Excerpt
He was already breaking with his own British family tradition by marrying a Jew. “Please don’t make any more fuss,” he told her gently.
Nine months later Jennifer Huggins was born.
Jacob was ambitious. He considered the sooty textile mills and factory houses of the industrial revolution in Leeds to be backward, not of this century and their lack of innovation plus the rigid class structure kept him from making a successful career. In 1949 he investigated emigration to Canada where commerce was booming. He would have to provide his own passage, but if he did, there was a job for him in a Toronto tool and die manufacturer. He became eager to emigrate.
Lila was six months pregnant with Jennifer’s brother when the Cunard liner steamed away from Liverpool with the family on board. Douglas was born in Toronto and Lila cried again. So far away from Eva who was godmother to Jennifer! But Jacob was delighted. He loved his son from the first moment of the boy’s young life in a fierce, masculine way that he had never managed for his daughter.
The family lived near Kensington Market and little by little Lila began to enjoy it more. There were many Croatians in the neighbourhood who had lived in Canada for years and had been untouched by the war. Most of them denied that they were Yugoslavian; they denounced Tito and Communism. She understood their sunny, garrulous ways and liked to shop at their butcher. Best of all, there was a Russian café. Generally it was overflowing with men, sipping coffee, playing chess, but in this new country, Canada, it was considered appropriate for women to stop in alone, buy a pastry and exchange banter with Svetlana, the clerk.
Only one thing clouded her days: Jacob had told her not to go to synagogue, not to seek out other Jews, and furthermore, not to reveal that she knew Russian or that she had lived in the Soviet Union. In short, he wanted her to deny everything from her past. “Just become a good Canadian woman, okay?” he said, practising his new accent.
At first, she had railed against this restriction, asking him in an injured but dignified voice why she couldn’t honour her ancestry. He dismissed her protests with a few words: “You wouldn’t understand,” and he stalked off to work. These arguments were repeated. She became shrill, yelling at him that he was a tyrant. She didn’t like being this way, but she couldn’t make him listen except by shouting. There was fight in her, but underneath she was dreadfully afraid he would leave her alone
Libros Libertad 