The Historian

The Historian Page 69

September 1962

My beloved daughter: Damn this English! But when I try to write to you in Hungarian, a few lines, I know at once that you are not listening. You are growing up in English. Your father, who believes that I am dead, speaks to you in English as he swings you up onto his shoulder. He speaks to you in English as he puts your shoes on -  you have been wearing real shoes for years now - and in English as he holds your hand in a park. But if I speak to you in English, I feel that you cannot hear me. I didn't write to you at all for a long time, because I could not hear you listening in any language. I know your father believes I am dead, because he has never tried to find me. If he had tried to, he would have succeeded. But he cannot hear me in any language.

Your loving mother,

Helen

May 1963

My beloved daughter:

I do not know how many times I have silently explained to you that in the first few months you and I were very happy together. The sight of you waking from your nap, your hands moving before any other part of you stirred, your dark lashes fluttering next, and then your stretching, your smiling, filled me completely. Then something happened. It was not something outside of me, not an external threat to you. It was something inside me. I began to search your perfect body over and over for some sign of injury. But the injury was to me, even before this puncture on my neck, and it would not quite heal. I became afraid to touch you, my perfect angel.

Your loving mother,

Helen

July 1963

My beloved daughter: I seem to be missing you more than ever today. I am in the university archives in Rome. I have been here six times in the last two years. The guards know me, the archivists know me, the waiter at the caf¨¦ across the street from the archive knows me and would like to know me better if I didn't turn away coldly, pretending I don't see his interest. This archive contains records of a plague in 1517, whose victims developed only one sore, a red wound on the neck. The pope ordered them to be buried with stakes through their hearts and garlic in their mouths. In 1517. I am trying to make a map through time of his movements or - since it is impossible to tell the difference - the movements of his servants. This map, really a list in my notebook, already fills many pages. But what use I can put it to I do not know yet. While I work I am waiting to

discover this.

Your loving mother,

Helen

September 1963

My beloved daughter:

I am ready, almost, to give up and return to you. Your birthday is this month.

How can I miss another birthday? I would return to you immediately, but I

know that if I do, the same thing will happen. I will feel my uncleanness, as I

first did six years ago - I will feel the horror of it, I will see your perfection.

How can I be near you knowing that I am tainted? What right do I have to

touch your smooth cheek?

Your loving mother,

Helen

October 1963

My beloved daughter:

I am in Assisi. These astounding churches and chapels, climbing their hill, fill me with a sense of despair. We might have come here, you in your little dress and hat, and I, and your father, all of us holding hands, as tourists. Instead, I am working in the dust of a monastic library, reading a document from 1603. Two monks died here in December of that year. They were found in the snow with their throats only a little mutilated. My Latin has lasted very well, and my money buys any help I might need with interpreting, translating, laundering my dresses. As it does visas, passports, train tickets, a false identity card. I never had money when I was growing up. My mother, in the village, barely knew what it looked like. Now I am learning that it buys everything. No, not everything. Not everything I want.

Your loving mother, Helen