The Lost Letter

by Jillian Cantor

  “I am,” I say. “My body has no idea where I am, or what time it is.”

  He laughs a little. “Yeah. I fell asleep so early last night and then was wide-awake in the middle of the night. Completely backwards for me.” I smile at the similarity in our routines. “You want to get breakfast?” he asks quickly, like the idea surprises him, even as he says it. “I mean, since we’re both up we could get some coffee, figure out our next steps.”

  “I have to stop and see my father before work. There was some trouble at the Willows while we were gone.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he says. “Well, we don’t have to—”

  “But I can’t go until eight,” I interrupt him, not wanting him to rescind his offer. I want to see him this morning, want to talk more about how we’ll find Kristoff before I have to face the real world again, head-on: the Willows, my father, work and Daniel. “Maybe we can meet in Santa Monica, so I’ll already be over there.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Not sure we can find you your favorite leek sausage in Santa Monica, though.” His voice sounds so stoic, the way it always does, but I think he’s trying to make a joke.

  “I’ll live,” I tell him.

  An hour later, I’m sitting across from Benjamin inside Pete’s Cafe, which is just across the street from the Willows. Benjamin looks tired, his brown curls rumpled this morning, but his blue eyes seem lighter than they had in Cardiff. Maybe it’s just the swath of sunshine beginning to rise over the hills, slanting in through the window by our table. “So you have an idea for what we should do next?” I ask him.

  He shrugs his shoulders, looking a little sheepish. “Not really. I just . . . got used to seeing you, I guess. I didn’t really want to have breakfast alone.”

  “You were in Katie-withdrawal?” I try to keep my tone light, joking. But the truth is, I’d gotten used to seeing him, too, and I’m happy to see him again this morning.

  “Something like that,” he says.

  I can’t meet his eyes, and I turn back and look out the window. The sky is pink and purple, and I have a new appreciation for the color, for something other than gray. LA is a beauty like nothing else, smog and all.

  “You should tell your dad about Miriam. And Kristoff,” Benjamin says. I turn back to look at him, and he’s gulping down his eggs, like he hasn’t eaten in months.

  I don’t feel very hungry and I push my eggs around on my plate with my fork. “He made me promise to leave this stamp alone, to get his collection back from you. I don’t want to upset him again.”

  “But you said he’s been a philatelist all his life,” Benjamin says. “He’d love this. It’s what we all want, to discover something new, something important.”

  A gem. It’s why my father was collecting stamps all these years, dragging me to rummage sales and thrift shops every Sunday morning of my childhood.

  It’s hard to admit it to myself, but I don’t think my father could appreciate any of this anymore. If there is a story here, maybe it’s mine. The stamp is mine. The story is mine. Mine and Benjamin’s. Ours. And isn’t that what my father wanted all along—for me to inherit his collection? To do . . . something with it. To understand it. Maybe this is it.

  Benjamin finishes off his eggs. I glance at my watch and see it’s almost eight, and I take a five out of my purse and put it on the table. “I should head over there,” I say. “I’ll . . .” I was going to say, I’ll see you later, but I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to say. When I’ll see him again.

  Benjamin leans across the table, puts his hand on top of mine. “Call me if you figure anything out, okay?” His voice sounds a little hoarse, and he hesitates like he has something else to say. I like the feeling of his hand on mine, and I sit there another minute, wait for him to keep on talking. But whatever it is, he doesn’t say it. He pats my hand a little and pulls away, and maybe I’ve imagined any intimacy in his gesture. Maybe he was just being kind.

  As I walk into the Willows, I’m wishing I’d been able to linger at breakfast longer, talk to Benjamin more, sit there with his hand on mine another few minutes.

  “Mrs. Nelson!” Sally exclaims from her place behind the front desk, and her voice brings me back, here, to my father, who hasn’t been having a good week. I wave to her, and she waves back, her giant sparkling diamond catching the light of the chandelier in the grand foyer of the entrance. There’s such a contrast between this place and Raintree. At least my father isn’t in any place like that.

  “Mrs. Nelson, it’s great to see you,” Sally says as I sign in at the desk.

  “You should really call me Katie,” I tell her. And though she smiles warmly, I don’t explain any further. I want to talk about my dad, not myself, right now. “How’s he doing?” I ask her.

  “He’s been having some bad days,” she admits. “But the holidays are rough for all of our residents.”

  “I got the messages. I’m so sorry. I was out of the country.”

  She raises her eyebrows. She hadn’t pegged me as the type who ever went anywhere. “Oh, what a shame to have to go over Thanksgiving like that.”

  Benjamin had said he needed to leave the country for Thanksgiving, and I’m glad that I did, too, that I spent it with him. But I still feel awful for not having been here when my father needed me. “How bad is he?” I ask Sally. I know it must be pretty bad for them to have called me, left me all those messages. That has never happened before. And though it feels longer, it has only been a week since I’ve been here last, my usual interval. Logically I know I haven’t done anything horrible or wrong, but I still can’t shake the feelings of guilt, remorse.

  “He was inconsolable for a few days. Really lost in the past,” Sally says. “So you were in England?” I nod. “He was going on and on about England and about your mother, so I guess that makes more sense now. I didn’t realize.” She pauses. “We thought you were here in LA. That’s why we called you. Sometimes it helps to see a real, living family member. Brings them out of it.” I suddenly feel inconsolable myself and I can’t stop tears from forming in my eyes. “Hey there, Katie.” Sally reaches across the desk and puts her hand on my arm. “He doesn’t seem bad today. And he’ll be happy to see you.” She gives me a gentle nudge toward the hallway, and I thank her and walk back.

  When I reach his doorway, I stop and just breathe for a moment before going in. He’s in his chair by the window, already dressed for the day, looking oddly dapper in his plaid button-down and khaki pants. He’s wearing a hat today, too, an old brown bowler that he used to wear on the weekends when I was a kid, and now it hides his balding gray head, makes him look younger.

  “Daddy,” I say, not meaning to call him that, but not being able to stop it from coming out of my mouth either. He looks up, sees me, and his face registers surprise. I want him to know me so badly. I want to do what Benjamin suggested at breakfast and tell him about our trip, the stamp, his stamp, that it may have been used to send secret messages during the war, that it may or may not have been part of a love affair between a stamp engraver’s apprentice and a young woman who seems stronger than I can imagine.

  “You’re back,” he says, and he gestures that it’s okay for me to come in, have a seat, but he doesn’t offer a boisterous Kate the Great greeting. So I’m not sure if he knows it’s me who’s back or if he mistakes me for my mother now.

  “I’m back,” I say, sitting down next to him. “I missed you. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for Thanksgiving.”

  “You were gone for so long,” he says, contemplatively, turning to stare out the window.

  “Only a week,” I say. “And England and Wales were beautiful. You would’ve loved them.”

  “You should’ve stayed there,” he says, not unkindly but matter-of-factly. But I still feel the sting of rejection. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t know you, I remind myself.

  “Of course I wasn’t going to s
tay there. I’d never just leave you like that,” I tell him.

  He nods. He knows. Somewhere inside of his disease-riddled brain he knows me. He has to.

  He turns back and looks at me and puts his hands on my arms. I exhale, because I see him, this man I’ve always loved and trusted. My dad. And I’m pretty sure he sees me, too. “You have to find Gid,” he says.

  My grandfather’s name catches me off guard. He’s been dead for many years, and I haven’t heard my father mention him in a long time. “Dad,” I say softly. Then repeat it louder, hoping my voice will snap him out of it, bring him back to the present. “It’s me, Katie, your daughter. Kate the Great.”

  “Kate,” he says, and I can’t tell if his voice is filled with recognition or curiosity. I’d bought him a book of stamps at Heathrow, just before we left. I have them in my purse, but I don’t take them out because I’m unsure if his English souvenir might set him off further.

  I hear a soft knock on the open door, and when I look over, Sally is standing in the hallway. “Ted,” she addresses my father. “Art class starts in five minutes.” She smiles at me; she’s told me before that art class is his favorite. “You don’t want to miss that, do you? And I bet your daughter has to get to work.”

  He turns to me, puts his hand on my cheek gently. “I’ll paint you something,” he says.

  “Wouldn’t that be lovely,” Sally says with a little bit too much cheer as she walks into the room to escort my father to his class. But then she turns to me and mouths, “I’ll save it for you.”

  The last place I feel like going after I leave the Willows is work, but I have to. I haven’t been there in a week.

  I’m almost happy to be stuck in traffic on my way to the office, and my mind wanders to my grandfather. I haven’t thought about him, really thought about him, for a long while. But hearing my father say his name brought him back this morning.

  My grandfather worked in a civilian job, as a translator, for the navy at the base on Coronado Island, and he’d been proud to have a government job for a country he often felt saved him and my grandmother. As a teenager, I used to find him highly embarrassing. He would sing in public (in German, no less), or insist on taking me to the mall and buying me clothes. (What teenager wants to be seen at the mall with her grandfather? I was always thankful that no one knew me in San Diego for these little trips.)

  My father and my grandfather had been close. But it’s still disconcerting, the way my father brought him up again, this morning, wanting me to find him. I try to understand what it must be like for my father, dead people alive again, real, right here. Old abandoned distant memories feeling like they’re in front of him, palpable, new. He doesn’t remember so many things that have happened to the people he’s loved, good and bad. Does it ease the pain of having lost someone if you can’t even remember that they’re gone?

  When I finally get into the office I find a pile of assignments on my desk from Daniel, with a handwritten note echoing what he left on my machine: Need to talk.—D.

  The last thing I feel like doing is talking to him. As I walked alone through Cardiff Castle last week, I almost started to feel like myself again, this woman I once was before Daniel. He waves at me now from his office, trying to get my attention, and I gesture to my phone, miming that I have an important call to make. Then I pick up the phone and dial Gram.

  “Oh, Katie, I’m so glad it’s you. I tried you so many times last week and couldn’t get ahold of you. I was getting worried.”

  “I’m sorry. I went away,” I say. “I didn’t get to tell you. It was kind of sudden.”

  “Sudden? Is everything okay, sweetheart?”

  “Yeah, everything is fine. You know how I was looking into that letter? I just had the opportunity to go to the UK for a few days.”

  “The UK? Oh, how wonderful,” Gram says. “Well, that’s exactly why I was calling you, your little letter.” Her voice rises, excited. “I found something I think you might be interested in. Do you want to come down here this weekend and I’ll show you?”

  I glance toward Daniel’s office. He’s gotten on the phone, so he’s not paying attention to me any longer. “I could come down this afternoon,” I say.

  “But don’t you have to work?”

  I lower my voice. “I think I have to quit my job.” And I feel relieved once I admit this truth, out loud. I do. I need to quit. And not at some point. Right now. Daniel and I are over. I need to move on in every part of my life. I quickly catch Gram up on the divorce and tell her the rest of the story. It feels so good to be honest with her, finally.

  “Oh, honey.” She doesn’t say anything for a minute, and I can’t tell whether she’s sad or disappointed or even confused. Then she says, “I’ll go to the store and pick up some wine before you get here and we’ll talk. Drive safe, okay?”

  After we hang up, I glance toward Daniel in his office, one last time. The phone is tucked between his shoulder and his ear and he’s talking, animatedly. I might leave him in the lurch by quitting without any notice, and I feel a little bad about that. But not bad enough to stay. I really want to see whatever it is Gram found that has to do with Elena’s letter. I want to write that story, not what Daniel has laid out, assigned, on my desk, here.

  I hastily scribble out a letter of resignation and leave it in Daniel’s inbox. I take only my Rolodex with me from my desk, and then I wave to Janice, and walk out the door of LA Lifestyles, without looking back.

  I feel oddly free, happy, once I’m back in my car, and I pop my favorite cassette into the tape deck, and turn the Bangles up, loud. Maybe “Walk Like an Egyptian” should feel like an odd anthem, but it’s all mine now, and I belt it out, slightly off-key. I reach the freeway and make a snap decision to head in the wrong direction first, toward Benjamin’s office. I have no idea what Gram thinks she found. It could be nothing. But Benjamin brought me all the way to England on his frequent-flier miles. The least I can do is bring him to Coronado.

  Austria, 1939

  WHEN HERR BERGMANN RETURNED, Kristoff gave him the engraving plate, a plate Elena had put as much, if not more, engraving work into as he had. But Herr Bergmann, none the wiser, took the plate and handed Kristoff another envelope of reichsmarks. Kristoff would save them to pay for Elena’s escape to America. Soon, he hoped. He hadn’t told Elena, but he’d begun drawing up papers for her, or rather, Amata Marsch, a Germanized version of her favorite character from Little Women. He would convince her to engrave them soon, or he would do it himself and have Josef get them printed. Kristoff had also written a letter to Gideon Leser, asking both about Charles Darnay’s arrival and for assistance in sending Elena to America. But he had not as yet worked up the courage to send it. Putting a stamp on it, putting it through the post, meant the Germans could read it, should they choose to. And that could get them all killed.

  Kristoff and Elena were working on his new assignment from the Führer and Herr Bergmann, a stamp of the Opera House, as winter turned into spring, spring into summer. The Nazis advanced and took Czechoslovakia, and they demanded Jews everywhere turn over all their gold and silver. But edelweiss still bloomed in the hills of Grotsburg. And the Stephensdom stamp went into circulation in all of Austria. Kristoff thought that he should feel at least a small bit of pride when he first saw the stamp on an envelope. His stamp. The one he made with Elena. Their stamp. And yet, instead what he felt when he saw it was sadness, fear, longing. He couldn’t muster any pride at all.

  After Frederick left, Kristoff, Elena, Josef, and Frederick’s driver, Henrik Schwann (who swore he’d delivered Frederick safely to Bremen) began meeting in the cabin in the woods, late at night, once a week. Elena said if four people could get their Austria back, it would be them. And though Kristoff wasn’t sure he believed that, he went along, if only to be with Elena, to know what she was planning.

  Kristoff often brought his sketch pad along to their meet
ings and sketched idly, while the other three tossed around ideas. Their ideas were ridiculous mostly—Schwann took a mathematics course one day a week at Universität Wien and he would bring up the sympathetic students he met there. Somehow this discussion always led to Schwann wanting to stage an uprising, get guns to Jews, and though he was nineteen, the same age as Kristoff, Kristoff felt he seemed younger, so much still like a little boy, playing a dangerous game. Kristoff didn’t talk much when these ideas were discussed. He just sketched, and the sketching calmed him. He didn’t want Elena to see his fear when Schwann spoke of guns with such a stupid bravado.

  One night Josef cleared his throat and tapped Kristoff on the shoulder so Kristoff would look up from his sketching. “I have cousins, in Vienna,” Josef said, looking right at Kristoff. “Elisa and Robert. Robert used to teach physics at Universität, but since die Kristallnacht Robert lost his job, they’ve been kicked out of their home; they have no money. And Elisa is now expecting a child.”

  Kristoff shook his head, not understanding why Josef was telling him this.

  “They need papers,” Elena said, sounding a little breathless.

  “Yes.” Josef answered Elena, but held on to Kristoff’s gaze. “They need papers. They don’t have the money to pay the high Jewish exit tax. And they have to get out of Austria before their baby is born.”

  Kristoff looked away from Josef, feeling sick. There was so much danger in forging more papers. Josef had said it himself that morning Kristoff had vomited in the snow.