24

The mantra resurfaces. Mum, poor girl. It catches Henry unawares, even now, in the Seafarers’ Mission. His gaze is turned inwards. His elbows remain propped on the red formica. He tightens his grip on his shoulders.

Mum, poor girl. It will always be there. It cannot be otherwise. Yet something is incomplete. She must be seen again, restored. Revisited.

She cannot venture outside. She is in fear of open spaces, afraid of people, but afraid also of the suffocating rooms, the passage, and in fear of the day as it makes its slow way through the hours.

The house is given over to stillness, leached of noise, of the hum of daily living. Her husband and children are out in a world she is not part of.

She clings to the routines, and performs her chores. She goes from the kitchen to the tiny backyard to attend to the washing. She lights the wood-fired copper in the outhouse, and turns on the taps. She slaps and beats the sheets and pillowslips, towels and tablecloths, the clothes of a family of six. And she is pregnant with the fifth child.

She throws the washing into buckets and carries it to the lines strung across the backyard. She returns inside, and she cleans and tidies and irons and folds away clothing into drawers. She cleaves to her duty, and to the routine as if to a lifeboat. And she clings to the love of her children. Though there are times when they appear to her as strangers.

There comes a point when she can no longer bear it. She wanders from room to room, disoriented. She is weary. She lies down on the sofa, with its view to the kitchen and the passage. She is safe here, blessedly safe. The front door is locked and the passage secured. The house is a fortress. No one can see her. No one knows her. Perhaps she has never existed.

And this is how she wants it. She sinks back and looks up at the oval ceiling rose and the bare chain from which hangs a single light-globe. She sees the stains of damp beside it, the living-room windows, the raised blinds and trembling curtains, and beyond, to the narrow walkway, the half-metre gap between the window and the timber fence, and to the brick wall of the neighbour’s house directly behind it.

She is hemmed in. The entire house is hemmed in. She is protected, but choking; secure yet imprisoned. Locked in a paradox.

She can hear, from a distance, the shifting sounds of the day: a delivery truck pulling up outside Kurops, the warble of a magpie, clothes flapping in rising breezes, snatches of backyard voices, neighbours talking.

Their chatter is indistinct, muffled by walls and fences. They have no shape and no meaning, but they are warm. Intimate. They belong to people who are normal. She craves to reach out and join them. She aches to be one of them.

She knows each square metre of linoleum, the fissures, and the random patches of exposed underfelt. She knows each room, each ceiling rose, and the globes hanging from them. She knows each fracture in the plaster, each item of furniture, and her prized crystal, in the cabinet in the living room.

In better times she has ventured out and purchased crystal. Bowls, goblets, ashtrays and platters, jars and serving trays. Crystal traps the light. And crystal refracts memories of Odessa, the port city, and a village on its outskirts, and of the child who once received a maternal tenderness that now, she dare not think about. Crystal is an antidote. It is not plagued with doubts.

She is a fierce guardian of secrets. She can never utter what became of her mother and of her father and her brother as she fled. Nor speak of her violation. She has buried it. Yet the price she has paid is terrifying—a journey from vast exteriors to dark interiors, from the commerce of daily life to silences.

She knows every nuance of silence: silence’s curses, silence’s blessings, the perils of silence, and its reveries. But there is crystal, and crystal breaks the silence. It speaks of the past, and it also hints at a way forward: crystal is tough. It is what she aspires to be, and how she sees herself, even when others see her as broken. Crystal is an old world expression of beauty, solid and functional, a reflector of light and memory—a prism through which hope can still reach her. It is much prized in the lands she comes from, where it is passed from mother to daughter.

So she collects crystal. And there comes a time when she has a daughter, a female to restore the lineage.

Sandra sends me photos of mother and daughter: one, a black and white taken in the living room. Sonia holds the baby. Her cheek touches Alexandra’s head. She is content and grounded, a mature woman, a veteran of motherhood. Pensive. Through the open doorway is the tiny kitchen and a chair at the table.

In another photo Sonia sits on the sofa with Simche. They hold the baby between them, wrapped in a white blanket, only the tiny head visible. And on Sonia’s face, there is a look of joy and a smile of utter abandon. It is the only photo Sandra knows of in which her happiness is so apparent.

It will be Sandra who will see her most clearly, who will talk of her mother’s love of crystal. Who will go shopping with her in the city, and wander the vast floors of the Myer emporium; who will walk with her and observe her taste for European fashion, and her love of coats.

A coat is the most important item of clothing. It is a constant, a shield from the memories of far harsher winters in the frozen steppes of Siberia. Sonia’s wardrobe is full of coats.

One is checked, blue and green, distinguished by its colour. Another is old, with large grey lapels, tough and enduring, brought with her on the sea voyage. Yet another is black merino wool, soft to the touch, with ample sleeves, a sharply cut hem, a spacious cape, and black buttons—stylish. Coats are a form of expression.

Sonia acquired beautiful things: a pair of silver shoes, pearls, a tailored jacket for a son’s wedding, black stilettos. She goes shopping on her own, or with her daughter, in search of stylish coats and well-tailored dresses. She runs her hands over fabric. She is self-possessed. Absorbed in the moment. Another person, says Sandra. A mystery.

It will be Sandra who pursues the mystery. Who will do all she can to resurrect her. Who will recall the lipsticks, and the dressing table scattered with rouge and perfumes, the scent of spring and watermelon.

Sandra receives two rings from her mother, when Sonia is on her deathbed. One a present from Simche to his wife, after a journey he had taken to Russia. It’s made of gold, elegant in design, finely crafted, and set with a diamond. And the other, a gold band, a gift to Sonia from her aunt Rivka, inscribed with the name of her maternal grandmother. Two rings that Sandra wears to this day.

It is Sandra who tracks down and opens her mother’s medical records, a decade after her passing. Hundreds of pages arranged in dated sections, a chronicle of Sonia’s breakdowns. Notes scrawled and typed in hospital wards, psychiatric units, and during home visits: the observations of psychiatrists and psychologists, nurses, caseworkers—battalions of professionals. All in their own way caring. Seeking to ease the suffering.

The records span Sonia’s final decade, but they also make reference to earlier breakdowns: the first one, in 1950, a year after the Nissens moved into Amess Street. Solly was three years old, Henry and Leon barely walking.

The observations and Sonia’s quoted comments are harrowing. A thread weaves through them: the threat of men, and their assaults. Sonia speaks of abortions, and unborn children, a swollen womb. Defilement. The files record her ebb and flow between wariness and warmth, catatonia and alertness.

At times she is ‘giggly’ and ‘childlike’, ‘softly spoken’. ‘Well groomed’ and ‘in good spirits’. But soon the terror returns and she is cowering, a slight, enraged woman pacing hospital wards and corridors. Hitting out. Accusing all that come near her of betrayal. Fighting.

Yet again it turns, and she is lighter. Cheerful. Co-operative. Talking to fellow patients in Yiddish and Russian. Polish. English. Chatting to nurses about her family, taking care of her appearance and showing pride in her children. Applying lipstick. Surrendering to care, allowing her hair to be washed and set, and her hands to be manicured. Apologising for her anger. Singing.

Her imaginings are benign, the blinds are up and the curtains are wide open. She is the sun, the queen of the skies. She dispenses light. She reigns over day, and is extinguished at night.

And again, abruptly, it is dark.

The oscillations quicken. Sonia wants to live. She wants to die. She wants companionship, she wants solitude. She pines for her daughter when Sandra is away on her travels, and is overjoyed when she returns. She speaks lovingly of her adult children. She cannot wait for their next visit. But within an hour she cannot bear even to make eye contact.

The demands on the family are relentless. It is a bruising, brutal drama, but they do not abandon her. Sandra. Solly. Paul. Leon and Henry. Simche too, in his stoic and bewildered way, though there are times when he can’t take it. Towards the end they sleep at opposite ends of the house, and, eventually, he moves out alone, into a retirement home.

But he returns and sits by her bed. Converses. Small talk. He remains present, and there are times Sandra sees them as she approaches the ward for a visit: Simche bedside, and the couple quietly talking, then falling silent. She stops, for a moment, outside the ward entrance, a witness to the stillness between them.

The family bonds remain. The children visit their mother often. They attend consultations with doctors. They hire hospital sitters so that Sonia can be safely unrestrained. At her lowest ebbs, her sons take it in turns to stay overnight in the hospital ward, to keep watch over her.

Sandra does all she can to keep Sonia at home. She hires handymen. They draw up plans for grab-rails in the showers and toilet, and mark out locations for smoke detectors and gas alarms. She ferries her mother to and from appointments and respite centres. She is present when Sonia is discharged. She takes her home, and helps her settle.

But despite the reams of documentation, Sonia cannot be found there. The notes are, for the most part, clinical. They rarely go beyond basic comments, records of prescriptions and dosages. Treatments. Referrals—the letterheads of specialists.

There is no colour, but for one instance when her dress is described: a brown blouse and black skirt, a dark red cardigan, a pair of brown shoes and a brown handbag. This is the closest the notes get to her. Sonia remains elusive. A patient. She cannot be found here.