Читать книгу Left of the Left - Anatole Dolgoff - Страница 18

April 8, 1937 is the day I entered this world. True to my heritage I came out kicking and screaming and tore Mother’s womb to shreds. Another pregnancy was dangerous and out of the question, the doctors told her: she should be thankful she had two strong, healthy boys, and that settled her quest for a girl. Her womb had dropped and in a few years she would suffer through a difficult partial hysterectomy.

Abe has recently reminded me of some things I was in no position to remember: that I was born 11:45 pm at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx; that after Sam carried me up the stairs in his arms to our tiny apartment on Trinity Avenue, he nestled me into my first home, swaddled in soft sheets and blankets: a dresser drawer.

“This is your brother,” he said to Abe, who was not yet four years old. “He is part of our family.”

We need to back up a bit before I go on with my life. We need context. We need to understand Mother: her anarchism, which she came upon before she met Sam; her integrity; her compassion; and, yes, her compulsion to control and dominate her sons through a love that was conditional upon our moral behavior as defined by her. Abe and I have thought a great deal about these things. He reminded me not long ago of an incident in Mother’s young life that I think is key to the development of her character.