TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Ben Sloan

She grewolder. No longer four or five, aunt and uncle and grandpa became people who had kids with other people and because they chose those people to have kids with, they in turn received these titles. And because they were not just anyone’s aunts, uncles, and grandpas, butheraunts, uncles, andgrandpas, shebegantorealize that these people contributed to her being alive. Grandpa Peter wasdad’sdad andAunt Gerlindewasdad’s sister. She followed this formula and figured out how each aunt, cousin, niece, nephew, grandma, grandpa connected to her. Ah! she thought, it makes sense.

But daddy, she asked her father around the age of eight, is Onkel Georg anyone’s brother?

He is your mother’s brother.

Onkel Georg was hermother’s brother. The samemotherwho had killed herself when Birke was a toddler. The same mother who her father only spoke about in that strange whisper which mixed embarrassment and contempt. The mother who only existed in the trees she gazed at while they drove to Graz. Her mother had a name and a grave. She knew where the grave was and what was written on it, and at a certain age, she could imagine what was lying two meters under her feet as she carefully stepped over the gravestone steps, sprinkling pebbles of dried dirt on her way to place a bundle of tulips on the cold slab of stone. Her mother’s body—now a collection of spoiled bones—had a new permanent home. But where did she used to live? Where did mom grow up? Birke used to ask herself. 202