Erasure

8

I was sitting in the study, contemplating the notion of a public and its relationship to the health of art when I looked across the room at the gray box. The box, the contents of which my father deemed so private he’d asked my mother to burn it. But also the contents must have been important enough to him that he failed to burn it all the years he had the chance. My father’s private papers. Somehow I had never imagined any existing beyond deeds and contracts and standard legal documents, but I knew that box contained none of those.

“Father?” I was ten. I had walked into my father’s study on a cold night near Christmas.

“Yes, Monk?” He turned to face me in his swiveling chair, the one he had requested that I not spin around on “like a top.” “It’s late.”

“Sorry.”

“Say, I’m sorry, not sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry about what?”

“About it being so late,” I said.

“You can’t change what time it is.”

Then I realized he was having fun with me and I laughed.

“What is it, Monk?”

“I have a question. If somebody tells you something and they tell you it’s a secret, can you ever tell?”

“You can, but I take it your question is should one tell.” He turned his head and looked briefly out the window. “No, you should not betray a confidence.”

“But what if it’s—”

He stopped me. “Never betray a confidence.” When I tried again to speak, he said, “I can tell you’re troubled, but I can also tell that soon you’re going to tell me the secret you’re carrying. If you don’t want a secret, don’t accept it.”

“Okay.” I started out of the room.

“Monk?” When I turned to him, he asked without looking at me, “Does this have anything to do with Bill?”

“No, Father,” I said, telling the truth, but also realizing with him that no could be my only answer to his question. Years later I would wonder if I had unknowingly and accidentally shaded my father’s perception of my older brother.

The box was not large, not terribly deep, and not very full, but these were in it:2 February 1955Dr. Benjamin Ellison

1329 T Street NW

Washington, D.C., USADear Benjamin,I cannot begin to tell you how surprised and of course thrilled I was to find your letter, however brief, in the box this morning. When you told me that you would write, I had my doubts. Not about the sincerity of your feelings certainly, but about your being able to collect time in the midst of your busy professional and family lives.I have just now returned from Southampton. My mother is very ill. It seems she has suffered a stroke. The doctors say it was a minor stroke and that we should see little or no physical manifestation of it. To my perception she appears greatly altered, however subtly. Perhaps it is merely age. She is of course less sharp as we must all become less sharp.What has it been, darling? Six months since we said goodbye? I hope you returned to find your family well and in good shape. I say again, to assure you, that I harbor no ill will toward your wife. She must be a wonderful woman to have you. Are your boy and girl big and rambunctious?I do have some rather good news. I’ll be visiting America in September. I’ll be spending a week of holiday with my sister and her husband in New York. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could somehow manage a sighting of each other? I am a dreamer, I know.Well, darling, I must sign off now. It’s late and thinking of you is, frankly, a bittersweet exercise. Remember that I love you.

Yours forever,

Fiona 25 FebruaryDear Benjamin,Rain. Rain. Rain. That’s all our skies have to offer lately. And so sight of your letter was a bit of sunshine. Then of course I opened it and discovered that you are expecting a third child. Certainly I am happy for you, but the sting is considerable.My mother is again in the hospital. I’ve not made the trip to see her because of my new job. Finally, I am again a nurse. I’m afraid I must have romanticized our time in Korea, because now the work feels so much like work. I’ve been rethinking my suggestion that we get together in New York. With your family obligations, I’m sure you’re too busy anyway. And the whole matter is just too painful for me to consider.Please know that I love you dearly and miss you, but I am afraid I cannot keep up this letter writing.

With love, forever,

Fiona 20 AprilDearest Ben,I’ve not received a letter from you for a couple weeks now. I hope all is well. I have this fear with each letter posted that you might be suffering with a cold or flu and that another member of your family might collect the mail from your office. It fills me with such dread to imagine causing you such an embarrassment and problem.My mother is doing worse I am afraid. She’s had a string of small strokes and she seems hardly herself. I’m quite sure she doesn’t recognize me. Writing this now seems to help me detach myself from the grief and so I thank you for this. My brother, who has been seeing to most of the business concerning my mother, is wearing away to nothing. He is running himself ragged and I feel I’ve done little to really help him. I wish you could meet Bobby, whom we affectionately call Booby. His heart is an impressive one. He has encouraged me to make the trip to the States in the fall. I believe he thinks mother will be dead by then. I cry a lot thinking about her death, and then I cry because I feel guilty for thinking death might be the best thing for her.I’ve rattled on about myself for too long here. I hope that you and your family are well. Last night, I don’t know if it was a dream or a thought, but I saw the way we used to have to sneak around in Seoul. It was only when we had to sneak, when someone looked at us crossly, that I ever considered our difference.Anyway, I love you.

Yours forever,

Fiona

A very small, leather-bound book. Silas Marner by George Eliot. An odd book to find, but pressed in its pages was a small flower, pink and white. The pages between which the little flower was pressed seemed to have no significance or bearing on anything.

Three more letters, the contents of which were not unlike previous letters, except that the mother died.

One round trip train ticket from Washington to Penn Station, dated 15 September 1955.

One receipt from the Algonquin Hotel, showing two nights’ stay and three room service visits.

A book of matches from the Vanguard.18 SeptemberDearest Benjamin,I never believed that I would really see you again. And who could have known how wonderfully thrilling such an impossibility could turn out to be. Do I sound giddy? Well, perhaps I am. Seeing you was so lovely, my darling. To be held by you once more would make life too much for me.I am sorry for the reaction of my brother-in-law. I did not know — how could I — what a bigot he is. But it seems your country has no paucity of bigots. I had deluded myself into thinking that the stares and comments, mumbled and not, were the domain of those awful soldiers during the war, the territory of the uneducated and the uncultured, but I was wrong. I can only imagine how awful it is for you daily.I can still clearly see your smile in the morning. And your dark hands on my near translucent breasts. You were so kind not to tease me. The contrast is striking and wonderful. I did so love being with you, my beautiful lover. Think of me at night, please.

With love undying,

Fiona 1 OctoberDearest Benjamin,I arrived at home to find your card waiting. Sadly, I also learned from my brother that my mother had died. I wonder how it is that knowing what is coming never abates the anguish. But still I feel, deep down, that my grief is somewhat artificial, that I believe her death is for the best, especially hers. I suppose it is normal to think such a thing, but still it is difficult to express it outwardly. I guess this then is further evidence to the closeness of spirit I feel with you.I must run now. I miss and love you.

Yours through eternity,

Fiona 12 NovemberDear Ben,You mean more to me than you can ever know. I’m sorry I have not written for a while now. And in an odd way, I’m thankful that you haven’t either. What I have to tell you is both wonderful and terribly anxiety-making. Ben, darling, I am pregnant. I don’t want anything from you and I want you to know that I will not seek to complicate your life. I am moving from this address and my mail will not be forwarded. Please, let this be our last communication. I love you far too much to hurt the family you love so dearly. And I do not wish to hurt you, though I know that this does. So, do not write for your letter might reach someone other than myself.

Love forever,

Fiona

A postcard mailed from Chicago, dated 2 July 1956.It is a girl. Her name is Gretchen.

[unsigned]

Dear Gretchen,Your mother is a kind, sweet, dear woman, but she was wrong to remove you and herself from my life. You must know that she did so believing it was the right and moral thing to do. She has strength which I can only pretend to fathom.I want you to have this letter, but I do not know where you are. Your mother’s sister in New York will not take my calls and so there is no help there. The card notifying me of your birth was postmarked Chicago, but tells me nothing.Wherever you are, I love you and wish I could be a father to you. You have two brothers and a sister. They know nothing of you, but I dare say that you would love them. They are fine people. Your mother is so fine that you have no choice but to be the same. I wish that I could hear your voice, see your face, a photograph, a sketch. I hope that you have your mother’s eyes. How I love those eyes.I suppose I could be ashamed of the relationship between your mother and myself, but I am not. It pains me that I could not be with her, that it all remained so secret and, therefore, dismissed. I was married with two children when I met her and, truth be told, I should have left with her then, but I did not. But because I didn’t, I have your nearest-in-age brother, my son, Thelonious. I dare say of the three I love him best.I wish that I had someplace to send this letter. So that you could know how much your father loves you, how much he misses you and how sorry he is that he does not know whether you are left or right handed, what color your hair is, or whether you can forgive him.

The letter was unsigned. That was all that was in the box. I had read a voice of my father’s that I had not heard directly in life, a tender voice, an open voice. I couldn’t imagine the man who had run off to New York to have an affair. I knew my mother had read the letters, but I didn’t know when. I knew she wanted me to read the letters. Knowledge of the affair gave me, oddly, more compassion for my father, more interest in him. Even when I considered my mother and her feelings I did not find myself angry with him, though I worried about her pain.

I had another sister.