ROBERTA. ROSENSTONE
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nople's seven hills, or of the massive fortified rock that preserved the
Mediterranean for the English sovereign . Mainly the voyage is dark
water, dark bulkheads, dark food and the dark breath offellow pas–
sengers . He gets as far as Ellis Island, then is turned away , presum–
ably for not having enough landing money. A ship drops him in a
French port, and for a year he lives in Paris . Rarely does he write
letters home.
The next time there is money for everyone. Passing on a train
or in a streetcar, or stopped in station in either France or England,
the family is assaulted with the violent, incomprehensible words of
street urchins , who hurl clods of dung along with insults. The future
becomes a lottery spun by some seasick god of the shipping lines and
lanes; they await the first ship to either Canada or Argentina. They
land in a city buried in white snowbanks higher than the tallest mid–
teen child. By the time the sky melts into blue and bright wild flowers
spring out all over the mountain that rises in the middle of Montreal
Island , a dim apartment is home. As before, mother is in the kitchen
much of the time , but life for the children is different. There is no
garden to tend, no cow to milk. The boys have scattered into the
streets, and the sounds of English are becoming familiar in their
mouths . The girls feel a swelling somewhere below the waist and
somewhere above the waist as they hang by the iron stairways that
curve gracefully from second story duplexes to the sidewalk. They
are beginning to distinguish between their brothers and other men .
The man-who-swims-into-history remains silent. He speaks
neither of Russia , Romania or the New World, says nothing about
past or future , never discusses the Pruth River, the Black Sea, the
Atlantic Ocean, the Seine or the St . Lawrence. He works not for him–
self, but in a shop with other men, and his hands seem less graceful,
agile, expressive.
It
is tempting to believe that in this silence he is pre–
paring a message for his children, and the grandchildren and great–
grandchildren of all immigrants. Such words cannot come easily or
quickly . First there is the matter of a lump on his head , an old com–
panion that has made every journey with him . The operation is rou–
tine . He leaves his family for a single night in the kind of hospital
none of them had ever seen in Romania. It is less than a year since
the arrival in Canada. After the lump has been removed and a ban–
dage is wrapped tightly around his head, he never seems quite well.
At home and at work he is dizzy, tired. A few days after the operation
he comes home, goes to bed and never gets up again . With the fam–
ily gathered around, his last words are a feeble, "Take care of your
