Hugo Hamilton - The Sailor in the Wardrobe

At first my mother was puzzled and wanted to know why I suddenly needed a German passport. It was like going into exile, she said, a step that she had taken when she moved to Ireland, the same step that I made as a child, every time I went out the front door into a foreign country outside on the street where they spoke English. My father warned me about losing my nationhood, but he had nothing against the plan, because I think he had always secretly wished he was more German, whereas my mother always wished she was more Irish.

My mother sent everything — birth certificates, old passports, school reports, even an old savings book. It was obvious that she didn’t want to look too closely at these things in case it would remind her of the decisions she had made in her life. She would have to think about it all over again, whether it was a mistake to move countries and leave all her family of sisters behind. It was like a leap into the unknown. All those integration problems, the moments of self-doubt. She must have put everything into an envelope very hastily to avoid remembering all of that. A number of documents arrived that were of no relevance whatsoever. Her denazification papers. Her first provisional passport, stamped by the four Allies after the war, allowing her to leave Germany. She even sent her first Irish work permit, issued in Athlone. ‘This alien has permission to take up employment.’ I looked at her photograph on the work permit. It was from a time before I was born. I could see by her face, even in black and white, that it was taken in summer. She wore a suit and a white blouse opened out over the collar of her jacket. She had dark curly hair and her name was Irmgard Kaiser.

I put the necessary documents into an envelope and sent it off to the relevant authorities, but then I got a letter back saying they could not proceed with my application because my mother did not hold a current German passport. So I sent her back the documents and told her that I was going to stay the way I was, speckled. How could I ask her to turn the weathervane back to Germany? Had she not made her escape to Ireland? Had she not had enough trouble changing over to my father’s Irish surname: O’hUrmoltaigh, a name the shopkeepers still can’t pronounce and which they have started getting around by just calling her ‘Mutti’. Over the years, her German humour has mixed in with Irish humour, and she has found a place in Ireland that she can call her home.

Maybe you have to live under cover for a while before you can find your true character. Now I want to belong to the same country as Bob Dylan and Dostoevsky and Fassbinder. I want to be in the same wardrobe as John Lennon and John Hamilton, the sailors with the soft eyes. I have taken on my grandfather’s identity. I have given him back his name and his life, and I walk back towards Neukölln as if the city has become a harbour. It’s Berlin harbour and I can hear the sound of the sea on Sonnenallee. I can hear the sway of the tide slapping underneath the boats. I can hear the sound of oars falling into place along the seats. I can feel the touch of solid ground under my feet.

HUGO HAMILTON has published five novels, a collection of short stories, and the memoir The Speckled People . He was born and lives in Dublin.