“I was a true Werfell for all that, though,” he thought, closing the window and returning to the table. “However much I wanted to believe in that apparition, my mind refused to do so. This was real life, not a novel. It seemed ridiculous to accept even the possibility that what had happened was real. No, Maria Vockel could not be real, she could not possibly live at 2 Johamesholfstrasse.”
Esteban Werfell closed his eyes and saw the fourteen-year-old Esteban on his way home, full of doubts, telling himself that his head was full of stories about Hamburg, full of women’s names, the names of singers and actresses, and that they must be the source of the words he had heard in the choir.
Before continuing, he counted the number of blank pages left in the notebook. There were quite a few left, enough for him to be gripped by a desire to finish that last part of the story as quickly as possible. If he finished early, he would still have time to go out into the park and watch a bit of the football match the children were playing. But the desire lasted only a moment. He must tell the story with all its details just as he had decided to do before returning home from his visit to Hamburg.
He dipped his pen in the inkwell. A final glance at the park revealed a small boy wagging an umbrella threateningly at the swans.
“What are you doing home so early?” my father asked as soon as I opened the front door.
“I didn’t go to the cinema after all.”
“Why not?”
“Because I fainted in church,” I confessed, shamefaced.
I saw that he was alarmed and quickly explained that nothing untoward had happened. The darkness in the church and the flickering candle flame had been to blame. I shouldn’t have stared so hard at it.
Sighing, my father gestured toward the library.
“Esteban, if it’s spirit you want, you’ll find it in those books in there, not in the darkness of a church,” he said. After a silence, I stammered: “Can I ask you something?” I couldn’t go on talking to him and still keep my secret. I needed to know what he thought about the Maria Vockel incident.
“Of course.”
He sat down in an armchair and indicated that I do likewise. He appeared nervous and it seemed to me that he no longer saw me as a child but as an adult, capable of making my own decisions.
I described everything that had happened from the moment I entered the church: the conversation during the fainting fit, my feelings at the time and my subsequent doubts. He listened attentively, without interrupting. When he saw that my story was over, he got up and began to pace about the room. He stopped by the window, plunged in thought. “Now he’ll go to the library and look up some book that will explain it all away,” I thought. But he didn’t move.
“Could something like that really happen?” I asked. “Is there any chance Maria Vockel might be real?”
“There’s only one way to find out, Esteban. By writing to that address,” he said, smiling. I was glad to find him so understanding. “I’ll help you write the letter,” he added, still smiling. “I haven’t quite lost my grasp of my own language yet.”
Despite their friendly tone, his words made me lower my gaze. My father had not been successful in his attempts to teach me German. Even at home, I preferred to speak as I did with my friends and I grew angry when he refused to use “the language we both knew.” But that Sunday everything was different. Repenting of my earlier attitude, I promised myself that I would make up for lost time, that I would not offend him like that again.
But my father was happy, as if the events of the afternoon had revived pleasant memories. He put his hand under my chin and made me look up. Then, spreading out an old map of Hamburg on the table, he started to look for Johamesholfstrasse.
“Look, there it is. In the St. Georg district,” he said, pointing to it on the map, adding: “Shall we write the letter now?”
“Yes, I’d like that,” I replied, laughing.
Now, after all these years, I realize that the letter marked the end of an era in my life. I, who had never been like the other children in Obaba, was about to become, from that moment on, a complete foreigner, a worthy successor to Engineer Werfell. I would no longer go around with my school friends and I would never again return to the church. Furthermore, I would begin to study, to prepare myself to go to the university.
The sending of the letter was followed by a period riven by doubt. One day I’d be certain that a reply could not be long in coming, the next I’d think such a possibility ridiculous and grow angry with myself for cherishing such hopes.
That state of uncertainty ended one Friday, when my father came running into the room where I was reading and showed me a cream-colored envelope.
“Maria Vockel!” I shouted, getting up from my chair.
“Maria Vockel, 2 Johamesholfstrasse, Hamburg,” replied my father, reading out the sender’s address.
A shiver ran down my spine. It seemed impossible that such a thing could happen. But there was the proof that it had. The cream-colored envelope was real, as were the two handwritten sheets it contained. “Ask me anything you don’t understand,” said my father before leaving the room. I picked up the dictionary he’d given me for my birthday and began to read the letter.
Outside the window, the sun, having failed to make any impression on the clouds, was burning out like a faint fire and a dark mantle was falling across the whole park, across the grass, the trees, and the lake. Only the swans seemed whiter and more luminous than before.
Esteban Werfell switched on the lamp and took out Maria Vockel’s letter from one of the drawers in the table. Then, with great care, he began to transcribe it into his notebook.
Dear Esteban,
We shouldn’t be frightened of things we don’t understand, at least not when, as in our case, what is incomprehensible is also so delightful. That Sunday of which you speak, I was in bed with a slight sore throat and feeling very bored, when suddenly I felt like reading a book. But, as it happened, an electrical fault had plunged the whole house into darkness and I couldn’t start reading without first going to look for a candle. So I got up and went to the kitchen to find one.
The event in which we were both involved occurred shortly afterward, as I was returning to my room holding the lit candle in my hand. First I heard the sound of an organ and then I saw a dark-haired boy sitting next to the old man who was playing the instrument, breathing heavily as he did so and swaying about over the keyboard. Then I heard the same words you did and I felt very happy, as if it had been a dream, a very nice dream. Is that what happened to you? Did you feel happy too? I hope so.
Afterward I told my mother about it. But she took no notice of me and sent me back to bed saying I must be feverish. But we know what happened to us. The same thing happened to us both and there must be some reason for that.
Then Maria Vockel went on to tell him about her life in Hamburg, so very different from the life he led in Obaba, so much more interesting. She learned languages, she went skating and sailing. She also went to the cinema, but not to see silent films; silent films, it seemed, were now old hat.
The letter ended with a request. She would like a photo of him. Would he be kind enough to send one? She would reciprocate by sending hers. “I’m much blonder than you imagined,” she declared.
Esteban Werfell smiled when he read that and returned the letter to the drawer. He had to go on writing and as fast as he could, for it was growing dark. The park had filled with shadows and the swans were asleep now in their house.