The Letter Opener (14 page)

I found myself reassessing people who gravitated toward the synthetic world, who surrounded themselves with plastic flowers, fake leather, glossy ornaments and other objects that mimic happiness, that retain no memory. I had been in the habit of thinking that such people were shallow. But perhaps I had been wrong all along. Perhaps it was possible to prefer the synthetic world, as the very young and the very old often did, for simple and sensible reasons. Plastic dolls lasted. Plastic flowers would never decay.

A
brackish vinegar smell hung in the air. A small jar of Swedish herring had fallen out of a package and shattered on the floor. The new person was seated at Andrei’s desk. A skinny man with bushy sideburns and an extraordinarily long, almost simian space above his upper lip. Even when he was smiling, which was often the case, his mouth appeared to be too far away from his nose. He was introduced to me as Warren. I greeted him politely and then turned around, somewhat ashamed that I could not stop myself from silently judging him (the horrible brown-and-green-speckled sweater he wore, his ingratiating grin, the odour of fermentation surrounding us).

To avoid further chitchat, and the risk of saying something I’d regret later, I opened my newspaper and half-heartedly skimmed the headlines. It was the twentieth of December. Five days before Christmas.

BEST OF THE BAD (ACTOR LEE VAN CLEEF DEAD AT 64)

OIL SPILL WREAKS HAVOC ON MOROCCAN COAST

BALLOT FEVER IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA

RIOTS ROCK ROMANIA (CEAUSESCU SAYS, “REFORM WILL COME TO ROMANIA WHEN PEARS GROW ON POPLARS”)

After Marvin arrived with the morning delivery, I slipped into an effortless rhythm. Every now and then I noticed Warren at the periphery of my vision. At one point I leaned back to stretch my neck and shoulders, and he looked up, mouth widening into a broad smile, his friendliness catching me off guard. I gave a quick smile and lowered my head. Was there any point in trying to understand what had happened to Andrei? A dozen different thoughts swirled in my head. How many days left until his rent expired? Twelve? Would I find anything in his apartment? And what about Gloria? Was she back at Sakura? And Kana? Was she ever coming home?

Another letter from Kana had arrived the day before. It was written on the back of a small Czech menu. In a quick scrawl that in its rollicking unconcern for legibility bore no resemblance to my own tidy penmanship, she wrote:

Dear Nai-chan,

Your present was delivered this morning. So thoughtful! My first granny cardigan! But seriously—it’s just what I needed. It has been freezing here! I’ve taken to walking around the apartment with my overcoat on. So much is happening every day. Everyone is convinced that Havel will be elected president on December
29. The Independent
has asked me for a feature story and post-election interview. The feature
will be called “The Power of the Powerless,” based on an essay Havel wrote just over ten years ago. I wish I could have been home for the holidays, but this is a big one.

Love, Kana

p.s. See reverse. I’ve been living on item #
6
(pork back, cabbage and bread dumplings). Sounds revolting but it’s incredible, sublime food. I promise to take you one day!

The unstoppable Kana. Her letter brought forth a glint of resentment, the taste of some ancient bitterness that made me feel petty and ashamed. (She didn’t even mention our mother.) While I prepared supper, I tried to picture her life in Prague. I knew she was probably smoking too much, living out of her suitcase. Yet I also knew she was doing all this happily. She had become a nomad, long ago liberating herself from the commitments and consolations of family life.

When Kana decided to live somewhere else in the world, returning from time to time to visit, it became my destiny to keep watch and to tell her what she wanted to hear. I swallowed my resentment.

Dear Kana,

I wish I had some exciting news to share, but life here is as boring and eventless as ever. If anything my days seem to get more monotonous! I don’t even have a new outfit or a horrible snowstorm to report…

Then again, would I have wanted it any different? The morning cup of coffee. The short bus ride to work. The mail that awaited me
when I got home. The pre-decided meals I shared with Paolo—pasta on Tuesdays, Szechuan on Thursdays and curry on Sundays. The scheduled amusements—rented videos, jazz night at the Rex, dancing at El Centro, a bottle of wine, an occasional pinch of marijuana. I had centred my life on simple rituals. It was irrational to turn on Kana because she had built a life on not knowing where she would be tomorrow, to begrudge her a happiness built on passing moments of passion and appetite.

It’s probably true that Kana shuddered at the thought of winding up like me—domestic, unworldly, without enterprise (for in her eyes, to be a homebody at the end of the century was to be a true global pariah). It was also probably true, though harder to admit, that I lived in dread of ending up like her—drifting all over the place, prey to any sudden gust of wind.

When I returned home from work that evening Paolo was in the kitchen pouring a glass of juice. He was still wearing his pyjamas. He nodded at me and I greeted him in return. We had a brief exchange about the leaking sink faucet, after which he sat down and began pensively drumming on the kitchen table. I picked up the day’s mail and made my way to the living room. I had intended to flop out on the couch, but the room I entered was in disarray. The curtains were still drawn and a twisted bundle of sheets and blankets was piled in the middle of the couch. Miko, my cat, was nestled on top. A few dirty plates and cups—my plates and cups, but not my dirt—lay on the coffee table. It was not a catastrophic mess, by any means, but every object had become eloquent. The room wanted to say something. On Paolo’s behalf, it ventriloquized:
I’m tired of trying.

I heard water running in the kitchen sink. It stopped for a moment, then started again.

Ever since Andrei had disappeared, Paolo had done his best to
keep the apartment vibrant on the days he came to visit. Flowers appeared regularly on tables. Windows were cleaned and bared to the sun. Elaborate pastas and delicious pilafs materialized at dinner on Friday nights. The robust sounds of Charlie Parker and Jimmy Cliff played on the stereo. His efforts to distract and entertain me, to prove that he was still present and committed to carrying on with our patterns and cycles, helped keep me together. He was so good at making things relaxed that I hadn’t noticed the distance deepening between us.

But that evening, everything threatened to break in two. It happened just as we were finishing a late dinner. I had been subdued throughout the meal, pushing my pasta around with my fork, pouring a glass of wine, tearing off portions of baguette. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t notice that Paolo was seething beside me. When he eventually spoke, I started at the tone of his voice.

“We need to talk,” he said. “I’m worried. You’re beginning to show signs of obsessive behaviour.”

Obsessive? I felt the bread stick in my throat. The word was a dagger, a cruel shorthand for my mother. Paolo used it knowingly. (He felt the need to be callous, to crack the shell of my “self-pity,” as he later put it.)

“Face it, Naiko. He’s gone. It’s time to give up. That may seem coldhearted, but it’s not healthy to keep going on this way.”

Paolo’s theory was that his years in Argentina, while fraught with painful memories, had made him more discerning. He had learned how to tell whom to trust and whom not to. My theory was that it had made him an expert at kind indifference. Perhaps it was unfair of me, but I felt that years of living in a climate of non-response had left him detached from certain emotions. For evidence I thought back to a conversation early on in our relationship, when Paolo had confessed
to me that he was unable to console his mother when her brother died. It was just the two of them at home when the phone call from Argentina came.

“I loved my uncle. Yet when I heard the news I had no reaction,” he had said. Even when his mother’s tears began to scatter, words did not come. He just stood there, mesmerized by the sight of her crying. “It was her eyes, so shiny with tears—how beautiful she looked. But I couldn’t tell her that; it would have seemed insensitive,” he said.

It was his lasting shame that he was able to appreciate his mother’s beauty but not her sadness.

It isn’t the child who comforts the parents, I tried to reassure him. But what I was left with was the image of a young man—he was eighteen, after all—observing his crying mother without embracing her.

I wasn’t always mindful of Paolo’s feelings. And neither was he of mine. There were times that I declared he was cold and insensitive. There were times that he accused me of being naive. We both had it in us to be harsh and uncompromising. But that evening in the kitchen when he challenged my “obsession” with Andrei was the first time I realized how easily our relationship could collapse.

“Are you in love with him?”

“No. I told you, Andrei’s gay.”

“Then what is it? What’s there? Explain. Why can’t you let go?”

“I can’t just turn my back on someone I care about.”

“Well, he could,” Paolo said coldly.

I glared at him.

“Why don’t you just accept it. Call it what it is,” Paolo continued.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning desertion. It’s simple. Rushing off like that. Without a note or explanation. In the army he’d be court-martialled.”

“Stop it.”

“He ran away. Making excuses for him isn’t helping. It isn’t loyalty anymore, it’s craziness.”

I felt stunned by Paolo’s belligerence. I stared at my hands and breathed in, breathed out. Panic welled up in me.

“Why do you have to be so intense about everything?” Paolo rubbed his temples and sighed. “Can’t you be like everyone else?”

“Who?”

“Other people. The ones who stick to their own business.” He paused. “It’s strange. It’s almost as though you take pleasure from it.” He had stacked the dinner plates and was now leaning back in his chair, eyeing me coldly.

“What are you accusing me of now?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” he said. “I don’t have a clue what’s on your mind anymore. Something changed when Andrei—”

“Nothing changed.”

“Fuck, Naiko. This is impossible.” He stood, paced for a moment and then stopped, placing his hand on the counter. “You know what? I’m tired of it.”

I stiffened. “Tired of it? Or tired of me?”

“It. You. Both. Everything.”

“Well then, I’m very sorry,” I said.

“I’m trying to be straightforward with you. You know, trying to communicate. Clearly it’s not working.”

“No, clearly it’s not,” I said, and left the room.

Paolo and I rarely fought. What usually happened when there was a disagreement was that we temporarily became aloof. For a joyless day or two we were inaccessible to each other. If the argument occurred while he was at my place, we walked around the apartment like strangers passing on the street, bodies proceeding quickly and politely, eyes averted. It was soul crushing. But this was the way we did battle.

But that night was different, more troubling. I felt him starting to slip away from me.

I retreated to my bedroom and sat down at the edge of the bed. On a shelf set into the wall my books stood in neat rows, oversized reference books on the bottom, alphabetized fiction on the top. Most days, this vision of painstaking organization reassured me. I treasured my library, knowing that it would never be ripped apart. Yet who but me cared? And why did I care? It was all suddenly unnecessary. What did it matter how the books were arranged, or if Paolo’s books were added to mine? I had to resolve the situation or he was going to leave me. One night, maybe even this one, he would give up, pack his duffle bag and walk out the door.

My door. Our door.

I’ll lose him, too.

I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes, and when I reopened them the books had a funny look to them, as it they were see-sawing in mid-air.

It was too late to catch the subway, so Paolo stayed that night, but we ended up sleeping separately. At 2 a.m., I woke up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. The table light was on in the living room and Paolo was sitting in a chair with a magazine. He didn’t change his position, didn’t even glance up, so I returned to the bedroom. About an hour later I heard him quietly open the door. I wanted him to lie down and hold me, but I was too proud and frightened to say anything. I pretended I was sleeping. But I felt the tears rising, a lump in my chest. He stood there for an unbearable minute and then I heard the faint
click
of the door closing behind him.

I
went to Paolo before dawn. I crossed the dark apartment and lay beside him on the couch, then under him. There were no words. My tongue was tied in my mouth, but my body told Paolo to stay. I needed his existence in my life. His steady, unvanishing presence. We moved to the floor, entwined with each other, his familiar hand slipping between my legs, then inside me. The pressure of him toppled any remaining tension between us. I came with my mouth against his. The sky was still dark. He rested his head against my shoulder and we both slept.

The clock radio came on in the bedroom a few hours later. We listened to the announcer reporting the traffic news. I snuggled into Paolo before getting up.

“Why do you think it’s so hard for me to let go?” I asked.

“It’s your sympathetic nature,” he replied, placing his palm on my
chest. “Add to that the fact that you’re irrational, stubborn, overly concerned with other people, and…”

“I have no life,” I murmured.

“Hey,” he said. “
We
have a life.”

“Yes, we do,” I said, reaching for his arm.

“You said we could move in together at the end of the year.”

“I did?” I touched a mole on his wrist.

“I miss you. You haven’t been very…here, lately.”

“Oh, Paolo.” I kissed his neck.

The automatic coffee maker burbled in the kitchen.

“Can I ask you something?” He traced his finger lightly along my arm.

“Of course.”

“Promise you won’t get angry or take it the wrong way?”

“Maybe,” I said, and smiled.

He eyed me for a moment, then asked, “Was Andrei in some kind of trouble? Something with the police…immigration? Maybe a money situation?”

“No.”

“Was there anything that might have upset him enough to run away?”

I stared at the wall, weighed the question.

“No. Not that I know of,” I said, and sat up. I craned to look at the clock. “It’s getting late.” I kissed his cheek. “I better jump in the shower.”

After showering I hurried to work. Snow was falling lightly. By the time I arrived, Marvin had already delivered my sorting bin. I sensed a few people watching me, but I ignored them.

Once Andrei’s desk had been cleaned up, people’s attitude toward me had changed. I was their last reminder of him, and they didn’t want to be reminded anymore, so they avoided me. When I said his name out loud, even to Baba, I felt shushed.

At the top of my pile sat a small wreath of shellacked roses, a candystriped necktie, a box of tree ornaments—seasonally confused bunny rabbits with Santa hats. I stared at a set of “Last Supper” Russian nesting dolls that I had lined up on my desk: John, the tiny apostle. I dipped my hand back into the bin, lightly sifting the torn wrapping paper, stray greeting cards, sales slips, bright yellow fleece socks, an inflatable beer bucket. Why the objects should have seemed so off that particular day, I don’t know; I just couldn’t imagine any of them being to anyone’s taste. I picked up a small Pierrot doll, fidgeting flecks of silver glitter off its ceramic head.

There were only four days until Christmas and we were working late into the evening in an attempt to rescue last-minute presents. The kitchen was a banquet of treats that the manager’s wife had prepared. At the edge of my desk was a plate with a half-finished sandwich left over from lunch. Handel’s
Messiah
played on the radio, filling the room with an air of harmony and good cheer—amplified by waves of colour and sparkling tinsel, popcorn and cranberry chains, ladles of eggnog. I watched the manager’s wife walk by in an elf’s hat holding a bowl of sugar-dusted shortbread cookies. I contemplated joining in, but decided against it, feeling ultimately that it was beyond my ability.

At 6 p.m., when it was time for dinner, people began making their way to the kitchen. I was examining an engraved drinking mug when Warren walked over.

“Aren’t you going to eat with the others?” he asked, preparing to join them himself.

“I can’t,” I said, and paused. “Too much catching up to do.”

He looked at me and smiled. I smiled back at him with a shrug. We both knew my answer sounded like an evasion. I returned to my work, but I watched him more closely as he started toward the kitchen, seeing him differently right then, seeing him as Warren. It wasn’t his
fault he was occupying Andrei’s space. He wasn’t responsible for the circumstances that had led him here.

When he returned, he was carrying a small plate of food. He presented it to me, assuming the exaggerated posture of a waiter, body tilted slightly at the waist, one hand behind his back. I laughed. His friendliness was a relief—it made me feel normal.

Warren brought me back to the quotidian world I had abandoned. I believe this. His small gesture of kindness prodded me out of my slump. There is a limit to the amount of isolation and misery one can stand, and I had reached it.

I finished eating, then picked up the phone to call Paolo. When the machine clicked on I left a message asking him to come by my place that night. Baba was in the kitchen helping to pack up the leftover food. I could see him from my desk picking broken crackers and sprigs of parsley off the cheese tray. The manager’s wife was wiping down the counter. Warren returned with coffee and a plate of honey-drenched sweets Baba had brought from a Lebanese bakery.

“Cheers, Naiko,” Warren said, lifting his cup to mine.

Robert the janitor steered his wheeled mop bucket past our workstation.

I was sitting at the kitchen table when Paolo opened the door to my apartment later that evening. He unbuttoned his coat and slipped out of his boots.

“Look, I’ve been thinking,” I said.

His face dimmed. “You want me to go,” he said tonelessly.

“Go? Oh God no, Paolo,” I said. The uncertainty on his face told me how fragile we were. “I was just thinking. I’ve never really told you about Andrei.”

Paolo put his coat on the chair.

“I’ve kept quiet about it for so long, like it was some kind of trust I couldn’t break. I don’t feel that now.”

One of the first things I told Paolo about were the letters.

MANY MONTHS BEFORE
,
TOWARD
the beginning of June, Andrei had walked into work with a determined look on his face. He said he had made up his mind. He wanted to send letters to various people inquiring about Nicolae, to uncover what had happened to him.

Dear Consul General of Turkey,

I am writing to inquire about the whereabouts of my friend Nicolae Halmos, a citizen of Romania, who was last seen swimming off the coast of Turkey in June of 1984…

We drafted the letters together and during our lunch hour typed them up on heavy bond paper. Andrei signed them at the bottom, making sure that each letter remained smooth and uncreased. He used the stamp machine at work, but insisted on posting the envelopes from a box near his home.

Dear Metin,

It has been several years since we last communicated. I hope your family has kept well…

We wrote eleven letters in total and then waited for a response. I expected letters to start arriving within a few weeks, but not one
arrived. Then more weeks passed and still there was not a single reply. I began to wonder if our letters were even reaching anyone. Were the addresses inaccurate or outdated? Had the letters been blocked or detained somewhere?

Andrei remained unfazed. “There are thousands and thousands of Nicolaes in Romania, most of them named before the dictator came to power,” he said by way of explanation. “Parents used to like the name because Nicolae is the patron saint of children.”

“What an unfortunate coincidence,” I said.

Andrei smiled, then continued, “I doubt there are many babies being named Nicolae anymore. Unless they’re children in the staterun orphanages.”

He paused, seeming to remember something. “There was a strange story in one of the underground papers about an orphanage director going to prison for naming all the boys in his care Nicolae. He must have been a bit crazy. Imagine a hundred malnourished Nicolaes running around. The director said he was tired of hearing the orphans referred to as ‘nobody’s children.’ They are Ceausescu’s children, he said. Ceausescu was the one responsible for creating a population of unwanted babies when he outlawed birth control and abortion so he could fill Romania’s factories. ‘So let’s name them after their Tata!’ the director announced. I don’t know if he expected to get away with it. The minute Ceausescu heard of it he had the director locked up for treachery.”

“Those poor kids,” I said. “How did Nicolae feel about his name?”

“He really only thought about it when it came to leaving. On the way to the port, he said, ‘Maybe I should change my name. I don’t want people in the West to think I was named after
him.
’“

“What did he want to change it to?” I asked.

“Something light,” Andrei replied. “Dan. Brian. George. It’s hard
to make up a name for yourself. Anyway, we experimented with the name Bruce. You know, Bruce Springsteen.”

We both laughed.

Around the time of the letters, Andrei began collecting articles from various newspapers and magazines. Stacks of writing about and photographs of unidentified people who had been discovered in different parts of the world, either living or dead. He started spending his weekends at the city reference library, hunting through the international papers. He was not interested in the widely publicized cases, only in the cases tracking the lesser known.

Unidentified man discovered in a state of unconsciousness on the Island of Rhodes. [?]
Middle-aged, grey hair
, dressed in black slacks, a green shirt and black jacket. Two Romanian coins were found in the pockets.

(The Athens News Agency, 7 June 1989)

Two things struck me when I looked at the clippings. The first was the way Andrei had marked up each text, highlighting and striking through words, inserting question marks in places. The second was a feeling of overload, a sense that the world was crammed with people like Nicolae: missing persons, fugitives, runaways, abductees. Loose ends, all awaiting some finality.

The body of a dead man was found 6 miles off the coast of Livorno. [??] The body is that of a tall, slightly built man whose features are typically Northern European.
Light
brown hair. Brown eyes.
A dimple on the chin.
Postmortem exams, performed at Pisa University, have not found any signs of violence or poisoning, so drowning was the probable cause of
death. A few items may help identify the body. 1) a worn rubbersoled brown shoe,
size 47
, with a red logo. 2) a Casio digital wristwatch with a grey strap. The manufacturing number 47235 printed on the back could help trace the point of purchase. [??] 3)
a wedding band, 24 ct., size 27. The ring was made in Italy.
(From The Corsica Weekly, 12 June 1989)

Andrei kept a cardboard filing box filled with his clippings. Dates were carefully pencilled in at the top right corner. And everything was sorted according to geographic region. Even missing persons who didn’t fit his search had a home in Andrei’s box.

Soon, I was contributing to his collection. It started one morning when I found myself grazing through the newspaper, scissors in hand. Eventually, it became second nature. Sitting on the bus, waiting at the doctor’s office: wherever there was a discarded newspaper, I busied myself. Lost and found people, I came to discover, comprised a subgenre of journalism, tucked between the local crime stories and the obituary section.

I was drawn to stories of the transient: the bearded drifter who was discovered living in a high-school locker room. And stories of the unhinged: the man who woke up in a Toronto hospital bed with a fractured skull and no idea who he was. He was diagnosed with something called post-concussion global amnesia, or total memory blackout. His picture was sent to various police precincts across the country. Fingerprints, mug shots led nowhere. When months later the detectives finally gave up, the man in question asked to be given a new identity, but his request was denied.

The stories of people who were afflicted with amnesia presented one of the kinder scenarios. I had heard of people recovering their “blanked-out” memories over time—in some cases as suddenly and
inexplicably as they had lost them. Was it possible that Nicolae had suffered a blow to the head? And if so, was it also possible that he was now wandering around in some corner of the world, on the brink of regaining his identity?

I avoided the stories of the dead.

Whenever I came across a photograph to add to Andrei’s collection, I felt a mixture of excitement and depression. Even living people in newspaper photos somehow seem ill-fated, ethereal, as if composed of grains of black sand about to blow away.

For a few weeks, it seemed that stories of human-smuggling operations were everywhere in the newspapers. My fingers were black with newspaper ink.

In early July, twenty-five Chinese migrants from the province of Fujian were discovered inside two shipping containers aboard a Seattle-bound freighter.

The following week another cargo vessel carrying Albanian stowaways hit rocks off Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, killing at least eighteen people and leaving the rest to survive the treacherous sea.

Then a week later, twenty-four people drowned when another Turkish vessel carrying thirty-one migrants from Southern Romania capsized in the frigid, stormy waters of the Aegean Sea en route to Greece.

Such items for most readers were just page-fillers, mere miscellany, horrible but far away. Andrei, on the other hand, took it all very personally.

Nonetheless he persevered. Throughout the middle of summer, he continued his parallel projects, his letter-writing and his scissoring of newspaper articles, with a kind of manic dedication. And while it didn’t occur to me right away, it soon became apparent that these seemingly disparate activities were, in fact, intrinsically connected. If
Andrei’s letters comprised a question to the world, then the clippings were the world’s detached reply. Or so he would have me believe.