The Seventh Telling by Mitchell Chefitz

Author:Mitchell Chefitz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2011-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

“Paretzky understood it,” Stephanie said. “Even now I’m not sure I do, so I keep telling the story, hoping I will.”

That was a canned response from previous tellings. It wasn’t true anymore. She did understand it, not fully, but somewhat. She couldn’t quite articulate her understanding, but her parents and her uncle Al fit into it. They were going to die, and knew it. In Poland each had come to that awareness, though at different times.

Those stories had to be told. She needed to know them, but they would never tell them.

What did she know? For thirty years Al had delivered the letters to her mother. How had he done that? Her father disliked Al, in Poland, in Miami. For thirty years Al delivered the letters, her father never knew. It came as a surprise when he was going through his dead wife’s closet and found the hatbox. He knew what the letters were, knew how they had been delivered. Al’s address was on each envelope, and a return address, to London, Arlington, New York, San Francisco. He hadn’t read them, but knew how to return them. He could have thrown them away, but he didn’t. Why not?

A story began to develop. It didn’t spring forth whole, as the grandmother story had. This began with bits and pieces, from what was known to what was not.

Every Thursday her mother went to Al’s shop to buy a magazine. How did Stephanie know it was Thursday?

She knew. She heard it in her story. Her mother made lunch on the hot plate, as she did every day, in the back of the store. After lunch, before going home, she stopped by Al’s to buy a magazine. “I’m going to buy a magazine,” she said every Thursday.

“I wish you’d stay away from Al,” her father said. “I still don’t trust him.”

“I’m buying a magazine. I don’t pay any attention to Al. He doesn’t pay any attention to me.” That was the truth.

Every Thursday afternoon her mother bought a magazine. It didn’t matter which magazine. She didn’t read it. She chose one at random, put it on the counter, turned aside. Why did she turn aside?

She didn’t want to see Al insert a letter. No, she didn’t want to see Al, didn’t want to speak with him. Her husband had forbidden it. Why did he forbid it?

Her father didn’t trust Al, even in Poland. Why not?

Perhaps he spoke badly about Al because her mother had been in love with him before the war, had been torn away from him to marry the jeweler’s son. She did as her parents had asked, because, after all, that’s the way such things were done. Was her father still jealous of Al after all these years?

That’s where the story ended, for the moment. There was more, but Sidney was about to tell the Truth.

Where was the story coming from? How did she know these things? Were they true? Did it matter?

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