My Father’s Books

My Father’s Fatherlands

28 My ­ Father’s Father­ lands In those rare mo­ ments when, bent over his ­ opened books, he con­ sid­ ered his fate, seek­ ing so­ lu­ tions to the Bal­ kan his­ tory of his fam­ ily, in those mo­ ments when he ­ thought he was fully pre­ pared to begin writ­ ing the his­ tory of the Bal­ kans ­ through the de­ cline of the three em­ pires (Ot­ to­ man, Fas­ cist, and Sta­ lin­ ist) with which the life of his fam­ ily had col­ lided, my ­ father began to ask him­ self which was his father­ land: the father­ land of his an­ ces­ tors or the father­ land of his de­ scen­ dants? He was ­ deeply con­ vinced, and no one and noth­ ing could dis­ suade him from this be­ lief, that his li­ brary re­ mained his ul­ ti­ mate father­ land. It was ­ filled with books in var­ i­ ous lan­ guages, in var­ i­ ous ­ scripts, from var­ i­ ous eras. Here, too, was the great globe he ro­ tated when he was un­ able to con­ firm his true home­ land.­ Mother was not con­ cerned about the ­ family’s sur­ vi­ val so long as she could see my ­ father in the li­ brary, at peace in his own coun­ try. If she­ sensed that the pages of a book were being dis­ turbed, if ­ Father’s ­ shadow­ played ­ across the walls of the room, then my ­ mother ­ feared an­ other ex­ o­ dus was ahead . . . Be­ fore de­ par­ tures to ­ yet-unknown des­ ti­ na­ tions, my ­ father would often mark down the tally of his lost, dis­ cov­ ered, aban­ doned, for­ got­ ten, and re­ newed father­ lands, ­ states, and mon­ ar­ chies. One could see how many there had been in his life by look­ ing in his doc­ u­ ments at the heads of dif­ fer­ ent lead­ ers on the can­ celed ad­ min­ is­ tra­ tive ­ stamps. Al­ though the Ot­ to­ man Em­ pire ­ changed my ­ father’s orig­ i­ nal faith, and at that time re­ li­ gion was the equal of state and father­ land, it did not be­ come his coun­ try. ­ Atatürk’s Tur­ key was ex­ pected to be­ come my­ father’s home after his stud­ ies in Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple and his brief meet­ ing with ­ Atatürk him­ self; my ­ father’s ­ mother’s Turk­ ish iden­ tity may also 29 have had an in­ flu­ ence. When she sent him off to Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple, to her peo­ ple, she could have re­ al­ ized her dis­ tant dream, aware that she her­ self would never catch up to them in their great es­ cape. But ­ Father re­ turned to the Bal­ kans. His father­ land be­ came Al­ ba­ nia, an in­ de­ pen­ dent state with an un­ cer­ tain fu­ ture en­ meshed in Bal­ kan mis­ for­ tunes. But it was not to re­ main his father­ land for long. When his frail na­ tive coun­ try be­ came en­ trapped in the web of Fas­ cism, ­ Father con­ sciously gave up his father­ land and ­ crossed the clos­ est bor­ der. ­ Between Fas­ cism and the Com­ mu­ nism that ­ loomed, he chose the loss of his home­ land. Ul­ ti­ mately, he could not avoid Com­ mu­ nism in ei­ ther his na­ tive coun­ try or his ­ adopted one. But here, in Yu­ go­ sla­ via, lib­ er­ a­ tion from Sta­ lin­ ism came much ­ sooner than for our rel­ a­ tives­ across the bor­ der in Al­ ba­ nia, who suf­ fered be­ neath it much ­ longer, much, much ­ longer. While my ­ father was in­ deed saved from Sta­ lin­ ism, he re­ mained an ém­ i­ gré of his old coun­ try. As em­ i­ grants, we were, in fact, at some sort of Bal­ kan way sta­ tion, a place to so­ journ be­ fore con­ tin­ u­ ing along path­ ways of re­ set­ tle­ ment ­ across the ocean. My ­ father ac­ cepted his new cit­ i­ zen­ ship and freed him­ self from fur­ ther phan­ tom em­ i­ gra­ tions. We did not be­ come cit­ i­ zens of Amer­ ica or Aus­ tra­ lia or even of New Zea­ land, as oth­ ers did who ­ crossed the bor­ der after...