An Exclusive Love (2009), by Johanna Adorján, translated by Anthea Bell

This is one of the most poignant books I’ve ever read, and it’s intensely thought-provoking.  It’s also another example of Text Publishing having the courage to generate debate about contentious issues…

An Exclusive Love is a memoir of the author’s grandparents,  Hungarian Jews who took their own lives in Copenhagen in 1991.  He was 82, and dying; she was only 71, and in good health.  Together they had survived the horrors of the Holocaust, and escaped Budapest during the 1956 uprising against the oppressive Communist regime; but they could not envisage separation from one another and so when his illness became terminal they ended their lives together.

It seems logical, perhaps even romantic, but like all suicides, it leaves the remaining loved ones bereft.  For some families left behind, it is a torment not to know why, and even though the ‘reason’ for her grandparents’ action seems evident, this book is an attempt by Adorján to make sense of what happened.  She can only tell their story in fragments because she can’t find out much about them, and she creatively imagines their last day together.  The book is written with empathy and affection for them, but it seems to me that the author wrote it in an attempt to reconcile herself about what happened and to ease her troubled mind.

For it is too simplistic to say that this suicide occurred because he was dying and they couldn’t bear to be parted.  The death of a much-loved partner happens to long-married couples all the time, and nearly all of them find ways to endure it.  Indeed, many widows of my acquaintance have gone on to lead joyous lives, savouring new freedom and independence and holding an honoured place in the extended family.   What was it that made this woman deprive her children and grandchildren of that special relationship?  What made her so pessimistic about her chances of rebuilding  her life on her own?

I don’t ask these questions to judge Vera and István, but rather because these are questions that the author asked herself.  This is not just a memoir of her grandparents and an exploration of their motives, but also a journey of their grandchild’s self-discovery. It challenges the silences in her family, exploring her right to prise open the refusal to discuss painful aspects of their family history.  The Holocaust and the Communist repression were ‘things we don’t talk about’.

Adorján admits that she is angry about the denial of the family’s religious history because it impacts on her sense of identity.

If I am to be perfectly honest, that makes me not only sad, but also a little angry. For he stole a part of my identity as well, deprived me of an essential part of my sense of self, bequeathed me a gap in my identity that seems like a mystery.  I lack a piece of myself.  Something is missing, and I don’t even know exactly what.

Such a pity for something to disappear. (p75)

She also recognises emerging self-censorship: she senses the discomfort of those she interviews about her grandparents and feels uncomfortable ‘prying’.   Their unexpected deaths close the door on knowing some things forever, and this just has to be accepted.  She learns to judge which other aspects of their lives matter enough to warrant her ‘intrusions’.

This longing to know her grandparents is at its most poignant when she interviews the elderly ladies who were her grandmother’s friends.  Had she chosen to live on, her grandmother would perhaps have been like them, and part of her life.   It is the aching loss of this grandmother that is felt most keenly.  It is her death that seems inexplicable, despite Adorján’s best efforts.  More than once she writes tentatively that she understands, but then there is this:

Does not their death, above all, suggest fear?  A woman’s fear of being unloved, alone, a burden on others, perhaps sick and frail herself some day?  And was there not also a considerable amount of aggression in behaving, so far as her own children were concerned, as if she were entirely alone in the world? (p146)

It seems to me that the mystery arises because the couple were not legally able to share their decision with their family.  Family issues that could have been sorted out prior to their deaths remain unresolved.  Had they had the legal right to make their decision without fear of interference, the family might have been able to prepare themselves.  But no, although there are intimations that this is what they eventually intend, they have to hide their specific plans.  Vera and István had to lie to Cousin Sebastian when he rang on the day of their death, pretending to have commitments in order to prevent his visit.  How does this cousin feel, knowing that if he had visited that day, they may perhaps have postponed – and perhaps reassessed – their decision? How does he feel, knowing that other family members probably wish he had?

There are hints of this ripple effect of guilt in the interview with Hélène. (p77)  This elegant, lively old woman was Vera’s friend, and she still thinks of the couple every day, blaming herself because she didn’t find the right time to tell Vera that she was welcome to come and live with her in Paris after István’s death.

The title (as translated) seems perfect, and raises questions of its own.  Should love be so exclusive?  What about the others who loved this enigmatic couple?  Adorján hints that something is not quite right when she discovers that the couple abandoned their very small children to the care of a nursemaid when he had study commitments in Paris; she writes that Vera only returned after six months because both the children went down with polio.  (p 76).  This is in 1949, only four years after liberation from the Nazis, when in the post-traumatic period for European Jewry most families would have been at pains to stay together at all costs…

This is an intriguing, demanding, painful book that raised many questions in my mind.   The translation is excellent.

Highly recommended.

Author: Johanna Adorján
Title: An Exclusive Love
Translator: Anthea Bell
Publisher: Text Publishing, 2010
ISBN: 9781921656569
Source: Review copy courtesy of Text Publishing