The Swan Thieves

The Swan Thieves Page 5

I hadn't intended at first to take the letters off the Goldengrove property, but at the end of the day I put them in my briefcase. On Saturday morning I called my friend Zoe, who teaches French literature at Georgetown University. Zoe is one of the women I dated when I first came to Washington years ago, and we've remained good friends, especially since I didn't feel strongly enough about her to regret her terminating our relationship. She made excellent occasional company to a play or a concert, and I think she felt the same about me.

The phone rang twice before she answered. "Marlow?" Her voice was businesslike, as always, but also affectionate. "How nice that you called. I was thinking about you the other week."

"Why didn't you call me, then?" I asked.

"Grading papers," she said. "I haven't called anyone."

"I forgive you, in that case," I replied sarcastically, since that's our custom. "I'm glad you're done with the papers, because I have a possible project for you."

"Oh, Marlow." I could hear her doing something in her kitchen as she talked to me; her kitchen dates from just after the Revolutionary War and is the size of my hall closet. "Marlow, I don't need any projects. I'm writing a book, as you know from paying at least a little attention these last three years."

"I know, dear," I said. "But this is something you'll like, exactly your period--I think--and I want you to see it. Come over this afternoon and I'll ask you out to dinner."

"It must be worth a lot to you," she said. "I can't do dinner, but I'll come over at five--I'm going to Dupont Circle after that."

"You have a date," I said approvingly. I was a little shocked to realize how long it had been since I'd had anything like a date. How had so much time slipped by me?

"You bet I do," Zoe said.

We sat in my living room, unfolding the letters Robert had carried on him even during his attack at the museum. Zoe's coffee was cooling off; she hadn't even started it. She'd aged a little since I'd last seen her, in some way that made her olive skin look weary and her hair dry. But her eyes were narrow and bright, as always, and I remembered that I must be aging in her sight, too. "Where did you get these?" she asked. "A cousin sent them to me."

"A French cousin?" She looked skeptical. "Do you have French roots I don't know about?"

"Not particularly." I hadn't planned this well. "I guess she got them at an antique shop or someplace and thought they would interest me because I like to read history."

She was scanning the first one now, with gentle hands and a keen glance. "Are they all from eighteen seventy-seven through seventy-nine?"

"I don't know. I haven't looked through them thoroughly. I was afraid to because they're so fragile, and what I saw, I couldn't understand much of."

She opened another. "It would take me some time to read them properly, because of the handwriting, but they seem to be letters from a woman to her uncle, and vice versa, as you've already figured out, and some of them are about painting and drawing. Maybe that's why your cousin thought they'd interest you."

"Maybe." I tried not to peer over her shoulder.

"Let me take one that's in better condition and translate it for you. You're right--that might be fun. But I don't think I can do them all--it's incredibly time-consuming, you know, and I have to get on with my book right away."

"I will pay you generously, to be blunt."

"Oh." She thought this over. "Well, that would be welcome, I have to say. Let me give one or two a try first."

We worked out a fee and I thanked her. "But just do them all," I said. "Please. Send me the translation by regular mail, not electronically. You can send them a couple at a time, as you get to them." I couldn't bring myself to explain that I wanted to receive them as letters, real letters, so I didn't try. "And if you can work without the originals, let's walk to the corner and photocopy them, in case something happens. You can take the copies with you. Do you have time?"

"Ever-careful Marlow," she said. "Nothing will happen, but that's a good idea. Let me drink my coffee first and tell you all about my affaire de coeur."

"Don't you want to hear about mine?"

"Certainly, but there will be nothing to tell."

"That's true," I said, "so you go ahead."

When we parted at the office-supply store, she with the crisp photocopies and I with my letters--Robert's, actually--I went back home and thought about grilling a sandwich, drinking half a bottle of wine, and going to a movie by myself.

I set the letters on my coffee table, then refolded them along their worn lines and put them into the envelope, arranging them so they wouldn't knock against one another, with their fragile edges. I thought about the hands that had touched them, once upon a time, a woman's delicate hands and a man's--his would have been older, of course, if he'd been her uncle. Then Robert's big square hands, tanned and rather worn. Zoe's short, inquisitive ones. And my own.

I went to the living-room window, one of my favorite views: the street, lapped and laced with branches that have shaded it for decades, since long before I moved in, the old stoops of the brown-stones on the other side, the ornate railings and balconies, blocks built in the 1880s. The evening was golden after days of rain; the pear trees had finished their bloom and were a rich green now. I gave up my idea of a movie. It was a perfect night to stay home in peace. I was working on a portrait from a photograph of my father, to send for his birthday--I could make some progress on that. I put on my Franck Violin Sonata and went into the kitchen for a cup of soup.