Life's An Adventure!

Our marriage is five years over a half-century. I’m not certain what sounds better (or worse), fifty years or a half-century. When I turned fifty, aeons ago, I joked I’d passed the half-century mark; thought it was amusing. Until I hit sixty. I remember how grateful I was to my husband when, just before my 58th birthday when I was thinking I would be turning 59, he said no, just 58. I was thrilled; it was the best possible birthday gift. I thought I might be sliding into senile dementia, believing I was a year older than I really was.

Funny thing is, I’m not really, not really-really that old. Actually I’m not old at all. If I were, I would feel old. I’d look old. I don’t. Either feel or look it, that is. Fact is, age isn’t a factor in my life at all, even though I was so glad to regain that errant year, if only to grab another year’s experience.

I still have a letter he wrote to me when we were fifteen, and I was away for a week at a summer camp. The mangled syntax recalls his voice soft with the mush of goofy puppy-love. The sentiments that of a boy reaching beyond himself into manhood. I have another letter, one I wrote to him seventeen years later, when we were 32, had three young children, and he was away at a conference-workshop for a week. My letter informed him among other things, that our youngest child had just lost another tooth and he was totally focused on finding a dinosaur egg, because one of the other children in his grade 1 class had sworn his father told him there were plenty around for the picking.

When we were young, I would call him ‘honey’ and ‘dear’, and this used to irritate my father no end. No bees buzzing around him, no antlers on that one, my father said. What?

I’ve always loved him madly. Even when he was a callow, a truly callow youth, and I had my doubts. I’ve never hesitated to tell him that I love him. Except once, that I can recall. That was well over a decade ago one September, when we were canoeing the Bowron Lakes circuit in the Cariboo Mountains of British Columbia with our youngest son, a biologist. Took us nine days to canoe the circuit; lake to lake to river to lake to river to lake. Spectacular environment, surrounded by mountains. And cold, at the three-thousand-foot level. It rained every bloody day. Rain down below, but on the mountain peaks, there appeared a spreading cone of snow. Even our son was discouraged and he’s the original Outdoorsman. I wasn’t, oddly enough. Discouraged, I mean; we were well geared for the weather and despite the rain managed to dry our tent and sleeping bags in occasional sunny, windy periods. Until the rain hit again, and it did; again and again.

True, all that paddling from one lake to another, one camping spot to another did weary me. And the incessant portaging. At that time of year there weren’t all that many others and they were mostly adventurous young Europeans, whose paths we would occasionally cross. That trip was also the first time I'd ever heard a screech owl. It had been on our first night out, raining heavily, dark as all get-out, and we were huddled in our tent, wondering what we could eat for dinner; no opportunity to do any cooking, when suddenly a heart-stopping, liver-shrivelling, lunatic, high-pitched, strung-out scream petrified me into silence. I got used to it over the days that followed. Got used to other owls that seemed to follow us at night, when we ventured past our camping spot to the boxes upon we sat and shat.

Getting the food out of harm’s way each night was a joy. Most sites had a long ladder which you would position against a tree, haul the food pack up and hoist it between two trees on the ladder-like shelf placed there, bridging the trees, for that purpose. Remembering, of course, to lay the ladder back down. Sometimes, rarely, a camping site devoid of handy trees would boast a large iron safe for the food pack. The safes looked rather the worse for wear, having suffered obvious insults from irate bears.

We often looked up the mountainsides through binoculars, hoping to see a grizzly (at a comfortably safe distance). On one sandy beach we once came across the sharp hoof prints of a moose, and mingled with the prints those of a wolf. Eeech! The imagined scenario that resulted was that of mangled and bloody carcasses, but there was nothing left other than the marks we'd seen to indicate nature red in tooth and claw had resulted.

Before we’d set out on this adventure, I had asked the outfitter if pepper spray might be a good idea. Earlier, we had watched a mandatory safety video to give us an idea of what we might encounter on our journey and warnings about grizzlies loomed large, as did my resulting worries about them. The outfitter looked at our son, looked at me, then told him not to worry. He could always outdistance his ma should we venture across a hungry grizzly. Very encouraging. At some portages we did see others clanking along, sporting bells to warn off bears.

More harm came to people from other sources, however. At one juncture we watched from shore as several people were taken out of the circuit via a parks patrol boat and we conjectured hypothermia. Another time, a couple smashed a wonderful (borrowed, as it happened) cedar-strip canoe on a snag by treacherous rapids in a bottleneck of one of the rivers, and they were brought out. On that same stretch of rapids we managed to manoeuvre successfully enough, but dusk was fast falling and we knew we’d have to take the first available campsite. We did, and what a site. From hell it was. The only place on the entire circuit where we had to clamber up a formidable bank to get to the tree-blown campsite, hauling the canoe halfway up a ledge to secure it for the night. Clambering up and down that bank for potable water was fun, as was washing; us and the dishes.

This site had welcoming hosts as well, hordes of mosquitoes and blackflies -- again the only site we came across thus equipped. As we were grumblingly settling in for the night and cooking dinner, we heard the backwash of paddles rounding the bank in the dark and hailed a brace of young Austrians who happily accepted our invitation to join us and share the meal my husband was cooking.

Funnily enough, we loved all the meals he cooked and he detested them, ate only enough to keep himself going while we wolfed everything down. He doesn’t care for pulses and legumes, and we’re wild for them. Two days later, that same young couple ‘rescued’ us after a particularly difficult day-long paddle, another storm in the offing, dusk falling and no camp site. When we finally reached one it was theirs and they invited us to share, offering us hot, sweet tea to revive our flagging spirits and aching, frozen limbs.

Oh, that allusion to the one time I decided I didn’t love my husband? Well, the last day of our circuit found us (me) exhausted and eager to re-establish permanently on dry land. We had paddled down the Bowron River, come too close for comfort to a moose cow and her calf (to my way of thinking; my husband and our son kept paddling determinedly toward it, curious to see how near they, we, could approach before the cow reacted), then entered the last, vast lake and, determined to reach our destination in as little time as possible, we were paddling smack through whitecaps in the middle of the lake in high winds. The wind took my words into the ether as I screeched at my husband to paddle alongside the shore and he refused, feigning deafness. We survived, somehow we survived.

Much as we did three years earlier when we alpine-camped on Long Mountain about three hours’ drive from Vancouver, near the Stein Valley. We were just two years shy of 60 then, and although we’d often mountain climbed in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, (cheerily singing ‘I Love to go a’wandering, along the mountain tracks’ when the children were younger) and I always carried a small knapsack, with 'lunch' for everyone, I’d never before been geared to climb with a full-size backpack containing sleeping bags, inflatable mattresses and clothing. Light by comparison to what the others carried, but a new experience for me. At one point, when we were climbing over a rockfall of square boulders each the size of a car (named, improbably, the Gates of Shangri-La), the top of my pack almost bounced me onto rocks below, I truly wondered at my sanity.

When we’d gained height close to the mountain peak, a blue-green, clear glacial lake just below us, it seemed worth the effort. Kind of. The scramble down to the frigid lake to wash (wash, hah!) or retrieve water for cooking was not one of my favourite activities. A glacier slowly melted into the lake; its soft, distant thunder lulled us to sleep that night. The tent on a shallow slope, (the flattest part of the mountainside we could find) we gradually nudged the edge of the tent through the night.

Next morning we took a day climb, coming across other glacial lakes, another glacier abloom with red algae, and an altitude which afforded us a view of unending mountain peaks across the Stein Valley. The afternoon sun slowly disappeared as a thunderhead appeared in the distance. We took the hint and hurriedly retraced our ascent to seek shelter in our tent. When the storm hit it was fierce, the rain pounding our innocent little shelter, winds howling mercilessly around the mountain. We survived that one, too.

Cripes we survived lots. But life is an adventure, right? We used to wake up really early on week-ends when we lived for a while in Tokyo, so we could take the subway, take a bus, take a train all for the purpose of exiting the city. We’d see intrepid Japanese bent on the same kind of adventure as we, but they dressed like western big-game hunters or Swiss yodellers, really getting into the spirit of things. At the half-way point in our transportation web we would meet up with other members of Friends of the Earth, a friendly, casual group comprised of 50% Japanese, 50% Australians, Germans, Brits, Canadians like us.

Typically we’d set out for a forested mountain. On occasion we would see tea houses set into mountain niches; we would see signs warning to beware of monkeys; we would see stone lanterns set aglow between bamboo trees; once we came across a giant Ginkgo tree reputed to be two thousand years old; once a shrine with a gigantic pair of sandals said to have been worn by a Buddhist monk who had walked from China to Korea to Japan to deliver his divine message. That’s dedication, that’s determination, that’s no mere hike.

Years ago we drove from our base in Atlanta on our way to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where we meant to enjoy snowshoeing in the Great Smokies. Close to our destination we reached the national park whose highway would lead us to Gatlinburg. We’d been that way before without incident, but this was winter in the mountains and where below it had been raining, up above was sleet and snow. I cursed the park rangers who could have stopped us, but did not. We began to see cars ahead of us sliding on the icy road. I had never quite known fear like that before, certain that there wasn’t much to keep us from sliding right off the edge of that mountain into the abyss.

Big help, there were two park vehicles ahead, rangers trying to get people to turn back. Turn around on that narrow, icy road, good luck to us all. We tried, got stuck, our son got out on the road to push, and I became an hysterical babbling idiot, intent on being as big a help in such situations as usually I somehow managed. We finally descended successfully, snow still thickly falling, took another route and lived to experience excellent snowshoeing conditions later in the week, once we were settled into our rental accommodations, even dipping under a frozen waterfall on a wondrous winter trail, surfeit with giant tulip poplars laden with snow.

Our latest adventure? Gatineau Park has become our adventure venue of late. Oh well, we needn’t even venture that far, relatively speaking. Aren’t we fortunate, we have a wonderfully wooded ravine accessible by walking across the street where we live. Adventures? We’ve had them. Still do, on occasion. They are decidedly less strenuous and potentially dangerous now, however. 

 

Our Year In Tokyo

Tokyo is where I read ‘The Pillow Book’, ‘The Tale of the Shining Prince’, and ‘The Dream of the Red Chamber’, and where I felt the alluring mystique of the east enfold me in its gentle clasp. Camellias bloom in fall, azaleas in spring and ornamental kale is planted alongside winter sidewalks. Jungle crows caw atop the water tower in the compound where our house stood and on the metal rooftop of the house sheltered in the compound where feral cats slink along alleyways.

Initially, we lived at The Pegasus Apartments close to Aoyama dori. At night we joined throngs of pedestrians on tranquil autumn evenings. Bicycles, motorbikes, motorcycles are entrusted unlocked, to parking areas. Ancient bonsai sit on sidewalks adjacent cramped homes. At night downtown scintillates in neon blaze. Strolling broad boulevards we pass impressive hotels, the Imperial palaces and upscale shops. Deeper into the city, constricted streets force vehicles to proceed with caution. Most residents live in crammed concrete apartment blocks. Futons hang out the windows of each tiny apartment during the day creating doily-festooned facades. Firefighters garbed in white moon-man uniforms hand-pull wheeled gear into these unnamed, numbered streets when fires erupt. At intersections stand cobans, box-like structures manned by police, area maps on the walls. If in doubt, enquire.

Traffic is heavy but accidents few, car horns rarely used. When drivers stop for red lights, they turn off the ignition (a long cultural memory of WWII scarcity). Most cars are a variant of cream or white. Black cars are driven by the Yakuza, the Japanese criminal element. Japanese taxi drivers are uniformed in cap and white gloves, wielding feather dusters to flick dirt from their vehicle interiors. Should a few centimeters of snow fall in winter panic ensues, chains are fitted to tires.

Buildings under construction or renovation are enclosed in scaffolding, (far predating the West which eventually emulated them); engulfed in huge white tarps. Construction workers wear white coveralls, soft helmets and white felt boots with cleft contours resembling camels’ feet. Roadwork takes place at night, the restored surface opened to morning traffic.

Tokyoites are polite and reserved. The standard response, answering the telephone is “mushi-mushi?” No one can explain what it means. There is a collective quiet in the city, despite its size and habitation. The exception to the general hush is a melodic chime heard throughout the city at five o’clock. This is my signal to walk to a little corner store for the Maiinichi shimbun English-language newspaper. There are street vendors hawking roasted yams. Impulsively, Japanese engage westerners -- complete strangers they may come across on the street -- in public discourse, happily grasping the opportunity to practice English.

Tokyo summers are unrelentingly hot and humid. Exiting air conditioned interiors -- for those fortunate enough to own window air conditioners -- one recoils upon reaching the street as though slapped with a scalding, wet towel. Before long, drops of perspiration appear on bare arms. Every block or so throughout the city large automatic street dispensers vend hot tea, coffee or cold sport drinks.

Daily food shopping prevails. One visits the fruit- and vegetable-monger, the rice shop, teashop, fishmonger, florist, hardware merchant. Shop fronts open to the street, are shuttered at night. Since leaving Japan I’ve never tasted fruit so sweet, vegetables or fish as fresh. The bustling, expansive markets near Ueno Park offer food and clothing in bazaar-like abundance.

Tokyo boasts singular districts of shops devoted to cookware, footwear, meats, fish, books, electronics, and motorcycles. The city’s neighbourhoods resemble an assemblage of multitudinous villages. There are kissaten (coffeehouses) and soba (noodle soup) cafes; temples and shrines, parks and botanical gardens with ponds full of giant gold, silver, and orange carp.

In Yokohama we visited a doll museum. Close by we entered an antique shop and there I bought my very own Gosho Ningyo, a fat-faced, ornately dressed doll astride a hobbyhorse. Bordering the Pacific Ocean, Kamakura is a city of temples, one devoted to the Great Daibutsu, a towering bronze Buddha. Another temple is dedicated to a Buddha accredited as the protector of lost babies. Tiny replications of Yesu are placed around the temple grounds and people leave babies’ playthings and clothing in poignant remembrance of babies and infants that never progressed to childhood and maturity.

In a cupboard in our foyer a large black bag sat on the floor. For special occasions. It held some canned food, flashlights, first-aid kit, water bottles, hard hats, and candles. That was a life-preserving emergency kit in case of earthquakes. I liked to ‘forget’ its presence. And although we knew we should stand in a protected area of the house during an earthquake, somehow we never did. On those occasions when one occurred, we would sit there, facing one another, absorbed in the strangeness of the house, the ground beneath it, shaking ominously, a rattling heard from the kitchen, pictures wobbling on the walls. When, on occasion, it happened outside, it was even stranger, and we were transfixed by the sensation charging the atmosphere about us, wondering when it would stop, if it would stop, and finally it did. The earth did not open to receive us. Then we would wonder when the next one would occur. Where would we be? How long would it last? Then we forgot about it.

We joined an international travel group, Friends of the Earth; comprised mostly of Japanese, some foreigners, and traveled week-ends by bus at a gathering spot once we cleared the immense city of Tokyo itself by bus, train, or subway to visit tea plantations, traditional Ryokan (inns) and once to Hamamatsu, where the annual traditional kite festival takes place, rural communities vying against one another, manipulating giant kites, lines arrayed with knives. The winners, whose kite survives airborne, exult in their martial skills.

With that same group we traveled the coast to Okuyama, staying overnight at a Zen Buddhist temple nestled in the hills and forests outside the village. There, in the inn, bathers scrub themselves seated on little stools before entering the steaming communal bath. One sheds slippers for wooden clogs to enter the communal bathrooms, balancing over floor-level 'toilets'. We slept on futons in a tiny tatami-matted room and rose at five in the morning to take part in the morning’s Buddhist service. I thought my legs would never recover from assuming the Lotus position.

In the sprawling Temple buildings, one adjoining another, I discovered echoes of Umberto Ecco’s Name of the Rose. Following a breakfast of miso soup, rice, raw egg and chai, we wandered the Temple grounds and heard, from an embankment towering above us, a divine chorus of men’s devotional voices. As we followed a narrow dirt road toward the village, two tonsured monks in flowing robes passed in a Mercedes Benz, waving to us.

We joined Friends of the Earth and took a series of subway trains, buses and railway trains, passing outlying communities, finally reaching trailheads where our group of about a dozen dedicated mountaineers would ascend mountains to explore landscapes infinitely dissimilar to any we’d trekked before.

To again stroll Omotesando on a Sunday, or Shibuya, or Giain Higashi dori; to promenade along the Ginza, or through Ueno Park under cherry blossoms; to see the Temple of the 47 Ronin where the earth shuddered underfoot, or the Asakusa Kanon Temple by the Sumeida River where the Floating World of the Geisha once flourished - is to dream. 

 

 

About What It's Like to Die

 

My father had no patience with vanity. It wasn't that he was so intolerant a person, he simply had no time for frivolities. He was too busy living; earning a living and living to learn. When he wasn't working he was reading - omnivorously, anything he could get his hands on. He passed that legacy - not for work but for love of the written word - on to his children. I was the oldest.

Because he professed never to care for external appearances I was surprised after his operation to realize that he was reluctant to have anyone see him, that he considered himself, his appearance, repugnant. He had cancer of the throat.

He had always feared sickness, operations, and it was later that I was told he was given the option of an operation to prolong his life for another year or to simply let the cancer run rampant, undisturbed. By the time his cancer had been discovered it was too late to stem the tide of its inexorable growth.

He was unprepossessing in appearance. A short, broad, muscular man with black wiry hair when he was younger, his hair turned a steel grey as he grew older. This sign of age, the grey hair, had distressed me terribly; that outward manifestation of man's perishability. And his once-hard stomach gradually distended with the weight of the years which sat upon him. He was only five feet tall but when I was a child he appeared a respectable height.

My father's friends noted my fierce attachment to my father with amusement. They enjoyed teasing me, for the reaction. They would say something like: "What's so special about him anyway? He's just a little guy". And I'd reply hotly, "he isn't! He's big and strong and he's smart." Which was true. And I hated them for appearing to doubt it.

And although my replies generally brought forth gales of adult laughter, none of my father's friends disputed the fact of my father's intelligence, even as a joke. They came to him often for advice, or to have him explain a situation beyond their comprehension.

I have since learned things about my father that I hadn't known earlier, when he still lived. He had been born in Poland just after the turn of the century. Actually, about 1910. We never did know the correct date, nor did he. His family had lived in a small town not far from Warsaw. His father had been a scholar of sorts, a rebbe, but both his parents died before my father was twelve. His relatives lived nearby but they were almost destitute as were most of the country people there, so they arranged for my father to be taken care of in the local poorhouse. Soon after, an undernourished boy too small for his age, he ran away to Warsaw to try to locate his older brother, who had himself run away, years earlier.

He had no success in his search and wandered the streets of Warsaw unkempt, unfed and unhoused. He was only one of many such vagrants, children who begged for sustenance in the streets. Eventually, a Jewish philanthropic organization attempted to gather these wanderers and to provide for them. There, among other boys bereft of family, my father found companionship. Several years later the boys were sent en masse to Canada. On arrival, they were dispersed to various farming communities and my father and several of his friends found themselves working on a farm in Georgetown, Ontario, to pay off their passage. All through his life these orphan children remained steadfast friends, an extended family closer to each other than most genuine family members often are.

In the family album there was one photograph that I often looked at although it made me vaguely unhappy. The picture was that of a group of about ten young men, boys really, and the background was the farm in Georgetown. The boys wore what appeared to be leggings of some kind and underwear-type long-sleeved shirts. Some held rakes and manure forks, reminiscent of the famous American Gothic painting. The boys' heads were uniformly shaven and their cheeks were gaunt. Their eyes seemed hollow and painful; haunting. My father was the smallest among them. At first he had to point himself out to me, for I could not recognize him in the photograph.

I suppose it was because of my father's initial poor start in life and his later malnourishment as a youth that he became prone in middle age to a variety of illnesses. I recall hushed talk of Burgess' Disease and hardening of the arteries, although I'm not quite certain he had any of these. I do recall though, that once, when I was about eight years old, he was bathing and discovered that one of his big toes had turned a purple-black colour. My father rarely went to see a doctor but for this my mother insisted that he visit the family doctor, an old medical practitioner whose office stood on a corner of College Street. It was discovered that the big toe was gangrenous, or just beginning to be so, and measures were taken to save it. In retrospect, although he was never so diagnosed, I am reasonably certain that he had been an undiagnosed diabetic and it was Diabetes Mellitus which led invariably to those other disease symptoms and thereafter, his legs always gave him trouble from poor circulation. His feet were always sore and painful. Still, it wasn't the untreated diabetes nor the other ailments that took his life.

Unlike most of my father's friends who in time became quite well off,my father always had to struggle to make a living. Some of his friends ran small businesses of their own, became musicians, professionals, tradesmen, entrepreneurs. My father remained a labourer for most of his life. The earliest I can recall is that he worked at a factory, Fashion Hat & Cap, on Chestnut Street in Toronto, as a steam presser. His job was to mechanically work a steam press to block caps and that is what he did for many years. The factory was hot and dry, dimly lit and poorly ventilated. His arms and hands became so muscular from his work that years later nurses at the hospital found it impossible to check his pulse at the wrist. He used to laugh about that. He once brought home an orange that he had forgotten to eat from his lunchbag and had placed on top of the steam presser. The orange was light and hollow, all the moisture gone, preserved like an Egyptian mummy.

Both my parents were staunch trade unionists and voted for the CCF Party. Political talk was common around the kitchen table. I would sit quietly and listen, fascinated at the heated arguments that often ensued, between my parents and some of their friends as my father continued to uphold the socialist ideal and others might dispute its need and even legitimacy in this country.

In his spare time my father spent as much time as he could manage at the United Jewish Peoples' Order, the headquarters of which, years ago, was on Christie Street across from Christie Pitts Park, north of Bloor Street. There was a great number of books kept there and for a while my father volunteered his time as a librarian. I used to go to that same building every day after school to be tutored in a small classroom along with a handful of other children, in Jewish history and Yiddish. I had begun going to the Morris Winchevsky school when an old house on another street had been utilized for classroom purposes, before the acquisition of the Christie Street property and I can remember there were always kerosene lamps handy in case of a blackout as these were the war years.

Occasionally, there I would pick up some literature written by Dr. James Endicott and read it, impressed by the fervour of his arguments for a better, more equitable world. Once, my father pointed out Paul Robeson to me, a tall dark man, walking down a corridor of the building, a guest of the U.J.P.O.; there to deliver a talk in the auditorium next to where our after-school-classroom was situated.

The basement of the building - which was, I believe, an old converted church - housed a functional cafeteria set around with small round tables and wire-hooped chairs, at which there generally sat a crowd of men - talking, playing dominoes. The fragrance of coffee and doughnuts, accompanied by the click of dominoes and the murmur of bantering voices so well describes the ambiance, the homey comfort of the place.

On V-E day my father celebrated what was an especially poignant time for him by giving me a large green-covered book of short stories that I still treasure. He was forever encouraging me to read. As soon as I was old enough to understand he gave me books to read that most would consider too difficult for a child. But with these books and my father's explanations I was made sensitive to the world as it is. My father described in great detail the circumstances of the Holocaust. In this way I became extremely aware of just how special Jews are in this world; the exquisitely frail equilibrium that exists between life and death; the monumental horror of prejudice; the abomination that is war.

My father had me read Tobacco Road, introduced me to Howard Fast and John Steinbeck; tried to imbue in me a sense of fairness to other people. One of the few books he bought for me was called Palaces on Monday; it had been bound irregularly, the cover put on backwards and upside down, and I suppose he was able to pay less for it. The book described the building of the underground rail system, the subway in Moscow, seen through the eyes of a young boy and girl whose American father was an engineer on the project. Nor did he neglect the adventure writers like Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson; he wanted me to read everything.

Despite the fact that our family lived in a small flat - two bedrooms between two adults and three young children; a tiny kitchen that seated us only because we were all so small, the adults and the children; and a bathroom shared with another family and a boarder - my father was determined that I would receive other kinds of stimulation normally reserved for people with money. One of his good friends was a house painter and an amateur musician and agreed to teach me to play an instrument. The oboe; I still have that oboe. Ancient and faded now, it must have been quite old even then. My music teacher was a kind and patient man but I was a frivolous child and had no inclination to learn, even to please my father. Oboe reeds cost $.25 each then and they were a luxury my parents could ill afford. Every time I heard the ridiculous squeaks my puffings elicited from the instrument, I would break up laughing, my teeth clamping on the delicate reed. Finally, my father decided I was not meant to express myself musically.

Another memory I have though, is confirmation that he was quite capable of musicality himself. I have a hazy recollection of sitting high in the balcony at Massey Hall with my mother and peering down at an orchestra on the stage. There was a man sitting on the right-hand side and back of the orchestra and on his lap was an immense glittering, gold-belled instrument. My father played a tuba, an instrument almost as large as he himself. Not long ago my mother told me he had also played a fiddle, but I had never heard him play one.

Although he could never afford to become a real collector, numismatics fascinated him and he collected foreign coins. The coins held an attraction for him and when he came across an exotic coin my father would add it to his collection. He kept a metal strong box in a cupboard which he would sometimes open with a key. The box contained a few papers, a few brown daguerreotypes, and the prized coin collection.

One of the old faded photographs in the box was of a dark bearded man; another was of a young boy standing beside a wicker planter. These depicted my father's father and my father himself - and there were a few others. Once he picked up one of the photographs and showed it to me. The picture was of an oval-faced dark browed young man with black hair. The man had a thin mustache. I detested mustaches. "Who do you think that is?" my father prompted.

"Hitler", I said positively. "It must be Hitler."

A pained look crossed my father's face. He said nothing, merely took the picture from me, turned away, shut himself away from me.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "What's the matter?" Thinking about it now, I'm not certain whether my reply had been impish or whether at that tender age all mustaches were synonymous with the hated Hitler; reason compels me to believe I was just being mischievous, for why, even then, would I think my father would cherish a photograph of that hideously detestable monster?

Later my mother told me it was a photograph of my father's brother. My father, for years after the war, believed his brother was still alive. He wrote endless letters to agencies and individuals looking for information about his brother. There was no information to give, none was received. Without doubt he, like other millions of hapless innocents, provided fuel for the ovens at Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka.