Garbo’s Faces

a Novel — Part 25: Letter

A few days later, it’s early December now, Harriet went back to Sweden. She called me from New York just before she left, telling me that she was fine, considering, but that she really needed a Swedish Christmas to get over things, the many strange things, she said. And, no, unfortunately she would not stop over in London. Her connection for Stockholm was Amsterdam. She would call me from Sweden.

“Where are you staying?” I asked.

“With Kerstin.”

“Kirsten?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Kerstin. Kerstin Bernadotte.” She pronounced the name like Chersteen, unfamiliar to me.

“I don’t know her,” I said.

“Carl Johan and Kerstin are friends of the Wachtmeisters,” she said. “They’re going to let me stay in their apartment.”

“How do I reach you?”

“I’ll call you from there,” she said again, not really answering my question.

Knowing how distraught she still must be, I didn’t want to prod further, so instead I wished her a pleasant journey and told her to be sure to call me. I did not want her to disappear on me again.

But she did.

I later found out that she had spent Christmas on the Wacthmeister estate somewhere outside Stockholm, and that she had spent most of her remaining visit in the Bernadottes’ large Stockholm apartment, not going out much, but meeting old friends, like Mimi Pollak and Vera (whose surname I can never remember).

In early January of 1962, she met Ingmar Bergman, who apparently did not manage to mask his surprise — shock was the word Harriet used later — at seeing her mouth, all the little wrinkles above her upper lip. He had caught them in the glare of his desk lamp as she reached over to ask him a question. He had stared, Harriet said. Stared. We’re all mortal, she said, but he sure made a show of pointing it out to me.

Bergman’s account of meeting Harriet, which I found in a 1973 translation of an interview with him, goes into some detail:

The room was cramped, a desk, a chair and a sagging sofa. I sat at my desk, the desk lamp switched on. She sat on the sofa. “This was Stiller’s room,” she declared at once, looking around. I didn’t know what to say, so I replied that Gustaf Molander had had this room before me. “Yes,” she said again, “this is Stiller’s room. I know for sure.”

Then we talked rather vaguely about Stiller and Sjostrom. Silence fell. Suddenly she took off her concealing sunglasses and said, “This is what I look like, Mr. Bergman.” Her smile was swift and dazzling, teasing. In the half-light in that cramped room, her beauty was imperishable. If she had been an angel from one of the gospels, I would have said her beauty floated about her.

She registered my reaction, and was very pleased. Exhilarated, I’d say, and started to talk about her work on Selma Lagerlof’s Gosta Berlings saga.

After a brief walk around the studio grounds, we returned to my little room, and she was cheerful and relaxed. She lit another cigarette and spoke of how Alf Sjoberg had wanted to make a film with her. “He was so persuasive, he was irresistible,” she said. “I accepted but changed my mind the next morning and refused. That was awfully stupid of me. Do you think that was stupid, Mr. Bergman?” she asked, leaning across my desk towards me. The desk lamp illuminated her face and I was startled by what I had not seen before. Her mouth was ugly, a pale slit surrounded by transverse wrinkles. It was strange and disturbing. All that beauty and in the middle of the beauty a shrill chord. She saw my reaction, must have read my thoughts, for she grew silent, bored. A few minutes later we said goodbye.

She was very sensitive about her mouth. Her one flaw, she once told me. The one thing she tried to hide from cameras. The one thing that far too clearly marked the passage of her time. I would not say ugly, that was Bergman’s observation. I would say wrinkled. A tightness, especially of the upper lip, that’s all.

It’s like I’m mummifying — she said once — on my feet.

Nonsense, I said. You can hardly notice it.

Well, I thank you for your dishonesty, she answered.

Bergman, apparently, was the honest kind.

Then she returned to New York. In late January I received this letter from her:

Wit’s End

17 January, 1962

Dear Nachiketa,

I am really sorry I didn’t call you from Sweden. I was going to and I meant to, and so often, but time just swept me away. I am glad it did, though. I was terribly sad about Attra going, and so soon after Madhuri and Manini left me. It was so terrible that it happened that way, just after they were gone. It was almost like they timed it that way.

I know it probably sounds strange, but to me he had become a person, not a snake. I remember what I said about snakes when we first met, I take it back, I take it back. Well, at least as far as cobras go. At least as far as Attra and Esh go, and all those snakes we met in his mountain.

But after what happened, going home again, with the food and the lights, and the singing, and the glogg, I really needed that. It helped me to forget. And, when I thought of you, Nachiketa, because I did, often, I promise, there was never a phone around, and then there was always someone calling my name to share a joke or a memory, and I couldn’t be rude.

I met many old friends in Stockholm. Especially Vera and Mimi. We talked and talked and as we were talking I found myself wishing that I had never left. There is nothing in the whole world like Sweden at Christmas, Nachiketa. Although it is very dark and cold. But that makes the candles look brighter, like little souls flickering. And it makes the fire warmer. It is what a Christmas should be like. Not like California (though New York is better).

And I met our famous director Bergman. He is a brutally honest fellow. I will tell you about it sometime.

You will never guess who I had dinner with the other night? The President of the United States of America! Yes, John Kennedy and his beautiful wife. Yes, Nachiketa, the old Swedish girl had dinner with the President, can you believe that? And before I left he gave me a whale’s tooth to remember him by. Jackie said that he had never given her a whale’s tooth. I’m not really sure what she meant by that, but she sounded just a little bit jealous, which was just fine with me.

They asked me to stay the night, which I now think I should have done, but didn’t. I wanted to go home. I always seem to reach a point at parties and dinners (even with Presidents) where I don’t want to stay anymore, I just want to go home, wrap my blankets around me and not be bothered by anyone.

But when I came home the apartment was so empty without Attra.

I am looking around for my old life, Nachiketa, the one before we went to India, but I can’t seem to find it. I can’t put my finger on it but when I think hard it seems I didn’t have one. Not a real one.

I think I mean before we went to India, or maybe I mean before I left Sweden. I don’t really know what I mean. But I really miss Sweden. No, maybe not Sweden, but the life I had in Sweden, the person I was in Sweden. I was a real person then. Flesh and blood and I had many friends. A famous actress has no friends, only admirers and movie producer bosses. So much has happened since I left so long ago that the head spins when I try to think about it or make sense of it, and I’m trying to find that person again, the person who left her home country, who wanted to leave it, and who somehow got lost in the big machine of it all.

Now Claire is yelling at me that food is on the table, so I had better go. She bosses me around, but I think I need that sometimes.

How are things with you? Write me, please, and tell me. I will call you soon, I promise.

Kisses,

Harriet

I wrote back the same day.

London

January 28, 1962

Dear Harriet,

I was wondering what happened to you. I had no way to reach you and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. So, I do it now: Happy New Year.

Sure, I can believe that you’ve met the President, you are an amazing woman, and of course he wanted to meet you. Keep that whale’s tooth safe.

You say you feel that Attra is a person, and of course he is a person. And notice, Harriet, that I say IS, for he is still alive, as a person — not as a cobra, of course, but as a person. In fact, and this is absolutely true, he stopped by on the way to who knows where, to say good bye, or hello, I was not sure which. But I was very sure about who it was talking to me out of thin air. It was Attra all right, the person. He said he was going back to India to see Esh, but he was a little vague about details. But, Harriet, he is certainly alive, if not kicking. No reason to be sad, really. Or to try to forget. Keep him alive. Perhaps he’ll come to visit you too.

What do you mean, though, that Madhuri and Manini timed it that way? They could not possible have known. Do you think they did?

My life here in London is more or less back to normal. We got the Arnby house — did I tell you about that? It’s a large home that I designed, and he was very happy with the result. He has approved the plans and now for the detail work. It will keep me off the streets for the next few months or so. It’s exciting, and everybody is happy with me at the firm. I am a good architect, apparently. Competent, says Mr. Hawkes. It is a good thing, creating things. Houses.

When will I see you next?

Write soon. Or better still, call.

Meanwhile, stay warm. I see that you’ve had a terrible snowstorm in New York. It was in all the papers. Maybe you’ll run into Athansor.

I Love you,

Nachiketa

When all of February went by without a letter back, or a call, I called her. Only to reach Claire, who informed me that Harriet was unavailable.

“But this is Nachiketa,” I said. Taken aback, to be honest.

“I know,” she said. “I didn’t mean it the way it came out. She is unavailable. She’s in the country somewhere with George Schlee. I have not seen her for days. She doesn’t call or anything, but that’s nothing unusual.”

I sympathized, but said nothing.

“I will tell her you called when I speak to her next,” she added.

“Yes, please, if you would.”

Mid-March saw this letter from Harriet.

Wit’s End

10 March, 1962

Dear Nachiketa,

I am really sorry I haven’t written sooner, but life (and it seems to happen this way for me sometimes) just runs away with me and it feels like I’m hanging on by the tail of all those many days that just charge on, heading for I have no idea where.

I see a lot of George Schlee, he is a dear friend who understands (without really saying so) how I feel and what I need. He’s taken me for several trips around the country. We went skiing in Vermont one week, and we took a long leisurely drive down to Florida for two weeks. This is such a beautiful country, even in the winter, or maybe especially in the winter. I don’t like Florida so much though. I get the feeling that people go there to die. There are so many old people there. And they are very dangerous drivers, at least George says so, but I believe him. They turn without signaling.

Then we go to quite a few parties here in New York. He is a good escort. He does not ask of me to be a “date” (if you know what I mean), we just go as friends. And he protects me, just like Attra did with the reporters in India. Remember?

It’s so strange, Nachiketa, although our trip was not that long ago, it sometimes seems to me like it was years ago, in another life almost, as if it happened to someone else. When I go for my morning walks down to the village (and on the way I’ve visited the Gustavus Adolphus Swedish Lutheran Church on 22nd Street several times, and do you know it looks nothing like it looked that Christmas morning) and I look at the people and the buildings and the cars and taxis and the bicycles and the trucks loading and unloading clothes and things like that all the time, I find that I cannot match what I see in the present with what I remember of the past, they just don’t fit together. It’s like this present and that past are two pieces of a puzzle that say they belong to the same puzzle but don’t. And these pieces are so unalike that I have no way of making them fit together. It is like the city tells me that I have been dreaming and that I had better get a grip on things, or I’m going to go crazy. They belong to different puzzles, these two pieces, that’s what I think.

At times I wish I could talk to someone about these feelings. I’ve considered telling George, but that would mean (wouldn’t it?) telling him about you, and I don’t want to do that. Not that I think that he would not understand or that he would not be discreet, but I don’t think it’s right. What do you think? Also, and maybe this is the real reason I hesitate, I’m not sure that he would believe me. He is such a practical man, my George, and I’m not sure how he would take to riding white horses in and out of time and between India and New York in a matter of steps. And talking snakes. He would probably have me locked up (joke).

We are leaving soon again on another trip. This time to New Mexico. We are going to drive so it will take a while. I’m going to see my brother there.

That’s it for now. I hope everything is going fine with your new buildings.

Kisses,

Harriet

Although I was certainly glad to finally hear from her, the letter disturbed me and I called her the same day. Well, I tried to call her. I discovered that she had changed her number again. Old one disconnected, with no forwarding number. Someone, a reporter or some such, must have discovered her old number and begun calling her. Harriet wouldn’t stand for that.

Instead I sat down and wrote her back.

London

March 19, 1962

Monday

Dear Harriet,

Thank you for your letter which was waiting for me on the floor of my apartment when I came home from work today. It was really good to hear from you again. I tried to call you right away, but I found that you have changed your number. Please let me know your new telephone number so I can call you.

Let me say, first of all Harriet, that you are not going crazy. Not in the least. And don’t for a moment doubt that what happened actually happened. All you have to do is take out your necklace. It will tell you all you need to know.

There are times, and I will admit this, when I find it hard to reconcile what we did with the city around me. Two different puzzles, as you said. But not really. All I have to do is to touch my tiger’s-eye (which I always carry, or keep by my bed at night) and then I know, for sure, that I didn’t make it all up, or dreamt it. Then I know for sure that these two pieces do belong to the same puzzle, the one I call my life.

Just put on your necklace, feel it in your hand, and remember the hands that gave it to you. Remember the hands that placed it around your neck, and where you were then. That is all you have to do. You are not crazy, and you know it. Your silver chain, and the troll crystal, will prove it. And the little hands that clasp each other at the back of your neck.

I am glad that you have found such a friend in Mr. Schlee. From what you tell me, I think it would be quite all right for you to tell him about me. He sounds like a man of honor who would not betray a trust. However, I’m not sure that anyone who did not actually experience what we did will believe you, so maybe it’s not such a good idea to tell him about the Christmas morning, or about Sweden and India. You know, trolls and snakes and Athansor.

Would you like me to come and see you? Or would you like to come here, Harriet? I could make it a long weekend to New York (and don’t worry about the ticket, they’ve actually begun to pay me quite well for what I do, I can afford it now). Please let me know, or, if you’ve already left, when you come back from New Mexico.

Work is going well, and it is, in a way, a saving grace. I really enjoy creating beautiful and practical space for human consumption (as I sometimes think of it). It is like I make up stories when I design buildings, especially homes (which I prefer by far — sometimes they ask me to help on commercial buildings, which I do, as I need the practice, and should be well rounded — at least according to Mr. Hawkes — but when it comes to my own projects, they are all homes; both Hawkes and Rand know where my love lies, and with it my strength).

Before I begin work on a new home I try to understand all I can about the owners, about the people who will live there, whose space this will be. I ask them not only what they want to see in their new home, but what are their personal plans, and dreams, and hopes. And what are their beliefs, fears even.

And I talk to them about everyday things, as well. Where they do their shopping, or if they prefer the servants to take care of that (many of our clients are quite well off, as you can probably imagine). Do they like sports, or fishing, or sailing? I try to form as full a picture of the real persons that I can. Then I try to become them and sit myself down and surround myself with a home that would welcome such a person, and that such a person would welcome, and love in turn. This is the home I then build, like a story, around them.

I am sure this is not a very conventional approach, but so far it has served me well. My clients are very happy, even though at first, when I first present the roughs (the outline designs) they are a little taken aback; it’s never quite what they had pictured for themselves. But by knowing them, and by knowing houses and how to build them, I can see better than they do, and I can find their house, their story, for them. And in the end they have always — so far — thanked me, and even asked me how I knew this is what they really wanted.

As I said, I feel like a writer sometimes. Houses are my stories. And they are my saving grace when I feel alone, or when I wonder sometimes (yes I do, sometimes) if what happened to us really happened. Houses, and my tiger’s-eye.

It happened, Harriet. It really did. Take out your crystal, place it around your neck and remember those gentle hands that touched your cheek, and which made your face look twenty years younger. It happened. It really did.

Please call me when you get this letter, if you’re still home. And be sure to give me your new number as well so I can call you.

Meanwhile, have a nice trip, and I hope your brother (my Uncle, yes?) is doing fine.

Love you,

Nachiketa

March became April. Well, she would be in New Mexico, I figured. But when by the end of April there still was no word from her, I considered going there, if for no other reason to make sure that she was all right. Then I decided to give it another week.

Which, as it turned out, was just enough for her letter to arrive.

Wit’s End

1 May, 1962

Dear Nachiketa,

I am really sorry I haven’t written sooner (these days I seem to start all my letters to you with this), but life again is rushing along with me running behind and trying to catch up.

We had a fine trip and a good time in New Mexico. Sven, your uncle indeed, seems to be doing fine, but he’s not a very practical person. If he didn’t have me to look after him (financially) I’m sure he and his family would starve to death. This makes it a little awkward for us to meet, for we’re not really meeting on the same terms as when we were children (when we both depended on our parents). Now I’m his parent and it’s a little strange and puts a bit of a strain on our relationship. But that aside, I still love him a lot and he loves me and we get along fine. George doesn’t like him so much, though, which we had a few arguments about, for I don’t think George has any right to dislike Sven. George says he does, he will form his own opinions, damn it, he says, and even though I tell him to keep his opinions off of my family, I know that he’s right about being his own man, as he says.

On the way back George didn’t feel so well, and I did some of the driving as he was feeling too tired to take the wheel. This, he said, more as a joke, made him feel even worse. Once we came back to New York he had to go to the hospital and there seems to be something the matter. He won’t tell me what it is, though. Old age, he says.

What that means, though, is that he’s staying home with his wife more (who, from what I understand, likes to take care of him, even though they haven’t been husband and wife for many years, if you know what I mean).

We talked a lot on the way back from New Mexico though, and this is what I in a roundabout way am getting around to telling you, that I did tell him about you. And about our adventures.

I had to tell someone. It was like our trips were slipping away from me. As if I would lose them if I didn’t share them. So I told him, there was no one else to tell.

Well, as far as you were concerned, he believed me just fine, but he wouldn’t have any of our adventures. Well, that’s his word, he calls them my adventures, and says it in that tone of voice that you use with a child that you trying not to upset.

But then he turns all business and says no, that just could not have happened, and when I tell him it did, it really did, he suggested that perhaps I should seek some help, professional help, he said.

I said he didn’t know what he was talking about, and he said look who’s talking. Well, we had a good and proper row about that, I guess, but at the bottom of it all I know that he cares for me and does not want to see me hurt, or see me go crazy. He wants to protect me. That’s what he says, and that’s what he does. I’m sure of it.

No, to answer the question I’m sure you’re asking now, I have not taken his advice about seeking help, not yet. I don’t think I need some psychiatrist to help me sort things out (although I must confess that the thought does cross my mind now and then, that perhaps it would be easier that way, better that way, than this trying to fit these pieces together from such different puzzles).

If George feels better (which he insists that he will) we are going to leave for Europe in a week or so. If we do, I don’t think we’ll have time to stop over in London to see you as we then will be going straight to Greece for a Mediterranean cruise. We can get in and out of Greece without making too much of a splash, which I like. I doubt the same could be said about London, which has very nosey papers.

Enough about me. I really love the way you described your approach to designing homes. I think you’re a genius, and that’s not just a mother speaking (writing). It is no wonder that your clients like what you dream up for them. You are an artist, Nachiketa, that’s what I think. Maybe you could design a house for me someday, maybe in Greece. What do you think? Maybe we could both live there. Wouldn’t that be nice.

Are there no special person(s) in your life, Nachiketa? You should marry. Take an advice from an old woman, you don’t want to grow old alone, you need a companion. I’m asking because, when I think about it, I don’t remember you ever mentioning a someone, like a girlfriend, or just a female friend, or any kind of friends, come to think about it. Don’t grow old alone. It’s no fun. At all.

But it is a good thing that you love your work. You call it your saving grace. Saving you from what, Nachiketa? I think that in a way you feel like I felt in Hollywood all these years ago. Work was everything, outside that I was just a shadow moving around in empty houses (I never furnished any of them for I always thought of California as temporary). I only lived in front of the camera. Don’t go down that road, Nachiketa. It is not, in the end, very fun. At all.

Find someone. Marry. Raise children. Live.

Now I’ve got to get going. I’m late for my morning walk (or constitutional, as George keeps calling my strolls down the city and back up). Write soon. I think about you a lot more than I write to you, I promise. And I really love you. That is the truth.

Kisses,

Harriet

It was a long and honest letter. But: no telephone number, no mention of the necklace. Those were the two things that struck me first, tumbling out of the letter like silent boulders.

I read it again, carefully. Still no telephone number, and no necklace. I had no immediate way to reach her and help her. All I could do was write back, as strongly as I knew how.

So I sat down and put pen to paper.

London

May 8, 1962

Tuesday

Dear Harriet,

Thanks for your long and thoughtful letter. I enjoyed receiving and reading it. You shine through so strongly that I feel you in the room with me, reading it aloud to me.

Two things first. Please write me with your current telephone number. Or call me, please. I want to have a way to reach you, quickly, if I have to. Or just if I want to talk to you. I miss your voice, and I miss our conversations, along with our shared memories. So, please Harriet, give me your telephone number, one way or another.

And the other thing, you say nothing about the necklace in your letter. Does it not help? Is it not capable of fitting the two pieces together for you even if they do belong, as you say, to different puzzles? I have a little moth in the pit of my stomach that flutters and wonders, you have not lost it again, have you? Please tell me you have not. Please. It is a precious gift from some of the oldest beings on the planet, and they (she) gave it to you, for she thought you were their princess, I am sure of it. Remember, please. And put it on, and feel the pieces of those puzzles find each other and meld together so beautifully around your neck.

My tiger’s-eye performs this miracle for me every day, for yes, yes, I guess you have to say that the pieces do belong to different puzzles. There are no cobras white with age sliding down the streets of London, there are no white horses here that fly through time and mist. There are no trolls singing twelve part harmony; and everywhere I look, and everything I see cries out against even the possibility of such miracles. And so I reach into my pocket and touch my stone, my tiger’s-eye, which then touches me back and says: no, Nachiketa, not at all, there is nothing at all wrong with your mind, you remember perfectly well. I exist, trolls exist, you exist and you are so much more than these cars and shops and shoulders bent into the wind heading for the pub after work.

I know what you go through, Harriet, for I suffer the same foolish city as you do, and the same blindness around me. I think — no, I know — that this is the purpose of their gifts to us: to remind us, to confirm and affirm. To tell us who we are. To keep us afloat in this mad ocean of a world. Don’t you agree? If, and I hardly dare think this thought for fear that it may be true, if you have lost the necklace, Harriet, then please tell me. Perhaps I can help you find it.

Enough about that.

How is Mr. Schlee doing now? I hope that he’s getting better and that you will be able to make your Mediterranean trip as planned (although you say you won’t be able to stop by and see me in London, which is a pity).

I understand why you told him about me and our journeys, and I also understand why he didn’t believe you (your, our, adventures). How could anyone who has not experienced them really understand? Or believe? They sound crazy, of course they do, and to any rational mind they could not have happened. Simply because they are, in this world, by its agreements, impossible (although they did take place, Harriet — ask your crystal).

It did hurt me to hear that he thought you crazy though, and that he suggested you seek professional help to sort things out. You don’t need help, Harriet. The truth is that you are a miracle that other human beings will find very hard to grasp and fathom. This is a hard thing for me to say, for I know how much you like Mr. Schlee, but don’t you dare listen to him when it comes to the adventures we shared, Harriet. They happened, they really did, and don’t you let anyone, including Mr. Schlee, tell you otherwise.

Call me, please. And let us talk about it.

Then you turn your light on me and my lack of girlfriends, female friends, and friends in general. Well, mea culpa, guilty as charged. I just never saw the need. Perhaps I’m not constituted like the rest of humanity, for I feel no great urge to out and procreate (which to me is the only observable urge around me). I prefer a good book any day. And talking about good books, I did find Conrad’s The Condition of Art the other day — not in your beautiful edition but in The Portable Conrad, a nice Viking Books compilation which included his wonderful piece on art — and I was again astounded by the man’s clarity of vision and grasp of the fundamentals of fiction.

A good work of fiction, to me, is like an invitation by a writer to come visit his universe for a few hours, to create it with him and to experience his viewpoint. It is the most precious gift I think a mind can offer another: a story. So, in my leisure time I find myself more often than not in my favorite chair, with a cup of tea, and a good book, accepting just such an invitation.

I do have friends. Well, perhaps moderately close acquaintances would be a better description. Some of them female, even. But no close friends, as you so aptly point out. When I grew up I had Madhuri, and Attra (and many other snakes) for friends. Knowing snake talk kind of set me apart right from the start, and I found it hard to make friends with those who did not (which, apart from Madhuri, was mankind as a whole — at least as far as I knew, or still know, for that matter). Also, once word got out that I could talk to snakes — the rumor did spread — no one dared get too close to me.

Then there was school, and for many years that was all I focused on, all I wanted to focus on. And once I found that I liked buildings, and the craft of putting them together with purpose, I found a calling which excluded much else.

Then I found you, Harriet.

And now and then, making guest appearances — always unexpectedly — there’s Jiddu (whom I always think of as Jiddu and never as dad or father). He comes sailing through now and then with presents and an evening out (he likes good food, my Jiddu) and polite inquiries as to how I’m getting along, do I need anything, have I seen you recently, that sort of thing. (Do you, by the way, ever talk to him? He doesn’t say, and now that I think if it, neither do you).

And then we had our adventures (which I think is a good word, if not used condescendingly), and they went even further to crowd out the need for conventional friendships, if you see what I mean. For how do you tell the girl next door that you’ve hobnobbed with trolls, for Christ’s sake? Or that you almost got your head chopped off by Pearly Soames and his gang of thieves one Christmas morning? I think opening up to any girl would simply scare her first witless and then away. And what is a relationship if not sharing? And what is sharing if not honest and complete? I think I am sentenced, by my own strangeness and by our adventures, to a lonely life, Harriet. Only I don’t find it lonely, I really don’t. Especially not when I have you.

This is who I am Harriet, and I guess this is also my roundabout way of pleading with you to call me, to come closer, and sooner rather than later. In a way, I really need you, and from what you tell me in your letters, I think you need me too.

I hope this letter reaches you before you leave for Europe, if you are going. And again, I ask you: please call, and also include your new number with your reply.

I hope that you know that I’m willing to come and see you at any time. I can arrange my schedule around yours, that will not be a problem (Hawkes, especially, thinks I can do no wrong and would let me fly to New York at a moment’s notice). Don’t forget that.

And please don’t forget to wear your necklace. It is the light that will fuse the pieces together for you, that will make the two realities we live with seem as one.

Meanwhile, I wish you a nice cruise (if you’re going), and I hope, as I said, that Mr. Schlee is doing better.

Love you, as always,

Nachiketa

The letter did not reach her in time.

It couldn’t have. Because May, June, July, and August went by without a word from her. I managed to follow her movements (or the traces of her movements) in the papers. Tangiers, Sicily, Majorca, Barcelona. Not making headlines, to be sure, but still, some editors were curious enough about her doings to track them. By late September she had returned to New York, at least from what I could gather. Nothing more was heard in the English papers, which to my mind meant she had left Europe, their backyard, and was back in America.

Still no answer. No call. Nothing.

I am ashamed to admit that by now I was terribly upset with her. Why would she treat me this way? Her only son. And after everything, everything we’d shared.

Then I managed to stop feeling sorry for myself long enough to realize that my mother needed me a lot more than I needed her. I had Madhuri, after all, and I had my tiger’s-eye. And I had my work — my wonderful and absorbing work which kept my mind occupied and my soul creating — whereas she was idle, and had more than likely (which I had begun to suspect more and more) lost her necklace, her one personal affirmation, again.

And realizing this I decided, invited or not, to go to New York.

© Wolfstuff