18.

The Letters Stay Home

Requiem City · AGH 57

Ilen Firth chose the fair copy. Siora put the untidy sheet beside it.

“This is the one you want.”

“That is the one I can't read.”

“You can read the drawing.”

Ilen drew the page nearer. The table was almost covered: Andrea's teaching notes, two shallow trays, a padded practice guard whose leather had dried around the curve of a forearm. Siora had put the tea on the windowsill. She could reach it from her chair, although getting Ilen's cup to them now required a journey around the end of the table.

Ilen followed the penciled arrow with the blunt end of their pencil. It ran between two small drawings of a fighter's feet. One rear foot had been crossed out and redrawn closer to the other.

“A shorter step?”

“Try the first one.”

The curator looked down at the space between their chair and the table.

“You have room.”

Ilen stood. They were a substantial human, neatly dressed, with dense black coils gathered away from a long, deep-brown face. A little piece of white thread clung to one sleeve. Siora had been wanting to remove it since they arrived.

“Further,” she said.

Ilen moved their leading foot.

“Now come back.”

They had to move their weight back before they could lift the front foot. They stopped and looked at the drawing again.

“Oh. I have to move everything.”

“Exactly.”

Ilen tried the shorter step. Then, without being asked, they tried the long one again.

“The fair copy doesn't tell you why.” They sat down. “We should put these together.”

Siora brought them their tea.

Andrea, her wife, had died two years ago. Visitors still occasionally arrived prepared to sit opposite Siora and be sorry, and Siora could generally find something for them to do before they began. Ilen had spread their work over the table within minutes. They had asked which papers were included in the teaching permission, whether the guard could travel without further damage to its lining, and how much of the back of the annotated sheet a visitor would need to see.

So far they had not asked how she was managing.

“The other way around,” Siora said as they laid the pages side by side.

“They'll see the clean one first as they enter.”

“I want them to see her change it.”

“Then we need the crossing-out on the left.”

Siora moved the clean copy.

“Your other left.”

She looked up. Ilen's pencil was waiting above the plan.

“You can say that more pleasantly.”

“I thought I had.”

Siora moved the annotated page instead. Ilen made two little rectangles on their plan, then tilted one so its drawn edge stopped obstructing the other. They had brought small pieces of thin board to stand for the exhibition tables. The largest was empty.

“And the guard?” Siora asked.

Ilen picked it up by the stiff cuff. “May it lie open?”

“It wants to curl up.”

“We'll support it.” They turned it over. “Are these repairs?”

“Those holes are. The lacing used to be there.”

“Why did she move it?”

Siora slid her hand into the guard. At the old holes the edge of the padding pressed a ridge against her wrist. She showed them. Ilen put a finger against the ridge, then took it away and made another mark on the plan.

“That side toward the room,” they said. “People can see it.”

“If they look.”

“They will. Not everybody reads.”

They drank their tea without looking away from the little arrangement. Siora reached across to move the spare tray and uncovered the note she had left beneath it that morning: a friend's invitation to supper the following evening. She set it on the mantel, beside the tied bundle that had been in the way when she cleared the table.

Ilen glanced toward it.

“Are those Andrea's too?”

Siora's hand remained on the knot. “Letters.”

“To you?”

“Yes.”

Ilen looked back at the empty board. “Would you consider letting us show one?”

The question had arrived in the same voice as the question about the guard. Siora turned the bundle so its loose tie hung down at the back.

“What would you do with it?”

“Put it here.” Ilen touched the empty board. “Not among the exercises. We have an upright case coming, if I can fill it. A portrait above, perhaps, and something in her own hand beneath it.”

“Those are in her own hand.”

“Yes. But someone who has never wanted to learn to fight can walk past them. I want them to stop.”

Siora could see that. Ilen's pencil had drawn a small person at the entrance, a broad-shouldered oblong with no feet. It stood exactly where a visitor would decide which way to go.

“You would choose the page,” Ilen said. “Or a passage. You needn't lend the whole letter.”

She looked at the little figure. It could become a woman with a child, or someone who had come in out of the rain and put down the price of a ticket because the room was warm. They might go away saying Andrea's name. They might say it to each other on the way home.

“How large is the case?”

Ilen gave its dimensions and spread their hands. It was wider than Siora had imagined.

“We can set out the whole arrangement at the workroom,” they said. “It won't all fit on this table.”

“No,” Siora said, looking at the cups stranded on opposite sides of it. “I noticed.”

They were expected back there later that afternoon. Siora could come with them, once the permitted notes were packed. She left the letters on the mantel and went to find something softer for the guard.

*   *   *

In 51, Andrea had conducted the sorting at this same table with a saucer on either side of her, though only one contained a cup.

The other held the pieces she was tearing off the edges of badly cut paper.

“You could use the knife,” Siora said.

“It would take longer to find it.”

“It's beside your elbow.”

Andrea looked down. She put the torn strip in the saucer and reached for the next page.

“I have nearly finished.”

Siora sat opposite her. A folder of selected exercises lay open between them. The fair copy and the sheet with the shortened step were already inside. Andrea had agreed to let them be used for teaching, and now she was rejecting papers Siora had thought would certainly go in. One had a blot at the center with three separate attempts to turn it into part of a diagram.

“Keep that one.”

“It leaves out the return.”

“You've written it underneath.”

“I've written that I left it out.”

Siora pulled the sheet a little toward herself. “It might do them good to discover you could make a mistake.”

“They can ask anyone I've taught.”

“This would save time.”

Andrea held out her hand for the page. Siora let her have it.

“If they start with that, they'll copy it,” Andrea said. “Then someone has to go around correcting all their feet. Where's the other version?”

It was under Siora's arm. She lifted her elbow. Andrea drew the sheet free, checked it, and put it in the folder.

“You like the blot,” she said.

“It gives the figure character.”

“It gives it a third leg.”

Andrea gathered the rejected sheets into another pile. When she reached the household correspondence, she moved it behind her cup without unfolding anything. Siora took the saucer of paper scraps away so there was room to close the folder.

“Only these, then?”

“These. The loose page belongs at the back.”

Siora put it there. She could still see the unfortunate three-legged figure among the papers Andrea was keeping.

“You're not going to throw that out?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“You're not putting it back in, either.”

Siora picked up the knife and trimmed the last ragged edge. Andrea watched her put the narrow strip into the saucer.

“That was quick,” Siora said.

“You had already found the knife.”

*   *   *

That afternoon in 57, Ilen brought her to a workroom with two tall windows and an unfortunate door that opened over the only clear patch of floor. They went in sideways, carrying the portfolio above a stack of empty frames. Siora followed with the guard in its cloth. Someone had left a broom balanced across two trestles. Ilen moved it, found there was no good place for it, and stood it just inside the door.

“Don't let me forget that's there.”

They put the notes on a table under the window. Afternoon light made the brown stains at the corners nearly transparent. The central display was mocked up in plain boards: two low sections, an upright panel behind, and a chair positioned where the doorway to the eventual exhibition room would be.

“Start there,” Ilen said.

Siora sat in the chair.

“Standing.”

“You gave me a chair.”

“To mark the place.”

She got up and Ilen brought the pages into her line of sight, holding them against their pale backing. From there the arrows were distinct. They had been lost among everything else at home. Next came the guard, curled on its side with a roll of cloth supporting it; the two rows of holes made sense even from the doorway.

Siora stepped closer. Ilen watched where she stopped, then shifted the low board a few inches so she could move around its corner.

“People come in pairs,” they said. “One stands in front of the thing the other wants.”

She moved the guard nearer the edge.

“There?”

“That will work.”

Above it, a piece of blank paper marked the proposed portrait. Below was the empty place for the letters. The whole arrangement had a welcome to it. She could see herself beside it, showing someone the old lacing holes, being interrupted by another visitor who had stopped at Andrea's handwriting. She had already begun to choose a sheet.

Ilen picked up a narrow card from the windowsill.

“One of the donors suggested this. It would go here.”

They held it above the blank letter panel.

The work began at home.

Siora read it twice. It was neatly written, with plenty of space between the words.

“What work?”

“Her teaching. Yours. What people know you both for.”

“They would come from that to the notes?”

“Past the guard. Then they can see the two versions together.”

Ilen shifted the card until it was level.

“It doesn't have to be that wording,” Ilen said.

“Let me see it without that.”

Ilen laid the card on the table. A different line could be shorter, warmer, less apt to make the room sound like an extension of her office. She could give Ilen something better. With a little work they could make the panel very beautiful.

Someone would stand where she was standing and explain the letter to a companion. They would point out the part they had come to see, then move on to the exercises. She would have chosen it for that.

“What happens if we leave this out?” She touched the empty panel.

“The letters?”

“Yes.”

They looked from the panel to the notes. “We lose the center.”

“Could the notes go there?”

“They could. It would be a smaller exhibition.”

Siora waited. Ilen turned the card facedown.

“A smaller draw, too, I think. Someone may come a long way to see a letter. These are good teaching papers, but we can't advertise them in the same way.”

She looked at the pages in their narrow pools of light. Ilen had done good work with them. It had taken less than half an hour to make the change visible, and she had enjoyed nearly all of it.

“Can you still use them?”

“Yes.”

“Then you may. And the guard. I won't lend the letters.”

Ilen's hand stayed on the edge of the upright board.

“Would you allow a copy? A few lines you chose yourself?”

“No.”

They glanced at the place she had touched. She did not supply another answer.

Outside, a cart passed the windows. Something loose knocked against its side at every turn of a wheel. Ilen waited until the noise had gone, then drew their ruler out of the portfolio.

“I need to lose one of these wings.”

They measured the left board, wrote the length on its edge, and measured the space under the upright panel. Siora watched. When she reached to take the notes off the board, they said, “Leave those a moment, please,” and she took her hand away.

The ruler was too short. Ilen stretched a cord between two points, marked it with their thumb and transferred the length to the table. Their pencil made a new rectangle across the old plan. They set the notes on the table, lifted the left wing off its supports and leaned it against the wall.

“We could hang the fair copy above the annotated one. People would have to look down to find what changed.”

“Won't that hide the lower arrow?”

Ilen stooped to Siora's side of the table and looked.

“Yes. Damn.”

They moved the upper sheet left, then raised the lower backing. Siora held it while they found a block to fit beneath it. This time the arrow and the crossed-out foot could both be seen.

“Like that,” she said.

“A little higher.”

She raised it.

Ilen sat in the chair at the imagined doorway, considered the arrangement, and moved the guard to the other side. They left the central upright bare for the moment. The note about the letters stayed facedown beneath the ruler.

They made a list of the material Siora was lending. She checked it at the window, where she could see the small writing at the bottom. Ilen had remembered the loose teaching page that belonged at the back of the folder. They had also remembered to specify a support for the guard instead of trying to force its curve flat.

“Do you want the cloth back now?” they asked.

“Use it for carrying.”

“I'll send it back with the rest.”

She left them drawing a less generous rectangle on the clean side of the plan. At the door she picked up the broom, put it beside the stack of frames, and told them where it was.

*   *   *

At home the empty places on the table needed wiping. Siora carried the cups to the kitchen and found she was hungry. There was bread, and a little of yesterday's supper in a covered bowl. She ate it standing by the counter, then fetched a chair and finished the bread sitting down.

The letters were still on the mantel.

She took the bundle to the table after she had lit the lamp. The tie had pulled tight while she was turning it earlier. She worked a fingernail under the knot, loosened it and chose a letter from the middle.

It opened along the wrong fold. She knew which way it wanted to go and flattened it with the side of her hand.

She began to smile before she reached the end of the first page. A little later she laughed, unexpectedly loudly in the room. She went back to the beginning of the sentence and read it again.

Then she rested the letter on the table. Her fingers stayed at its lower edge. The lamp made the small ridges in the paper visible; she smoothed one with her thumb, stopped, and sat for a while without turning the page.

When she was ready, she finished reading.

The troublesome crease caught again as she folded it. She opened it out, tried from the other side, and produced a corner sticking out where no corner ought to be. Andrea's handwriting disappeared inside it.

“Oh, for—”

She flattened the sheet on the table and did the whole thing over. This time it closed. She put it back in the bundle and carried the letters to the drawer where they usually lived, beside a box of buttons and the things she had never found another place for.

The invitation was alone on the mantel. She took it down and wrote her reply. Yes, tomorrow. She would bring the large dish if they still needed it.

She put the reply by the door for the morning, then found the dish at the back of the cupboard. It was heavier than she remembered and not entirely clean. She washed it and set it on the kitchen table to dry.

After that she turned out the lamp.