#26 ‘Eduard’

26.

‘Eduard’

For a brief moment in time, I met my oldest brother. He made a series of beautiful portraits of me, sixteen years old back then, and just as he arrived into my life, he left again…

In one of those casual walks through our little city, my father announced to me that I had two older brothers. That moment in which the earth stops turning and the world disappears as you feel all the stars twinkle in your bloodstream, gave me an insight into new information that my mother wasn’t his first wife. She was the third. I was as well, the third child and not the one and only. I was the youngest one of three. The privileged one. That took a major adjusting of my lens and a river of questions. 

At first, I was ecstatic since I always dreamed of having siblings to share the burden of being a child. It seemed that my long-awaited wish had come through. A little backwards though... I was old enough to be able to understand the shift of the tectonic plates of my life and young enough to dream of a romantic outcome. I was unstoppable in my desire to go and look for them, my two big brothers. It wasn't too difficult. We all lived in the same city. It only took a telephone call and one sentence.

Later, as the can of worms opened, I had to deal with the struggle to understand the emotional complexity of the situation, and the frustration of all the parties involved. It was like looking into a broken mirror. The piece you looked at resembled something else and was showing in another place than expected. The three of us walking the streets together as a mighty team was not in the picture.

It took decades to accept and understand that damage done to all of us was collateral and irreversible. There was not a single one of us whose life wasn't tragically affected by the past, but ironically, if it hadn’t been like that, I would have not been born.

My oldest brother, Eduard, who was given a different name when our father and his mother separated, was an artist in his soul. He loved photography and played jazz guitar. He invited me into his home and we had an art - jam session. We observed each other very carefully, curious to find every sight of similarity between us. I observed him openly, he watched me under his eye, a lock of blond straight hair giving shelter to his curiosity. It was clear that he needed to leave an impression that he didn't care much. He spoke in a very quiet voice. A type of quiet voice of a person who desperately needs to be recognised but wants to make sure it's you who made the effort. He looked very much like my father, just like me, ironically. Both of us had a petruding left ear, a typical nose carried by my family members, our limbs were long and thin, and the second toe slightly bent just like our father’s. 

Later in my life, I learned that he was the fruit of a very difficult, impossible love story and that the family of his mother played an important role in separating the Hungarian artist and the beautiful Sofia several times. After they finally succeeded, she remarried a proper man with a proper job, and her baby got a proper name and surname that belongs to this country. Eduard finished proper school, got a proper job, and got moulded into a proper life and was deeply unsatisfied.

After that first session, he decided not to continue our journey of becoming siblings and I got to hear that my presence in his life only reminded him of pain and loss. I was the proof of what he didn’t have. Shortly after, he disappeared from our little city and my little privileged life. Little did he know that I felt put into a mould just like he did. He disappeared so quickly I hadn’t the chance to tell him how much I longed to run away from what he longed for. As ends meet, whichever side you start drawing a circle, the only way was to accept the fate you can’t change.

He disappeared and broke ties with everyone he knew. There were rumours that he wandered continents and played his guitar as a proper loner artist. Thanks to modern times I could find evidence of his existence. He ended up in London. I could listen to his work and see his latest photos resembling our family features more and more. And then for a reason, no-one will know, that became invisible too, or the mirror broke into even smaller pieces...