thank you for opening up your home and your heart to total strangers. I feel I must also thank my various babysitters, on both sides of the ocean, who made it possible for me to juggle my parenting responsibilities while writing this book. And of course, my gratitude to every coffee shop and library across the world—by making yourself a haven with free WiFi, soothing ambience, and brain-jolting caffeine, you are a boon to writers temporarily displaced from home. I have been so fortunate to find anonymous yet heartfelt kindness in unexpected corners, and will try to pay that kindness forward to the next traveler I meet.