The Mandolin

A letter, a surprise, and love lost and found

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The Sebastopol Times is taking a break from news over the holidays. We got 24 submissions to our personal essay contest. This is one of several essays we will be publishing between now and New Year’s. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah.

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By Hanne Jensen-Male

I remember my dad picking up the mandolin during holiday dinners and playing it while my uncle belted out his Danish version of “Mona Lisa.” They must have practiced that song together for years. I cannot hear Nat King Cole sing it without an echo of those two brothers. My dad, the tough, broad policeman and his skinny, bald little brother who always brought a different dame to our family gatherings and never married.

My sister and I never played. Knowing myself, I was probably terrified to pick up the instrument in case I accidentally broke it, like I broke so many things as a child: the sewing machine whose foot broke clean off as soon as I removed the solid wooden cover; the crystal bowl that fell right through my hands as I carefully carried it to the kitchen; my new pants when I fell off my bicycle. Each accident earned me a beating from my dad. When the foot broke off the sewing machine for the third time, I ran away to my grandmother’s house, and when my dad came for me, she stood in the doorway while I hid behind her skirt, and she refused to let me go home with him. I loved her for that.

The mandolin hung on the living room wall. After my uncle killed himself by jumping off the Shell Tower in Copenhagen, which had been the control center in the fight against the Nazis, my dad never played it again. My sister and I were young adults by then, and she whispered that she had seen my uncle pick up prostitutes on Friday nights when she worked late at the bank around the corner. I wondered if he had hired the women who came to our holiday dinners. They were usually heavily made up, smelling of strong cologne and drinking too much. Only much later in life did I realize that he must have been gay and had tried his best to prove otherwise to himself and to the world. Maybe that was the reason he hadn’t been in the army and didn’t get to fight the Germans. My dad always teased him for not being a soldier. He would never have forgiven him for being gay.

When my dad died of a stroke, I returned to Denmark for the funeral. In his desk, we found a letter from a woman who had addressed it “To my Father.” It was a heartfelt letter from someone who had just learned, upon the death of her mom, that her beloved dad was not her real father and that my dad had given up claims to her when she was only three years old.

On the envelope, my dad had written in his neat cursive, “Response sent on July 6,” a week before he died. My little sister refused to acknowledge the fact that she suddenly had a half-sister. I was immensely curious and found her phone number in Copenhagen. I called her and told her the news of his death. She cried more for my dad than I had cried. At first, I couldn’t understand how she could be so affected by the death of someone she didn’t know, but then I realized that she had found and lost her real dad within two weeks. I waited on the line until she pulled herself together. Then she told me about the letter she had received.

In 1943, the Nazis rounded up all the police personnel in Denmark and sent them to a concentration camp south of the border. My dad was forewarned and escaped in the middle of the night, leaving behind his wife and his baby daughter. He only told his best friend and asked him to keep an eye on his little family until the war was over. Then he went “underground” and had no further contact.

For the next three years, he worked as a truck driver under a different name. When the war ended, he returned to his family only to find out that his friend now was living with his wife. They had fallen in love, and the little girl thought of his friend as her dad. With a heavy heart, he signed the adoption paperwork and left town to start a new life for himself. He started dating my mom five years later.

I made a date to visit my newfound sister, and we met in person a few weeks later. She was living with her wife at the seaside outside of Copenhagen. She looked just like my dad, and she showed me photos of her daughter, who could have been my daughter’s older sister. I spent most of our time together answering questions about our father: What kind of dad had he been? Did he have any health issues? How was his temper? Did he treat my mom well? I was not close with my dad whom I had seen as cruel and overprotective. I tried not to make him seem worse than he had been. I wondered what he would have thought of his oldest daughter and her gay marriage.

The man whom she had believed was her father had died when she was nine years old. She had worshipped him. She had not been close with her mom, who had been mentally ill, and only learned of my dad when she found the adoption papers after the death of her mom. I noticed that she had a guitar in her house and asked her if she played. When she said yes and shared that music always had meant a lot to her, I knew where the mandolin was going. It would be a reminder of the dad she would never know.

Before we parted, we both marveled at the luck and timing of my dad’s letter and the fact that he had been able to shed light on this time of her life before his sudden death. I was glad that I had learned a part of my dad’s history that he had never shared. It was suddenly easier to feel some compassion for this man whose abuse had made me leave my country as soon as I graduated high school.

My little sister died five years later at the age of 43. She never asked about my visit to Copenhagen, but she didn’t protest when I gave the mandolin away. After her death, only my half-sister and I were left in my family. We still keep in touch. She told me recently that she plays the mandolin for her grandchild and that he has learned a few chords already. I hope one day I can share the joy of grandparenthood with her through our FaceBook communication. My daughter stays with her daughter when she visits Denmark. All because of an exchange of letters that gave us access to a part of my dad’s history we never would have known.

Hanne Jensen-Male is a retired hospice nurse who lives in Monte Rio with her husband Tom and their dog Truckee.

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