This portrait was created
for a play I directed
by Aspazija.
I’m dressed as her lookalike.
I recently completed Bruno Slept Here, a memoir about the hidden life of my Latvian father. Growing up in Nazi-occupied Riga, Bruno Rubess belonged to a clandestine yoga salon whose teachings went beyond headstands to include astral projection.
In the fall of 1944, Bruno was forced into the uniform of the Waffen SS and was catapulted on to the monstrous German battlefields. Lost in the smoke, the mantra Om Haum Joon Sah became his miraculous shield from carnage.
It’s 2017, and my father’s POW camp is now a nature reserve.
My guide says, “I know which Cage your father was in, and I even know his pseudonym.”