He was a small boy from a small village. Even if the village was small, the boy one day had to grow up and face the fact that it was a village torn. Between two countries. As was his uncle – a man torn between his vocation – Catholic priest – and his heart – a father of a small girl.
So the small boy learnt very early that small can mean complicated.
There was a war while he was a baby, and his village was taken over by the other country. A lovely, mountain-side village with a beautiful church where his uncle served before he was defrocked. The boy enjoyed hearing the bells ringing for vespers – even if he found vespers boring.
There was a war coming again when he was in his early 30s. Part of his family spoke French, the other part of his family spoke German. Another part of his family spoke yiddish. Which side are you on, they were worried people would ask. Neither language meant that one should pick a side. On the side of my family, of course. There is no such side in war, you know. What if each side wanted me to fight its war? The German-speaking side would tear a part of me and the French speaking side would tear the other part of me. What will be left of me, if not my multilingual, loving family?
His uncle was worried. The grown up boy was worried. So they took off and chose to sail down the Danube, to countries they thought would never be engulfed into war.
It was a beautiful country they settled in. A town with buildings that reminded him of the biggest town near his village, Nancy. He arrived early enough to learn the language and find a girl to marry. But his family in France were made to feel guilty. For having produced a deserter. They ended up feeling guilty indeed and begrudging him for not having looked better into the crystal ball to guess which side will win the war and provide the multilingual family with a simple identity.
So in Bulgaria he became a Communist. This was a safe identity choice. He changed his name in the newly Communist state after the referendum was rigged and they kicked out of the country the 8-year old king Saxe-Coburg Gotha. So this way he could look and behave and possibly be more of Catholic than the Pope. This is what his uncle used to say.
The boy produced two boys. The eldest boy became a father after meeting a girl from the South whose father’s family also came from elsewhere.
And this is how an explorer is born. If not from strangers, then from explorers.
We may run and hide from our fate that tears us apart, but we always stay on the side of family. We don’t fight wars. We don’t fight anybody’s wars. We build our identity beyond boundaries. With love.
Dora Court 