Chapter 59
Frida Rodriguez ... En Route
February 13, 1994
Paris, France
Fair Kate,
I couldn’t believe it when the guy at AmEx handed me the envelope. $600! How? Booksellers don’t make that kind of dough. I put Lejla in charge of it and she put Faith in charge because she says Faith is impartial, plus she has one of those new digital notebooks with a program called Quicken for keeping track of money. Faith is working with the Ramonas to figure out priorities. A rent fund? Food? Cotton candy from the cart at the Eiffel Tower? That request is Branka’s. They’re so moved by your generosity – especially since it feels like the siege is never going to end.
What’s the Clinton administration thinking? Operation Provide Santa? A lot of good fifty tons of air-dropped toys and kids’ clothes will do when innocent people are STILL being shot in the streets! I don’t get how people can care so much about Tonya Harding when the Serb forces bombed another market and killed sixty-eight people.
I’m struggling with my essay. I can’t believe it’s been more than a year since I was in Bosnia. I’m still wrapping my head around what happened when I was there. The Nazis burned twenty million books, but that wasn’t all in one place. About two million books and special collections were destroyed in one single night in Sarajevo. I’ve tried writing from different angles, but I’m not capturing what it really felt like. I know I’m not going to be a WJD, but I picked up The Face of War again. It’s different now that I’ve actually been in a war because I can understand that there was only so far Martha could take me into the experience. And she had to do it exactly right, guiding my imagination to the feelings that are impossible to put into words. That’s the real skill, Kate. Leading the reader to their own empathy beyond yours so it has meaning for them and stays with them when they finish reading.
Fine – gloat about Kirby! You have every right to since I’m missing him like some kind of maniac. He decided to stay in Vietnam for the Lunar New Year, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught myself walking down the hall to his room to tell him something before I remember he’s gone. Every time it happens, a wave of melodramatic emotions washes over me, like I’m one of those pining heroines in the romance novels you read in junior high. Enough said!
Congratulations on being an essential part of the bookstore. I’m not surprised. I told you from the start. You have more going for you than knowing how to wrap a gift.
I want to tell you that having the New York convo with your parents will be no big deal, but I’m not in any shape to give family-related reassurances right now. Mom hasn’t responded to my letter. Do you think she hates me?
Uneasily yours,
Frida