Genealogy: a novel

by Mae Wood

  And he will chip away at that time. Word by word.

  He uncaps his pen and writes.

  Dear Alice,

  North America is behind me, but you are at the forefront of my thoughts. We’ve just bid farewell to North America, as the Canadian coast slipped away. It’s unseasonably cool and the water is rough. I was expecting bright blue skies and smooth seas, but that is not the case. Tea, regular small meals, and walks around the deck help keep the nausea at bay, but I ache nonetheless.

  I was awake much of the night, thinking over all that I said our last evening together. I haven’t changed my mind regarding any of it.

  As much as regret gnaws at me, it won’t hold me back. I move forward now with purpose. My purpose is to build a life for us. A life that I can eagerly and honestly ask you to join. I’d have asked if you’d be willing to join your life with mine as we wandered like lost sheep through the Seattle streets on my last night with you, and the idea was always on my mind, but I have little to offer but hope and hard work. That will not always be the case. I will write the vision and make it plain, dear Alice.

  We’ve learned much about each other already, but I will tell you the whole story about me so that you can see that if all I have are bootstraps, I will pull myself up by them. I was born in Burr Oak, Michigan in 1890. My father was a pastor in the Lutheran Church and died when I was ten. After his death we moved from Michigan to Indiana, and lived with my mother’s sister and her family. My education was always a priority. I was schooled by the Church and spent a year in seminary before I withdrew, upsetting my family, but it wasn’t the path for me. I couldn’t continue on and lead a congregation. It was not my calling. I promised I would pay back every cent that the Church spent on my education and I have made good on my word, which is why I do not have much to my name. But I am free and clear now, Alice. Free to start from scratch and build an empire. I have found my calling—to build a life of adventures with you.

  After leaving seminary, I enrolled at the University of Michigan and was able to teach German classes as a way of supporting myself. I took extra classes, graduated a bit early with a degree in economics, and was fortunate to be offered a position teaching at the high school in Goshen, Indiana.

  It was there that I read about the United States government sending teachers to the Philippine Islands. One of my mother’s brothers had ventured there several years earlier. So I wrote to him, applied for the position, and was offered a job. I had to find a replacement to complete the rest of the term with the high school, and I even paid my replacement some of my own money in order to ensure that he would take the position and work out the term. When I give my word, I mean it, Alice.

  I taught out my three-year contract with the government and then began work at my uncle’s store. He is a pharmacist by training, but we began brokering small loans and we are focused on turning our venture into a bona fide bank. There is much opportunity in Iloilo. In fact, that was the purpose of my first vacation home in five years—to rejuvenate myself before we begin work on building the bank in earnest.

  My vacation home also had a secondary purpose, one advanced by my mother and aunts. Indiana, Michigan, and Utah were my main stops, and they were filled with many introductions to so many young women. All coordinated by our families. And no one, I give you my word on this, holds a candle to you. I’m not an odd-looking fellow. I’m not quiet or shy. I’m not slow or dimwitted. But I am particular and that makes me peculiar in a way. If I wanted a wife, as my family wants me to find one, then I could have taken one years ago. I don’t want a wife. I want a companion in this life. I want someone with whom to conspire, to travel, to go on adventures large and small.

  I think you understand me. And I think I understand you. I cannot explain it and every day of this long voyage home I have marveled at its reality, wondered at your reality, and at times, questioned my sanity at finding you and then saying good-bye. If you were not real, I would wish you so. I spent a large part of the past few days thinking over what I said on our last night together. I haven’t changed my mind regarding any of it.

  As soon as I arrive home, I will set plans with my uncle for our future and my fastest path back to you. Please, wait for me, Alice. Please write and keep me in your mind, and if you find space, in your heart as well. For you have taken up residence in mine and I deeply desire that you will make a home of it.

  Yours,

  Elliott

  Four

  Elliott

  October 1915

  As the ship moors in Japan, he hands a dozen letters to the purser with assurances they will be immediately posted. All tightly sealed, with seven addressed to Miss Alice Hirshhorn, Astoria Hotel, Seattle, Washington. The others are to his mother in Indiana and his brother in Michigan. Writing his uncle would be a waste, as he would likely arrive in Iloilo ahead of any letter. And he needs to be face-to-face to sell this plan. To sell his uncle on letting him return to the States again so shortly.

  He paces the deck, eager to disembark, eager to book passage to the Philippine Islands. He is ready for more now. Ready to expand his small pawn operation into more formal loans and land mortgages, and if that fails, perhaps he will persuade the Bank of the Philippine Islands to open a branch in Iloilo. Right now the Indochine banks’ branches are the only option for substantial credit. Men far away are becoming wealthy off of deals he has access to. He could speculate in sugar cane or rice or coconut as well as they could. As could all of his vagabond friends who call the Philippines home.

  His fingers clutch the metal railing and he looks down on the vast chaos of the port below, determined to best all obstacles in his course because he now has a purpose greater than building a bank. That was a vision of lucre, not of a life. He knows fully what he wants and he will get it—capital and a delightful woman with an easy laugh and clear blue eyes.

  His feet are once again on the earth, and other than purchasing a few fresh persimmons in a paper bag from a wooden cart, he doesn’t pause, and hires a carriage to take him to the business district.

  “Monsieur,” greets the officious bank manager, the leather soles of his polished black shoes ticking on the marble floor of the branch office, his dark hair combed back from his face and his hand outstretched to welcome Elliott. It is men like these who Elliott seeks to supplant in the Philippines. “We confirmed your letter of credit,” he says in French, requiring Elliott to engage all of his faculties to follow the words. “Unfortunately, we are unable to fulfill it. Due to the war, we are unable to provide funds to Germans.”

  “I am not German,” Elliott responds, mindful of using his best French pronunciation. That he had never ventured to Europe, and his accent in all languages was marked by his American tongue and the German of his childhood—those were concerns he normally had. The words from the banker are far more pressing and outweigh all else. Elliott has less than forty dollars in his pocket, and he doubts that is sufficient to secure decent passage to Manila, much less all the way to Iloilo.

  “Sir,” the man continues, waving his hand up and down Elliott’s body to indicate that there is no doubt of Elliott’s nationality. Elliott’s tall stature, his pale skin, his ruddy blond hair, his square jaw and his blue eyes—when combined with his last name of Keller, Elliott cannot deny his ancestry. And since leaving the States, he always finds it funny when a stranger first greets him in German. But he is American by birth, and at this moment he finds the banker’s insistence anything but humorous.

  “I am American,” announces Elliott.

  The manager eyes him, disbelieving him. “Your passport, please, sir,” says the manager, extending a hand, palm up, confident that he has called a bluff.

  Elliott extracts his passport from his pocket and passes the book to the man who examines it carefully before handing it back.

  “C’est bon,” the manager continues with a reluctant nod. “We will have your requested funds forthwith.”

  Elliott steps out onto the street, the equi
valent of a hundred dollars in his pocket. By foot he makes his way through the streets of Yokohama to the agency where he books his passage to the Philippines. The next steamer to Manila is in three days’ time. Three days in Japan and no plans. No calls to fulfill. No introductions to attain or greetings to pass forward.

  Seated at a table in a café next door to the bank that is designed for men like him, he borrows a map. He drinks his tea and enjoys the sweet bite of the persimmons, peeled and sliced with his pocket knife while he looks at the map. Nikko catches his eye. At a dinner party before he left for the States, a couple regaled other guests about their recent trip to the ancient city with its three-hundred-year-old shrines and hot springs dotted through the mountains. If five days is enough time to fall in love, he reasons, then three days is enough time to explore Nikko.

  The next day, he steps off the northbound train, winds through the streets of Nikko, and having spent the train ride studying a map he purchased, sets off to explore the city.

  His accommodations arranged, he takes his time strolling among the paths and temples amid the dense greenery, pausing to sketch the sites in his pocket journal and jotting a note to send a postcard of the ancient royal bridge to Alice. Nikko is lovely. He has been to Japan before, but Nikko is the Japan of his dreams. As the evening falls, he remembers that a few weeks ago he was also aimlessly roaming the coast on the other side of this vast ocean. Weeks and a lifetime ago and just yesterday. Then, Alice was at his side, and she is with him now in his head.

  The morning following his gin-soaked card game on the train, he saw her breakfasting alone in the dining car, the soft spine of her closed sketch book bent around a pencil.

  “Excuse me, once more,” he said, standing at her table, but avoiding setting his eyes on hers to give her space from him. “I want to apologize for my intrusion last night.”

  “Oh, never mind that,” she said, taking a sip from a coffee cup. “Bound to happen at some point on the journey. Have you breakfasted?”

  “No,” he said, fighting with himself about saying more. About asking anything from her, before taking a leap. “May I join you?”

  She nodded in response, her eyes on his. Clear blue eyes set above rosy cheeks and framed by brown curls once again tied up at the nape of her graceful neck.

  He sat opposite her and ordered his eggs, toast, and coffee from the porter. “My name is Elliott Keller.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Keller. I’m Alice Hirshhorn.”

  “Miss Hirshhorn, it is a pleasure to formally make your acquaintance.”

  “As it is to meet you, Mr. Keller. Will your wife be joining us?”

  She might already be seated before me, he thought, but he said, “No, I’m not married.”

  It didn’t escape his notice when her eyes widened slightly at his words, and hope flared in his chest, making his breath hitch. He did not trust his words and she did not speak, so they sat in quiet contemplation, looking across the table draped with white linen at each other, until the porter returned and offered her more coffee.

  “Mrs. Hirshhorn,” he began, hopeful that in his eagerness he had not misheard her unmarried title.

  “It’s miss,” she corrected him in a snap accompanied by a warm smile, as she added lumps of sugar to her fresh coffee.

  And that winged thing that moved in his chest took flight.

  “Miss Hirshhorn—” And the words stuck again. He wasn’t sure what to say next. How to carry the conversation. She sipped her coffee and her eyes wandered to the window. He had to call her back to him, but was lost as to how. A hot cup of coffee landed in front of him and he found words. “Are you headed to Seattle?”

  “Yes. There isn’t much in between here and there,” she said, facing him again while gesturing with her hand toward the grassland stretching into the distance that trundled by the window. “Is Seattle your destination as well?”

  “No. I’m headed back to the Philippine Islands.”

  “The Philippine Islands!” she exclaimed, leaning in a few degrees, her shoulders rolling toward the table, to speak with him more personably. “And I thought Seattle was the frontier. What takes you to the ends of the earth?”

  “It’s not quite the ends of the earth. We have electricity and a golf club.”

  “Manila, then?”

  “Iloilo.”

  “Il… What’s the name of the place again?”

  “Iloilo. It’s on an island south of the one where Manila is located. If you can visualize the Islands, Iloilo is in the middle.”

  A knowing nod is her response.

  “I’m surprised you know the Philippine Islands.”

  “I’m a school teacher. The names of all of the major rivers in the world, the life cycles of frogs and butterflies, and long division are some of my specialties.”

  “Ah, I taught for a few years myself. Working for the United States government and teaching English to the native children. Now, my uncle and I run a drug store and we have a small loan business that we’re going to be expanding.” And he wished it were more. That he could lay claim to several drug stores. That the loan business was a full-fledged banking operation. But it would get there. He would get there.

  “Were you a Thomasite?”

  He shook his head to focus on this curious, beautiful woman in front of him. “No, I wasn’t one of the original group of teachers. I came to the Philippines five years ago.”

  “I was finishing my teaching degree and read about the opportunity teaching native children, but it seemed so dreadfully far.”

  “Far from Seattle?”

  “Oh, no. Far from Indiana. Seattle may be the frontier, but at least it’s in the country. Compromise with my father,” she said with a shrug.

  Elliott had met lots of women before, but none who were unmarried and had fled to the newest corner of the nation to teach as a compromise with their fathers, and, since leaving for the Islands five years ago, few from Indiana. “My family is from Ft. Wayne,” he said, not quite sure how to address the adventurous spirit he recognized within her.

  “Are you joshing? I’m from Portland,” she said. Her eyes widened and he fell into their blue depths.

  “I’m not joking in the least. And, might I ask about Hirshhorn? I’m assuming you’re German?”

  “Yes, my grandparents immigrated.”

  “As did mine. I’m sure we have people in common. Hardy sons and daughters of the homeland turned American. Do you speak any German?”

  “A few words, but not often these days.”

  Elliott nodded in understanding. “I haven’t spoken it in years.” He hasn’t spoken it outside of teaching lessons, he realizes, but he dreams in it. His first language, the one that rarely passes his lips, is the one that comes to him in his slumber.

  Elliott’s eyes had drifted to a couple newly seated opposite them, the woman finished with a hat, a droopy red ribbon trimming the brim, her companion in a brown suit. Elliott took them in, imagining their story.

  “Runaways from the circus,” Miss Hirshhorn whispered.

  Elliott’s eyes traveled to her blue ones, finding them filled with mirth and mischief.

  “Runaways from the circus?” he asked.

  “Well, not everyone can run away to the circus. Some people clearly have to run away from the circus.”

  She had held his fascination before that moment. But with her joke, he was hers.

  “I was thinking he’s a painter. European of some sort. Minor country. Dane. Or Lichtenberger. Pushed out because of the war. Traveling from place to place with his sister.” The man’s fingers reached across the table to pet the woman’s. “Or his wife,” Elliott amended.

  “And him,” she challenged, tilting her head toward a rumpled man reading a rumpled newspaper.

  “Canadian shipbuilder. Just back from Chicago. You?”

  “His suit looks like he slept in it, so he doesn’t have a berth, I’d say. Hopping on and off the train at various stops, perhaps in the dead
of night. Salesman of some sort. Barbed wire fencing, perhaps? Furs? Timber?”

  He has played this game a million times in his life. He is an observer. Taking in everything and putting out into the world what is required. To have a companion, he’d like that immensely and he’d like to know the woman across the table from him much better.

  At the largest red gate he pauses, marveling. Could it really be true that this was created, that this has stood for centuries, without a single metal nail? Alice would marvel at it too. The urge to be with her overcomes him, so he reaches for her in the way he can.

  Dear Alice,

  I am in Nikko, having this little paper chat with you under a huge ancient gate. They say that these are built without a single metal nail. Only wood, painstakingly fitted together so that it stands the test of time. The passion to build something that lasts not from stone but from life—that I understand deeply.

  The sea crossing was fine and tiresome. Mainly monotonous. I made a friendship with a British woman a few years older than us and her son. They were destined for Hong Kong. The son, Rhys, was eight and we played many rounds of Old Maid, and by the time our crossing was through, he was becoming quite the student of Hearts. Only a bit of time more, and he will make a fine bridge partner.