The results came in. He was not my brother. Jo Bonnier was not my father. I had not a drop of Swedish blood. We’d both desired the connection of lineage. The loss of that possibility sent us in opposite directions.
I was, as it turned out, 49.5 per cent Ashkenazi. A Jew. Tom, my husband, is Jewish. We joined a synagogue. The rabbi came to our home to marry us in front of Tom’s ailing parents. For years I’d been aware of a Jewish sensitivity. Tom’s Holocaust survivor parents moved in with us for the last years of their lives. I loved their world of books and art and music: the debates, the opinions, the importance of everything. Whenever Irene, Tom’s mother, contradicted herself, she would shrug and lift her hands. ‘Two Jews, three opinions,’ she’d say, and it always made me laugh.
But there were no further clues about my father. I thought about the information available to adopted people. The 1985 Adult Adoption Information Act, touted as the answer to our need to know, was little use. It provides no more than a copy of your ‘original’ birth certificate. My certificate showed my mother’s name and my first name. The area for my father was blank. But someone had added Mavis and Max’s full names, their address and occupations. They’d included my adopted name for good measure. So much for an original document.
While I’d found my mother and met my sisters by chance and luck, I knew there must be more information. I began to write to the Ministry for Children again. This time I didn’t beg. I called every week, demanding my files. And I recorded the conversations. A social worker said she could not verify my identity. My dates were wrong. Because I was six months older than my birth certificate, she was unable to release my files.
There are no new-baby photos of me, so it seemed plausible. I scoured the few images I had, comparing toddler sizes. I studied the moisture beading on a window and the shadow on a lawn, trying to link them with the expected time of year. After weeks of sleuthing, I realised the different birth date must be an anomaly. Or a fabrication.
Other social workers sent me off on tangents, knowing, it seemed to me, I would get nowhere. They passed me down to junior staffers. And on to departments within departments. At all times, I felt the staff were condescending, disrespectful and insensitive. They expected me to give up, slink away, swallow my anger and get over it.
In all, I had over seventy interactions with government departments. The result was always the same. Yes, they had my files. Yes, any staff member could read those files. But no, I had no right to them.
I run a company and am an award-winning filmmaker and writer. I am a wife, a mother and a grandmother. Still, I am not considered adult enough to read my own files. In the eyes of the law, I am an illegitimate child for all my life.
There were three further options. The Adoption Act says I can access my files if both my natural parents and adopters are dead. Or if I have reached the age of one hundred and twenty. Or I could get a court order.
To get that court order, I had to prove ‘special grounds’, a term created especially for adopted people. There is no definition in law. ‘Special grounds’ is whatever the judge of the day says it is.
Through a contact, I received a folder of legal decisions — forty years of adopted people pleading for information. The stories were heartbreaking, but the judges were adamant: adopted people are not party to their adoption contracts. Thus, they had no legal right to their files. In 1976 a magistrate denied an application by ‘B’ to inspect her adoption records. The magistrate said her desire to learn whether she had Jewish blood did not constitute a special ground. ‘Disclosing information would open a veritable “Pandora’s Box” of trouble and embarrassment.’ In an application by ‘P’, the judge was clear: ‘The psychological comfort of the adopted person was not considered grounds to open their files.’23 Neither is a hereditary medical condition. In every case, the decisions read as cruel and callous.
I went ahead and petitioned the court to open my files. The judge requested I provide ‘all reasons, preferably special ones’. He gave no hint about what he might consider a special reason. Would the anomalous birth date swing it? I argued that withholding my birth date was a breach of natural justice.
And then, a miracle. The judge decided in my favour. He released all files held on me by the Departments of Justice and Internal Affairs. I could come to the courthouse and pick up my documents.
Two of my daughters came with me. The court registry officer showed us into an empty interview room. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights. I stared at the file he held out.
‘Breathe,’ Rachel said.
A few days before I’d heard about a woman who had been given ten minutes to read over her file before they locked it away again. ‘Can I take this?’ I asked.
The officer smiled. ‘I’ll
