Fifty
The phone is ringing. And I’m sleeping.
I fumble for it. It’s next to my pillow.
“Hello,” I mumble.
“Willem!” Yael says in a breathless gulp. “Did I wake you?”
“Ma?” I ask. I wait to feel the usual panic but none comes. Instead, there’s something else, a residue of something good. I rub my eyes and it’s still there, floating like a mist: a dream I was having.
“I talked to Mukesh. And he worked his magic. He can get you out Monday but we have to book now. We’ll do an open-ended ticket this time. Come for a year. Then decide what to do.”
My head is hazy with lack of sleep. The party went until four. I fell asleep around five. The sun was already up. Slowly, yesterday’s conversation with my mother comes back to me. The offer she made. How much I wanted it. Or thought I did. Some things you don’t know you want until they’re gone. Other things you think want, but don’t understand you already have them.
“Ma,” I say. “I’m not coming back to India.”
“You’re not?” There’s curiosity in her voice, and disappointment, too.
“I don’t belong there.”
“You belong where I belong.”
It’s a relief, after all this time, to hear her say so. But I don’t think it’s true. I’m grateful that she has made a new home for herself in India, but it’s not where I’m meant to be.
Go big and go home.
“I’m going to act, Ma,” I say. And I feel it. The idea, the plan, fully formed since last night, maybe since much longer. The urgency to see Kate, who never did show up at the party, courses through me. This is one chance I’m not going to let slip through my fingers. This is something I need. “I’m going to act,” I repeat. “Because I’m an actor.”
Yael laughs. “Of course you are. It’s in your blood. Just like Olga.”
The name is instantly familiar. “Olga Szabo, you mean?”
There’s a pause. I can feel her surprise crackle through the line. “Saba told you about her?”
“No. I found the pictures. In the attic. I meant to ask you about them but I didn’t, because I’ve been busy . . .” I trail off. “And because we never really talked about these things.”
“No. We never did, did we?”
“Who was she? Saba’s girlfriend?”
“She was his sister,” she replies. And I should be surprised, but I’m not. Not at all. It’s like the pieces of a puzzle slotting together.
“She would have been your great aunt,” Yael continues. “He always said she was an incredible actress. She was meant to go to Hollywood. But then the war came and she didn’t survive.”
She didn’t survive. Only Saba did.
“Was Szabo her stage name?” I ask.
“No. Szabo was Saba’s surname before he emigrated to Israel and Hebreified it. Lots of Europeans did that.”
To distance himself, I think. I understand that. Though he couldn’t really distance himself. All those silent films he took me to. The ghosts he held at bay, and held close.
Olga Szabo, my great aunt. Sister to my grandfather, Oskar Szabo, who became Oskar Shiloh, father of Yael Shiloh, wife of Bram de Ruiter, brother of Daniel de Ruiter, soon to be father of Abra?o de Ruiter.
And just like that, my family grows again.