Fado, Fado
Aine stood before the old ladies, head bowed, filled with anticipation, but not fear. The old ladies, Aine’s mother, auntie Orla, and the neighbor woman Mrs. Power sat in front of the fire in the tiny three room house in county Waterford. In years to come Aine would remember the distinctive smell of that turf fire. It was a smell that was purely Irish. It was a smell that brought her warmth, and at the same time, placed her back in the cold uncertainty of her fourteenth year.
Orla nervously knitted while Aine’s mother clutched her rosary beads and insisted questions that were asked only hours before. She could not look at the child.
“You’ll find the Parish Priest first thing when ya get there Aine, and you’ll go to mass every week, you’ll promise me? Now, you have your Aunt Aoife’s telephone number, and you’ll call her straight off the boat?”, said Aine’s mother.
“You’re a good girl”, said Aine’s aunt, as she reached to hold Aine’s hands, “Good as gold, I reckon. Lord knows yer mammy loves ye more than life itself child. You’ll be home before you know it please God”.
There was an almost inaudible knock at the door. It was the kind of knock, barely heard, which was intended to reverently put an end to the somber proceedings inside the small stone cottage. The door creaked open to reveal the cold gray December day. In the doorway stood Aine’s uncle Kevin. “The car’s ready now. I’ve put Aine’s suitcase in.”, said Kevin.
“I’ve made some sandwiches and a thermos full of tea for the drive. They’re on the kitchen table. Will you fetch them, Kevin?” said Orla.
Aine’s hands slipped from the warm grasp of her auntie and moved to gently touch the linen head-scarf on her mother’s head. In that moment child became mother and mother became child.
Kevin and Aine set out on the tiny country roads leading to the N75, across the verdant southeast of Ireland over to Wexford and finally down to Rosslare harbour. During the drive Kevin regaled Aine with stories of colorful characters he’d met and good craic he’d had in London. “It’s not so bad, now, you’ll see. The only reason I come back was because of your father’s passing”
Kevin had gone to London as a stone mason about ten years before. He’d learned to be an electrician and was on the verge of making good money when his brother Michael died. With no one to run the Waterford sheep farm, Kevin was obliged to return and try to scratch out a living for everyone.
In England, Kevin had an Irish girlfriend, Megan, who worked her way up from chambermaid to maid staff supervisor at a hotel in central London. He knew she was always looking for maid staff, and she even had a bed available for Aine in her tiny coal heated flat in east London.
Aine loved her uncle Kevin. Like most Irishmen, he was a charmer, and a bit of a rogue, and Aine was attracted to that aspect of his character. He made her laugh, sometimes until she cried, and by the end of the drive the somber mood had lifted from her.
Kevin carried her small Samsonite suitcase as they walked to the gang-plank of the ferry. “Take the rest of these sandwiches for the sailing over”, said Kevin. “Megan agreed on twenty Sterling a week. Now, that’s good money, so you be careful with it. She’ll send home ten a week and she’ll take five out for room and board. You’ll keep the rest.”
Kevin stopped abruptly and grabbed Aine’s shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “You remember your bible stories, Aine? You remember the one about Lot’s wife-
‘Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.’
“Don’t look back, girl” Kevin implored in a whispered voice and kissed his niece on the forehead. He slipped ten quid into her hand, and walked away.
December 7, 1961
Betina was prone to bad decisions, decisions that spun her into dilemma and depression. She fell for a twenty-six year old man when she was seventeen. She married him at twenty-one, had their son at twenty-two, and divorced him at twenty-six.
Betina was raised in a world of lowered expectations. She was born in Czestochowa Poland about eight years before the days of the Gdansk Shipyard Strikes. After Gdansk, Poland was very slow to get on its feet and few in her family felt the benefits of the change that was forged in those shipyards. Of her three siblings, one split never to be heard from again, one offed himself, and one became a depressive alcoholic.
Betina’s father was physically abusive. Betina’s husband was physically abusive. Both men drank heavily, sometimes together. Her stormy exchanges with her father and husband set a course for her subsequent relationships with men in general, and Betina required a good measure of the same stormy weather to propel each and every one of those relationships to their inevitable unhappy ending.
Betina’s true loves were her beautiful 12 year old son Milos and far away places. It was a love triangle that would prove to be irreconcilable. Not that she’d been to many far away places, but she saw these places in films, television, and on the Internet.
Betina was working at an up-scale woman’s clothing store in the market center of Czestochowa. The pay was pretty good by Polish standards in 2006, about 1,000 Zlotych (250 Euro) a month, and the employees were allowed to buy one nice thing a month at a highly discounted price. Her ex-husband kept up his end of the divorce agreement by helping to support their son, so things were manageable financially. But, Betina’s wanderlust and restlessness, manifest by ski trips to Slovakia and weekend trips to the mountains, put her in debt. The pressure of that debt plus her parents’ mounting financial dependence put her in a bind. She asked for more money at work and threatened to leave if she didn’t get it. Her threats weren’t taken very seriously and this pissed her off. She had a close friend from primary school days, Ewa, who had immigrated to Ireland.
Ewa had some English and was easily able to find a job. The over-heated Celtic Tiger economy welcomed all, and it was especially easy to immigrate now that Poland was a member of the EU. Ewa sent emails to Betina telling her she could make five times what she made in the Polish dress shop if she came to work in a sandwich shop located in a high-tech office campus in Dublin. Ewa was the manager of the sandwich shop and was always looking for counter staff.
Betina, her ex-husband, and her son set off in the cold pre-dawn hours on the two hour drive to Krakow. The dawn revealed a fresh dusting of snow that made the Polish countryside look soft and rich, belying the true nature of the place that Betina always called “sad Poland”. They arrived at the airport and parked the car. Man and boy accompanied Betina into the airport to see her off.
“I connect through London to go to Dublin” Betina told her ex-husband. “It only cost me one cent to go from London to Dublin on Ryanair. It’s a good price, no? I will send money to take care of Milos after I’ve worked for two weeks. I will find a place to live and send for him soon. Until then, my father will stay with him in your flat when you’re on the road. You have to keep after him to do his school work, OK?”
Betina took her place in the security queue, tears welling up in her eyes. At the last moment before she reached the end of the queue, she dropped to her knees and put out her arms into which Milos ran. Mother and son hugged and cried. “I will send for you very soon. You must study your English, and I will study my English, promise me, Milos” sobbed Betina.
During the two hour flight from Krakow to London, Betina could only think of Milos. She stared out the window and dreamed of how life in Dublin would be for the two of them.
Betina waited in Stansted airport for the short trip from London to Dublin. She could have used a sandwich or something, but everything was quite expensive. She boarded the plane and looked for a seat. Betina chose a seat next to an older woman. She asked in her best, broken English, “The chair, it is taken?”
“No, you’re alright.” said the woman in a perky, distinctly Irish accent as she offered her hand. “My name is Anne. Are you having a holiday in Dublin?” Betina barely understood and just nodded politely. “Well, Ireland is a lovely place. I was born in Ireland in a place called County Waterford, but I lived in London for more than forty years. I just moved back last summer to take care of my mother. She has Alzheimer’s, poor dear. My daughter is just about to make me a grandma, so I was back in London making sure everything is ready for the baby. I can’t wait for that baby. Oh, listen to me. Telling you my whole life’s story and you just sat down.”
Betina didn’t understand a word.
December 7th, 2006.
Copyright (C) 2004 – 2019 Abram Richman All Rights Reserved
The Only Other Jew In Dublin 