We were so happy, sweet Katrina, and each time we met we shared such a simple and innocent joyfulness. From the very first time, and year after year to follow. Until you decided that you couldn’t any longer. You touched my soul, elevated me, transformed me, proved to me that I was not dry and shriveled as others thought, that I could be interesting for the most part, and even exhilarating at times, that there was a spark of life left in Igor, who used to think that his life was closing in on him.
I remember your first glance. Yours was a look touched with surprise yet full of warmth—a secretive smile in the corners of your eyes, your pupils widening suddenly in their lakes of blue. Yours was a look of invitation to an adventure, or so I thought, but I realized the moment I held your hand that it was an invitation of a different kind, a call to a journey.
And we did indeed embark on a journey, my Katrina, a journey conducted in the heart and via words scripted in ink, meeting face-to-face just once a year, just once. But oh, those meetings! The storms that raged through my body and soul, the joy and delight that washed through my very being. And yours, too, my darling. Your soul, too, filled to the brim with bliss and peace, raging storms and tranquility. And I say these words to you now, too, without hubris or pretension. With me, I sensed, you felt liberated, free of the chains of the oppressive relationship shackling your spirit and restricting your every step. With me, all of a sudden, you were a young girl again. Barefoot, laughing, carefree. With me, with me of all people. Because our souls touched each other. Because we found that freedom in each other’s arms.
My darling, please don’t allow the lines to follow to weigh heavy on your heart. Fate has thus decreed and there’s nothing more to be done. And I have accepted my fate, and feel at peace with myself, and whatever transpires over the coming days or weeks won’t move me at all. I’m dying, my Katrina. There’s no other way to put it. It’s my destiny. I have severe cancer, stomach cancer. It’s aggressive and terminal, and my doctors have told me there’s nothing more they can do. Truth be told, I appreciated their honesty and cruelty. Regrettably, I wasn’t spared months on end of chemotherapy, which seemed to spark an inferno and set fire to my insides. I accepted my pain and anguish, however, because they afforded me additional weeks and months through which to think of you, my darling, to recapture and cling to those sweet and lazy days we spent in each other’s arms, or walking aimlessly hand in hand, purely for the purpose of being together.
I’m writing to you, my darling, so you will always know just how loved you are, just how much beauty and pleasure you have within you to give, and just how worthy you are of living life to the fullest, with all the force of your emotions and the splendor of the first blooms of the spring.
33
DIMITROVGRAD, FEBRUARY 2013
Silent tears streamed down Katrina’s cheeks. She looked like a figure in a Rembrandt painting, Ya’ara thought. Wrapped in a clay red shawl, her light hair turning golden under the reading lamp, as if the light were radiating from the fine strands themselves, her small living room gloomy and dark, Igor’s letter stark white in her hands.
“Forgive me, Galina, I know your father passed away a while ago, but it’s as if it’s all happening for me right now, the letter, his imminent death.”
“He loved you until the day he died, just like I told you when we spoke on the phone, and it’s so plain to see, plain and simple, from the letter, too. I have to confess, I’ve read the letter. I couldn’t help myself. I have no idea why he chose not to send it in the end. Perhaps because he didn’t want to cause you sorrow. Perhaps he thought his words were inadequate and unable to properly capture his true feelings. To express the connection you shared. In any event I read it, and it made me feel a little strange, a daughter shouldn’t be exposed like that to her father’s feelings, and certainly not to the manner in which he expresses his love for a woman. But I did read it, and in some strange way it allowed me to discover not only him but you, too. A little. A woman who inspires such love has to be someone special. And not only in the eyes of her beloved.”
“I sent him quite a few letters over the years, until the one in which I asked him to cut off all contact with me.”
“I know, he saved all your letters. I found them wrapped together in one of his drawers, and I packed them just as they were into one of the boxes and haven’t touched them since. I didn’t open them, didn’t read them, perhaps thus preserving his privacy. His and yours. But I did open the last letter he wrote to you, wrote but didn’t send, I apologize…”
“You have nothing to apologize for, Galinka. Naturally you were curious. And thanks to your curiosity, you’re here now, with me. Warming the heart of an old woman.”
“Old? What nonsense! And so beautiful, still now, seeing you took my breath away. As if time had stood still since I last saw you in Bat Yam, in our apartment. Back then, however, I was mad at you…” Ya’ara said with a shy smile.
Ya’ara had penned Igor’s last letter, with a suggestion or two coming from Adi, who remarked, “It’s like we’re writing a chapter of Anna Karenina.” Amir listened to the version proposed by Ya’ara but said he didn’t really know much about such matters. Aslan said: “Not bad, not bad. A little too flowery, but similar in style to the last letter he actually wrote, melodic like the things you read to us from his sketch pad, the notes he made about nature’s moving beauty and all that.” Aharon, for his part, remained quiet after reading the Hebrew version composed by Ya’ara; he frowned, shook his head a little, briefly closed his eyes, and after a few moments of apparent intense thought, he pulled out his fountain pen, an old green and gold Pelikan, erased a word, altered an expression or two, and said, “Excellent, excellent. Great job, Ya’ara. Michael, take the letter now to Sasha. The guy from the language school. Let him read it to check we haven’t made any mistakes in Russian. Don’t let him improve the letter, you hear me? I don’t want a ‘translate and embellish’ job. He only needs to check the Russian. And then give the letter to Avraham from the graphics department. So he can put it down on paper in Igor’s handwriting. Give him a few samples. And tell him to use materials from the late 1990s. Tell him not to be stingy with his treasures. And not to say a word to anyone. Tell him it’s for me and that’s all. We’ve done a few things together, Mr. Forger-Extraordinaire and me. So here’s one more thing now, for old time’s sake.”
Katrina brushed her hand across her cheek and then wiped it inadvertently on her dress. “Come a little closer so I can see you,” she said, the letter still in her hand. “Where do the years go, where?” she sighed. “It’s so hard. So hard. You know, perhaps it’s better that your father didn’t see me like this, in this remote city. Come, I’ll pour you some more tea.”
She stood up and filled Ya’ara’s cup from the urn in the corner of the room.
“I want you to understand something, Galina,” she said to Ya’ara, looking her straight in the eye. “I had no choice. I had to break off my ties with him immediately. Right away. They didn’t give me a choice.”
“They didn’t give you a choice? Who are they?”
Katrina remained silent for a moment or two. And then she said: “Perhaps we should continue later. I’m exhausted. I’ll rest for a while. Drink some more. Your room is heated. You can rest, too, if you like. Please forgive the mess. All the booklets lying around there. That’s how I earn a living these days, translating technical manuals into Russian. From English or French into Russian. But I cleared away as much as I could, and I put some linen and a nice blanket on the sofa. Rest, my dear, you look tired, too. I’m sure it isn’t easy for you either to remember your father like this.”