My first eleven years we spent in an idyllic,
small village in Southern Germany, only a few miles away from the Switzerland
border. My parents liked to shop in Switzerland, things like coffee and
cigarettes - both my parents were smokers at the time - were less expensive
there. My brother, 4 years older than me, sometimes crossed the border on his
bicycle in the woods after exceeding the limit on cigarettes for my Dad. We
tried to please my Dad, or my Papa as we referred to him, but it wasn't easy.
He was always busy. He had his little workshop upstairs, above the apartment we
were renting in a two-story building where the landlord and his wife lived
downstairs from us. My Dad would climb a retractable steep wooden ladder to the
attic, and he would work there. He often fixed TV's or radios for the neighbors
and others from the village. He would sit there among his little cabinets
that had small compartments and held everything from electrical resistors to
nails and bolts. He would often solder, cigarette dangling from his lips. He
also recently told me that sometimes he had our pet parakeet sitting on his
shoulder when he was up there, although I have no memory of that. In later
years he would bring home work in the evenings, large white plastic-like sheets
with black lines, wiring diagrams they were, and he was working on them, with
his glasses on plus another set of square magnifiying lenses he wore on top,
like a miner wearing a flashlight. It was work that required concentration and
we could not be a distraction. I learned much later that during those years he
worked for Telefunken, he participated in building the first large computers
there. He sometimes talked about working for the son of Adolf Eichmann, the
notorious Nazi SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer. He told us that the son who was his
supervisor did not share his Dad's political views and was a pleasant man.
So for me and my brother there was not much time
to spend with my Dad, we ate meals as a family, and on Sunday afternoons we
would go for a walk as a family, otherwise Dad was working, although sometimes
he would go for a run by himself or play the accordion. He was self-taught, and
he recorded some of the music he was playing. Papa was always present, but I
did not perceive him as being accessible. Especially as I got older I became
painfully aware of the emotional distance he kept. He was a man of logic, the
world was black and white, like the TV pictures of those TV's he fixed. There
was a right way to do things and a wrong way, and he had neither time nor
patience for anything but the correct way. Hugs, kisses, loving encouragement
and support were not a part of his logical mindset. It also seemed too easy to
upset him, and he would make a quick and hurtful remark, so I learned to be
careful and quiet. Any question I might have might be misconstrued as a
weakness, a lack of knowledge. I might get an answer, but I was very sensitive
to the tone in which that answer might be made, and preferred not to take the
risk. I don't really know what he ever thought of my brother making his bike
trips to smuggle cigarettes, I assume he must have allowed it. Growing up after
the war might have shaped his views on that, I am not sure. It wasn't the only
time smuggling played a part in our family, we would later sneak vinyl pop
music records into Communist Germany, for my cousin who was a devoted fan of
the Swedish pop quartet ABBA. My brother at the time was probably just trying
to win my Dad's approval. It was not easy for him; while I have no memory of it
my Mom has told me that when my brother was struggling with his school work and
my Dad became impatient with him, he would grab him by the neck and slam his
forehead on the table. My Mom who was
working 3 nights a week as a nurse at the local hospital - where I was born -
must have experienced her marriage as being somewhat stressful. I remember one
instance, where my Dad was out for a run after dark, when she remarked "I
hope he gets hit by a car", due to her feeling that he was being careless.
I remember feeling quite bad for him when she said it, a rather new experience
for me with regards to my Dad. We had exciting, fun times as well. We took our
first family vacation with our Volkswagen Beetle to Lago di Garda, a lake in
the mountains of northern Italy. My parents had bought an inflatable small
boat, and we stayed in a tiny "bungalow", a small metal hut. We would swim (Dad taught me to swim), paddle
the boat around, and play with the other vacationer's kids, and even with my
parents. We had brought a game of wooden Boccia and couldn't get enough of it.
I believe in our village we were the only family to take a trip like that. In
the coming years we would also go to Yugoslavia (now Croatia) twice and stay
there in a waterfront house with a local lady.
While we experienced the beauty of other
countries together - and these are some very precious memories - I hope not to
sound ungrateful in saying that I experienced both of my parents as somewhat
distant and unaffected. When I was 13 I snuck out of the house one afternoon when I was grounded. My Dad knew where to find me and brought me home. I got spanked with an electrical cord for my behavior. In my memory the worst part of that was the humiliation of getting spanked, to be quite honest. The really remarkable consequence of my disobedience is that my Dad did not speak to me after this for a whole year. Here we were, living in the same apartment, and the only words from the lips of my Dad during that year are "pass the butter" on one occasion. When my fourteenth birthday rolled around he gave me a radio, signifying that he was no longer going to ignore me. Once, on New Year's Eve, we stayed up until midnight, and we formally shook hands to wish each other a happy new year. Such was life in our family. I realized over the years that this was not the norm for other families, that "home" could be a place where you felt valued, where your presence brought joy to your parents, and they would actively support and encourage you. But back in those days the writings of Dr. Asperger were not well known to the broad public, and I did not understand the underlying cause of our situation until the mid-nineties, when my son was diagnosed with Asperger's and all of a sudden all the pieces fell into place and it became clear what was shaping all three of us - my Dad, myself, and my son. The strongest revelation was for myself, after living through so many situations in which I could sense that I was thinking and responding differently from those around me, situations that branded me as an outcast and that made me wish I was someone else. I wish my mother and brother had accepted the reality of Asperger's in my Dad's life once that knowledge became available. But instead, as far as I can tell, they only continued their love-hate relationship with my Dad until my Mom passed away and my brother subsequently cut all connections to the entire family. My Mom's death was a turning point in my relationship with my Dad, his bereavement tore down the emotional distance between us and we now have a much better and open relationship. Where before I could not have pictured spending a few weeks with my Dad staying in the same apartment for fear of an angry outburst over a minor infraction, like had happened on my first visit to Germany after moving to the United States. Then I had left some light on, which my Dad found undesirable, and he called me stupid for doing so, which hurt me to the point that I left the house in tears that day. After being away for five years I felt that leaving on the wrong lights warranted being called stupid. These outbursts no longer happen in this magnitude, and when he blows his top on a milder scale I can usually recognize the context stressing him out and overlook the infraction. We now definitely have a working relationship I never did foresee or expect. But those years of emotional distance along with my being different from my peers left their mark on me and set me up for future events that would nearly destroy me.
