On Being Fatalistic
With no letter dated today or tomorrow, we turn to Helene’s memoirs (slightly edited for clarity). In honor of Valentine’s Day yesterday, the stories concern Helene’s and her mother’s romantic lives.
On Being Fatalistic.
Before my fate was linked with that of Vitali, I was fatalistic. Uncountable times I observed that I glaubte zu schieben und bin geschoben worden [I believed I was pushing and I was pushed]. By whom? Call it superstition, but I have reliance on my fate, which sometimes prevented me from doing something I thought very reasonable. Afterwards I found out that it would have been a failure, but more often I was forced to do something; I struggled but this gewisse etwas [certain something] prevailed. Reluctantly I gave in, and I never regretted it, although I acted against my “better judgment” as I put it to myself, only to learn after that it was all right. Several times it happened to me that I came to a decision. I thought over and over again, and when it came to the point to act, I just did the contrary – something interfered, prompted me to do or say something – it was surprising.
My encounter with Vitali is a proof to me that there is no such thing like a blind game of chance. Vitali came from Constantinople for one week or so and remained for good. Veni vidi vici? No. I saw that he was in a higher strata than I, I liked his bearing, his self-assuredness without being arrogant, I liked him, found him good-looking, amiable, interesting and God-knows-what-else, but when he asked me to marry him, I refused, knowing that one day I would give in. Vitali was not obtrusive, but he chased away all my boyfriends I liked so much. They felt his superiority, and retired, which made me no more friendly towards Vitali, but he pretended not to see it.
Our spiritual compatibility was astonishing, the more, as we in daily life affairs were often of contrary opinion, and struggled. Vitali liked to belittle me sometimes out of pure opposition, but when I sometimes said: I have to do this or that, he gave me an understanding look and asked me: what is the matter, what did you dream of?
Vitali was in business-affairs more often a hindrance than help, but he never would allow anybody to think so, therefore he minimized my success in business, and was jealous. Jealousy was his main-strain and that I could not stand. I had been independent for 20 years, and that is deep water. When after a serious sickness everything in our business went topsy-turvy, I experienced that my Deus ex machina, as Vitali expressed it, had not forgotten me, only that he came always at the very last moment, just when my desperation reached its climax. Anytime I was nonplussed, Vitali was not – he took it for granted.
Once, shortly after we had to separate from our children, we went to a show. I forgot the name. It was the story of a couple, separated by force in different ages. The features of this couple had changed only little: changed only was the apparel, the circumstances, but not their fate, always they were separated, to find themselves together after centuries, and on different continents. When we left, we didn’t talk. All of a sudden V. took my hand and squeezed it. I tried to be cheerful when I said: “Vitali, did this actor imitate you or have you seen this picture before and you imitate him?” (Vitali’s carriage was characteristic for him, I observed the same bearing among some men in Florence, every inch a Renaissance-Prince) Vitali didn't answer this question, only said seriously: “It wasn’t the first time chérie we met each other, and it will not be the last.”
When traveling on the Drottningholm [the ship that took Helene to Istanbul in 1945 after being part of a prisoner trade and being released from Ravensbrück] I took a book at random, there were not too many. It was: I Met a Gypsy, by Norah Lofts. This book excited me immensely. This book harps on the same subject. When I came here, I asked several people if they can remember that a picture was made from this book, nobody could.
I am a believer in the immortality of souls.
This story was included in one of the binders filled with Helene’s childhood memoirs. All of the other stories in this binder are about her youth, are double-spaced and go on for many pages – very different from this single-spaced stand-alone sheet. It is much more personal and romantic. When I came across this story, it was the first window I had into Helene’s and Vitali’s relationship. We see that Helene felt that they were soulmates, despite differences in style and a tendency for Vitali to criticize or belittle her. A few of her other stories give examples of this less-than-charming side of her extremely charming husband. She put up with his behavior because there was so much more she saw in him.
After reading this, I tracked down a copy of I Met a Gypsy by Norah Lofts. It was a fun read and I was happy to read something I knew my grandmother had read, but it seemed a stretch to connect it to Helene’s experience. The book is a series of short stories about the descendants of a gypsy, and takes place over centuries, continents, and generations. Although one or two of the stories were made into films, the earliest was made in 1947, long after any film Helene and Vitali would have seen in Vienna in 1939 or 1940.
For someone who was not religious, being a fatalist must have made a lot of sense. How else to understand the course of one’s life? Why do some people survive and others not? Helene’s mother had had 13 or 14 pregnancies, 7 children survived into childhood. By 1910 at the age of 24, Helene’s only surviving sibling was her brother Max. By 1918, three of her sisters’ five children with Julius Zerzawy had died, leaving only her nephews Paul and Robert surviving past age 20. Helene was not harmed by the 1889 flu pandemic (see blog posts from January 16 and 17) and TB, while many others around her did not.
My mother and Harry both called themselves “fatalists”. I thought it was something unique to them, based on the circumstances of their childhood and separation from and loss of their parents. Here we discover that they learned to think of themselves as fatalists from their parents. As so often has happened on this journey, I am reminded how attitudes and opinions are handed down over generations – often unspoken or unconsciously. There is nothing new under the sun.
I would like to think that Helene and Vitali will meet again.