Little Legacy

I was absent-mindedly making an origami boat as I quite often when I am forced to sit still and endure something boring, but want but really need to be productive (Enneagram Alert-“3” wing!) and it struck me how my ability to do this was thanks to a family friend called Aatso.

Aatso was a “new Australian” from Estonia who was part of our family for a few years during the 70’s. My Dad is a renowned  lame duck gatherer whose lifelong compassion has led him to unreservedly support vagrants, wastrels and ne’er do weels of all kinds, frequently giving more than he can afford and extending chance after chance in repeated triumphs of hope over experience.

Aatso was certainly not a wastrel or time waster though. He was a young teacher that Dad had met at his workplace. He had no family here- they were all stuck back in Estonia in bread queues. He had had an horrific time during the war, drafted by the Nazis into the SS-it was never openly spoken about but we were all told about it at some time.

Aatso’s English was very good, although he had a pretty strong accent. Being the 70’s, we were, of course,  totally unashamed about mocking foreigners of any kind, although at least we were polite enough not to do it to his face. He was very kind to us-there were six kids: five girls, one boy and most of our time with Aatso was spent at the holiday house in Gracetown that dad had built during his holidays from TAFE.  There was a much bigger generation gap between children and adults in those days, so of course we kids had our own world and the adults had theirs.  Aatso seemed much younger than our parents, but was just another adult to us, and a slightly weird one at that.

However Aatso had some great tricks that other adults didn’t have-he was an amazing gadget inventor-like a mad scientist guy, who was always making little things that could help with life’s little problems. He created a specialised fly switch from fishing line-a perfectly braided and corded lightweight switch that you flicked side to side over your shoulder as you walked to the beach. We were used to flies of course, but he was appalled by the inconvenience, so found an elegant and perfectly formed solution. He was mad on fishing which Dad had introduced him to, so had invented a sort of lure/berley cage thingo that got those herring really boiling.

When it was raining though, he introduced us all to origami and string figures. My little sister Pip sat practising “apache door” for hours until she had mastered the difficult string figure-we all got to learn it, and as 8 ,9 and 11 year olds my two nearest sisters and I would have races to see who could complete Apache Door in the least time. The other trick Aatso taught us was how to make a perfect origami boat that really floats. It’s such a neat, awesome little thing, that turns itself inside out at the last step to reveal a perfectly proportioned boat and I have never forgotten how to make it.

Aatso never married or had children, and spent many years in analysis, trying to come to terms with the horrors of his past during the war. He died of cancer quite young. I will always remember visiting him in hospital when he was dying. I was about 13 and had never seen anyone so skeletal. The wig he was wearing only added to the sense of tragedy. I guess it might not seem like much of a legacy to leave, but every time I fold a square of paper to make that boat, I always think of Aatso, a brave and haunted man, who spent endless hours with a bunch of annoying and noisy kids carefully and patiently showing us how to create a little piece of perfect craft.