TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Birke

that someone had at least one time given her a trait. Like a character. People in plays have traits. Characters in books have personalities, but they have never even lived aday in real life. How is that fair? If only someone called hermomniceor funnyormean or an alcoholic or lovable or depressed or mentioned how she ate too much chocolate or was even potentially a little racist or even, God willing, dumb. If only Onkel Georg or her father allowed her mother, named Franza, her dead mother who drowned herself in a river surrounded by Birke trees, to have a memory. A history. Her mother was not allowed to be an alcoholic or an angel. She couldn’t even get her own gravestone without that ugly crucifix on top and that man bleeding from his ribs always looking down on her, watching her. Because her father said He is your mother’s brother, and because brothers usually grow up with sisters, Onkel Georg must have grown up with Birke’s mother. And if that was true, if Onkel Georg did in fact live with her mother, and they shared a home, then Onkel Georg must have known what her mother was like. He could give her character traits! But he would never do that. He would stay who he was. His mustache would stay the same and his adult pants and his velvet vest would always be perfectly ironed. And he would come to parties. To her birthday parties. And he would talk to people and socializeand talk toher fatherand sometimes tell storiesabout his childhood—only of course, after a few drinks. And he would kiss her goodbye and she would, out of the corner of her eye, inspect 205 But there must be a way for her mother to be someone. To make her into a person who was once real.