WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.520 align:middle line:84% "Pictures of my mother show her always smoking, 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.160 align:middle line:84% though I never saw her smoke, nor empty an ashtray 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:07.530 align:middle line:90% without a show of disgust. 00:00:07.530 --> 00:00:09.750 align:middle line:84% I came into her papers five years ago. 00:00:09.750 --> 00:00:12.550 align:middle line:84% That's when I unwrapped the first of many portfolios 00:00:12.550 --> 00:00:14.340 align:middle line:84% she'd been keeping under her bed. 00:00:14.340 --> 00:00:17.430 align:middle line:84% I had never seen them, and she had shared everything with me, 00:00:17.430 --> 00:00:18.180 align:middle line:90% I'd thought. 00:00:18.180 --> 00:00:20.430 align:middle line:84% The only child, the late-born son, 00:00:20.430 --> 00:00:23.130 align:middle line:84% the artistic and sensitive man in the family. 00:00:23.130 --> 00:00:26.370 align:middle line:84% Some of these I had seen-- my grandparents sometimes 00:00:26.370 --> 00:00:28.500 align:middle line:84% in the late '20's-- sometime in the late 20s, 00:00:28.500 --> 00:00:30.420 align:middle line:90% at a resort in the mountains. 00:00:30.420 --> 00:00:31.950 align:middle line:90% Taking the cure. 00:00:31.950 --> 00:00:35.070 align:middle line:84% All those faces, relaxing, carefree, getting away 00:00:35.070 --> 00:00:38.340 align:middle line:84% from business and the city and the nameless sickness that 00:00:38.340 --> 00:00:40.860 align:middle line:90% seemed to be stalking them. 00:00:40.860 --> 00:00:42.600 align:middle line:90% I look like my grandfather-- 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:44.190 align:middle line:90% her genes won out. 00:00:44.190 --> 00:00:46.770 align:middle line:84% The gene for baldness, carried through the mother. 00:00:46.770 --> 00:00:48.660 align:middle line:84% The gene for Alzheimer's Disease-- 00:00:48.660 --> 00:00:50.160 align:middle line:90% who carries that? 00:00:50.160 --> 00:00:52.800 align:middle line:84% My mother maintained a saving fiction all the years 00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:55.710 align:middle line:84% that she was able, that her parents could have left Germany 00:00:55.710 --> 00:00:57.810 align:middle line:90% in time, just as she had. 00:00:57.810 --> 00:01:00.840 align:middle line:84% There was an uncle in Montreal who would sponsor them all, 00:01:00.840 --> 00:01:03.480 align:middle line:84% but her father lost first the will, 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:05.400 align:middle line:90% then the sense of all urgency. 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:10.530 align:middle line:84% It was, in his case, a medical, not political problem. 00:01:10.530 --> 00:01:11.430 align:middle line:90% 'Who is this man?' 00:01:11.430 --> 00:01:14.310 align:middle line:84% I asked her, and she pretended to look, and to smile. 00:01:14.310 --> 00:01:16.020 align:middle line:90% "He's very handsome, mama. 00:01:16.020 --> 00:01:17.400 align:middle line:90% Like a movie star." 00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:18.750 align:middle line:90% Still no response. 00:01:18.750 --> 00:01:22.110 align:middle line:84% The picture is sepia, faded, and extremely small. 00:01:22.110 --> 00:01:25.980 align:middle line:84% If only it could be blown up, Jaeger and the touring-car, 00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:28.410 align:middle line:84% the mountains and the forest in the background, 00:01:28.410 --> 00:01:30.840 align:middle line:84% I might understand just a little more. 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:32.820 align:middle line:84% There are other pictures, equally small, 00:01:32.820 --> 00:01:36.150 align:middle line:84% taken from upper windows, overlooking city squares. 00:01:36.150 --> 00:01:36.960 align:middle line:90% Brno? 00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:37.890 align:middle line:90% Bratislava? 00:01:37.890 --> 00:01:38.670 align:middle line:90% Carlsbad? 00:01:38.670 --> 00:01:42.450 align:middle line:84% Prague, perhaps, or the view from a Carpathian resort hotel. 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:45.180 align:middle line:84% Maybe Jurgen is standing at her side, whispering, 00:01:45.180 --> 00:01:47.040 align:middle line:90% sehr schön. 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:48.510 align:middle line:90% 'Jurgen Jaeger, mama. 00:01:48.510 --> 00:01:50.220 align:middle line:90% Does it mean anything?' 00:01:50.220 --> 00:01:52.350 align:middle line:84% She held her hand out to appease me, 00:01:52.350 --> 00:01:57.180 align:middle line:84% her fingers now blue-edged tines, but she didn't look. 00:01:57.180 --> 00:01:58.890 align:middle line:90% I read German, speak it enough. 00:01:58.890 --> 00:02:02.010 align:middle line:84% Her old-style handwriting is difficult. 00:02:02.010 --> 00:02:05.610 align:middle line:84% It says, I tell him he must do what he must do. 00:02:05.610 --> 00:02:08.220 align:middle line:84% His father has interests in Germany. 00:02:08.220 --> 00:02:11.310 align:middle line:90% They have relatives in Leipzig. 00:02:11.310 --> 00:02:14.130 align:middle line:84% I read it out loud, looking at its author's face, which 00:02:14.130 --> 00:02:15.180 align:middle line:90% gives back nothing. 00:02:15.180 --> 00:02:18.790 align:middle line:84% She probably jotted down these notes in 10 seconds, 60, 00:02:18.790 --> 00:02:20.160 align:middle line:90% 70 years ago. 00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:22.830 align:middle line:84% Now, the simplest resurrected fact of her life 00:02:22.830 --> 00:02:24.300 align:middle line:90% embraces the world. 00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:27.570 align:middle line:84% If I didn't take those box-- if I didn't take these boxes now, 00:02:27.570 --> 00:02:28.860 align:middle line:90% they will be lost. 00:02:28.860 --> 00:02:31.590 align:middle line:84% She is going away and won't be coming back, 00:02:31.590 --> 00:02:35.490 align:middle line:84% and we have decided we must leave Canada. 00:02:35.490 --> 00:02:37.950 align:middle line:84% She wrote, he says the Fuhrer may 00:02:37.950 --> 00:02:40.840 align:middle line:84% be a little crude for your taste, but he's no fool. 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:42.600 align:middle line:84% He knows who makes money for him. 00:02:42.600 --> 00:02:46.140 align:middle line:84% And with this Rosenfeld getting elected in America, well." 00:02:46.140 --> 00:02:49.440 align:middle line:84% That was Roosevelt, I think a lot of people-- 00:02:49.440 --> 00:02:51.315 align:middle line:84% Germans thought he was [INAUDIBLE]. 00:02:51.315 --> 00:02:54.690 align:middle line:84% "This is another tiny, sepia street-scene. 00:02:54.690 --> 00:02:56.940 align:middle line:84% It is the most precious picture in the box. 00:02:56.940 --> 00:03:00.180 align:middle line:84% For an artist, my mother took terrible pictures. 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:02.580 align:middle line:84% A tram snakes off the top of the frame. 00:03:02.580 --> 00:03:05.610 align:middle line:84% Half of a bundled Frau crosses the street. 00:03:05.610 --> 00:03:08.820 align:middle line:84% Uniformed men-- police, army, Czech, or German-- 00:03:08.820 --> 00:03:11.850 align:middle line:84% fill the space at the corner, outside a coffee shop. 00:03:11.850 --> 00:03:14.970 align:middle line:84% There seems to be an Apotheke next door, 00:03:14.970 --> 00:03:18.570 align:middle line:84% cold-looking children play a sidewalk game using chalk just 00:03:18.570 --> 00:03:19.740 align:middle line:90% outside the door. 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:21.780 align:middle line:84% You would miss it if you weren't looking for it. 00:03:21.780 --> 00:03:26.220 align:middle line:84% The sign for corn struggling for attention against much larger 00:03:26.220 --> 00:03:28.200 align:middle line:90% and fancier boards. 00:03:28.200 --> 00:03:31.260 align:middle line:84% This is the picture to be enlarged, at any cost. 00:03:31.260 --> 00:03:34.590 align:middle line:84% I palm it and slip it away, knowing I am taking her soul, 00:03:34.590 --> 00:03:36.300 align:middle line:84% and fearing that something will slice 00:03:36.300 --> 00:03:39.750 align:middle line:84% through all the blown cells in her brain and reach out for it, 00:03:39.750 --> 00:03:41.760 align:middle line:90% and then destroy it. 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:42.420 align:middle line:90% Fly! 00:03:42.420 --> 00:03:43.830 align:middle line:90% Fly! 00:03:43.830 --> 00:03:45.390 align:middle line:90% Go West and don't stop. 00:03:45.390 --> 00:03:49.410 align:middle line:84% I tell you this as a friend, as someone who knows. 00:03:49.410 --> 00:03:51.630 align:middle line:84% This on a worn sheet of air-mail paper, 00:03:51.630 --> 00:03:55.140 align:middle line:84% initialled with what appears to be a double J inside a crest, 00:03:55.140 --> 00:03:57.490 align:middle line:84% with a swastika hanging below it. 00:03:57.490 --> 00:04:01.320 align:middle line:84% So strange to see, as it were, a sincere swastika and not 00:04:01.320 --> 00:04:03.240 align:middle line:90% some gangland graffiti. 00:04:03.240 --> 00:04:07.530 align:middle line:90% JJ, Visa Clerk, Leipzig. 00:04:07.530 --> 00:04:12.240 align:middle line:84% Rice -- In my mother -- in my wife's culture, 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:16.529 align:middle line:84% Usha is called a cousin sister, which means any female relative 00:04:16.529 --> 00:04:17.880 align:middle line:90% approximate in age. 00:04:17.880 --> 00:04:20.190 align:middle line:84% Actually she is Anna's first cousin, 00:04:20.190 --> 00:04:22.860 align:middle line:84% daughter of my father-in-law's oldest brother. 00:04:22.860 --> 00:04:25.200 align:middle line:84% In the ancestral long-ago, they had 00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:28.410 align:middle line:84% lived in the same Calcutta house, the Jatrabari, part 00:04:28.410 --> 00:04:30.900 align:middle line:90% of a joint-family numbering 40. 00:04:30.900 --> 00:04:33.720 align:middle line:84% She is married to Pramod, and both are physicists. 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:35.970 align:middle line:84% But instead of staying in the university world 00:04:35.970 --> 00:04:38.340 align:middle line:84% and settling down on some Big Ten campus, 00:04:38.340 --> 00:04:41.940 align:middle line:84% Pramod taken a position in Holland, setting up a lab, 00:04:41.940 --> 00:04:44.040 align:middle line:84% and the Dutch government had recommended him 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:46.680 align:middle line:84% for similar work in Indonesia and Suriname 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:48.420 align:middle line:84% and before too many years, he had 00:04:48.420 --> 00:04:51.300 align:middle line:84% found himself side-tracked into sophisticated, high 00:04:51.300 --> 00:04:54.120 align:middle line:84% level nuclear management, the protocols of which 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:57.100 align:middle line:84% led, inevitably, to international agencies. 00:04:57.100 --> 00:04:59.610 align:middle line:84% He is now with the UN's nuclear-monitoring agency 00:04:59.610 --> 00:05:02.640 align:middle line:84% in Vienna, and Usha writes as a researcher-- 00:05:02.640 --> 00:05:05.370 align:middle line:84% works as a researcher for physics at the University. 00:05:05.370 --> 00:05:07.620 align:middle line:84% They have been in Vienna for 15 years, 00:05:07.620 --> 00:05:09.390 align:middle line:84% their children are European, they 00:05:09.390 --> 00:05:11.880 align:middle line:84% own an apartment in the city and a garden-house 00:05:11.880 --> 00:05:13.290 align:middle line:90% in Wiener-Neustadt. 00:05:13.290 --> 00:05:15.300 align:middle line:84% It's a comfortable life in a country where 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:19.540 align:middle line:84% immigration and assimilation, as we know them, are impossible. 00:05:19.540 --> 00:05:21.510 align:middle line:84% We are all together this night in Vienna, 00:05:21.510 --> 00:05:23.790 align:middle line:84% enjoying a huge Bengali banquet, cooked 00:05:23.790 --> 00:05:26.790 align:middle line:84% from locally-gathered fish and rice and vegetables, 00:05:26.790 --> 00:05:29.640 align:middle line:84% simmered in spices brought back from frequent trips 00:05:29.640 --> 00:05:31.350 align:middle line:90% to London and Bombay. 00:05:31.350 --> 00:05:34.140 align:middle line:84% My son and I have our Eurail passes, 00:05:34.140 --> 00:05:37.290 align:middle line:84% Anna will be with us only three days before going on to India 00:05:37.290 --> 00:05:39.990 align:middle line:90% to visit her mother and sister. 00:05:39.990 --> 00:05:42.090 align:middle line:84% It's this life we lead, I silently 00:05:42.090 --> 00:05:45.540 align:middle line:84% explain to myself, and to the ghost of my mother. 00:05:45.540 --> 00:05:48.120 align:middle line:84% Vienna was another of her cities, briefly. 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:51.570 align:middle line:84% The world has opened for us, no fears of the unknown. 00:05:51.570 --> 00:05:54.420 align:middle line:84% My mother shrank from the very idea of India, 00:05:54.420 --> 00:05:56.970 align:middle line:84% but tried to disguise it with images of Gandhi 00:05:56.970 --> 00:05:59.370 align:middle line:90% and respect for ancient wisdom. 00:05:59.370 --> 00:06:02.490 align:middle line:84% How under-defined I feel at 50, compared 00:06:02.490 --> 00:06:04.950 align:middle line:84% to Pramod a father who has dabbled-- 00:06:04.950 --> 00:06:07.530 align:middle line:84% who has written some books, who teaches when he must, 00:06:07.530 --> 00:06:11.280 align:middle line:84% who dabbles in cultures that have their hooks in him. 00:06:11.280 --> 00:06:12.915 align:middle line:90% We are talking of Canada. 00:06:12.915 --> 00:06:14.520 align:middle line:84% "They've become like the British," 00:06:14.520 --> 00:06:16.950 align:middle line:84% Anna says, spooning out rice to our son. 00:06:16.950 --> 00:06:18.750 align:middle line:90% 'Hateful little people.' 00:06:18.750 --> 00:06:21.180 align:middle line:84% The Sens had visited Niagara Falls last summer, 00:06:21.180 --> 00:06:23.460 align:middle line:84% and been turned away at the border for an afternoon's 00:06:23.460 --> 00:06:24.300 align:middle line:90% visit. 00:06:24.300 --> 00:06:26.250 align:middle line:84% For pleasure trips they use their Indian, 00:06:26.250 --> 00:06:30.390 align:middle line:84% not their UN passports. 'He said things to us I wouldn't say 00:06:30.390 --> 00:06:34.540 align:middle line:84% to a servant,' says Usha. 'How do I know you will leave when 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:35.040 align:middle line:90% you say? 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:37.510 align:middle line:84% How do I know you own a house as you say? 00:06:37.510 --> 00:06:41.130 align:middle line:84% They are very suspicious about Indians, I must say.' 00:06:41.130 --> 00:06:44.340 align:middle line:84% 'I told him to go to hell,' says Jyoti, the Harvard boy. 00:06:44.340 --> 00:06:45.830 align:middle line:90% 'Who needs the hassle? 00:06:45.830 --> 00:06:48.330 align:middle line:84% The Austrians are bad enough, but I always thought Canadians 00:06:48.330 --> 00:06:49.800 align:middle line:90% were better.' 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:53.130 align:middle line:84% I remember when it wasn't so, in our cosmopolitan 00:06:53.130 --> 00:06:55.440 align:middle line:84% refuge in Montreal, when my mother and I lived 00:06:55.440 --> 00:06:58.200 align:middle line:84% like Alexandrenes in a large apartment Outremont, 00:06:58.200 --> 00:06:59.880 align:middle line:90% after my father's death. 00:06:59.880 --> 00:07:03.030 align:middle line:84% We had original paintings on our walls, French-Canadian artists 00:07:03.030 --> 00:07:03.720 align:middle line:90% only. 00:07:03.720 --> 00:07:06.510 align:middle line:84% My father was an old man even in my earliest memories, 00:07:06.510 --> 00:07:09.420 align:middle line:84% a lawyer nearing retirement, than dead two months 00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:10.650 align:middle line:90% after achieving it. 00:07:10.650 --> 00:07:12.900 align:middle line:84% I remember the visits of his grown-up children 00:07:12.900 --> 00:07:14.640 align:middle line:84% from an earlier marriage, of being 00:07:14.640 --> 00:07:16.440 align:middle line:84% the same age as his grandchildren, 00:07:16.440 --> 00:07:20.040 align:middle line:84% and wondering what, exactly, to call that relationship. 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:24.660 align:middle line:84% My son and Jyoti are, precisely, second cousins. 00:07:24.660 --> 00:07:27.180 align:middle line:84% Usha is his first-cousin once-removed. 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:30.360 align:middle line:90% He calls her mashi, aunt. 00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:31.500 align:middle line:90% 'Have more rice, please. 00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:32.625 align:middle line:90% There is plenty.' 00:07:32.625 --> 00:07:36.990 align:middle line:84% 'Mother, this isn't Calcutta,' says Tapati, the MIT daughter. 00:07:36.990 --> 00:07:39.120 align:middle line:84% Everything this evening is exquisite. 00:07:39.120 --> 00:07:42.300 align:middle line:84% There is no cuisine in the world that excites me like Indian, 00:07:42.300 --> 00:07:44.910 align:middle line:84% no painting that thrills me like Moghul miniatures, 00:07:44.910 --> 00:07:47.820 align:middle line:84% no city for better and worse, like Calcutta. 00:07:47.820 --> 00:07:50.340 align:middle line:90% After India, Europe is a bore. 00:07:50.340 --> 00:07:52.500 align:middle line:84% I'm staying back for my son's sake, 00:07:52.500 --> 00:07:56.250 align:middle line:84% his ancient dream of being European. 00:07:56.250 --> 00:07:58.470 align:middle line:84% Anna is explaining our move to the States. 00:07:58.470 --> 00:08:01.680 align:middle line:84% 'To be an Indian in Canada was be second class, no matter how 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:04.920 align:middle line:84% good you were, no matter how Canadian you tried to be. 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:07.090 align:middle line:84% At least if we're second class in the States we know 00:08:07.090 --> 00:08:09.450 align:middle line:84% it's because we're just second rate.' 00:08:09.450 --> 00:08:11.400 align:middle line:84% I wish I could sink into the rice, 00:08:11.400 --> 00:08:13.860 align:middle line:84% the dimple topped pyramids of snowy rice 00:08:13.860 --> 00:08:16.050 align:middle line:84% scooped out for fish and vegetables. 00:08:16.050 --> 00:08:19.230 align:middle line:84% I want to grab handfuls of rice and smear them over my head 00:08:19.230 --> 00:08:20.670 align:middle line:90% and rub them in my face. 00:08:20.670 --> 00:08:22.950 align:middle line:84% I want to do something vulgar and extravagant 00:08:22.950 --> 00:08:25.680 align:middle line:84% in this apartment of excellence, among these diligent 00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:29.310 align:middle line:84% and exquisite people, out of my own shame, the accumulated 00:08:29.310 --> 00:08:32.500 align:middle line:84% guilt and incomprehensions in my life. 00:08:32.500 --> 00:08:35.187 align:middle line:84% Tapati is asking our son, 'Is there anything special 00:08:35.187 --> 00:08:36.270 align:middle line:90% you want to see in Vienna? 00:08:36.270 --> 00:08:37.919 align:middle line:90% I can take you there.' 00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:39.690 align:middle line:84% They are amazed that for who he is 00:08:39.690 --> 00:08:41.220 align:middle line:90% and what he represents to them-- 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:44.190 align:middle line:84% America, after all, the place and people they most admire-- 00:08:44.190 --> 00:08:46.320 align:middle line:90% he speaks only English. 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:48.180 align:middle line:84% Usha's children have been raised in Europe, 00:08:48.180 --> 00:08:49.440 align:middle line:90% but with Indian ways. 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:51.480 align:middle line:84% Each of them speaks eight languages, 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:54.480 align:middle line:90% but they have no country. 00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:57.000 align:middle line:84% Jyoti writes rock lyrics in German, 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:00.120 align:middle line:84% plays in an Austrian band, studies economics at Harvard. 00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:03.720 align:middle line:84% Tapati has a PhD and an MBA, and now interns at the World Bank. 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:06.270 align:middle line:84% Both are in America, but not of it-- 00:09:06.270 --> 00:09:10.150 align:middle line:84% too exquisite for the mall-culture America I know. 00:09:10.150 --> 00:09:12.090 align:middle line:84% 'Anything,' he says, 'it doesn't matter.' 00:09:12.090 --> 00:09:14.400 align:middle line:90% 'No, there must be something.' 00:09:14.400 --> 00:09:15.790 align:middle line:90% He looks to me for help. 00:09:15.790 --> 00:09:18.930 align:middle line:84% He wants Europe, he wants saturation, a way of entering. 00:09:18.930 --> 00:09:20.892 align:middle line:84% He's been studying German in high school, 00:09:20.892 --> 00:09:23.100 align:middle line:84% but it's the last thing in the world he'll admit here 00:09:23.100 --> 00:09:24.480 align:middle line:90% to his second-cousins. 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:27.300 align:middle line:84% He doesn't trust himself to understand a single word. 00:09:27.300 --> 00:09:30.210 align:middle line:84% He's heard Bengali all his life, but never thought of it 00:09:30.210 --> 00:09:31.740 align:middle line:90% as part of himself. 00:09:31.740 --> 00:09:34.200 align:middle line:84% He spent half his life in a French-speaking city 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:37.900 align:middle line:84% and did his French exercises perfectly, like history. 00:09:37.900 --> 00:09:39.750 align:middle line:84% It's the legacy of the New World. 00:09:39.750 --> 00:09:42.660 align:middle line:84% Jyoti has already told him, he'd trade it all-- the languages, 00:09:42.660 --> 00:09:45.450 align:middle line:84% the sophistication that dazzles his Harvard friends-- 00:09:45.450 --> 00:09:49.050 align:middle line:84% for a simple work permit, for the chance to stay and work 00:09:49.050 --> 00:09:50.910 align:middle line:90% the summer at Mr. Spud. 00:09:50.910 --> 00:09:53.330 align:middle line:90% 'And what about you, uncle?'" 00:09:53.330 --> 00:09:54.000 align:middle line:90%