Marcel's Letters

by Carolyn Porter

  “Maybe,” Aaron said, “they’re busy.”

  Busy? I wanted to scream. What could be more important?

  At times, the thoughts that raced through my mind were paralyzing: astonishment at Natacha’s claim the family never received the letters, confusion about Natacha’s silence, curiosity about when Denise would receive my letter, anxiety about what her reaction would be. Other times, swells of emotion made me want to throw my arms around anyone and everyone, cup my hands and shout, “Never-before-seen words of love are on their way to Paris!”

  By Tuesday evening, I was glad to have a reason to get out of the house. Aaron was happy to see me leave, too, since my constant speculation had become irritating chatter. Instead of a typical Type Tuesday lecture or presentation, the plan was to gather at a local letterpress print shop to celebrate the completion of a serif font by the group’s founder, Craig.

  As I stepped inside the shop, jazz music echoed off the high tin ceiling. Sturdy oak cabinets with drawer after drawer of movable metal type sat along one wall. A center worktable was covered with snacks and beverages. Grandpa and Cutie-Pie, two of the shop’s century-old treadle-powered presses, sat in a corner near The Beast, a press that incorporated an axle assembly from a Ford Model T. Hand-cut woodblock illustrations filled one tall shelf, tins of ink filled another. The letterpress shop was like Santa’s workshop, though instead of toys, the owner, Kent, created wonders of words and paper.

  Craig offered a welcome, followed by a round of introductions and a social hour.

  It would have been reckless to make any kind of announcement about Marcel’s letters before learning Denise’s reaction to seeing her father’s words. During the social hour I adopted the taciturn composure perfected in childhood. But the self-control didn’t feel admirable; it felt more like wearing a too-small coat, zipped tight. I could barely move. I could barely breathe.

  I hoped telling just one person might release enough pressure so I could remain composed for a few more days, so when no one else was nearby, I told Craig about the letter in transit to Denise. Craig’s jaw dropped and his head bobbed like a jack-in-the-box. I smiled, imagining I had worn that same silly expression for days.

  Wednesday and Thursday were devoured by final revisions to the medical device brochure. The work required every ounce of concentration I could muster, and I was grateful to have something to consume my time and energy.

  My heart would skip whenever the letter crossed my mind. Was it already in France? When would Denise receive it? Each hour that passed meant I was one hour closer to hearing from Denise. I was certain of it. Or maybe confidence became absolute because silence would have been devastating. Aaron tried to prepare me for disappointment by reminding me of the other times I believed responses had been imminent: from Kim, from Berchères-la-Maingot, from Boissy-la-Châtel, from Jacqueline.

  I assured him this time it was different.

  I was going to hear from Denise.

  I had to hear from Denise.

  I had to.

  Chapter Eighteen

  White Bear Lake, Minnesota

  May 25, 2012

  “My name is Tiffanie,” the email said. “I am the granddaughter of Denise Heuzé, so I am also the great-granddaughter of Marcel. Today we received your letter and it was such a pleasure to read a letter of Marcel. We are amazed by the situation. We are interested by the letters you have and will be happy to answer any question that you have about Marcel. He was an amazing man and even if I didn’t know him very well (he died when I was four years old), I remember his passion for life and his love for his family. My grandmother doesn’t speak English, so I will translate your questions and her answers. Thank you very much for this lovely surprise.”

  And with Tiffanie’s short email, I could breathe again.

  “I am amazed by this entire situation, too,” I typed back immediately. “I received a couple of emails from Natacha. She made it sound like the family never received the letters. Could that be true?” I told Tiffanie I did not have Lily’s address, and asked if she could please share the letter with her.

  “I don’t know Natacha,” Tiffanie noted. In fact, I later learned Tiffanie had had to ask who Natacha was. “As you may know, Suzanne died twenty years ago so we didn’t build a relationship with her family. As for ‘Lily’ her real name is Eliane and she will come next week to my grandmother’s house to see your letter. My grandmother also informed their brother, Marcel, who was born after the war. We have so many questions, like how did you get the letters and how many do you have? My grandmother thinks they were taken by a German soldier so that is why she doesn’t remember the one that you sent to us.”

  “I purchased the letters at an antique store here in Minnesota,” I wrote back. “The store owner bought them at a flea market in France.” The letter to Denise had not included that information. However, after being told the family never received the letters, it seemed important to disclose everything I knew about the letters’ journey.

  “I am sad to report there were other letters I did not purchase. That was ten years ago. I have three other letters plus one postcard. I will email them to you.” A short note accompanied each scanned image: “I hope Denise and Eliane laugh when they read he called them ‘hoodlums.’” “It brought tears to my eyes he ended this letter, ‘Your big guy who only dreams of you.’” “This letter included a reference to ‘fridoline cuisine,’ though we don’t know what that means.”

  I presumed the swastika would be a surprising—potentially painful—symbol to see, so when I emailed the scan of the March 1944 letter to Tiffanie, I gently proffered a reason it might have been there. “I assumed he needed to include that to get the letter past the censors.”

  “Do you know when he came home?” I asked.

  I did not hear back from Tiffanie, and I began to fret my comments had been unwelcome. Perhaps I had stepped over some invisible boundary. Were long-forgotten memories rushing to the fore? Were they overwhelmed by the swastika?

  “You can’t change what you don’t have control over,” Aaron said as he attempted to calm my frayed nerves.

  It was days before I heard from Tiffanie again. “I showed them the letters today. They were really happy, and they cried. I asked the questions you wrote, and I took some pictures. Marcel was released in 1944. ‘Fridoline cuisine’ is German cuisine.” I chuckled as I realized Marcel had been making a joke: he had been promising to cook Renée German food when he got home.

  Tiffanie attached several photos to her email. The first was Marcel and Renée’s wedding portrait. My heart swelled to see their quiet elegance again: Marcel’s slight smile, his cocksure stance, the perfect finger curls that framed Renée’s face, the skirt that looked like water in moonlight.

  The next photo, taken a few years later, was of Marcel and Renée standing together. Marcel wore a dark blazer and a necktie with wide stripes. His face was mostly hidden in the shadow of his fedora. Renée was to his side, her face fully illuminated by the sun. The front of her hat flipped skyward; a silk flower and a wide-ribbon bow adorned the underside of the brim. Renée’s close-mouthed smile curled into full, round cheeks. Their fingers were knit together in front of them. Did they know? I wondered. Did they know in just a handful of years they would be swept up and separated by a world consumed by fire?

  The next photo had been taken the summer of 1991, six or so months before Marcel died. Brown trousers billowed around Marcel’s ankles. A white sleeveless T-shirt hung from rounded shoulders. It seemed as though an old man with a shrunken frame had replaced the vibrant man in the wedding portrait. Marcel’s arm wrapped around Renée, drawing her body into his. Her outside leg was extended, as if she had just been pulled off balance. Her hair was a pillow of white, wind-blown and cottony, and the camera caught her mid-laugh. Behind them, gardens exploded with color, and hotel balconies hinted at a far-off view. I imagined they were near the ocean and that the air was thick with salt.

  The wedding portrait and
the photo from 1991 were like bookends of a life. But, other than the months in Marienfelde, and the fact they had another child, I knew nothing about his life.

  “They told me that after his return he didn’t talk about what he saw,” Tiffanie wrote. “They didn’t remember ever seeing those letters. Of course Eliane was really young so she didn’t remember any of it. Apparently, my grandmother took some letters when they moved from Berchères but I didn’t find them, we wanted to compare the date. I will maybe find them another time.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  White Bear Lake, Minnesota

  June 2012

  Tiffanie and Natacha had answered some of my questions, but so many other questions remained. I tried to release them. I tried convincing myself the details of Marcel’s life were not my business. But curiosity’s chokehold was unrelenting. Which passages made Denise and Eliane laugh? Which ones made them cry? Were particular words or turns of phrases quintessentially Marcel? I often woke in the middle of the night, my brain churning. Did Tiffanie find the other letters she mentioned? When exactly did Marcel get home? What was their reaction when they saw the swastika?

  Both Natacha and Tiffanie suggested Germans had taken the letters. Collaborating to concoct a story seemed impossible since they did not even seem to know who the other one was. But if Germans took the letters, how would they have ended up at a flea market in France?

  In the weeks that followed, I made an effort to devote attention to Aaron to make up for the months he came second to Marcel. We went out to a movie. I baked his favorite rhubarb crisp. We ate long dinners on our deck and took Hoover for extended visits to a dog park.

  For the first time in a year, I ventured out to graphic design industry events. I attended the opening of a friend’s art show. I finally took Laura out to dinner for her birthday. I had missed her birthday by more than five months, but it was a twenty-year tradition I was not going to break. Over dinner she told me she and Adam had started to plan their wedding.

  Word began to leak out about Marcel’s letters. Aaron shared the story with a few co-workers. I told one client and a handful of design friends. I told a neighbor one evening when we took a break from mowing our yards. Sometimes the words that came out of my mouth sounded too preposterous to be true and a couple of times I stopped mid-sentence, as if I had caught myself inventing some fantastical story: A man in the labor camp wore a tuxedo! Someone sang a Maurice Chevalier song! Marcel told his daughters to pick violets!

  I delighted at people’s dreamy expressions when they heard Marcel’s words of affection. And I learned to anticipate their questions after learning about STO. “The government could do that?” they would ask with wide eyes. “They could make anyone work for the Nazis?”

  More than one person wept when they learned Marcel survived.

  Evenings when Aaron was at work, or when he spent evenings watching television or puttering in the garage, I worked on the font. I felt an even deeper responsibility to make it as beautiful as possible to honor Marcel, though the software’s technicalities still confounded me.

  I took a stab at kerning and spent hours writing lines of code to define incremental spaces between letters. It was time consuming and impossibly tedious, and it would be months before I learned I had approached it in the most inefficient way possible.

  At some point, I accidentally double-compiled the code, which meant every kerning adjustment was amplified: if the code added space, twice as much space appeared; if the code subtracted space, letters were twice as close as they should have been. I scoured FontLab’s user guide for answers. I pored through online problem-solving forums. But the solution remained elusive, and the only remedy seemed to be to start again from the beginning. Anyone who had the misfortune to ask about the font’s progress would hear me hiss about kerning.

  Designers at one of the Type Tuesday gatherings mentioned an upcoming typography conference. When I learned a pre-conference workshop was being offered on a different piece of type design software, I sent in my registration and reserved a spot. I had reluctantly concluded I had no hope of conquering kerning on my own. The two options, it seemed, were either to abandon FontLab or abandon the font.

  One Saturday morning I walked the mile and a half from our home to White Bear Lake. It was the first time all year I had the time and opportunity to walk to the lake. Once I arrived at the water’s edge, I sat on a granite boulder that hugged the shore. Hoover did not come with me; this walk was too far for our old boy. Aaron did not come along either. He was not much of a sit-along-the-shore kind of guy. These walks, these quiet minutes alone, were time to be by myself.

  Bullfrogs croaked. Far-off outboard motors purred. Reeds rustled in the wind as mallards drifted between lily pads. I took long, deep breaths and reflected on the previous weeks. It was impossible to measure the happiness that came from learning Marcel’s fate, connecting with his family, and knowing they were happy to read his letters. Yet I felt something more complicated—something that made no logical sense. I overflowed with joy, but what spilled over the edges was a sad emptiness.

  As I tried to parse the contradictory emotions, I slowly came to understand why I felt sadness: He was not my Marcel. He had never been my Marcel. He was their Marcel.

  I had held Marcel close in my heart when I believed no one else remembered him. Now that his family had been found I had to let him go. Knowing he had been loved—that he had never been forgotten—should have provided closure. But Marcel’s tender words still inhabited a place inside me. Letting him go felt akin to purging him from my heart, and I was not ready to do that.

  I could not do that.

  I tried to find peace with the fact I might never hear from Tiffanie or Natacha again. Maybe everything I knew about Marcel was everything I would ever know. But I was no longer even sure what I knew; the impression I had had been muddled by their descriptions. Tiffanie said Marcel had a passion for life and love for his family. Natacha described him as sad, serious, and not talkative.

  Knowing Marcel lived was no longer a complete-enough answer. I needed to know that the war had not destroyed the loving man who poured his heart onto paper. I knew it was not my business, but I had to know if Marcel had had a good life.

  Reeds to my left swayed and rustled. A majestic heron with an impossibly long s-shaped neck stepped into view. I held my breath and sat still as a statue as I watched it swivel its tufted head. “Don’t fly away,” I begged.

  Let him go, I told myself. Let Marcel go.

  Life had returned to a familiar routine. Days were spent developing layouts, making text revisions, retouching photos. But that work suddenly felt too small, too disconnected from the world. How could Marcel’s letters have changed nothing—and everything—at the same time? I took several long, deep breaths and asked the Universe for some kind of sign. I wanted to know what was next. I wanted to know whether releasing Marcel from my heart was the final step, or if something else needed to be done first.

  I eventually inched up and whispered goodbye to the heron. I began to walk home, though at the last moment, I decided to take a slightly different route. Pinstripes of fresh-cut grass covered yards, and newly planted annuals sat in garden beds and pots on porches. Tree blossoms sweetened the air, and my ears vibrated with the hum of distant lawnmowers. As I tried to fill my head and heart with the sounds and smells of early summer, my body came to a stop so abrupt it felt as if I had walked into an invisible wall.

  For a moment, it felt as if my lungs did not work.

  I stood at the end of a driveway and looked at the house in front of me. I tried to pick out some clue about who lived there. The shades were drawn tight as if the house had sworn to keep its secrets.

  I blinked again and again. My eyelids felt heavy and slow. Each time I opened my eyes I half expected the view to be different. I twisted from side to side, hoping someone might be jogging down the sidewalk or walking their dog. If so, I would have grabbed their arm, pointed, and asked them to tell
me what they saw. I was certain I could not trust my eyes.

  The Universe, it seemed, wanted to provide a sign impossible to ignore.

  In multi-colored chalk, one word—one name—had been boldly and joyfully written across the driveway: Marcel.

  This wasn’t my Marcel. But as I stood at the end of this stranger’s driveway looking at that name, I knew what was next.

  I was going to Paris.

  Chapter Twenty

  White Bear Lake, Minnesota

  June 2012

  After stepping behind the podium, a flush of heat encircled my neck. Standing in front of any audience made me uncomfortable. Standing in front of an audience that included a type historian and renowned type designers meant I hurtled past being just uncomfortable to the point of breaking out in red, hot, splotchy hives.

  My presentation was the result of an email Craig had sent months earlier to everyone in our Type Tuesday group; he asked for volunteers to talk about work in process. As the date of my talk got closer, Craig generously promoted it as a “not to miss” event. I began by sharing my affection for old handwriting, and the epiphany I had the day I saw the font Texas Hero. I projected an image of the letter Marcel had written to his three girls, then showed corresponding favorite glyphs from my font: the swash M, the p with a high lead-in stroke, the double ss where the second s swept under the first.

  “That’s yours?” someone asked. The lilt in their voice revealed more than a hint of surprise. I nodded. One thousand parts Marcel’s and one thousand parts mine.

  What I looked forward sharing the most—hives or not—was Marcel’s story. I wanted everyone to hear about the man behind the letters. I read Marcel’s first letter in its entirety, followed by passages in other letters describing life in the camp. I shared what I learned about STO, and highlighted twists and turns of the search. When I revealed Marcel lived to be an old man, and that he loved Renée until the end of his life, one woman in the audience wiped tears from her eyes. Exactly one month had passed since the day I learned Marcel lived. On several occasions—random moments that felt like gusts of wind that came out of nowhere—every emotion I felt when Dixie told me he lived rushed to the surface and I had to wipe away tears, too.