The Historian
Barley stood beside me in my father's hotel room, contemplating the mess, but he was quicker to see what I had missed - the papers and books on the bed. We found a tattered copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new history of medieval heresies in southern France, and a very old-looking volume on European vampire lore.
Among the books lay papers, including notes in his own hand, and among these a scattering of postcards in a hand completely unfamiliar to me, a fine dark ink, neat and minute. Barley and I began of one accord - again, how glad I was not to be alone - to search through everything, and my first instinct was to gather up the postcards. They were ornamented with stamps from a rainbow of countries: Portugal, France, Italy, Monaco, Finland, Austria. The stamps were pristine, without postmarks. Sometimes the message on a card ran over onto four or five more, neatly numbered. Most astonishingly, each was signed "Helen Rossi." And each was addressed to me.
Barley, looking over my shoulder, took in my astonishment, and we sat down together on the edge of the bed. The first was from Rome - a black-and-white photograph of the skeletal remains of the Forum.
My beloved daughter: In what language should I write to you, the child of my heart and my body, whom I have not seen in more than five years? We should have been speaking together all this time, a no-language of small sounds and kisses, glances, murmuring. It is so difficult for me to think about, to remember what I have missed, that I have to stop writing today, when I have only started trying.
The second was a color postcard, already fading, of flowers and urns - "Jardins de Boboli - The Gardens of Boboli - Boboli."
May 1962
Your loving mother,
Helen Rossi Barley and I looked at each other, and he put his arm softly around my neck.