Some reflections on a life lived intensely 4

Part IV: I’m still not done with my mother, I doubt I ever will be

Writing the previous essay, here, proved emotionally draining for me, not only because of what I wrote but also because of what I didn’t write. It proved to be extremely difficult for me to decide what to include and what I eventually, didn’t include, even though, frankly, it meant leaving out elements that literally tore holes in the fabric of my story. Of course there must be methods of telling the ‘truth’ without actually, telling the truth but that’s not my style, dissembling. I just didn’t want to hurt people and I didn’t want to invade their privacy.

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It turns out that I’m not done with my mother, I doubt I ever will be. The death of my father was the critical moment in both our lives and from that point on I became the de facto replacement for him, at least that’s how my mother saw things, though of course, she would have vehemently denied it. It explains so much about our relationship. The loss, the fear, her childhood all over again, the breakup with her first husband and the separation from Ian, her son. The thing is, we never, ever talked about any of it, yes, she recounted episodes from her past, some of which I’ve recounted here but we never really shared them, the loss and of course, I never understood, I had my own problems, I thought.

Etty, probably not long after she arrived in England in 1901, taken by the well-known Victorian photographer, R. Broadhead

It was tough after my dad died. My mother was pretty much abandoned really but she fought, Vera was a fighter, she learned to fight when her mother abandoned her kids when Vera was about 10 years old and she was left to take care of her younger sisters, Flo and Sophie. It’s all there in that photo of my mum and Flo. It’s difficult to appreciate life in Leeds in the first couple of decades of the 20^th century for a poor, immigrant family. By the time Vera was born, Etty had already had five children and then she had two more, eight in all (well actually nine, when we include Carl), so no wonder she abandoned them all and fled with Jack Dribben, maybe she just had enough of Rifel?

My mum told me that Etty had a baby then a miscarriage, then a baby, then a miscarriage… so for sixteen years, all Etty did was make babies and work as a seamstress. So what kind of man was Rifel? Well my mum told me he was a drinker, which probably accounts for all those children. He loved to hang out with his rich Jewish friends and party, while the children had no shoes and he was a cobbler!

Rifel at work

Beyond this, I don’t really know that much about him, I wish I did but judging by the fact that as soon as they could his sons and daughters struck out on their own, speaks volumes about him. He died in 1943, my mother said that the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, broke his heart. My mother told me that she left home when she was fifteen and moved down to London, living, I think with her older sister Rose, who was a professional ballroom dancer and undoubtedly connected to my mother also becoming a dancer. Music seems to have run in the family, Isaac, the oldest boy, was according to my mother, a fine violinist but making a living proved too difficult for him and he ended up managing cinemas.

Those early days of the Barofskys explains a lot about my mother’s behaviour, her obsession with cleanliness and order for example and her insecurities about money. Is it any wonder that she needed order and predictability in her life after her chaotic and deprived childhood. It also explains her flirtation with wealthy men, at least for a time. But it would have been interesting to know what changed her, why she married Arthur Woolf when she could have had a life of ease with an heir to money. Clearly something changed, why did the politics of her parents reassert itself, never to leave her? I have the feeling that Etty was the cause, after all, the man she left for was also a Communist and in the 1930s, Etty had the dubious pleasure of coming to the attention of MI5. The documents in the National Archive reveal that she was spied on and her mail intercepted for several years, she was even interviewed by them and asked about her connection to the Communist Party, which she denied, revealing that the security services weren’t very bright or efficient given that Etty was a founder member of the Communist Party in 1923. At this time, she ran a boarding house in Manchester and visiting comrades would stay there. A local policeman was stationed at the end of the street with orders to keep a record of the comings and goings. Later, in the 1950s during the Cold War, Etty became the honorary president of the National Association of Women that was awarded to her for her contribution to the peace movement, especially during the Korean War when the US was threatening to use nuclear weapons against China. Etty collected thousands of signatures for the Stockholm Appeal, to stop the use of nuclear weapons.

Etty never became a British citizen, my mother told me that she had a Soviet passport but this is incorrect, she had her old, Russian passport (if she had one at all) and she died a Russian citizen in 1964, effectively abandoned by her family, to die alone in a hospital in Manchester from pneumonia that I think she probably got from selling the Daily Worker on the street’s of Manchester. She was 84. I think it’s here that we can find the reason for my mother’s change of heart, that in spite of Etty’s desertion, there must have been a deeper connection between my mum and Etty but of course I’ll never know.

Writing these words has given me a deeper understanding of my mother that I wish I had before, perhaps it could have changed our relationship for the better and done something to ameliorate the guilt and sadness I feel about my amazing but infuriating mother. I only wish I could communicate these feelings to my brother, who feels such resentment toward her. I have tried to explain these feelings to him but without success, the feelings he has are just too deeply embedded.

Part V: Coping with puberty