The Inheritance
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The Inheritance EDWARD (TED) TODD, 2012 The Inheritance This is Autobiofiction .............................................................................................................. 4 BookEsalen 1. Institute The Father of Human .................................................................................................... Relations, California 1979 ............................................... 17 5 Near the Don River, Russia 1945 ................................................................................... 17 Russians ................................................................................................................................22 The Journey 1957 .................................................................................................................. 35 Uncle Carlos, Argentina 1958 ........................................................................................... 59 Antonio Garibaldi, Buenos Aires, a few months later ............................................. 67 BookOscar 2.1976 The ............................................................................................................................... Son’s Story ........................................................................................... 8270 Budapest 1980 ....................................................................................................................... 88 INTERLUDE:The other Grandma Is Life Really is crazy? a Jewish ..................................................................................... Joke? ....................................................... 128 121 BOOKIf your 3. Josef’sfather isStory dead .............................................................................................. it is because he was a Jew ................................................ 134 130 December 1956 .................................................................................................................... 134 TheMiklos Son’s Zboray Story 1999 Continued .......................................................................................................... ................................................................................... 142 139 Josef, Budapest 2002.......................................................................................................... 146 Friends, Ghosts, Memories, Luck, Money .............................................................. 146 Edith and Peter 2002 ........................................................................................................ 150 Josef, Budapest 2002 continued ................................................................................... 155 Email is the new messenger of the Gods ............................................................... 172 Josef’s Dubious Plan ...................................................................................................... 173 Henry Bodowsky, Melbourne, Australia 2002 ......................................................... 178 Josef and Garibaldi 2002 .................................................................................................. 186 “If on a Winter’s night a traveler” (Italo Calvino) .............................................. 189 Josef at Tim’s Door ......................................................................................................... 190 Telling my life? ................................................................................................................ 205 Father Stalin ..................................................................................................................... 214 My sister ............................................................................................................................. 221 3 Misery your name was ‘School’ in 1955-56 .............................................................. 226 Thanks for the Revolution… ....................................................................................... 228 Refugees in Austria, 1956-57 ......................................................................................... 236 Serendipity, Stupidity? America, Argentina, Australia? What’s it matter? ... 236 BOOKAustralia 4. Un is more-Wholly than Ghosts just the .................................................................................. best wool, but no salami! 1957 ........................ 245 240 Los Angeles 2002 ................................................................................................................ 245 The Inheritance is lost. Josef has a dark side? ..................................................... 251 Budapest. A bit of bad luck is never enough for a Hungarian ....................... 259 Garibaldi smokes, reads and thinks 2009.................................................................. 267 A discovery in Los Angeles 2010 ................................................................................... 269 Late night phone calls are worrying ....................................................................... 269 The past is present, if you got a film to prove it ................................................ 273 “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?" Hillel, about 50 BCE This is Autobiofiction Much of what came to pass in this story is true, lots of it is not. Many people in this book lived, loved and thought deeply about what happened to them, some did not. Several characters are still alive, but most live on only as a figment of my imagination. I do wish that some of this story was true, but I'd rather that some of it had never happened. Tibor Weisz 5 Esalen Institute of Human Relations, California 1979 Where has everyone gone? Where are the grandfathers and fathers and cousins and aunts and uncles? Why me? Because I am? * The encounter group session is declared closed. I rush to leave the damn room, stumbling out into the bright warmth of late autumn California sunshine. I’m stunned and numb and yet full of energy, needing to move, to run and climb the cliffs in front of me down to the ocean. I move towards the rocks hanging over the waves of the Pacific, the ocean’s waves crashing below me onto huge boulders. I notice nothing, see no one through my rising tears. I climb down toward the sea, scrambling over the rocks. Frothy waves collide one after the other foaming and toppling over, spraying me, tasting as salty as my tears. Weeping turns to bursts of sobbing, as I stop on the last boulder at the edge of the ocean not knowing what to do. I can’t go any further. My feet slip; I grab a jagged rock cutting my hand. A few drops of blood splash down bright red. The next wave washes it away leaving no trace of it, of me. Stumbling again, slipping between two huge wet boulders, I catch my footing and manage to straighten up. The sea seems to have becalmed, stopped rolling, waiting perhaps until my tears come again. I’m trying to breathe deeply to calm myself, crying and laughing in disbelief at how or what I feel. Questions and rage come rising and fading away, storming inside my head. Questions I know I will never be able to answer or am too ignorant or stupid to ask. Relief, doubt, insight and disbelief churn in confusion. The sound of my brain yells 6 at me if I fall silent. There is so much noise; so much I cannot comprehend, sorrows and fear, anger and doubt I hoped were not in me, things I wish had never happened. The sun is declining into the sea, slowly darkening the blue sky above Esalen. I try to focus on the immensely beautiful world of nature – focus on anything, anything as long as it is outside of me. The universe does not seem to have been shaken by what happened to me; the universe is not bothered about me, about what I feel or whether I exist. God died a long time ago; Nietzsche said God is dead, God said Nietzsche is dead...ha, ha. The breeze strengthens, rapidly becoming a cool wind. Gulls screech, flying low, searching for a feed in the shallows. No sight of whales today, only a new sight of myself. I’m fixed here to the rocks, wishing I could become like the gulls: unfeeling and simple. I throw stones at them, feeling more and more dread, watching the panic rising within me. I force my breath in and out. Om Namah Shivaya Om… Something else suddenly rises. Yes, better feelings, almost good ones. The panic recedes, my heart warms a little, wretchedness turns and churns mixing with joy. How can this be? The good feelings do not last long. Heart and throat tighten again in an attack of emotions. Snippets of memories, sentences and words with no one to speak them, belief and hope boil together in my throbbing head. Enormous tiredness hits body and soul. I am punched in the head and the guts simultaneously. Is this why people commit suicide? But no! I reassure myself yelling, ‘Not Me, Not me, you bastards...’ Sitting down is an idea I accept, feeling heavy and still as a rock, hardly breathing again. I suck in the cold salty air and blow it out. ‘I’ve got to hold it together.’ Tightening my muscles, I hear someone yell out a terrible anguished scream. It is me. The air is sharply cold now; I shiver and hug my arms around my body, wanting to be warm. Fatigue hits in waves to match the rhythmic movements of the ocean. Dragging air in and pushing it out is having control. 7 Time passes. Feeling weak is winning me over. Time to go back, enough of this, I can’t take or want anymore. I drag myself up