The other day at the brocante, I found a stack of letters written during World War Two (WWII) between a husband and his wife. At first, I was drawn to them because of how they were worn and stacked in perfect order. You might say the "art factor" attracted me. Then the dealer, seeing that I didn't get the letters' real significance, told me they were written during WWII.
I asked him how much he wanted for them.
He wanted half of France, or close to it; he wanted more than I wanted to pay.
I told him I did not read French very well and wanted them because they looked attractive, a conversational piece of art, a living coffee tabletop book, but letters instead. He shook his head, "You don't understand their worth."
"I'll give you five euros." I might as well have stabbed him in the heart; he looked so shocked. Then I mentioned that my son liked history and would read it to me, and I batted my eyes and said, "Pretty please with sugar on it." (Or at least that is what I thought I was saying in French, most likely, I said, "Please with sugar.")
Flirting works. Sorry, but it does. I got the letters for five Euros.
Later, while my friend Nathalie waited for me as I carried rolls of linen to the car, she started to read the letters. When I returned, she had tears in her eyes, "These letters are incredible; they are full of emotion."
At that point, I felt terrible that I had bartered for history with flirtation.
When I got home, I put the letters on the kitchen table.
The next day, after breakfast, French Husband and Sacha carefully opened the letters. The letters had a hypnotic power, and they read in complete silence. Every now and then, they would look up at each other, share a line or two, and then bury their heads back into a time long ago.
Annie, my ninety-year-old dear friend, has shared her stories of WWII with me. When she talks about her past, her eyes glaze over, and I see her go back to when she was a young girl by her parent's side.
Annie has shared that when the Americans arrived, they had "chewing gum" and "chocolate." The American soldiers gave it to the children.
Later, the troop heard that Annie's mother had the best homemade soup—soup made with vegetables from her garden. They traded chewing gum and chocolate for bowls of soup.
Most of Annie's stories are not as dark as those in the letters.
The letters are written from Lyon, where the war raged bitterly.
The letters always start with "My big love." Rarely do they mention any names instead they refer to people they know as "The one who worked at the bakery" or "The one who used to live underneath us." They never say the enemy's names for fear that the letters might be opened and used against them or, worse, destroyed.
The letters talk about how the enemy gathered the children, using them as human shields as they maneuvered from town to town, and how farms were ramshackle and burned to the ground. "The Wife" mentions how she felt safer *in the city, "...which is being bombed daily, than in the country."
*Her husband had taken his wife and child to the country assuming it was safer.
Later, she talks about a butter factory that was raided, and the butter burned—just to belittle, to taunt us in the face of slow starvation.
She goes on to mention a small village of thirty-five residents, where she had thought to live safely, though over half were murdered in one day.
"Whenever we hear a gunshot, we know someone is dying. Many are dying."
They write, in detail, often coded evidence of fear, anguish, and love for one another.
Sacha and French Husband read ever so slowly a few letters, often stopping... casting a distant look out the window in deep thought, then continuing without a word.
The handwriting is exceptionally small. French Husband told me that was because paper was scarce at the time, and posting a letter was expensive—in more ways than one.
Often, the letters were written on mixed-match pieces of scrap paper. Their need to "talk" to one another, to share what they were witnessing, to be present to each other through the details of how they were surviving. They found paper and a mail carrier out of their healing balm for one another.
I kept thinking how much they loved each other. Can you imagine walking to the post office or a drop-off zone to mail a letter in a war-torn zone? That is commitment.
"I do not know if I could have done that," I said to the men in my life who were engrossed in reading. French Husband looked up at me with sad eyes. I felt terrible that he looked at me like that,
"Love motivates, but gee, so does fear!" I said in defense.
He looked up again, and then I realized he was listening to the voices in the letter and not me.
XOXO in French "Gros Bisous".
Sacha pointed to the curled-back envelope. "Look, Mom," he said. He knows I love the random, unplanned spirit of love moving in the unconscious hand of time.
Food for thought.
French Husband says he will read the letters slowly. He is methodical like that, and it teaches me to harbor my excitement and not open all the letters to pick them apart for a quick fix.
I hope to post as French Husband and Sacha read them to me. I wanted to read the last letter, but the two of them would not have it; I guess I am outnumbered and on the wrong side of the fence.
What side of the fence are you on?
Sidenote: In Palestine, there isn't any mail service. Plus, Israel will not allow the foreign press to enter. Their tragic news, painful messages, and horrific devastation are shared on the Internet through Instagram, TICTOC, Meta, and Snap, which has become their voice; I have been sharing their stories on my Instagram.
