to Hamburg.
Gisela was then forty-nine years old: still relatively young and the mother of a young boy, but now severely disabled. The fall had left her with brain damage and she was quite unable to walk. There was no prospect of her picking up the reins of her physiotherapy practice again: instead it was decided that I would have to do so.
It was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt uncomfortable about taking over Giselaâs business and it meant I had to abandon plans to go to America, where I had wanted to study a new technique. I was conscious, also, that the tangled relationships in the von Oelhafen family would not be easy to manage.
I moved back into my old room in the house in Blumenstrasse. It was a difficult time: my grandmother, Aunt Eka, Hubertus and I all had to adjust to our new circumstances â and to Giselaâs condition. It was particularly hard for Hubertus to see his mother so disabled, but as she learned to walk in the garden and even to share occasional laughter, his unhappiness eased.
The big problem was that Hubertus and Eka didnât understand one another, and this often led to rows. I was caught between them, which I hated, because each sought my support against the other. Nor were things easy with Gisela. To some extent, she was like a small child and my aunt tended to speak to her as a strict teacher would address a recalcitrant pupil: understandably my mother resented this and became stubborn.
Hubertus and I found it easier to accept her as she now was, though I often found myself feeling aggrieved: I was still made to feel very much like an outsider, with few rights but enormous responsibility. It didnâtseem right or fair, but I knew that I had no choice but to get on with the job and make the best of it.
After a while, for the first time in as long as I could remember, my relationship with Gisela improved. We didnât talk much, but she lost some of the coldness towards me that had marred my younger years. I realised, of course, why this was: her disability had softened her and as she was now increasingly dependent on me, she let me see that I was needed.
In other circumstances or other families, it might have opened the door to an open and frank discussion about my past, and how I came to be fostered by her and Hermann. But that never happened. We never spoke about Hermann: I think that after his death she, like me (although for very different reasons), felt free of him and of the burden of their failed marriage. Perhaps because they had never divorced, she had felt tied to him and haunted by the need to justify her refusal to live with him.
Or so I suppose now. Gisela never discussed her marriage with me, just as she never talked to me about my origins.
The question of who I really was had not, of course, gone away. In the mid-1960s I decided to take matters into my own hands. Although I called myself Ingrid von Oelhafen, I was still officially Erika Matko. I felt that the time had come formally to change my name by the equivalent of deed poll.
But the process turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined. I discovered that German law required me to seek the permission of the von Oelhafen family. Even if Gisela had been well enough to do this, the regulations did not recognise her as a von Oelhafen. She had married into the name: the law recognised only those who had been born into it as the true owners of its heritage. Once again, the old German belief in the sanctity of blood resurfaced.
Ironically, Hubertus was registered as a von Oelhafen and so, in theory, allowed to grant permission. But he was legally a child and too youngto sign any official documents. I donât know why but Hubertus had an official guardian, a lawyer, and so I had to write to this guardian to plead my case. Eventually he agreed, with one qualification: I was not permitted to call myself Ingrid von Oelhafen, since I wasnât part of the family by blood. Instead I could style
Gisela was then forty-nine years old: still relatively young and the mother of a young boy, but now severely disabled. The fall had left her with brain damage and she was quite unable to walk. There was no prospect of her picking up the reins of her physiotherapy practice again: instead it was decided that I would have to do so.
It was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt uncomfortable about taking over Giselaâs business and it meant I had to abandon plans to go to America, where I had wanted to study a new technique. I was conscious, also, that the tangled relationships in the von Oelhafen family would not be easy to manage.
I moved back into my old room in the house in Blumenstrasse. It was a difficult time: my grandmother, Aunt Eka, Hubertus and I all had to adjust to our new circumstances â and to Giselaâs condition. It was particularly hard for Hubertus to see his mother so disabled, but as she learned to walk in the garden and even to share occasional laughter, his unhappiness eased.
The big problem was that Hubertus and Eka didnât understand one another, and this often led to rows. I was caught between them, which I hated, because each sought my support against the other. Nor were things easy with Gisela. To some extent, she was like a small child and my aunt tended to speak to her as a strict teacher would address a recalcitrant pupil: understandably my mother resented this and became stubborn.
Hubertus and I found it easier to accept her as she now was, though I often found myself feeling aggrieved: I was still made to feel very much like an outsider, with few rights but enormous responsibility. It didnâtseem right or fair, but I knew that I had no choice but to get on with the job and make the best of it.
After a while, for the first time in as long as I could remember, my relationship with Gisela improved. We didnât talk much, but she lost some of the coldness towards me that had marred my younger years. I realised, of course, why this was: her disability had softened her and as she was now increasingly dependent on me, she let me see that I was needed.
In other circumstances or other families, it might have opened the door to an open and frank discussion about my past, and how I came to be fostered by her and Hermann. But that never happened. We never spoke about Hermann: I think that after his death she, like me (although for very different reasons), felt free of him and of the burden of their failed marriage. Perhaps because they had never divorced, she had felt tied to him and haunted by the need to justify her refusal to live with him.
Or so I suppose now. Gisela never discussed her marriage with me, just as she never talked to me about my origins.
The question of who I really was had not, of course, gone away. In the mid-1960s I decided to take matters into my own hands. Although I called myself Ingrid von Oelhafen, I was still officially Erika Matko. I felt that the time had come formally to change my name by the equivalent of deed poll.
But the process turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined. I discovered that German law required me to seek the permission of the von Oelhafen family. Even if Gisela had been well enough to do this, the regulations did not recognise her as a von Oelhafen. She had married into the name: the law recognised only those who had been born into it as the true owners of its heritage. Once again, the old German belief in the sanctity of blood resurfaced.
Ironically, Hubertus was registered as a von Oelhafen and so, in theory, allowed to grant permission. But he was legally a child and too youngto sign any official documents. I donât know why but Hubertus had an official guardian, a lawyer, and so I had to write to this guardian to plead my case. Eventually he agreed, with one qualification: I was not permitted to call myself Ingrid von Oelhafen, since I wasnât part of the family by blood. Instead I could style
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