Marcel's Letters

by Carolyn Porter

  Hands shot in the air once my presentation finished. “Where are the letters now?” Still in my safety deposit box. “Does the family still live in Berchères-la-Maingot?” No. “What does his family think of the font?” They haven’t said a word about it.

  Time after time, questions circled back to the letters’ long journey: “How did they end up at the flea market?” I don’t know. “Where was the flea market?” I don’t know. “What happened to the other letters at the store in Stillwater?” I don’t know. When I mentioned I had repeatedly tried to reconnect with the woman who owned the store, the audience seemed nearly as frustrated as I was with her lack of communication.

  When someone asked if I hoped to meet Marcel’s family someday, I smiled and nodded. I did not tell them about the “Marcel” that had been written in chalk, or that as I stood at the end of the driveway I knew I would be meeting Marcel’s family with the same certainty I knew his handwriting would become a font. I had not discussed the trip with Aaron yet, or with anyone in France. But I knew I was going.

  Afterward, as I packed up my laptop and notes, one of the few unfamiliar faces in the audience quietly came near to thank me. I got the impression he lost family in the war. Or in a war. Hearing how I refused to stop searching for Marcel touched him deeply, he said.

  He went on to insist on something I would hear again many times: he did not believe I found the letters. He believed Marcel’s letters had found me.

  Two days after the Type Tuesday presentation, with curiosity freshly stoked by the questions asked by audience members, I sent Kim another email. I tried to keep my frustration hidden, and cheerily noted some extraordinary things had happened since we had last been in touch.

  Kim called the next day. For a few long seconds after answering the phone I was too stunned to talk. Her voice had the distant echo of a speakerphone, and she explained a business associate was with her. I sensed Kim was guarded, so I reassured her that more than anything I wanted to share what I learned. I told her about the font, then recited from memory some of Marcel’s tender words to Renée. When I told Kim I had established contact with the family, two of Marcel’s daughters were still alive, and the family claimed they had never seen the letters before, Kim and her associate screamed.

  She bought the letters because she loved the handwriting, she explained. And despite her inability to read French, she also innately knew they were love letters. She intended to reproduce the letters as wallpaper, or to incorporate the writing somehow into a product for her interior and furniture design business. The right project never materialized, she said.

  I inquired whether she had been able to recall anything else about where she bought them. She explained she and her business partner rented a truck and drove from flea market to flea market. “We went to so many places.”

  I asked whether she had any recollection of how many letters they bought.

  “Thirty or forty,” Kim said, though her answer sounded more like a question than a statement. I let out a long sigh, astonished at the high number.

  “If I had known!” Kim said.

  “Oh, trust me,” I said with a slight laugh. “I would have bought every single one.” After a pause, I asked if she had any idea what happened to the rest.

  “Some sold in the store. I had more until a year ago. People kept telling me I needed to get rid of stuff. I think I sold them off in one big lot.”

  “In California?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. She had more until a year ago? I silently berated myself for waiting so long to begin the search. It seemed far-fetched, but I asked that if she ever ran across any of them, to please let me know.

  “I will,” she promised.

  As the call drew to a close, I thanked her again for calling. “You’re part of this story. I’m glad you were able to hear it.” Kim thanked me for my perseverance. She traveled a lot, and acknowledged she could be hard to get a hold of.

  After hanging up, I turned back to the project I had been working on when she called. I typed a few words, then stopped. Nothing on the screen made sense. I put my elbows on my desk and knitted my fingers together. Imagine reading thirty more. Why, why, why did I wait so long to have that first letter translated?

  Twenty minutes later my phone rang. “I have more,” the voice blurted. I did not have caller ID on my office phone, so I scrambled to identify the voice. It was Kim. In my mind, I replayed the words to try to make sense of—to verify—what I thought I heard.

  “You have more … letters?” The words sounded preposterous as they fell out of my mouth.

  “I didn’t want to say anything because I wasn’t sure I still had any.” Once our call ended, she explained, she had looked in storage. “They were in an envelope marked ‘French Love Letters.’” The hair on my arms stood on end and I smiled. Of course they were.

  “Some are signed Marcel, some are signed with a different name.” Kim was on speakerphone again. “This handwriting is different,” Kim or her assistant said.

  “They could be signed ‘Papa’ instead of Marcel,” I offered.

  I heard additional mumbles, and shuffling of paper.

  “Most of Marcel’s letters begin ‘Mes chères petites.’ Do you see that?”

  After a few seconds, Kim confirmed, “Yes.”

  “Were they written 1943, 1944?”

  She recited some dates: May 1944. January 1943.

  “That was the month he started his conscription,” I whispered in astonishment.

  Silence enveloped the line, as if both of us were trying to determine the next step. “Can I buy them from you?” I asked. The words sounded as fragile as an eggshell.

  After a slight hesitation, Kim slowly said “no.”

  My heart plummeted as I tried to make sense of her refusal. Her voice sounded laced with irritation, as if she could not believe I asked. Why would she call to tell me she had them, then? Hearing Kim claim she had more letters—then hearing I could not buy them—was confounding. It seemed cruel.

  After an unbearably long silence—it felt like minutes, though it was probably only seconds—Kim followed the word “no” with the kind promise: “I will give them to you.” As my brain processed those six words, my heart nearly exploded with joy.

  “Really?” I asked, as if I needed confirmation I had not misunderstood.

  “I’m happy to,” she said.

  I could not think of words that adequately expressed the depth of my gratitude—and my wonder. After our call ended, I sat motionless. Then I jumped up and did the Happy Dance. I sent emails to Kathy, Tom, and Dixie. They were not going to believe this amazing news either.

  In the weeks that followed, in separate emails, Tiffanie and Natacha each asked whether I ever traveled to France—or if I might one day. I did not tell them about Kim’s letters; it felt premature to do so. But we began comparing schedules and discussing dates for a visit.

  Every time a FedEx truck rumbled down our street, my head swiveled to look out my office window to see if it was going to stop. Day after day, week after week, those boxy white trucks drove right by. I feared Kim had changed her mind.

  On the day a FedEx truck finally rolled to a stop in front of our house, I barreled out the front door and met the driver halfway across the yard. Kim’s return address was written in a loopy upright cursive on the delivery slip adhered to the cardboard envelope.

  “Want to see something amazing?”

  The driver cocked his head to one side.

  “Really,” I said while I opened the envelope. “This might be the most incredible thing you deliver your entire career.” He did not walk away, willing, apparently, to give me the opportunity to prove my claim.

  I slid a thin stack of bone-colored sheets out of the envelope. My heart swelled to see line after line of the handwriting I knew so well. “Mes chères petites” was scrawled at the top of some pages. Blue and red stripes swept across others. A faint blue background grid pattern filled one page. Water damage left
writing indecipherable on another. One had been written in pencil. One had a burn hole. One was held together with cellophane tape.

  I pivoted so the driver could get a better look. As he leaned in, I explained where Marcel had been, and said his family in France claimed they had never received these letters.

  The driver’s eyebrows shot up. “That is amazing,” he said.

  I continued to slowly leaf through the letters, but when I realized the carelessness of exposing the fragile pages to searing sunlight, I abruptly slid the letters back into the envelope.

  “Thank you for this,” I said. The driver smiled and nodded, then jogged back to his truck.

  Back inside our home, I carefully laid each letter on the dining table, unruffling edges and unfolding dog-eared corners. The inks were familiar murky shades of blue and brown and black. The paper had the familiar soft-yet-brittle feel. The pages seemed to hold on to old folds and creases in the same way skin holds on to scars. One page had droplets of blood along an edge. Another included a half-page section that appeared to be written to the girls.

  Once all the pages were laid in a row, I slumped into one of the dining room chairs. I counted, then recounted before letting out an astonished sigh.

  There were twelve more letters.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  White Bear Lake, Minnesota

  Late July 2012

  The corporate rebranding project had launched. The medical device brochure had been printed and delivered. It had been slightly more than a year since I established contact with Tom, and for the first time in those twelve months, I had room to breathe. So when Tom asked if I would be willing to come to his office to hand over copies of the new letters, I happily obliged.

  Tom strolled into the lobby and extended his right hand. A handshake seemed too formal after sharing Marcel’s intimate words; I raised my hands in the air, reached forward, and gave Tom a hug.

  We walked a maze of halls, which opened to an enormous cafeteria. After purchasing lunch, we claimed a table near floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked perfectly manicured grounds.

  “How did you learn to speak French, anyway?” I asked while we ate. Tom had studied French in high school and college, then spent a year studying, then two years working in Aix-en-Provence. With a smile, he confessed his secret to learning the language: beautiful French women. His desire to communicate with them provided incentive for “disciplined study.”

  He returned to the States for graduate school, then moved back to France. He was certain he had never driven through Berchères-la-Maingot, though he imagined it was filled with quaint stone buildings and vine-covered walls like so many other villages he explored. When Tom returned to the States for good, he took a job in Minneapolis and began offering translation services on the side. “One or two jobs per month,” he said.

  After we finished eating, I retrieved a manila folder from my bag and slid it across the table as if it were some top-secret file.

  “I still can’t believe you tracked these down,” he said. I related to the wonder in his voice. Several times during the previous days, I had slipped the letters out of the envelope to confirm they were real. That they were really in my possession.

  Tom silently read a few paragraphs. I did not rush or interrupt. “I can’t imagine,” Tom said as he shook his head. “How helpless he must have felt. When I think about how much he loved those girls, and how he … I just … I just can’t imagine …” Tom’s eyes bloomed with tears. He lifted his glasses off the bridge of his nose and wiped his eyes. I did not imagine men cried in the cafeteria often, so I was careful not to say anything more. I changed the subject by asking Tom when he had last been to Paris.

  “Too long,” he said with a wistful smile.

  The day before, Aaron and I had purchased our airline tickets. If it had been up to me, I would have left for Paris immediately, but late October was the first time that worked for everyone in France. Twelve weeks existed until our departure. Translating one letter per week was an aggressive goal, but Tom assured me he would complete them in time. Besides, he was curious to know what Marcel said in his letters, too.

  Kathy, Dixie, and I had one requirement for our celebration dinner: the restaurant had to serve French food. I made a reservation at a place in downtown St. Paul known for classic brasserie cuisine. I arrived first, and as the maître d’ escorted me to our table, I smiled at the lively accordion music echoing off the tall ceiling.

  Moments later, a petite woman with long gray hair and wire-rim glasses stood near the door. I stood as Dixie began walking my way. “Nice to finally meet you!” we said in unison as we wrapped our arms around each other. By the time Kathy arrived, Dixie and I were chatting away like old friends. Kathy gave each of us a hug, then looked at me, and wagged her head.

  “What?” I was unable to decipher her expression.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. I was unsure if she was referring to the fact Dixie found the family, the twelve new letters, the trip to Paris, or the cumulative whole.

  Kathy handed me a small white bag. Tissue paper billowed out the top like a volcano exploding with lime green and royal blue. Dinner was my treat, so I did not understand why she brought a gift. She offered a broad, close-mouthed smile, and lifted her shoulders to her ears. I peeled away the tissue. A small linen pillow was embellished with delicate black stitching that spelled PARIS. The A had been replaced with an intricately embroidered Eiffel Tower.

  “I just had to get it,” Kathy blurted. Days earlier, when I told her we purchased tickets to Paris, she had squealed with delight. “This just keeps getting better!”

  As our waiter filled three glasses with Champagne, he asked if we were celebrating anything special. It seemed impossible to summarize an answer, so I told him we were celebrating a very long story. I thanked Dixie for her amazing detective work and Kathy for putting us in touch. “To Marcel,” we said as we lifted our glasses and toasted our favorite Frenchman.

  After ordering dinner, I retrieved pages showing the font. Dixie had asked to see it, and I thought Kathy might like to see the most current iteration. I had made hundreds of additional revisions since Kathy had last seen a test print.

  “This is beautiful,” Dixie said with the note of surprise I was learning to expect. I described the beautiful first letter Marcel had written to his girls and explained how it was the standard for the angle and width. “There are so many variations,” Dixie commented.

  I brought copies of the twelve new letters to show Kathy; she said she wanted to see them. “Mes chères petites,” she said wistfully as she looked at one of the letters. Her index finger traced lines of writing as she cobbled together a translation with vocabulary from decades-old French lessons. “I received your letter. Imagine … good … I was counting hours and … and I can’t stop reading it. Kiss … for me … Say hi to everybody in Berchères and Montreuil … As for you … treasure, your guy who loves you … you beautiful kisses.”

  Kathy remarked it was more difficult to read Marcel’s handwriting than she expected. But even the ragged translations were enough to make us melt at his words of love.

  “I just can’t get over how expressive he was,” Kathy said.

  Dixie asked if I knew anything about his education. I had posed the same question to Tom months earlier. Based on grammar and word choice, Tom speculated that Marcel had a solid high school education, which would have been typical for the time.

  We set the photocopies and test prints aside when dinner arrived. Kathy had stuffed rabbit, Dixie had corn fritters so delicious she raved about them for months, and I had seared tuna served with haricots verts and capers sprinkled like confetti.

  “Have you heard from the family recently?” Kathy inquired.

  I nodded. I had received an email two days earlier from Natacha’s mother, Nadine. I was touched Nadine had translated it into English.

  “We are Agnès and Nadine, grandchildren of Marcel,” her letter began. “We are ha
ppy to have details of the life of our grandfather in Germany, because we’ve never heard of it. His memories must have been too painful. So everything we know, we’ve heard it from you, like where he worked. Since our grandparents died we haven’t had any contact with our family. We are very happy to know they are in touch with you. It’s a miracle to learn a little bit of our history because of you. We hope you understand those letters are a real treasure.”

  “What you did for them was extraordinary, you know,” Dixie said. She meant it as a compliment, but her words skewered me. I began the search to satiate my own curiosity. I only searched for Marcel for me. The possibility that these letters held missing pieces of Marcel’s life puzzle had never been a consideration.

  “I hoped we’d have one big meeting with everyone in the family, but I get the sense that’s not going to happen.” I explained. Nadine’s side of the family had not had any contact with aunts or cousins in the seven years since Renée’s funeral: no calls on birthdays, no Christmas cards, no congratulations on graduations or on the birth of babies.

  “Don’t give up,” Dixie said with a gentle smile. “Maybe you’ll bring them together.” I hoped that could be the case, though it would not be me bringing them together. It would be Marcel; it would be his letters.

  “I don’t know even how you found him,” I said, changing the subject. Nine weeks earlier, asking how Dixie found him had not crossed my mind.

  Dixie confessed the first days of “the hunt” had been unusually frustrating. She posted requests for help on various genealogy message boards only after exhausting all standard search routes. “I had all oars in the water on this one,” she said.