REFRAMING BERNARD

The 1920s photograph is well preserved. Black and white in an oval wooden frame, it has passed from one family member to another, connecting each of us to the tragic but inspirational figure that was my uncle.

I hadn’t known the man whose handsome, youthful image stared back at me in that photo, the musician who caressed his violin like a lover. I had never seen those long, elegant fingers nor heard the ethereal notes that made him a prodigy. I had only known his later self, the kind, disfigured jokester who, despite his amputations, taught me to play the piano.

His name was Bernard Greenberg, Bernie for short, and I have written about him before. About the circulatory disease that ravaged his body, robbing him of his passion and nearly ending his life. About losing his best friend in a drowning accident and his budding career with the Philadelphia Orchestra. I’ve discussed his addiction to pain killers, his years in and out of hospitals, the anti-Semitism that forced him to change his last name to Green. And I’ve also chronicled his triumphs—beating his addiction, becoming a sought-after music instructor, maintaining a wicked sense of humor.

But there is something I omitted. Something beautiful and heartbreaking that now beckons to be told. And it begins, and indeed ends, with the photograph.

For my previous essay about Bernie, I needed an accompanying image, and this was the one I selected. The pose is professional but not formal. He is sitting at an angle, his expression thoughtful. In one hand is the violin, his fingers delicately balanced on the strings. In the other hand, the bow. His face is smooth, his wavy black hair combed to the side. He is wearing dark pants and a white buttoned-down shirt, opened at the collar. The photo is inscribed in white ink and reads: To my devoted parents—Bernard.

His devoted parents, that is, my great-grandparents. Bernie’s father died before I was born, but I was close to his mother, an intelligent, strong woman who indeed was devoted to her long-suffering son.

To reproduce the photo, I had to extract it from the frame. This took some doing because it was sealed with parchment paper and nailed down. A method designed for permanence, that symbolically said: Do Not Disturb. But I wanted that photo so disturb it I did. And that’s when my uncle changed form, when I knew that the frame he’d been housed in for decades would no longer fit.

Pasted onto the back of his photograph was another, cut to the exact oval dimensions of my uncle’s. It was not of Bernie. Nor was it a family member or the friend who drowned. It wasn’t Clara either, the woman everyone said he would have married had he not been ill. No, this was a stranger to me, a man around the same age as my uncle. Handsome, too, with an ocherous mustache and soulful eyes. His gaze was intense. You’ve found me, he seemed to whisper. Finally, I can breathe.

To say I was surprised is an understatement. The photograph was signed, but the script was illegible. I turned it over and over, placed the two images side by side. What did it mean? Here, within this intimate gift—To my devoted parents—was something that felt even more intimate. So intimate that it needed to be hidden. Sealed for all time.

Bernie was sick for twenty years before the disease abated. During that time, he lived with my great grandmother. As far we knew, he never dated, was, everyone said, too ill for love. But perhaps there was more to it, more than the tragedy of his illness. Perhaps the greater tragedy was that he did love and was unable to openly express it.

My uncle lived before pride, before same sex marriage, before sexual orientation was woven into the lexicon. In his day, homosexuality was in many places a crime. If Bernie was gay, it would have been a challenge, another obstacle he would have had to surmount. His parents, though devoted, may not have approved. They were open-minded, but they may have had their limits. Did Bernie in fact tell them? Was he rebuked? Was this his way of rebelling, of taking a stand? I have no way of knowing for certain. But I am storyteller, and this is the story I want to tell. That Bernie was more than we knew, that his external scars masked an internal struggle, one that no hospital could cure.

I’ve wondered if making this discovery public is a betrayal, opening a closet he wanted to remain shut. I’ll never know that either. But a part of me thinks he’d be glad. Because unsealed he is reframed. He is no longer a still life to be pitied, but a living, breathing man who loved and, in my story, was loved in return.

Ona Russell holds a PhD in literature from UC San Diego, where she also taught for many years. She is the author of three award-winning historical mysteries and one stand-alone novel as well as numerous published essays and academic articles. She is a credentialed mediator and the host of Authors in the Tent, a five-season Literary Hub sponsored author interview video series.