I'll Let You Go (68 page)

I robbed myself of having known you—and this, along with having done harm to your mother's heart, has broken mine. But you must be assured that even should you choose not to know ME or speak with me again, and while I would be utterly respectful of your feelings, I shall never leave you and shall always honour you as my progeny; for you are a brave and wondrous boy—this I know without having been told. You have nothing to fear from me, for I have only the deepest and most abiding awe for a boy called Toulouse. Awe, and a father's kindest love!

Marcus

PS: I have had it with the JINNAS; they will not take me away again. (Ask your grandfather about the latter; it is not a raving but rather a metaphor.) SALUD!

My Darling Will—Her is the Booke you wantd me to Look after. And I have kild the man who did tern you in and also akuse you of Terible things that shold not be saed of anie personn. He saed you wold be Kild in jael and I had to reek Vengenke. He is the saem man who has taken me to Bed by Forse. I did this with him becos he Threaded you with Vengenke—he sae he kno you from downtow. But wen you were takken by the Poliec, it did not matter Any mor. Also, I am carieing a Chylde. I am sory to say it is not yurs. It is a Man what rapid me. But not the Man who I kild. I am telling Evrythgn you now tho it Hurtts me so, Will! Becos yuou must kno! I am NTO a Hore. I am a good womon who have Terible Luch. I am lovin you So Muc now, Will! I have ridden this with out help from the Butifull Gremar Book you gav me and wich I will hav ben Stuedyingy soon. I thot you mite lik to know that, Signned, Your Own Jane Scull.

Ps. I hav bin told ttha in T
WIN
T
OWWER
J
AIL
, one of the T
OWWERS
J
AILS
is for Woman. So if you feele I shold Tern Mysel in for the Kiling, we cold vissit, If that is alowd.

Pss. I hav left this note instedt of Seeing you and wantd too so muche. but I cuold not say these Things to yor face? and thot you wolde not Love me anymor. I hop I am wrong. Plaese rite bak soon.

From Yor deerest friend, who loves You as a Wif. Jane

But O, sick children of the world
,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings
Words alone are certain good
.

—W. B. Yeats

Marcus—I hardly know where to begin.
I'm writing this for myself—
I fled the holidays to a favorite desert spa but now I'm house-sitting for a client who's in a balmier place. It's been done up rather Balinese, Rangooney(?) too, with Tabriz rugs, Tang-this and Ming-that. In the middle of it all—or should I say the front—the long low fascia trimmed in copper. Not very “me” but then that's probably a good thing.

Funny, but I have begun writing you, in my head anyhow, at least a hundred times in the last month but now the stars, literally, seem right. There's a mystic hair-raising wind peculiar to this corridor that shivers the soul—always a spur to confessionals. I'm seated at a white linen outdoor table beside a great black maw of golf course. A handsome young man in a rather frayed monkey suit just brought me a steak and (nonalcohol) martini—O God, suddenly I'm writing short stories again, trying to please the professors with an undergrad lyrical turn of phrase—

I can't care, or I'll never write a word. I don't even know who you are—but Father tells me you're making terrific progress and I'm happy for you because I can't imagine the horrors you've endured in your odyssey. I've had my share of agony and if I sometimes
did not know or bother where I was, I always had the luxury (curse?) of money and a roof over my head. Maybe those things aren't so important after all; tho I don't wish to be presumptuous and romanticize what happened to you. That's always been my impulse, isn't it? I fight it still—finding the “Zen” bit in what for you was surely catastrophic. It was catastrophic for me too. Anyway, Father assured he's given over scant details to you of my life after we married; since I seem to know a bit about
yours
, it's only fair I attempt to enlighten.

I traveled quite a bit at first

(two hours later now) the morning you vanished, a part of me vanished too (oh, hideous cliché!). For a while, I naturally feared for your life, because the disappearance made no sense. How could it? Initially, we thought you'd been kidnapped—did Father tell you how certain he was he would be contacted for ransom? As for shell-shocked me, I retreated to the topmost room of that dreadful tower, all the while hating that we'd ever discovered the Colonne. Bluey finally pried me out. Doctors gave me pills for depression and pills for sleep; I didn't learn I was pregnant till ten weeks later (my period had stopped but I chalked that up to the general trauma—is this Too Much Information?) and all those enforced Rx's gave me a fright I'd done damage to our son …

Is this painful to read? Or do you feel nothing? Do you even remember who I am or what we had together? I ask not to wound you, but—truly, Marcus, I don't wish to make you suffer but I
must
talk aloud in the tribal sense and free myself from that castle aerie. What could be more painful than what has already happened? I'd like to try to impart the history of the years since you left, without malice—I have no “malicious intent.” If my words are crude, forgive me. You were always the writer in the family.

My life became a “psychological” melodrama—I drew comfort telling myself you'd had a prescient glimpse of something awful, and you feared you might hurt me and
that
is why you went away … some dream you had that night of our wedding, that perhaps you saw yourself tossing me from the bloody tower; I was very Gothic!—had to tell myself you loved me that much. I know now there was no real explanation and never will be; I've always detested
people who search for motive. Your illness is a cunning one but as your progress attests, the miracles of modern medicine may finally be rooting it out

nothing to do all those years but kneel at the altar of your unfathomable illness. I understood for the first time why my brother collects abandoned buildings—there's a purity and a longing for something frozen between what-once-was and what-will-never-be-again. That's what the tower became for me. I took to visiting it at night and still sometimes do (but haven't for months)—now I
do
tell too much! Always my flaw.
Your
flaw was that you resembled those in my tribe—the tribe that tells too much—when in fact you told too
little
or said nothing at all with your torrent of words.

It wasn't your fault …

I left L.A.,
had
to, but where could I go? On top of everything, I was so embarrassed! The ego dies hard. I couldn't deal with talking to my society “friends” (all of whom flew in for the wedding)—because of my silence, some very
strange
rumors began to circulate about what had happened … drugs and satanic murders and what-have-you—I didn't want to know! It was quite the Hollywood scandale. I flew around the world, morning (and mourning) sickness in every time zone.
Absolutely crazed
—even retracing the footsteps of our Paris trip—at least I had the good sense not to revisit the Colonne, for that would have finished me off—and wound up at the Plaza Athénée, literally back in our old suite, immobilized. Do you remember when I kept vigil there after your long walk to Versailles? Our son was born at La Croix Saint-Simon … I named him Toulouse—after your little joke. By then, the joke of my life seemed utterly cosmic … and there was something spritely about “Toulouse,” something playful and musical and unburdening.

I knew I had to get him home because I was secretly planning to become Debra Winger from
The Sheltering Sky
and go wandering in the desert (somewhere a bit more exotic than where I am now) and get boffed by gorgeous nomads until I lost my mind. So I dropped off our Toulouse at Saint-Cloud and began my peregrinations …

I've scanned the above and see I'm babbling like an ass so I'll do the noble, foolish thing and give this to the driver to take to Montecito—tho I'd rather give it to one of those pigeons who specialize
in airmail delivery. Feels like a message in a bottle. There I go mixing metaphors again. I do not wish you to answer this—it was not written to begin a correspondence. I don't mean that to sound passive-aggressive; you've probably had enough of “jargon”!

I will not read anything you write so please do not bother—I wrote this for
myself
. The worst part is, I know that if I was still seeing a therapist myself, he'd applaud me!

Wishing You the Best,
Katrina Trotter

Marcus,

Please
discount what I wrote. Clearly, there is too much—and too little—to put in a letter. I feel now I was overwrought; there has been so much pent up in my mind. I shouldn't have sent it but it was too late to get back. The shrinks say that one is supposed to write those things then burn them, or put them in the mailbox with no address … how
typical of me to fuck it up
. There is really nothing that can be said. I
do
wish you well, and hope I did not stir anything up that will make things difficult for you; or any more difficult than they already are. I reiterate that was not my intention. I do, sincerely, wish you the best.

Katrina Trotter

M.—I feel my last entry did not say all I wished. I'm writing this final “installment” to say I am attached to you, not only through our son, but because I've spent so many years feeling your absence. I told Toulouse a lie—that you were dead—and in truth it was a half-lie, because you were all but dead to me, and to him. But in time he found out otherwise, as I suppose I knew he would, and set out to find you. He is an amazing boy. Marcus, if you feel you'd like
to see him that is up to Toulouse and, of course, my father, to arrange. I would not stand in the way of that. So when I said I do not wish to see or hear from you, I didn't want you to draw the impression I was ruling over you or would hold back my son from visiting. That is not who I am or what I'm about.

I wanted to clarify this because I would not like to wake up one morning and be told you have gone again without seeing our son, if in fact a visit is something
he too
would like to have. If Toulouse wished to see you but did not because of an impression you got from one of my letters, I would never forgive myself.

I just wanted to make that clear, as I felt it wasn't from the previous correspondence. I hope you are continuing to make progress and remain well, and that nothing I have written is puzzling or upsetting to you.

It has been a great help to be able to write these things down and send them. Perhaps I have made a mistake. If indeed I have, then forgive me. I do not wish a response; I wish things were different, or that I felt differently, but I have long since moved on in my head and in my heart.

Sincerely,
Katrina