The Writer of Memories
Of my first emigration, I have no memories. Of the country that I left, I think I may still have the images from some small colorless photographs. I cannot make out the pain of my mother’s good-bye to her family—or the trip or the landing of the plane or the embrace of my father when he reunited with us. Of my first years as a foreigner I recall a swimming pool where I never learned to swim; that once I got lost running through the lobby of a hotel where we were staying at the time; some cousins who disappeared shortly thereafter; the calls of an ice-cream vendor; a bite sustained during a skirmish at school; and beginning to use words that were unknown in my household. I called the watermelon