The Lost Art of Letter Writing by Praag Menna van

Author:Praag, Menna van [Praag, Menna van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adult, Contemporary, Fantasy, Romance
ISBN: 0749021004
Google: X2s4DQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0749021004
Goodreads: 32905835
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2017-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

There is no longer any reason for Clara to see Mr Akkersijk. He’s translated all the letters and the search for Otto has been met with only dead ends. It’s time for her to leave Amsterdam and return to England. She has responsibilities; she has people who need her. Lately, Clara has been dreaming about the shop, about the inhabitants of Cambridge who are waiting, though they don’t know it, for her letters. She wakes in her B&B in the middle of the night, sitting up sharply, nearly banging her head on the sloped attic ceiling, sticky with sweat and out of breath. Her mother has been leaving ever-increasing numbers of messages on her phone. Clara should catch the next train home. But she won’t. There’s something she must do first. Though she has absolutely no idea how she’s going to manage it, or if, indeed, it is even possible. Yet her longing – unexpected and inexplicable – for Mr Akkersijk has reached such heights that it will not leave her alone and, so Clara imagines, the only way to overcome her desire is to feed it, fulfil it, to sate and satisfy it. Then she can return to Cambridge unburdened, without regret.

So she finds the most appealing dress she owns among her luggage – she’s been washing everything by hand in her bedroom sink, having in the first instance only brought enough clothes for a few days – and buys a bottle of very expensive red wine and sets off for the Amsterdam Archive of Paperphilia. She can’t rightly say why she doesn’t wait until the evening and go to Mr Akkersijk’s home instead, except that she’s worried then her intentions might seem too obvious.

Clara carries the bottle in her right hand and a letter in her left. The previous night she dreamt about the man she saw through the window of number ten Riverside Drive, with his daughter, looking so sad. And, when she woke, she knew she had to write to him again. It no longer mattered that she didn’t have the writing desk, or any special pen or papers. She didn’t know exactly what to say, or if it would make any sense, or matter anyway. But Clara knew that wasn’t the point. She had to follow her instinct. And so she’d sat at the tiny desk of her B&B and begun. And, when she’d finished, she asked at the front desk for an envelope and they’d kindly given her a stamp along with it.

Clara posts the letter on the corner of Sint Luciënsteeg, where she’s drawn into a shop rather like her own. Its tiny dark door is set a little back from the street and she almost walks past without seeing it. But the sight of letters in the window stops her. She glances up at the inscription in oak above the door: De Posthumuswinkel – 1865. As she steps inside, Clara sighs happily. The shop is a cross between a glorious stationery stash – monogrammed, personalised, embossed in every colour and style – and a museum of letters.

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