“I just have to know before I can let it go,” I said in a tone more defensive than it needed to be.
“So, what’s next?”
I shrugged. I could write letters to the five Marcel Heuzés in the phone book, though I did not expect it would lead to anything new. I had not made progress on the font since Aaron and I were in the accident, so I explained I would turn my attention back to the font. I still was unsure if I could sell it if it was based on the words of a man killed in a labor camp, but it was the only what’s next that came to mind.
“Have you talked with a genealogist?” Kathy asked.
“Yes and no. My mom looked a while back, but she didn’t find anything. I looked on a genealogy website,” I said with a shrug. “They have a personal research service, but it starts at eighteen hundred bucks.”
Kathy’s face lit up and she cocked her head to the side. “You know, a couple years back when I needed help tracking down my mom’s Canadian birth certificate, I worked with someone.” Kathy had looked on and off for years, and had run into one dead end after another before asking a friend to help. “Dixie found it in a week!”
“A week?” My eyebrows soared.
“She knows how to do it! Dixie would love this story. I’m going to see her next weekend. Can I ask if she’ll help?”
“Sure,” I said, then added under my breath: “Let’s see who else can take my money.”
Kathy offered a disclaimer: “Dixie doesn’t take all the jobs people approach her with. Because I think a lot of people ask.”
I nodded and shrugged. “Ask. What can it hurt?”
A couple nights later, I saw Marcel. It was not the first time I dreamed about the search. But it was the first time I saw him in a dream. He walked ahead of me on a narrow, gravel-covered country road. The back of his thin frame was in sharp focus; the fields and trees in the periphery were mottled like a painting. He wore old trousers, worn brown shoes. Rolled-up, threadbare shirtsleeves pooled around bony elbows. Marcel’s arms hung at his sides, swinging slightly as he walked. His hands were empty.
I watched and waited for Marcel to glance left or right, hoping to see his profile. But he never wavered from his straight-ahead, singular focus. I listened for birds or cars, cows or wind, but the only sound that echoed in my ears was the rhythmic crunch of his footsteps.
Marcel never broke from his steady pace. Sometimes I lagged behind and had to take running steps to regain my place. Other times I tried walking faster. But no matter what I did, I could not close the distance between us.
I tried determining the color of his hair, the conversation with Kathy undoubtedly still on my mind. Was it black? Brown? Blond? I could not tell. Colors seemed to shift in the light. Was he tall or short? He was too far ahead to know for sure.
I longed for Marcel to turn and extend an invitation for me to join him. I wanted to walk beside him, to hear the timbre of his voice. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, so many things I wanted to know. Somehow, in my dream, we would understand each other. I was certain we would somehow speak a common language.
But Marcel never noticed I followed behind. Or perhaps he did notice. Either way, deep down, I knew why he did not turn around.
Deep in my bones, I understood.
I awoke from the dream wrapped in a blanket of sadness as thick and heavy as the comforter covering me. I lay motionless as I attempted to cement into memory each and every detail: Marcel’s gait, his swinging arms, his rolled-up shirtsleeves, his worn brown shoes.
I did not have to work hard to interpret what my subconscious understood with absolute certainty: I was never going to catch up with him.
I was never going to find Marcel.
Lunch with Kathy made me want to try again to connect with Kim in California. Instead of sending another email, I called and left a message with her office manager. I made a point of saying I did not have a complaint about an item I purchased from her; rather, I simply had a question. The woman promised to send Kim the message right away.
Sure enough, an email from Kim arrived a short while later. She asked me to outline which piece I was inquiring about. I wrote back immediately. “My question has to do with letters I purchased from you in 2002 when you owned Belle Époque in Stillwater. I am hoping you can recall where you acquired them. An extraordinary story is emerging.”
“Of course I remember the letters!” Kim emailed back. “It killed me to sell them off as they were such a personal thing.”
She remembered them! My heart skipped and soared. Why was I not surprised Marcel’s letters touched her in the same way they touched me?
“I would love to know the story,” she wrote. “I purchased them in France, but I can’t remember what city I was in. It was undoubtedly at one of the many flea markets I went to.”
My head snapped back. They were at a flea market? Why were Marcel’s letters at a flea market? Did this make the situation better? Or worse? The theory that no one in the family survived the war roared back to the top of the list. Maybe there really hadn’t been anyone left to cherish these letters.
“I will put more thought into it and reach out to my friend and former partner who was with me on the trip.” Kim noted she was busy and at a trade show, but promised to call me once she returned home.
Two weeks later, when I still had not heard from Kim, I sent a follow-up email.
That email went unanswered.
Two weeks after that I sent another email.
That email went unanswered, too.
Chapter Fifteen
White Bear Lake, Minnesota
May 2012
“Dixie’s going to do it!” Kathy squealed as soon as I picked up the phone. “For free! She wants to know whether Marcel lived, too!” Kathy’s enthusiasm made me grin from ear to ear.
Kathy suggested I begin by assembling a list of everything I knew for Dixie. I started immediately. I outlined names, dates, and places I had looked, what Wolfgang’s records showed, and what I had found on Suzanne’s death, though I admitted I had no proof she was the correct Suzanne. I listed what I knew about Berchères-la-Maingot, though I noted it did not feel like it was home. Finally, I noted Marcel had mentioned Montreuil and Paris, though it was still unclear how, or if, those two puzzle pieces fit into the bigger picture.
“Sounds like a great mystery!” Dixie wrote in an email later that night. “I have zero experience with research in France. I have some in Germany, but not a lot. I’m experienced at working the genealogical data system and finding help where I need it.” Dixie suggested we find a time to get together, and noted she would have me pre-approve document fees, but reiterated the offer to help for no charge. “My reward is in the adventure,” she wrote. As Dixie’s offer sank in, I was unsurprised Kathy and Dixie were friends. They exuded the same kind of abundant generosity and infectious positivity.
I agreed it would be a delight to meet, but I told her I wanted to send her everything I had without delay.
Within days, Dixie posted Marcel’s information on French genealogy boards. Help began to trickle in.
A man named Guy reviewed civil records from Boissy-le-Châtel and reported he did not find any mention of the Heuzé family between 1896 and 1911. More-recent records were not yet available. He offered to look elsewhere, but questioned whether the Heuzé surname might be incorrect.
A woman named Nathalie reviewed birth and death records from Berchères-la-Maingot between 1882 and 1902. She did not find anything, either. The closest surname had been Herve, and she, too, wondered if my information was bad.
Guy and Nathalie’s actions left me flabbergasted. Who were these people? Dixie seemed to be a member of some secret, amazing network. Hope surged in a way it had not in months, yet Guy and Nathalie’s comments also made me question what I thought I knew with certainty. Was it possible I didn’t even have Marcel’s name right?
Dixie seemed cautious and offered a warning, “Don’t be surprised if some facts turn out to be incorre
ct.” I attempted to decipher whether she meant their information or mine.
Dixie noted she would have time the forthcoming Saturday to dig in and do some serious research. I tried to be patient. Time slowed to an excruciating crawl.
In the hours and days after the airplanes careened into the Twin Towers, Aaron and I could barely tear ourselves from the televised images of New York’s dust-covered streets, the twisted metal, the trails of smoke. We watched police and firemen standing atop Ground Zero’s smoldering rubble, digging for life. Digging not only because their loved ones were missing—digging because someone’s loved ones were missing.
Images showed sidewalks filled with candles and walls and bus stops plastered with flyers of the missing. Every letter of every word—ragged handwriting on some, blocky computer type on others—held a desperate plea: Have you seen my husband/brother/wife/mother/friend? Please call. Please email. Please, please, please.
Their hope seemed desperate. Impractical. The candles, flyers, and vigils seemed pointless.
How could they not know their loved ones were gone?
Yet who would dare tell them to abandon hope? Who would dare point out that if they were lucky, a wedding ring, a watch, a trace of DNA might someday be found? If they needed to cling to the belief that their loved one might be in a hospital, their loved one somehow survived, their loved one beat the odds, who would dare tell them it could not be true?
As the knee-buckling reality of the terrorist attack sank in, I began to feel irritated by the images of glowing candles. It did not seem right a candle’s flame should represent hope. Its shape and size were too easily measured, too easily seen. Hope was more like the silent, black space around the flame: infinite, invisible, unfillable, inconsolable.
“Hope is the thing that destroys you,” I heard one mother say in a radio interview weeks later. She begged for relief from the agonizing hope her daughter would walk through the front door one more time. She prayed hope would release its suffocating grip so she could grieve.
Yet there I was, my arms thrown around the same desperate, all-consuming, impractical, insidious hope. Maybe Marcel survived. Maybe Marcel beat the odds. Maybe my Marcel had been lucky! The better part of a year had been consumed digging through the rubble of records, sending out flyers and emails: Do you know what happened to Marcel? Please write. Please email. Please, please, please.
My head knew what Dixie would find in the same way people in New York had to have known. But as long the answer remained uncertain, my heart could pretend anything was possible: Marcel could have made it home, he could have lived. For a split second, I considered telling Dixie to stop looking. Maybe it would be better to always believe it was possible than to know for sure. Hope left room to dream. Hope left room to be foolishly optimistic.
But hope had already taken a toll. I had to know.
I made a silent vow to travel to Germany someday—wherever Dixie discovered Marcel had been buried—and lay flowers on his tombstone to show him he had not been forgotten. To show him the love he had for his wife and daughters had not been lost to history. But a shiver ran down my spine as I realized his body could have been incinerated, tossed into an unmarked ditch, buried under a blanket of quicklime. A tombstone probably did not exist.
As I waited to hear from Dixie, my head’s practical certainty waged a fierce battle with my heart’s foolish optimism, each side gaining or giving up ground as hope and despair alternately swelled. I abandoned any attempt to concentrate on anything meaningful and just tried to keep occupied. Kitchen counters were scrubbed, floors swept, loads of laundry cycled. Inevitably, though, I wandered back into my office, slouched into my chair, and stared at the computer monitor, waiting for answers.
“Anything yet?” Aaron asked on one of the trips wandering between my office and the living room. Aaron was on the couch. Hoover was splayed on the floor.
I shook my head, and looked down at Hoover. “Want to go for a walk?” He did not move, so I asked again, forcing more enthusiasm into the question. He continued to lie on the floor, looking up with apathy. We had already been on twice the usual number of walks. I twisted to look at Aaron. His shoulders jiggled as he tried to prevent laughter from breaking free from his lungs.
“It’s not funny,” I whined.
“Oh, yes it is,” he assured me.
Hoover agreed to go on a walk only after I bribed him with treats. Aaron came along, too, though I suspected it was solely to mock my impatience.
When we returned, I checked email again.
I emptied the dishwasher, folded laundry, fluffed the couch pillows and positioned them so they looked just so. I tried a few yoga poses, reaching my arms high to heaven.
“Let’s go,” Aaron said.
I took a deep breath in and let my arms fall to my sides. I could not will an email from Dixie to appear. Maybe she would not find anything for days. Maybe it would be weeks or months. Maybe she would not find him either.
When we returned from dinner—burgers with a mountain of greasy fries—we sat on the deck and listened to birds sing while Hoover patrolled the back yard. Flowerpots, which by this time of year should have filled the deck, were still stacked inside the garage. The plants in the yard that budded and bloomed had done so by luck or their own sheer will.
“I’m turning in,” Aaron said through a yawn. I nodded to indicate I would stay outside until Hoover was ready to come in. I gazed heavenward, forcing myself to take slow, deep breaths. My mind was blank. I was out of prayers and wishes.
By the time I stepped into the bedroom to wish Aaron goodnight, he was fast sleep. I went into the office, slumped into the chair, jiggled the mouse, and watched as the monitors dissolved to white.
An email from Dixie awaited.
I read the four-word subject line and gasped as my vision became a mottled field of white stars. I burst into tears—abundant, shameless tears—as I processed her words: “Got ’im. He survived.”
Through tear-filled eyes, I opened Dixie’s email and looked at the record she found. Birth: January 26, 1912. Death: January 4, 1992.
Thoughts seemed to dissolve into fractions. My brain seemed incapable of processing the information. Was I seeing right? 1992? I looked at each number: 1-9-9-2. He lived. Marcel lived! I did the math over and over, as if my calculation had to be wrong. Marcel had lived to be seventy-nine years old. Was that true? Could that really be true?
A second attachment listed his marriage: December 31, 1932 to Renée Duthé in Montreuil-sous-Bois. His wife was Renée, not Vérane? As I processed this new information I pictured how the two names might be linked: Vérane > Rane > Rene > Renée. The record showed Renée lived until 2005. She had lived to be ninety-five. All the air seemed to leave my lungs as I realized Marcel’s letters had been in my possession while Renée was alive. How could that be? How could I have had Renée’s letters while she was alive?
Dixie’s email continued with a record showing Suzanne had been born in Montreuil, and had died March 22, 1990. It was true, Suzanne had been dead more than twenty years. The record showed Suzanne had married in 1955 and had four children, though their names and ages, even genders, were concealed. Suzanne had been an aide comptable, a bookkeeper.
The record Dixie found included a small black-and-white photo. I stared in wonder at this first glimpse of Marcel’s family. Suzanne offered a proud, full smile. Grommets in the corners made it seem the photo had been attached to some kind of official document. I guessed Suzanne had been in her early twenties. A side barrette held back wavy, shoulder-length hair. The photo had a warm sepia tone, but if the photo had been in color, I would have seen emerald eyes and auburn hair.
A calculation worked its way through my brain: Suzanne had only been nine and a half years old when Marcel inquired whether she fetched milk and bread while Renée had been in Paris. That was years younger than what I had guessed. What silly thing had I been doing at nine and a half? Sleeping in a bed piled with stuffed animals? Standing alon
g the fence at the edge of our yard, singing songs to the neighbor’s cows after I got home from school?
I scrolled back to the top of the email to read the text of Dixie’s message—a message I initially skipped over. “Some good news here, though still sketchy. There’s only one daughter listed, Suzanne, the same Suzanne you found. Notice Montreuil—the place of Marcel and Renée’s marriage and the birthplace of Suzanne. We’re on the right track!”
Tears streamed down my face. I leaned forward and cradled my head in the palms of my hands as one fat tear after another dropped onto the hardwood floor. Marcel survived. Plink. He lived! Plink. He lived to be an old man! Plink. It seemed impossible to express to Dixie the gratitude that filled my heart. It was as if she had been the one to save him. It was as if she alone had brought Marcel home.
I walked to our bedroom, crawled on top of the covers, and lay next to Aaron. He heard my sobs and wrapped his arm around me to offer consolation. I shook my head and tried to tell him they were happy tears, but the words were locked inside of me. I should have been dancing, jumping, doing cartwheels. Brass horns should have been playing fanfares. Fireworks should have been exploding. Instead, I was curled in a ball and I could not stop crying. Many minutes elapsed before I could tell him the news. His response revealed disbelief. And relief.
I eventually returned to the office to send Dixie an email: “Kathy was right, you are amazing.” I did not know how or where Dixie found the answers. In that moment, I did not care.
“Got another clue!” a new email from Dixie read. “This is Denise.” Fresh tears blossomed as I read her email. Denise was alive. Suddenly, Denise was no longer a name scrawled across a piece of paper, a young girl who had been told to pick violets. She was a woman of seventy-seven. Twenty-five thousand days had passed since Marcel told her he wished she would help mend his clothes. School, work, love, marriage, children, loss, laughter: I knew nothing about her life. But Denise was alive.
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