And Then Life Happens

by Auma Obama

  17.

  ONE DAY I GOT a letter in the mail with my name and my Heidelberg address written on it in very neat handwriting. The handwriting was startlingly similar to that of my father. And when I turned over the envelope, the name Barack Obama jumped out at me. I will never forget the shock that seized me at that moment. That handwriting, that name—at that point, my father had already been dead for some time. Slowly, I opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper covered with writing. The similarity to my father’s handwriting was even more striking in those lines.

  The letter was from my brother Barack. In our family, he had always only been called “Barry,” the unknown brother, who lived in the United States with his mother, Ann, my father’s second wife. I had never visited him there, and he had never come to Kenya. He was a stranger to me.

  For years, my father had urged me to write to Barry, but I had always gotten out of it with some excuse. The brother in the United States was too far away, too abstract for me to take an interest in him. My reality was limited to my immediate surroundings, and I was sure that Barack felt the same way.

  And now, in 1984, in his early twenties, he suddenly got in touch and gave me a huge scare, because his name and his handwriting so unexpectedly conjured up my father. How could it be, I wondered, that the two of them had such similar handwriting, although they had lived together only for a very brief time, when Barack Jr. was just an infant? Later, when I got to know my brother better, I discovered a number of other similarities, which never ceased to amaze me.

  But after the initial shock had subsided, I was happy to hear from my faraway brother. Excitedly, I read his letter. Barack wrote in a sober but friendly tone. He asked about my well-being and reported in detail on himself, so that I had the feeling that I knew more about my unknown brother than I had previously learned from my father’s stories.

  After he had established contact, we wrote to each other regularly, and it wasn’t long before we made plans to meet. Thus, Barack’s letter was the beginning of a friendship that has always meant more to me than just a sibling relationship.

  At that time, Elke was still living in the States. After the end of her scholarship, she had decided to continue her studies in America. As chance would have it, she lived in Illinois just like my brother. So I immediately accepted when Barack invited me to Chicago, for it allowed me to connect this chance to get to know him better with a visit with Elke.

  Although Barack and I had been exchanging letters for some time and seemed to get along very well on those terms, I was nervous about our first meeting. Perhaps we won’t even like each other anymore when we’re face-to-face, I thought. I was looking forward to the trip, which would be my first time in the United States, but at the same time I was afraid of being disappointed. So I decided to first spend a few days with Elke in Carbondale, in southern Illinois, and to head to Chicago only afterward. At the end of that trip, I planned to go back to Elke’s. That way, if the meeting with Barack turned out to be a flop, I could recover from the letdown at her place.

  * * *

  In the university town of Carbondale, Elke lived in a really nice little apartment, which consisted of a bedroom with a huge double bed, a small kitchen, and a tiny bathroom with a bathtub. I often sat in the tub, for it was August, the hottest month of the year in Illinois, and in the intense heat the smallest movement cost great effort. Elke had no air conditioner in her apartment. When we didn’t go to the university, where she studied and worked and I was able to sit in the air-conditioned library for hours and read, I liked to sit in the cold-water-filled tub.

  “Why are Americans always so astonished at the tropical heat in Africa?” I asked Elke. We had fallen wearily onto the bed, which during the day also served as a sofa. I stared almost absently through the open door into the small front yard, without turning around to look at her. To move took too much energy in the murderous heat.

  “You can say that again. The heat here surprised me, too. When I visited my former boyfriend in Togo, it was never as hot there as it is here in the summer.” Elke lay exhausted on her gigantic bed and didn’t move a muscle either. “Do you know that there used to be mosquitoes and malaria here?” she asked sluggishly.

  “No, but with this climate I can easily imagine it.”

  Since she had left Saarbrücken, I had now and then visited Elke at her parents’ house when she had come home for a short time. Otherwise, we maintained our close friendship by letter and telephone.

  During this visit in Carbondale, she, who was usually the calmer one, was almost even more excited than I was about the meeting with my unknown brother.

  “Isn’t it great that you will finally get to know each other?” she had already said several times since my arrival.

  “I hope it will be great.” I tried not to show her how nervous I was. “Hopefully he’s not a loser. What if we have nothing to say to each other?”

  “I doubt that. Judging by his letters, I’m sure you’ll get along really well.”

  Elke had just finished the sentence when she clapped her hands.

  “Whoa!” I cried, startled. “What was that?”

  “A mosquito! But I got it!” she exclaimed joyfully.

  “Eeew! I thought they don’t exist here anymore.”

  “Yes, they do! There’s just no more malaria. And they still bite, too. You just don’t get sick from them anymore.”

  I rolled onto my side and sighed. “Well, I don’t know where you get the energy to kill mosquitoes in this heat. But tell me what I should do if I don’t like my brother.”

  “Just come back to me. That’s the plan anyway.”

  “And what about the disappointment?”

  “There won’t be any disappointment. Stay positive. You’ll like him, I’m sure of it.”

  And so we spoke late into the night. The merciless heat didn’t let up until the early morning hours.

  * * *

  After two weeks, I headed to Chicago. We had planned that Elke and her boyfriend Robert would join us at the end of my visit with Barack. From Chicago, we were going to travel together to Madison, Wisconsin, to visit a Heidelberg University friend of mine there.

  The train ride to Chicago took about seven hours and was as monotonous as the passing landscape, an endless succession of cornfields. Elke had wisely advised me to pack books, so I read almost the whole time.

  Fortunately, the reading had a calming effect. So far, I had successfully suppressed my nervousness. But now the encounter with my brother—the actual reason for my trip—was about to happen. There was no going back. At the end of this journey, Barack was waiting for me. I had spoken to him on the phone one time since I had arrived in Illinois. Now I would be staying with him, the unknown brother, for ten days in Chicago, without the slightest idea how the visit would go.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon, the train slowly rolled into Chicago. The farther we penetrated into the center, the more uncertain—but also excited—I became. I felt overwhelmed by the size and the bustling activity of the city. Hopefully, Barack was really at the train station where he was supposed to pick me up. (He remembers picking me up in Chicago at the airport, but I actually arrived on the train.) Hopefully, we would recognize each other. I had no current photo of him. In my excitement I had forgotten to ask him for one, and I no longer remembered whether I had sent him one of me. Off to a good start, I thought nervously.

  “Auma.”

  I looked up and stopped immediately.

  “Auma, over here!”

  I turned my head to the right and saw a young man standing at some distance, who looked excited and was smiling at me. I smiled back. That could only be Barack. I ran to him and, without thinking twice, wrapped my arms around him. We held each other tight and for a few seconds neither of us said a word. Then we let go and both took a step back to look at each other.

  “There you are at last,” I said finally.

  “And there you are,” Barack replie
d. “Welcome to Chicago, sister!”

  Barack held my hands and pulled me to himself again to take me in his arms a second time. And all the while I simply couldn’t stop laughing. I had waited so long for this moment with conflicting feelings, and now all tension suddenly drained away from me and everything struck me as so normal and natural. I immediately felt at home with Barack.

  “How did you know it was me?” I asked him.

  “I just knew.”

  I didn’t inquire further. I understood what he meant—for it had basically been the same for me. When he had called my name, I had already recognized something familiar in the sound of his voice.

  On the way to his car, I couldn’t help glancing again and again at my brother. He was much taller than I was, had very short hair, and wore classic sporty clothing: a polo shirt and linen pants. I was again reminded of my father, who had favored a similar style for casual dress. And like my father, Barack was very slim, almost bony. When he heaved my travel bag into the trunk of his car a bit later, I noticed how long and thin his hands were. I have hands like that, too. I’m often told that I have the hands of a piano player. So I wondered, as I made myself comfortable in the passenger seat of the small car, whether people also compared Barack’s hands with those of a piano player.

  In the car, I sat silently at first next to my younger brother and watched him slowly drive south through the dense evening traffic. I looked curiously out the window, impressed by the skyscrapers, their interesting architecture, the elaborately designed structures. The city was teeming with cars, and scores of people, black and white, walked along the sidewalks. Chicago had nothing in common with the small city of Heidelberg—or with Carbondale, for that matter. I was impressed.

  Then we broke the brief silence. And from that point on, my focus was only on my brother—and his subcompact car.

  “It’s kind of scary sitting in your car,” I joked.

  “Are you really scared?” Barack asked with concern, and slowed down a little.

  “No, no,” I reassured him. “It’s only strange to sit in a small car like this next to all these huge American cars.”

  “That’s true. But this way I save gas and can park almost everywhere. I work in the projects and don’t make much money.”

  “In the projects?”

  “Yes, you’ll see what I mean soon. It’s public housing. But first tell me about your life in Germany.”

  I had to smile. Barack was like a starving person who suddenly gets something to eat. One question followed another. We talked and talked, as if we were already running out of time. I started to tell him stories and knew that long after our arrival in Barack’s apartment I would still not be finished. My brother wanted to know everything about me and our family. Ultimately, we did not stop talking until my departure.

  * * *

  “Do you know that I’m actually a really good cook?” Barack asked me mischievously.

  “Of course,” I replied. “After all, I’ve known you my whole life!”

  “No, seriously. I can make Indonesian food really well. Wait and see.”

  Barack was standing at the stove in his small kitchen, and I was sitting in the living room on the couch, from where I could see him through the doorway. Besides these two rooms, his apartment also included a small bedroom.

  “Tell me something about my father,” Barack asked, when we sat down at his kitchen table to eat. I had already told him about our mutual siblings, striving to describe each of the brothers vividly and bring out their individual personalities. In this way, Barack got through my eyes his first impression of his Kenyan family, whom he had never met, because his parents had separated in his early childhood.

  “Do you know that our father always really loved all of us?” I said, as I gazed at my food, lost in thought.

  “No, I don’t know that, Auma. I didn’t actually know him. I only saw him once in my conscious memory, as a ten-year-old. That was too short to learn anything about him.” Barack’s voice remained calm, but his words spoke volumes. Did my father know back then how much his son missed him?

  “He really loved all of us,” I repeated. “He just wasn’t capable of showing it. And even though it was always clear to me, I felt nothing but anger toward him for many years.”

  “Why? You lived with him, didn’t you?” asked Barack.

  “For that very reason,” I said, getting worked up. “Whenever things went wrong for him, we children who lived with him—Abongo and I—had to pay the price. There were many things we didn’t understand at all, and for many things we never got a proper explanation.” I had to pause for a moment. As always when I spoke about my father, a mixture of pain, grief, and disappointment welled up in me. Disappointment because he had died before he had time to answer my many questions. Pain because I had suffered so much on account of him. And grief because I had banished him from my heart and never got the chance to let him back in and openly show him my love.

  Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed. I was at a loss. Barack wanted to learn more about his father, understand him better, and replace the phantom that had accompanied him his whole life with a man made of flesh and blood. But I myself didn’t know whether I, who had spent my childhood and youth with that very man, had ever grasped him. How was I supposed to explain the contradiction my father embodied for me to Barack in such a way that he, unlike me, would not condemn him but would have the chance to arrive at understanding and perhaps even love?

  I took comfort that evening in the thought that we still had several days together. Somehow I would manage in that time to give him a better understanding of his African family, especially his father.

  Barack’s meal was indeed delicious. I was excited that my brother apparently had a domestic side and was a good cook.

  “Our father was someone from whom everyone expected too much,” I said when we had finished eating. “He didn’t know how to defend himself against the many demands made on him. His sense of duty toward the larger Obama family was very strong. But the reverse was unfortunately not always the case.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Barack. We were now sitting in his living room. While we ate, I had tried to explain to my brother the phenomenon of the “chosen ones,” for he just couldn’t understand how a single person could be expected to assume responsibility for an extended family.

  “I understand that it’s hard for you to grasp,” I replied. “I basically feel the same way. But it’s simply what our tradition requires. There were times when there wasn’t even enough money for my school fees, and I had to watch our father give away everything he had left to a relative. He was always confident that we would somehow get by.” Against my will, my words had sounded despondent.

  “Did you ever object to that?” Barack asked sympathetically.

  “Not really. As an African child, you’re brought up not to argue with your parents or criticize them. But even if you dared to raise objections, our father always answered with the words: ‘I’ll take care of everything.’” I sighed. “It was difficult with him. For just as he helped others, he expected that people would help him, too, when it was necessary.”

  “And that didn’t happen?”

  “Not really, in comparison to what he provided,” I replied.

  “Even relatives he supported for many years were not always willing to help him?” Barack looked at me uncomprehendingly.

  “The old man, as our father was always called, was a prisoner of his own principles. He didn’t want to back away from his position, according to which you always, whatever situation you were in at the moment, had to provide for the extended family. I found that this could lead too easily to exploitation and dependence. Those who had nothing didn’t really feel responsible for getting themselves out of their misery.”

  It was already pretty late, and Barack had to go to work early the next day. I had the impression, however, that he would have liked best to keep talking all night. But he looked tired. And I, too, was tir
ed from talking so much.

  “Let’s continue tomorrow, Barack,” I said. “We still have several days ahead of us.” With those words, I stood up and stretched. My brother showed me how to convert his pullout sofa into a bed. Before he disappeared into his bedroom, I hugged him once again at the end of that unforgettable day and said good night.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said with an earnest expression.

  * * *

  The next morning we got up early. Barack took me with him to his office to show me where he worked. He also wanted to introduce me to his colleagues.

  We entered a rather bleak-looking neighborhood. Flat-roofed, bungalow-like houses stood close together. Not far from there were apartment buildings with gray facades and dark entrances. Everything looked run-down and impoverished, entirely different from the part of Chicago I had seen on my arrival. Barack explained that we were “in the projects.”

  “These are residential areas in which affordable housing is built for the lowest income groups and for welfare recipients. The people who live here have only a very low income or none at all and rely on public assistance.”

  “It looks really poor here,” I remarked, surprised. I had a somewhat naïve idealized image of America in my head, the cliché of wealth and prosperity in the States that is widespread in my native country—but not only there.

  “The people are poor, too. And unfortunately, most of them are black,” Barack went on. It pained me to hear that. In Germany, I fought daily against the many prejudices toward us black people, particularly against the idea that we were all in need of help. So I was not happy to hear now that this was actually how things were for a lot of black people in the United States.

  “And what do you do here?” I asked Barack, eager to hear what solution he offered these people with his work.

  “I try to help the poor people in this area deal with the authorities so that they receive the support they’re legally entitled to.”