TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Fleeing Father

Block kids. So it was known early enough that I wouldn’t go the middle way. •

XVI

Home means to my father’s. My mother died a long time ago. I have always been an orphan.

Affection, tenderness and warmth weaken character.

Indicate poor upbringing. Are petit bourgeois.

When I was eight I got a wristwatch. It’s the only birthday I still remember. Otherwise birthdays were days like every other. Only one finally got something that what one needed anyway. I never got what I wished for. One shouldn’t spoil an only child. Shouldn’t endanger it. Not let it slide into petit bourgeois, selfish behavior. The girls in our building all had such beautiful doll carriages. I had wished for one of these too. Romania’s relations with China were still good back then. That could be seen from my toys. I had lots of mechanical toys from China, of whichmyMotherwas so proud of. I was not yet political when I was six or seven, and I didn’t want to know anything about propaganda and good relations with Communist China. 243