The Lost Art of Letter Writing

by Praag, Menna van

  Greer is silent.

  Edward takes a deep breath as tears slip down his cheeks. ‘Do you still love me? Or don’t you feel anything any more, after all this time. Is that it?’

  ‘No!’ Greer exclaims. ‘I love you. I adore you. I cherish you. I couldn’t possibly love you any more than I do. Oh, my darling, you mustn’t doubt that. Not for a second.’

  ‘But … But … So then why didn’t you tell me about him?’ Edward takes a deep breath and a look of pure sorrow passes over his face. ‘I saw … the way you looked at him. It’s … It’s the same way you look at me.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Greer holds her palm close to his cheek, so he can feel her warmth. She considers, for a moment, doing what Finn had suggested and attempting to enter her husband as she’d entered the tree. She wants to bring him comfort, solace and, if possible, a little joy. But something holds her back.

  Edward looks at her with glassy eyes. ‘Are you having an affair?’ His voice is soft, anger flattened into sadness. ‘Please tell me, if you are. Don’t drag me out into misery. I’ve had quite enough of it for a lifetime, I honestly don’t think I could bear any more.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Greer says softly, ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

  ‘So, then you are,’ Edward says, barely audible. ‘I didn’t … I hoped …’

  It’s a minute before Greer speaks, not because she wants to make Edward suffer but because she truly doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to explain.

  ‘We’re … It’s not anything like … I just feel, I feel drawn to him, in a way I can’t … He plays the violin and it’s the most … magnificent music you’ve ever heard …’ Greer trails off, realising such effusions probably aren’t helping. ‘I listen to him, that’s all really and …’

  Edward is quiet for a long time.

  ‘So, I was right,’ he says at last. ‘You don’t love me any more.’

  ‘No!’ Greer says. ‘That’s not right, not at all. I love you just the same, as much as I always did.’

  Edward shrugs. ‘Well, it can’t be enough any more, if you’re’ – he injects the word with great venom – ‘drawn to him.’

  Greer sighs. ‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ she laments. ‘I don’t seem to have the same emotions I had before – I don’t feel sadness or jealousy or … attachments.’

  Edward wipes his eyes. He gazes at her, incredulous. ‘What?’

  ‘Well … It’s hard to say – it’s different. I feel very different, since …’ Greer trails off. ‘When I came back I came with my mind and my memory but without all that other “human” stuff: possessiveness, needs, demands – and I suppose it affects the way I love. It’s absolute and complete and total but it’s also not … exclusive.’

  ‘Not exclusive?’ Edward asks, desperately. ‘What does that mean? What are you talking about? Free love? An open marriage?’

  Greer feels a bubble of laughter rising up and, sensibly, stifles it. ‘No, that’s not what I mean. It’s not about sex and lust and all that – I simply don’t feel attached to you in the way I did before, like we own the right to each other. So, I feel drawn to other people and things … but it in no way lessens my love for you. I know it probably sounds hurtful … but, I’m afraid … I can’t seem to change myself and I have tried.’ Greer decides not to go into detail here, not to mention that she hasn’t tried particularly hard, since she’s rather reluctant to return to a state of being shaped by mercurial emotions. A constant state of delightfully detached contentment has a lot to recommend it.

  ‘You’ve tried?’ Edward’s eyes fill again. ‘I didn’t think you’d have to try, I thought you’d love me, just me, like in a normal marriage …’

  ‘But I’m not normal, am I?’ Greer says softly. ‘I don’t feel anger and pain and jealousy – you could call me a whore right now, anything you like, but I wouldn’t be hurt. I’d simply understand that you’re hurting and that’s how you’re expressing it.’

  Edward opens his mouth, seemingly contemplating a few choice words at her suggestion. Then he shuts his mouth and sighs and rests his head in his hands.

  ‘So, where does that leave us?’

  ‘I don’t know, my love,’ Greer says. ‘I think that’s up to you.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  My Otto,

  Do you remember the very first time you took me out to dinner? Do you remember what we ate? You had beef with potatoes and I had trout with sautéed broccoli and green peas. For dessert we shared a slice of chocolate cake. My trout was so tender and full of flavour; I can still taste it on my tongue. The cake was rich and moist, with three layers of buttercream filling. If I close my eyes and think back through the days, tumbling through time until I’m sitting again in that cafe on the Rozengracht, before we were banned from such places, I’m holding your hand again and my mouth is full of chocolate.

  I miss you. I miss your touch. I miss your voice. I miss your … everything.

  I miss food. In twenty-three days I’ve only eaten bread, a few pieces of meat and as many vegetables as Mrs X can manage to spare. Of course, I’m extremely grateful for all that they give me. They are depriving themselves so that I may eat, so that I may live. Of course, I will never complain nor ask for more. And yet, I cannot help but miss the tastes I used to know. Sometimes I dream of sugar, of those boiled sour cherry sweets you used to buy me. And when I wake my mouth is moist and my pillow is wet.

  Isn’t that a silly thing? When all this madness is going on around us, so much devastation and death, and I am dreaming of sugar. I would not admit this to anyone but you. Because I know you won’t judge me, you’ll just laugh at your little Mattie and tease me.

  What are you doing now? I wonder this every day, so many times. Where are you living? What are you eating? Where are you sleeping? Do you have company? Today you ate a tiny slice of roast beef for lunch, along with a single potato – with butter! And, as you swallowed your food, you remembered the time we ate together, when we held hands, when we were free.

  Ever Yours,

  Marthe

  ‘I’m very sorry for the, um …’ Mr Akkersijk trails off, clearly unable to refer to any of his precious papers as ‘mess’.

  ‘No, please,’ Clara stops him. ‘I can’t imagine anything more beautiful than all this.’ She gestures, the sweep of her fingers encompassing every manuscript mountain in the living room.

  ‘Thank you. I’m grateful you don’t judge me.’ A rare, bright smile lights Mr Akkersijk’s face. ‘Although, I’m afraid, I realise, I don’t have anywhere for you to sit in here. I, um, I don’t get many visitors.’

  Clara feels a flush of shame. She shouldn’t have intruded. She should have left him alone, respected his personal space and let him be.

  ‘We could take tea in the kitchen,’ Mr Akkersijk suggests. ‘It’s not particularly comfortable, but I have two small wooden chairs …’

  Clara nods, grateful she won’t be putting him out too much. ‘That’s—thank you.’

  ‘Okay.’ He nods. ‘Follow me.’

  Clara follows him down a dark, narrow passage. The floor here is clear of papers but, Clara suspects, only because it would otherwise pose a rather serious health and safety problem. Mr Akkersijk would risk life and limb every time he went to and from the front door.

  The kitchen, however, is not bereft of papers. Little piles (not so tall as the mountains in the living room) are scattered across the black-and-white linoleum tiles, stacked up on the tiny wooden table, on both chairs and across the counter. Clara has never seen anything like it. Upon entering, without meaning to, she lets out a laugh.

  Mr Akkersijk, who has stepped carefully, intuitively, through the little paper heaps to reach the kettle on the counter, turns.

  ‘Oh, gosh,’ he says, ‘I really shouldn’t have let you … I should have cleaned up first, what was I thinking? How can you possibly take me seriously now, I—’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Clara blurts out, horrified that he would
think this. ‘No, not at all, I shouldn’t have laughed – I’m just nervous, that’s all. I didn’t expect … I didn’t expect to be here, and – this is exactly what my house would be like if I let it be …’

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Akkersijk says, ‘but you don’t, I suspect. Unlike me you are tidy and self-disciplined.’

  Clara gives an apologetic shrug. ‘Only to avoid the complaints of my mother, who would have a verbal heart attack every time she visited.’

  Mr Akkersijk turns back to the kettle, switches it on. He takes a large china teapot from the cupboard, along with two cups. ‘Yes, well, I would no doubt do the same, were my mother still alive. She had piercing opinions and always voiced them with a razor-sharp tongue.’

  ‘Then I think our mothers would have been perfect friends.’ Clara gives a little grin. ‘Or perhaps not.’

  Mr Akkersijk returns her smile. ‘It sounds as if they might have sliced each other’s throats.’ As the water boils he pours the contents of a small bag of herbs into the teapot. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have any English tea. No milk and sugar, no Earl Grey.’

  ‘Oh, please, don’t apologise. I’m getting quite used to Dutch tea. I had orange and cardamom at a cafe yesterday,’ she says, reluctant to admit that she does, indeed, miss Earl Grey. ‘It was quite delicious. Very … calming.’ She nods towards the mounds of paper settled on each chair. ‘May I?’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Mr Akkersijk says. ‘Thank you.’

  Tentatively, Clara lifts each stack off the chair and places them, one by one, on the floor. Then she sits.

  ‘This is a mixture of herbs, I forget what exactly, but it’s one of my favourites.’ Mr Akkersijk hands Clara her cup of tea and sits himself.

  They sit in silence and sip. As he drinks, Mr Akkersijk seems to soften somewhat. His shoulders relax and the slightly steely gaze lifts, so Clara can see the suggestion of sweetness in his eyes.

  He leans back in his chair, still holding his cup. ‘I’ve been reading more of your letters. They’re really quite beautiful.’

  Clara sits up, placing her cup on the table. ‘Oh?’ she says, hoping to appear quite casual but unable to keep the delight out of her voice.

  Mr Akkersijk nods thoughtfully. ‘Yes, quite beautiful.’

  Then, all of a sudden, he stands, spilling drops of tea down his shirt but not seeming to notice. ‘Would you like me to read you a few? To translate, I mean – I just finished one that gives us some quite exciting news.’

  ‘Oh, yes, please,’ Clara exclaims.

  ‘Okay, I’ll get them,’ he says, before rushing off.

  Clara waits, listening to Mr Akkersijk hurrying through the house and hoping he doesn’t slip or trip over any of his hundreds of heaps of papers. Fortunately, he returns a few minutes later, all in one piece and letters in hand.

  ‘Perhaps I could begin with the last one I read,’ he suggests as he sits. ‘That’s the one with the—anyway, you can hear for yourself.’

  Clara nods as Mr Akkersijk begins to read.

  My dearest Otto,

  I know now that I won’t see you for quite some time. Too long, far too long. I can’t tell you how I miss you, how I love you. Of all the words I know, none are brilliant or bright enough to reflect the true nature of my feelings. I’ve been thinking often about this, actually – since I have far too much time available for such pursuits – and I believe that only music, the sort written by Mozart and Vivaldi, can come close to mirroring the human spirit and soul. Last night Mrs X was singing, while she scrubbed the floorboards of the parlour, and her voice rose up to reach us. It was The Marriage of Figaro and the notes were so sweet, so high, so pure that – for a few moments – everything in this dark world was suddenly illuminated by stars. I closed my eyes and I was in your arms again, as you kissed my cheeks and stroked my hair. My heart flushed so full of happiness that it bubbled over, like the hot syrup in a peach pie, and I—I felt the same as I did the first time you kissed me.

  But I’ve been putting off my news. I’ve been hoping it away yet it will not be hoped away. And I’m left wondering how can something be a sorrow and a miracle all at once? I would have wished, of course, that this hadn’t happened before we were free to be together again. And yet, now I cannot wish it away. He (for I am convinced it is a ‘he’ – I just know, though I can’t explain it) grows too fast and I don’t know what shall be done when he’s ready …

  Oh, my darling Otto, how I wish you were here, to hold me in your arms again, to promise me everything will be all right.

  Ever Yours,

  Marthe

  Mr Akkersijk doesn’t look up at Clara this time but keeps his eyes on the page. Clara wants to ask him to read it twice over again, so she can warm her hands on the heat of the words, so she can be quite certain of the meaning. But she’s too shy to ask such a thing, for this extra favour, from a virtual stranger. Instead, Clara filters the facts silently in her head.

  ‘My great-grandmother was pregnant,’ she says. ‘With Otto’s child. So, if the baby survived – I might have a grand-uncle or aunt …’

  Mr Akkersijk is silent before he says, ‘Yes, indeed you might.’

  And they sit, neither looking at the other, in the quiet kitchen, everything said and unsaid curling and uncurling like the steam from their teacups in the air between them.

  She’s lost the cost of the ticket home, but Clara doesn’t really care. She simply can’t leave Amsterdam now, knowing that she might still have relatives here.

  Last night Mr Akkersijk promised to read the rest of the letters as soon as he could, in order to glean any extra information about the child – if, in fact he was born and if he survived. While she waits, Clara walks across bridges and along cobbled streets, learning to stop still when she hears the ding of a bicycle bell instead of trying to dodge it and risk both her and the cyclist ending up in the river. Clara contemplates hiring a bike, since every single person in Amsterdam seems to own one. She’d see a lot more of this beautiful city that way and a lot sooner. But Clara dismisses the thought almost as soon as she has it. Cambridge is also a city of cyclists but, despite having lived there all her life, Clara has always preferred to walk. Indeed, she’s never learnt and has always been quite scared at the prospect of doing so. There’s so much to miss while whizzing along and she’s always liked to keep an eye out for the little delights of life that most other people neglect: a cluster of fresh blackberries on a bush, a sweetly scented rose, a tiny, fat dormouse disappearing under a hedge, a soft white feather drifting down from the sky – a gift from a watchful angel.

  Clara is so lost in thought that it’s a few moments before she realises the sound of the ringing phone is coming from her own bag. Startled, she rummages around until she finds it, dispersing half the contents of the bag across the cobbled pavement in the process. She doesn’t recognise the number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ms Cohen?’

  She smiles at the sound of his voice. ‘Speaking.’ She scrambles about on the pavement picking up her belongings.

  ‘It’s Mr Akkersijk,’ he says.

  Yes, she almost replies, I know. But it seems too intimate, somehow.

  ‘Are you free to come to my office, now?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Clara says, caught by the excitement in his voice. She leans against the iron railing of the bridge, gazing down at the shifting, shimmering water below.

  ‘I’ve just finished translating another letter,’ Mr Akkersijk explains. ‘I confess I’ve neglected the day’s work in the process. But it’s been worth it. I have his name – the name of the child.’

  ‘Oh,’ Clara says, nearly dropping her phone into the canal. ‘That’s … I’m on my way.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  A wife? A wife and a mother?! Finn paces across his living room. He hasn’t left his house in three days, for fear of bumping into his neighbours. Any or all of them. He hasn’t been able to play his violin again since the last time he saw Greer, though he h
asn’t put it down either. Instead, Finn clings to it like a safety blanket, like he did as a little boy. The bow sits on the mantelpiece, untouched, though his eye is drawn to it every time he passes by the fireplace.

  Finn freezes, mid pace. What if he’s never able to play again? What if he’s given his spark, his flare, his entire desire to this woman and, without her, he’ll never get it back? It’s exactly this fear that has caused him to hold back in the past, that has cautioned him against playing truly – opening up and pouring every fibre and beat of his heart into his music – for any woman. He has, quite wisely it seems now, never done so before. But with Greer he had no choice. For her, he couldn’t play any other way. Finn wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. When Greer listened, he could only respond by giving her every piece and breath of himself. He couldn’t hold anything back: his whole self, his soul flowed into each note. He laid himself bare for her.

  When Finn was a little boy, his mother would tell him stories of how his father broke her heart and, at the end of them, she would make him promise not to let anyone ever do the same to him. ‘You can love a woman,’ she’d say, ‘but don’t give her everything, don’t give her your whole heart – always save something just for yourself – that way you will be sure to survive.’ Finn would nod, reassuring, though for many years he didn’t really understand what she meant. Then, when puberty kicked in and he began yearning for girls, Finn knew and he did just what his mother had told him to do. And he did it for the rest of his life. Until Greer.

  Unfortunately, his mother never told him what to do if he failed. She never told him, in the event that he did give his heart away, how he might get it back. So Finn is adrift on a sea of unknowing. A wild, wind-blown, stormy sea and – with only his unplucked violin to cling to – he’s feeling himself begin to drown.

  Every few minutes his resolve not to leave the house crumbles and Finn is overcome with the need to run into the garden, to run next door and find her, to throw himself at her feet and beg her to come back. But something of his mother’s advice must have survived since, every time it arises, Finn always manages to stop himself from acting on that particular urge. So far.