Becoming My Mother’s Daughter: A Story of Survival and Renewal

The Tunnel, 1952-1982

THE TUNNEL 1952–1982 Eva’s Picture on the Shore of the Danube, Budapest, 1952 Budapest is the city where Eva grew up, where she went to school, the city of her first serious friendship with Edie, the city of her first love for Janos. But she knows there is another, parallel city there, the city where she lived during the years of 1944 and 1945. And below those two cities, there is yet another: the city of her mother’s youth, her childhood. Eva realizes: “I lived in three cities at the same time. And two of them belonged to Mother. “Have I been always too close to you? Why did you make me feel so close? Why did you allow me to grow so close?” Budapest Death Seizes a Woman, a Lithograph by Käthe Kollwitz The first month they arrive in Toronto from Montreal in 1978, Eva takes her two children to the Art Gallery of Ontario. They see a show of the graphic works of Käthe Kollwitz. Judy is going on seven; Robbie is fourteen . They look at the drawings, etchings, and lithographs with growing impatience. There are no colours; everything is dark and gloomy. Eva stops in her tracks when she sees Kollwitz’s famous drawing of a mother covering up her child as Death reaches out for both of them. In the drawn, tormented face of that mother, Eva recognizes the face of Eliza as a young woman in the ghetto of Gyongyos, the ghetto of Budapest. But beyond the face of Eliza, she also sees the faces of the mothers of her friends, the mothers of her generation. And the child clinging desperately to the mother is clinging to life; she’s clinging to the parent who alone can keep her alive, who alone can tear her from the grip of Death. Death is reaching out for the child with strong, skeletal arms: the cattle cars, the forced marches, the death camps, the river. In this child’s hands, Eva recognizes her own hands; it is she who is clinging to her mother’s bosom, crawling back into her mother’s starved, angular body. Every moment she must prevent her child from being born into the world. Because what awaits outside her mother’s body is not life; it is death itself. “How my mother did hold me,” Eva remembers. “She never really learned to let go, to relax her grip— and probably, deep down, I never really wanted her to.” Judy is starting to whine: “Mummy, I am so tired …” Robbie makes fun of her: “Mu-u-mmy … I am sooooo tired ...” But they make peace soon. They agree they’ve both had enough of the show: “Mom, this is boring. Besides, we’ve seen everything. Why can’t we go to the CNE instead? And you promised we’ll stop somewhere on Yonge Street for ice cream.” THE TUNNEL, 1952–1982 129 After Käthe Kollwitz’s lithograph “Death Seizes a Woman” Is it possible they don’t see anything? That they don’t recognize who that mother is with the child in her arms? Is it possible that Eva’s own children cannot see it? But of course they can’t recognize it. And thank God they can’t. Eva’s High School Graduation Picture, June 1956 It’s only in her mid-teens that Eva recognizes the need to tear herself away. And even then it’s hard to do, hard to justify. Yet deep down, Eliza wants Eva to accomplish exactly whatever Eva herself wants. During the thirties, Eliza’s parents felt that a girl mustn’t go to art school. During the fifties, Eva’s father was still arguing: “Art school? Ridiculous. Name me one country where an artist can make a living.” But Eva’s mother is adamant. “She wants it. She’s good at it. Let her try.” When Eva was born, Leslie was deeply disappointed. All he ever wanted was a son. Yet after the first beautiful baby girl, Sandy, here was another, Eva. And she wasn’t even beautiful; she was born with the umbilical cord around her neck. Leslie’s mother, Betty, came to Budapest for the birth; she wanted to be present to receive the boy the whole family wanted. But Leslie greeted his mother with tears in his eyes. “Mother, a girl. This one’s a girl...