A Way With Words

CW: Holocaust

Dear Luc,

I used to think like that too, until I discovered the truth. I defended him the way you do now. I repeated the story about his courage, his strength, his love of family. In a word, he seduced me. Which, if I think about it, is probably why the discovery feels even more like a betrayal. A lie. The life he lived. Or at least the one we thought he did.

I’ve often imagined what it would have been like to live through the war. The hardship. The sacrifices. I’ve imagined the empty shelves, the lack of firewood, and the winter of ’43 as if I had been there myself.

I think about Grand-père leaving the house in the morning, pecking Grand-mère on the cheek as he made his way to the office. Hanging his beret on a peg when he arrived and getting down to work—then returning in the evening to his wife and five children as if it had been just another day at work.

Now, though, I no longer think of him as a hero. I think of him as a monster.

Viv

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Chère Vivianne,

We cannot fill in the blanks for something that happened so long ago. It seems that you have chosen to condemn, while I prefer to believe in his goodness. Or at the very least, in the possibility that whatever happened turned out okay.

Have you considered that it might not be what we thought? We have no way of knowing for certain what happened, so let’s not assume. The facts, as far as we know, were that Grand-père was a linguist, an immensely talented translator. Think of all of those languages he mastered. That alone indicates that he was highly intelligent, and learned. Imagine bouncing back and forth between Polish-German-French-Russian and the others? My brain sizzles thinking about it.

And he had five children he needed to provide for. Surely, if you had found a way to prevent it, you would not have let your own children starve? Think about it in that way maybe.

Your loving brother, Luc

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Dear Luc,

The truth cannot be filtered through your need to make this right. Because the truth doesn’t fit with what we’ve been told. You prefer your version because it supplies a happy ending and it fits the family lore. While I am sure the family version of events provides great comfort to you, what good can it serve if it is not the truth?

Viv

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Dear Viv,

I sometimes think it is not Grand-père you cannot forgive. Maybe there is something inside you that you find hard to forgive in yourself?

Does the smallest of contradictions fester in a manner that you cannot smooth over so that it is as supple as kneading dough? When you push your thumb into the soft center, it should bounce back to its original shape. There is no reason to focus on the inside of an uncooked loaf—stretched and thinned, barely resembling the finished product. We are all like loaves of bread—kneaded and plied and baked into better versions than what we were originally. Though they may appear so, nothing is ever perfect. Not diamonds. Not marriages. Not even the universe. Surely you can see it is these small imperfections that give a thing its shape, its uniqueness, its identity. Our family identity has many facets, why focus on only one?

Your Luc

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Dear Luc,

What exactly are you clinging to? The idea that he was a hero??? And what do you suppose will happen if you let go of that idea? The collapse of the patriarchy? The need to create a new story to replace the tarnished one that also happens to be the truth?

Let me ask it a different way...what will you gain by holding onto this false narrative?You have children, Luc. Do you fill their heads with stories about our family that make them seem heroic and kind? What purpose does it serve? Did it ever serve?

Viv

P.S. I certainly agree with you on one point. Perfection is an illusion. Imperfections can be charming. But imperfection is not collaboration.

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Dearest Viv,

Do you think our family is so different from all the others who have existed throughout time? Do you think families in the Americas who owned slaves are running around dwelling on it? What about the Turks and the Armenians?

People did things in the past—countries and individuals—-things that were not noble, but you move past it and focus on the good. Does the past have to negate all the positive things that an individual achieved? Surely, people and countries are more complex--less black and white-—than what you would have us portray?

I think where we differ, you and I, is not so much in what we believe is the truth. You saw the documents and I saw the same ones. No, I think where we differ is in how we have let the past impose itself on the present.

You, for some reason I am entirely unclear about, have chosen to let a small detail in our ancestry poison the way you live, the way you believe, the way you see people, and maybe even the way you love. My biggest hope for you is that in time, you will be able to see that none of this is really important. The war has been over for decades. The world has moved on.

I would lay down my life for you. I am pretty sure you would do the same for me.

Your loving brother, Luc

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Luc—

I am sitting here with Grand-père’s notebook. The pages are yellow and brittle. It’s open to the page—I am sure you know the one. It is not the only one that proves what he did, but it is the one that haunts me the most. When I read that mother’s letter—her heartbreaking plea in French to save her child from deportation…In the letter, she begs to spare her son’s life, Luc. He was sickly.

I can almost see him. Pale. Dark eyes. Just a kid. Frightened and sickly.

And there, alongside it, is his translation into German… Grand-père’s letter. A careful translation of her words. Except he has omitted the part about the child’s illness.

However much you like to argue to the contrary, Luc, he was not just a translator. His work is what allowed the deportations to happen.

He was the decider of people’s fates.

He got to choose who lived. And who did not.

-Viv

P.S. There is an image I can’t get out of my mind. When Papa was about 5 or 6, he told me he stayed home from school with the flu. Grand-père came home at lunchtime to see how he was doing. He sat on his bed and read him books. He made him laugh and tickled his stomach. Though he still had fever, he confessed that Grand-père’s attention made him feel better.

It was 1944. Every time I think of that story, I keep wondering if that day he sat and played with his sick son was the same day he sent the other little boy to a deathcamp.

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Dearest Vivianne,

There is never a good reason why things happen as they do… except perhaps that we are only people. You always say you are only bringing this up because you need to know who we really are. Our truth. Our flaws.

This is our truth. We are mere mortals.

Flawed and loving. Unlovable. But utterly human.

And, perhaps, deserving of forgiveness.

Luc

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Dear Viv,

You said you wanted to have us all over for the holidays, but the kids are growing and we have more room over here. Why don’t you come to our place instead? Spend the week.

We’ll talk about whatever’s on your mind.

Promise.

Luc

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The metallic smell of snow hovers in the air and Handel’s Messiah escapes through an open window where bedding is airing. Luc answers the door—-the one with the Christmas wreath—and Viv thrusts the cakebox into his hands. Just in time, because Alice is jumping up, arms around Viv’s neck, legs around her waist. When Alice pulls her into the living room, she says, “Sit here, Aunt Viv. Watch me do a backflip.”

Viv sits at one corner of the sectional, next to the coffee table—-the one with all the framed family photos.

“You still have his photo out,” Viv says to Luc.

Alice follows her eyes to the photo of her great-grandfather. “That’s my Papou,” she announces. Then her eyes widen in disbelief, “He spoke seven languages.”

“Yes,” says Viv. “He was a translator. I’m sure he was a very good man.”