The Historian

The Historian Page 71

December 1963

My beloved daughter: I am in Naples now. This year, I am trying to be more systematic about my search. Naples is warm in December, and I am grateful because I have a bad cold. I never knew what it meant to be lonely before I left you, because I had never been loved as your father loved me - and you, too, I think. Now I am a woman alone in a library, wiping my nose and making notes. I wonder if anyone has ever been so alone as I am there, and in my hotel room. In public I wear my scarf or a high-necked blouse. As I cut up my lunch, and eat it alone, someone smiles at me and I smile back. Then I look away. You are not the only person with whom I am not fit to associate.

Your loving mother,

Helen

February 1964

My beloved daughter: Athens is dirty and noisy, and it is difficult for me to get access to the documents I need at the Institute for Medieval Greece, which seems to be as medieval as its contents. But this morning, as I sit on the Acropolis, I can almost imagine that one day our separation will be over, and we will sit - you a grown woman, perhaps - on these fallen stones and look out over the city. Let's see: you will be tall, like me, like your father, with cloudy dark hair -  very short or in a thick braid? - and wear sunglasses and walking shoes, perhaps a scarf over your head if the wind is as rough as it is today. And I will be aging, wrinkled, proud only of you. The waiters at the caf¨¦s will stare at you, not at me, and I will laugh proudly, and your father will glare at them over his newspaper.

Your loving mother,

Helen

March 1964

My beloved daughter: My fantasy about the Acropolis was so strong yesterday that I went there again this morning, just to write to you. But once I was sitting up there, gazing out over the city, the wound on my neck began to throb, and I thought that a presence close by was catching up with me, so that I could only look around and around trying to see among the crowds of tourists anyone suspicious. I cannot understand why this fiend has not come down the centuries to find me yet. I am his for the taking already, polluted already, longing slightly for him. Why does he not make his move and put me out of this misery? But as soon as I think this, I realize that I must continue to resist him, to surround and guard myself with every charm against him, and to find his many haunts in the hope of catching him in one of them, catching him so completely unaware that I can perhaps make history by destroying him. You, my lost angel, are the fire behind this desperate ambition.

Your loving mother, Helen