The Choice: Embrace the Possible

Edie’s ship reaches the coast of New York in October 1949. Magda has already arrived in the country; she lives with their Aunt Matilda in the Bronx and works in a toy factory. Béla, at the last moment, decided to join his family. Edie is relieved, but she also understands the implications of her willingness to abandon their marriage. Csicsi impersonated Béla at the medical office, so the chest x-rays in Béla’s application documents show a healthy man’s organs. As the ship approaches land, Edie hastily yanks Marianne’s pacifier out of her mouth and tosses it in the ocean. She retrospectively admits that she projected her own fears onto her daughter—that the impulse derived from her own fear “of being different, being flawed, of playing catch-up forever in a relentless race away from the claws of the past” (131). This moment solidifies the mask that Eger will wear as she continues suppressing memories and bottling emotions for decades.

Edie now lives in Baltimore. The toy factory where she works elicits memories of the German thread factory, and so she works relentlessly—“an old necessity, a habit impossible to overthrow” (133). Her family lives with Béla’s brother, George, who is tense and bitter after many humiliating years being an immigrant.