Myfirst commissioned work was to write letters for her. You write for me,honey? she would say, holding out a ball-point she had been given at agrocery store promotion, clicking it like a castanet. My fee was cookies andmilk, payable before, during, and after completion of the project.
Isettled down at her kitchen table while she rooted around the drawer where shekept coupons and playing cards and bank calendars. Eventually she located apiece of stationery and a mismatched envelope. She laid the small, pastel sheetbefore me, smoothing it out; a floral motif was clotted across the top of thepage and bled down one side. The paper was so insubstantial even ballpoint inkseeped through the other side. Thats OK, she would say. Weonly need one side.
True.In life she was a gifted gossip, unfurling an extended riff of chatter from abare motif of rumor. But her writing style displayed a brevity that madeHemingways prose look like nattering garrulity. She dictated her letters as ifshe were paying by the word.
DearSister, she began, followed by a little time-buying cough and throatclearing. We are all well here. Pause. And hope you are welltoo. Longer pause, the steamy broth of inspiration heating up on her sideof the table. Then, in a lurch, Winter is hard so I dont get outmuch.
Thiswas followed instantly by an unconquerable fit of envy: Not like you inCalifornia. Then she came to a complete halt, perhaps demoralized by thisevidence that you cant put much on paper before you betray your secret self,try as you will to keep things civil.
Shesat, she brooded, she stared out the window. She was locked in the perversereticence of composition. She gazed at me, but I understood she did not see me.She was looking for her next thought. Read what I wrote, she wouldfinally say, having lost not only what she was looking for but what she alreadyhad pinned down. I went over the little trail of sentences that led to her deadend.
Moresilence, then a sigh. She gave up the ghost. Put God bless you, she said. She reached across to see the lean rectangle of words on the paper.Now leave some space, she said, and put Love. Ihanded over the paper for her to sign.
Shealways asked if her signature looked nice. She wrote her one word - Teresa -with a flourish. For her, writing was painting, a visual art, not declarativebut sensuous.
Shesent her lean documents regularly to her only remaining sister who lived in LosAngeles, a place she had not visited. They had last seen each other as childrenin their village in Bohemia. But she never mentioned that or anything from thatworld. There was no taint of reminiscence in her prose.
Evenat ten I was appalled by the minimalism of these letters. They enraged me.Is that all you have to say? I would ask her, a nasty edge to myvoice.
Itwasnt long before I began padding the text. Without telling her, I added ananecdote my father had told at dinner the night before, or I conducted thisunknown reader through the heavy plot of my brothers attempt to make firststring on the St. Thomas hockey team. I allowed myself a descriptive aria onthe beauty of Minnesota winters . A little ofthis, a little of that - there was always something I could toss into my grandmothersmeager soup to thicken it up.