February 2, 1940
Yokohama, Japan
Dear Ones,
We’ve reached Yokohama and feel a great sense of relief. Finally we have air, water, heat! We arrived too late to take the Taft, for which we had reservations. We’ll have to wait more than two weeks to board another ship, the President Cleveland. In happier circumstances I would have been delighted: Japan is so amusing. Especially for me, never having traveled farther than Aflenz! The country is not as medieval as I thought, we have all the commodities we need. The streets are every bit as busy as the Ringstrasse: shiny cars, bikes going in every direction, horse carts and rickshaws, a kind of bicycle taxi drawn by poor wretches. I spend hours watching the people go by. Men in smart raincoats share the sidewalk with workers wearing funny shoes and even stranger hats. The women are mostly in traditional costume. I’ll try to bring you back one of these extraordinary silk confections. I have to be careful, though, because our reserves of cash are limited. Kurt has been trying for several days to get a money order from the Foreign Exchange Service but with no success. I need a new wardrobe, as we left with so little. Unfortunately, I find all the imported products much too expensive.
The Asiatics are not lemon yellow, as I had thought. Actually, they are pale, with elongated eyes and no eyelids. The workers are even quite dark, tanned by the sun. Some of the women, supposedly of ill repute, walk down the street with their faces painted white and their teeth blackened. I’d like to talk to them but we have no language in common. Yesterday I tried to explain to two lovely creatures that their kimonos were magnificent — they fled, laughing behind their sleeves.
The Japanese are polite, but very distant. They don’t really like foreigners much. We are staying in a comfortable hotel with plenty of hot water. I only emerge from my boiling hot bath to poke around in the neighborhood, but I never stray very far. There are men in uniform everywhere. They let us know that “long noses” (Westerners) are not allowed to wander like that. Yokohama is a very large port, and meat is scarce. The people make do with rice and fish drowned in that horrible brine whose stink pervades the streets and even gets into our clothes. At a street vendor’s stall, I tasted a wonderful fried food called tempura. I stuffed myself with these vegetable fritters, which are as light as clouds. Kurt looked on disapprovingly: he doesn’t trust the local hygiene. But the boiling oil must kill everything off … He eats only rice and tea. This diet is kind to his stomach, which suffered from the food on the Russian train. He rarely leaves the hotel room, where he works.
We are in good health. I don’t know how we managed to come through all that cold without catching pneumonia. We said goodbye to the Mullers in Vladivostok. I hope they manage the crossing without any problems. The city, which is very close to the Chinese territory annexed by the Japanese, was full of armed men. It was terribly chaotic there. I often think of little Suzanna. The sight of a uniform always terrified her, even when it was only one of the train staff. She was so feverish when we reached Vladivostok that her parents decided to wait several days before resuming their trip, in order to find medicine for her. They have family in Pennsylvania, and I’m hoping to hear from them once we get settled in the United States. Kurt sends a kiss. I smother you under a great load of kisses. I miss you all so much.
Sayonara! (it means “goodbye” in Japanese),
Adele
The little girl would never reach Pennsylvania, I was convinced of it, just as I knew that my letters were useless. I wrote them to revive my optimism, which our long journey had dampened. I’d left all my loved ones behind. I had prepared myself for the pain of it, but I was discovering the added loss of giving up my daily routine: the comfort of eating my favorite foods, of opening the window and seeing a familiar landscape. The one thing I had left was Kurt, in all his weakness. I’d built my life around a single person. I still don’t know whether it was a proof of love or of total idiocy. How can two people survive on a partially gnawed bone?
VIA RADIO-AUSTRIA NO. 40278
SAN FRANCISCO. USA. MARCH 5, 1940
TO THE ATTENTION OF
DR. RUDOLF GOEDEL
LERCHENFELDERSTR. 81. VIENNA.
LANDED YESTERDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO. BOTH HEALTHY. TELL MOTHER AND PORKERT FAMILY. MANY KISSES. ADELE AND KURT.
March 6, 1940
San Francisco
Dear Ones,
We are finally in San Francisco, thinner but relieved … Our crossing of the Pacific was uneventful. After the darkness of Russia, the blue and green landscapes of Hawaii, where we stopped briefly, looked to us like paradise. My dream is to return there for a longer visit! I have been feeling landsick all day. The ground is still rolling as the boat did. It is very cool here. One of the passengers boasted of the California sun, but the fog in San Francisco puts Vienna in October to shame! Kurt has started to cough and complain about his chest. He lost a lot of weight during the trip. Once the endless formalities at customs were over, I dragged him forcibly into a restaurant. We ate a whole cow between us! The meat here is excellent. I’ll hardly have any time to visit the city, as we take a train tonight for New York. We are in a hurry to get there! It’s not true that I’m relieved, because I think of you all the time. We’ve reached safety, but your fate still seems uncertain. I long for your news. I long for Vienna. As soon as I get to New York I’ll wire you our address on the chance that telegrams to Europe are still getting through.
A thousand kisses from the other side of the world,
Adele
The coastline of America loomed before us at the last moment. A band of fog hid the city. All the passengers crowded on deck. Someone laughingly called out, “Land ho!” Someone else looked for the Statue of Liberty. Kurt patiently explained that we were making landfall on the United States west coast. New York harbor was still three thousand miles away. The man didn’t listen. He was happy. Then we were caught up in the bustle: the shouts, the lowered gangplank, the impatient porters. A few lucky passengers found open arms awaiting them. We disembarked knowing that nowhere in the sparse crowd would we see the face of a friend. We held tightly to each other.
For safekeeping, I had hidden our visas, vaccination certificates, and other documents in my girdle. I’d slept with them ever since Berlin. All the same, I was extremely anxious going through immigration. When the officer, following routine, asked Kurt whether he had ever been treated for mental illness, Kurt looked at him blandly and said no. So he knew how to lie. Then we testified that we had no intention of becoming American citizens. There, he was lying to me: he had already decided that he never wanted to go back to Europe. He had crossed out that life with a careful and deliberate line. End of proof.
We found ourselves walking down Mission Street, haggard and not daring to smile or even look at each other for fear that we would be called back at the last moment. And then the sun rose over San Francisco. My stomach unknotted. Suddenly I was overcome with hunger, an end-of-the-world hunger. We rushed into the first restaurant with a vaguely European menu.