The Letter Opener

by Kyo Maclear

  Every personal story should be stickered with words of notice, a thousand red flags and caveats.

  Twenty-six

  Paolo and I detoured through a park on our way home from the restaurant. Before we entered the house, we stopped to bang the snow off our boots. I was just about to unlock the door and go in when Paolo took hold of the sleeve of my coat.

  “Wait,” he said.

  I turned around, still clasping the key in my hand.

  “I want you to know. After all you’ve told me, it’s not the missing I feel sorry for. The ones who have my sympathy are the people who have to keep on going. All that uncertainty, waiting for some conclusion. It’s too painful.”

  Although I sensed his words were meant to comfort me I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Maybe the trick is to just let go.”

  “Maybe,” he said softly.

  Our eyes met for a moment, but before anything more could pass between us, I turned toward the door. Looking at him right then made me feel like crying.

  I knew that there was one last step I had to take. I knew I had to visit Andrei’s apartment. I fantasized about finding a piece of paper on which he might have drafted a farewell. However irrational, I felt stung that there had been no parting words. No formality, not even a utilitarian memo. I would have settled for anything.

  There were four days left till his lease expired.

  I was alone the next evening. It was Thursday and Paolo had plans to visit a friend who was leaving for Europe the next day.

  “Let’s go on a trip,” he said as he was getting dressed to leave.

  “When? Where to?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve never travelled anywhere together before.”

  “How about Argentina? I bet we could find a cheap flight. What about Buenos Aires?”

  “Buenos Aires. Where’s that?’

  “Quit joking, Paolo. Don’t you want to show me where you grew up? I have no image of it at all. What’s it like there? Is it hot? Is it green?”

  “Hot, yes. Green, no.” He laughed. “It’s more grey and brown.”

  “No trees or wildlife?”

  “Not really in Buenos Aires. There are parks. But if you want real wildlife, you go to Iguazu—that’s a day’s drive away. Buenos Aires has a different kind of jungle atmosphere.”

  After he left, I made a simple dinner of melted cheese on toast, then sat down at my desk with a pen and paper. I opened the drawer and pulled out a small velvet box.

  I began a letter to Kana on my best paper, then moved to the floor to write, finding a book to press against. I wrote neatly, in blue pen.

  Dear Kana,

  Seeing that you won’t be back in time, I have enclosed a present for your birthday. A ring box. Recognize it? Look inside. Remember the black opal? You once said it was your favourite.

  I came across it when we were packing for Mummy’s move to Sakura. It was inside her wardrobe in a tangle of jewellery. It seemed a good time to help her by removing a few things. Some of the stuff I gave away. Some of it ended up outside with the garbage. But I asked Mum if I could hang on to a few items.

  I’m sending you the ring because I thought you might want to keep it. You were right to like it so much. It’s beautiful. I slipped it on my finger tonight and noticed that if you hold the stone up to the light, you can see flecks of blue and green. I had always thought it was just one colour.

  By now you’re probably preparing to move on to another assignment, so I am hoping that this package reaches you in time. Maybe drop me a line when it arrives.

  Love, Naiko

  p.s. I know you’re very busy, but Mummy really looks forward to receiving your postcards. Could you try to write her more regularly? It would mean a lot to her.

  December 29. Doreen removed the box of Andrei’s belongings from the kitchen cupboard in which it had been stored. The manager had asked her to sort through it all one last time. Every item was laid out and examined, an exercise that took place on a table in the staff kitchen. My nosy co-workers made up excuses to look in on her. I tried not to hate them, their smug, vulturish presence.

  Baba observed the proceedings from a distance, consciously separating himself from their curiosity. I felt grateful for this small courtesy, but at the same time he flustered me. I could sense him studying me from under his compassion—furrowed brow, a mix of sympathy and bafflement that said, Poor poor Naiko. She never could let go. When he looked at me like that, I felt like crawling away. Pity has a shrinking effect. Warren, on the other hand, kept me afloat with his good humour. Every now and then he raised his eyebrow or winked extravagantly from his desk.

  Doreen packed a few items into Ziploc bags: a digital watch, a pair of reading glasses, a set of keys, a roll of subway tokens, a miniature chess set. “I’ve left the clothing behind,” she said to the manager when she finished. “Do you want me to get rid of it?”

  She put the Ziploc bags down on a table in the middle of the office and excused herself to take a phone call. I noticed from where I sat that Andrei’s notebook wasn’t among the belongings she had so carefully set aside. It seemed strange that she would have overlooked it; then I remembered, with a mixture of guilt and glee, that the notebook was in my desk drawer, where I had left it several days before. My fingers pushed the drawer closed so that its contents vanished from view.

  With the manager’s permission, I adopted the clothes that had been left behind, packing the items back into a cardboard box. It occurred to me that I should take just one thing—for the sake of appearances, propriety and such—but I could not decide, so I took everything. I carted it all home. Andrei’s moth-eaten blue sweater, his raincoat and a pair of old boots, the tongues sagging over slack laces. I transferred it all to a big green Rubbermaid box in my hallway closet.

  The notebook was a different story. I began to carry it with me wherever I went. I brought it out when I was alone. I soaked up every page, every notation and drawing, always encountering something new. I read the newspaper clippings tucked between the pages, stretching the task over hours, drawn in by the details but no longer looking for clues. I was completely absorbed in it, but absorbed in the manner of a child enjoying random discoveries—the pleasure of a pastime without lofty purpose. I raced through meals, skipped after-dinner walks and movies on television so that I could return to the notebook. Paolo would just give me a look, a silent, Oh no. Here we go again.

  Without the notebook there were moments when I might have doubted Andrei’s existence or questioned my own sanity. I remember coming across a cheaply printed postcard of Bucharest sandwiched between two pages. The image was faded, but it showed the main boulevard, roads wide enough to host motorcades. I touched it and the ink left a smudge on my fingers. See? I remember thinking. Real ink.

  I knew that the notebook and its contents were not mine to keep. I was preparing to let them go. I knew that one day soon I would put these things in a package and send them off, To: Andrei Dinescu c/o Northern Romania. (Might there be someone like me in a Romanian mail recovery office who would search for him?)

  I also knew that when I sent this package it would include something else; something of mine. My sense of self had not perished, after all. But what would it include? I looked down at my hand—a silver ring, a present from Paolo…No, not that. I glanced around my apartment, and on the bottom of my bookshelf, I spotted the object.

  A pre–Second World War atlas. It was given to me by my father as a high-school graduation present. When Kana graduated, she was given his old field binoculars. (Did he give any thought to who got what? It’s strange how things turned out: she is the one who travels, and I am the one who looks.) I lifted up the atlas. When I cracked open the enormous pages, I smelled dust and stale tobacco. Many of the countries were now non-existent or had changed names. Ceylon. Rhodesia. Countries marked with bold, well-spaced letters. There were light yellow islands and pastel green territories. Romania was pale pink. It showed lines of dashes running along the cr
est of the Carpathian Mountains. A red line for the Tisza River. A broken line where Romania met Hungary, indicating that the border was under dispute. I let the pages fan through my fingers. I caught glimpses of ultramarine ocean.

  Yes. I would send the atlas and with it a note. And in doing so, I would complete the loop. I would become both sender and receiver. I would keep things moving. I would exist.

  Life is beginning. I now break into my hoard of life.

  From The Waves by Virginia Woolf

  Part Five

  MY THINGS PAOLO’S THINGS

  Andrei’s sketchbook 1 nylon knapsack

  His boots 1 toothbrush

  His sweater 1 disposable razor

  His pen 1 box of condoms

  His plant 3 pairs of underwear

  His roll of mints 2 pairs of socks

  His extra pair of eyeglasses 4 oz. bottle of Maalox

  His brass belt buckle 1 bottle of Gaugho Green hot sauce

  A silver ring (from Paolo)

  A world atlas (from my father)

  Twenty-seven

  On the Sunday morning of New Year’s Eve, Andrei’s rent expired. I made my way to his apartment at 1478 Lakeview Avenue. As I got off the streetcar, I could see the flat-roofed, brick building up ahead. The wind was raking old candy wrappers and bits of garbage around the iron-gated courtyard. A sun-faded sign announcing Vacancies had been nailed permanently to the front door, suggesting something about the turnover rate.

  The building caretaker met me as arranged in the lobby. He was a big man with a big voice, thinning grey hair and wide blue eyes. From the minute we met, he made it clear that this was not a social visit. He had the officious manner of a sergeant and he spoke as though he were reading from an army drill. He told me I was to clear out all of Andrei’s personal effects before evening. The police had told him Andrei’s stuff was still there. A new tenant was arriving the next day. Everything that was left behind would be sold or put in the dumpster.

  I guess I was too quiet for his liking, because when he finished, he stared at me and said, very slowly, “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, tucking both hands into my coat pockets, squeezing my wool gloves, feeling like a chastised schoolchild.

  He dangled his keys for a second, considering me, and then said, “You his girlfriend, or what?”

  “No, just a friend,” I replied casually. But the second the words were out I felt panic. Why had I corrected him? What if being “just a friend” wasn’t enough to open the door to Andrei’s apartment?

  I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned toward the stairs and gestured for me to follow him. “Just remember, you need to be out by six. No later. I have plans this evening.”

  We lumbered in silence up six flights of stairs. Andrei’s place was at the end of a long, dim hallway that was more lurid than I remembered from my last visit. A damp-looking ochre carpet abutted a brown runner. The burgundy walls were flecked with flowers the shade of tomato gravy. Andrei’s door was painted green, with the number 12 in black.

  I waited while the caretaker searched for the right key. A ragga floated from apartment 9. I could hear the voice of a man talking into a telephone in another. There was laughter from a television, the hiccuped sobbing of a child, the clatter of plates.

  After some fumbling, the caretaker turned to me and said, “I brought the wrong set of keys. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Leaning against the door, chewing my thumbnail, I waited. I noticed that the lower keyhole was one of those old-fashioned slots and suppressed the urge to crouch down and peer inside.

  Soft whistling came from apartment 10. A woman washing dishes, sloshing pans in suds in the sink. I liked the sounds. I liked the way the tenants’ diverse activities were accoustically interwoven. As my eyes adjusted to the poorly lit corridor, I began to notice dirt in every corner. The wallpaper, on closer inspection, had as many stains as flowers. Magic Marker, bike grease, even bootprints stamped its surface. No amount of blotting, rubbing and rinsing could ever make it clean again.

  The caretaker returned after five minutes. When he opened the door, I slipped inside and found myself in near darkness. The caretaker fumbled along the wall next to the door frame and flicked the switch. Then he left me, firmly closing the door behind him.

  The room was quite different now. There was little evidence of the casual and comfortable clutter I had come to associate with Andrei. Someone had cleaned and stacked the dishes by the sink, had even tidied the bookshelves. In the bedroom, the bed was perfectly made. It was impossible to tell how much time had elapsed since Andrei left. An old suede jacket hung on an otherwise empty coat tree. A plaid umbrella was propped in the corner.

  I sat on the couch and scanned the room again, looking for some breach in the facade, wondering where to begin. Even among the familiar contents, I was unnerved by the stillness of the apartment. I had always imagined that I would find it in disarray—a room befitting the drama of a sudden disappearance, strewn with broken plates, spilled liquor bottles, a messy sprawl of clothes and papers. I was looking for signs of emotional rampage. I wasn’t prepared for the tidiness. There was something mausoleum-like about it.

  I opened the window and within a few minutes a pigeon had settled on the ledge. I went to the kitchen and found some stale cereal, which I laid out in a line. The pigeon finished its meal and began pecking at its feathers. Noticing its tiny rib cage contract and expand, I felt a sudden protectiveness. I leaned forward, thinking I might try to touch it, but my movement prompted the bird to swoop off the ledge. I watched it drop, then rise again, the white undersides of its wings visible as it flew away. I closed the window.

  I was sitting on the couch again when there was a knock at the door. My heart stopped. I steadied my breathing and went to open it. The caretaker had returned with a few green garbage bags and an empty cardboard box. It was possible that he was apologizing for his earlier brusqueness, or perhaps he was rewarding me for my good manners. I thanked him quickly and closed the door, hung up my coat and returned to the living room, relieved to be alone again.

  The question of where to begin resolved itself immediately. My eyes gravitated to the corner of the room. A patch of white. Andrei’s desk was almost bare: a sharpened pencil, a pad of paper on the recently painted surface. It looked expectant. I walked across the floor and began to prise open the heavy drawers.

  The first thing I came across was a bundle of letters, all written in Romanian on heavy unbleached paper: letters, I assumed, from Andrei’s mother. The sturdy envelopes were scuffed from handling and sealed on the left side with brown censor tape. I opened them all. I was able to see that most of the letters were short, a paragraph or two long, and heavily censored. But there was one that stood apart. The handwriting and signature were the same as the others, but this time the words flowed across several pages without interruption. Not a single word was blacked out. Perplexed, I studied the undamaged envelope and discovered the reason for its preservation: a British stamp. This had to be the letter Andrei’s mother had managed to smuggle out of the country.

  The next thing I found, just under the bundle of letters, was a manila pouch containing a small stack of photographs. I thumbed through them quickly, then put them on top of the desk alongside the letters and a shopping list bordered with Andrei’s intricate doodles. I planned to keep these things. Everything else—the old receipts and bank statements, the paper clips, pencil stubs, near-finished rolls of tape—went into the garbage bag. I was well into the second drawer when I came across a folder containing forms and papers relating to a pending citizenship application. My chest tightened with dread. Had Andrei been planning to stay, then decided to kill himself? The thought was more than I could bear. I grabbed the shopping list I had placed on the desk and read through its mundane contents for comfort: cigarettes, milk, frozen peas, hamburger, toothpaste…

  I should have been braced for anything, but even now the memory of what I found next is
a body blow. I was sifting through the bottom drawer when I found them. There, under a pile of Romanian magazines, was the second batch of letters we had written together in July—envelopes we had addressed to embassies and consulates inquiring about Nicolae’s whereabouts, all carefully typed. I was baffled. The envelopes were still sealed and unsent. I slid a finger into the fold of one envelope and tore it open, being careful not to rip the stationery. Inside was a letter we had composed to the Turkish consulate. My heart sank.

  I moved back to the couch, spread the photos, papers and letters out in front of me, and began leafing through it all, piece by piece. I examined each photo. They were a variety of sizes, some in colour, others in black and white. Most of them were dated after Andrei’s arrival in Canada. Photos taken during a field trip with his ESL class. A snapshot of Baba and his wife sitting on an outdoor sculpture by Henry Moore. But the one that captured my attention was the small snapshot of Nicolae and Andrei standing in the grass. As far as I could tell, it was the only Romanian photo left in the apartment, which led me to believe that it had been somehow overlooked in Andrei’s hurry to leave. The first time Andrei showed it to me, I had remarked on how happy they looked. There was no hint of tension or distance.

  I put the picture back in the envelope with the others and picked up a brown folder. It was full of photocopied newspaper articles reporting on missing men, some accompanied by photographs or police sketches. I knew the contents of these articles from months before; rereading them would only deepen my depression.

  I held the folder on my lap, sitting perfectly still, staring into space as the minutes passed. Finally, I shifted in my seat, maybe I crossed my legs. In either case, the slight adjustment caused the folder to tilt. The contents started to cascade to the floor. It took me a second to right the folder but by then it was too late. The pages were scattered at my feet—a small but fateful mishap, for my clumsiness had its rewards. Among the papers that fell was a half-finished letter addressed to me. It was composed on a sheet of bond paper. A slippery piece of fax paper was folded up inside of it.