This perfectly suited my young grandmother, who was already in love with my grandfather, an actor in their theater. Then, in 1956, when she was just seventeen, my grandmother got pregnant, forcing her and my grandfather’s families to rush through the wedding preparations as you had to do in the Old World when you didn’t want people to do the math. The week following her wedding, the family decided to return to Poland, to raise the coming child, the cluster of cells that would become my father, in their homeland.

They weren’t welcomed back with open arms, to say the least. Who knows whether it was guilt or fear of retribution or simply the unwelcome surprise of a family ringing the doorbell and saying, “You’re in my house,” but they had been home less than ten minutes when, in front of my grandmother, her parents were beaten to death with an iron pipe. My grandmother ran but her husband remained, and he was shot for praying in Hebrew over their bodies, though he had yet to say “Amen,” so the message wasn’t transmitted. (“Amen” is like the Send button on an e-mail.)

Suddenly a widow and an orphan, she fled Poland for the second time in her young life, this time on a boat bound for Australia, and after two months of staring at the daunting circumference of the horizon, she went into labor just as someone shouted, “There it is!” Everyone ran to the side of the boat and leaned over the rail. Steep cliffs crowned with clusters of green trees lined the coast. Australia! The younger passengers let out cries of joy. The older passengers knew that the key to happiness lay in keeping your expectations low. They booed.

***

“Are you with me so far?” Dad asked, interrupting himself. “These are the building blocks of your identity. Polish. Jewish. Persecuted. Refugee. These are just some of the vegetables with which we make a Jasper broth. You got it?”