Lillian's First Letter to Anne

This letter would have been postmarked from Asmara on August 25th or 26th. Typically such a letter would be addressed to “Miss Anne Avery”, then “care of” a solicitor or other factor wherever Anne said she expected to be (somewhere around the coast of the Mediterranean perhaps?), then the address. All of it in Lillian’s typical tight, neat handwriting.

This envelope is addressed simply to “Aunt Anne”. The rest of the address is correct, but the ℅ line is added below as an afterthought. The handwriting is oversized, flowing, and a bit careless. The return address is a home in Westchester, NY where Lillian grew up, but which hasn’t been her home address for many years.

There envelope is lumpy, and unevenly sealed. Drops of water mark the outside. The letter inside is unevenly folded. The handwriting starts out neat, but then starts to change. Paragraphs are off center and at different angles. The formatting more or less comes back to normal by the very end. There more drops of water mark the interior paper.

Dear Anne,

There’s something calming about the desert. There’s so little life here, but what there is glows very very bright. Death is all around. It’s like the stars at night. The tiny pinpricks of light stand out against the darkness, and are all the more beautiful for it. And then at night the stars to come out and the sky and the earth look exactly alike, as though one is reflecting the other.

That reminds me, our guide is also very beautiful, and almost completely black, and his eyes twinkle just like life in the desert.

Oh, Jerome is even more wonderful than I thought. He knows mysteries, and he knows what it’s like to be different from everyone else and have to hide it.

It’s very very hard to be good. It’s easier to be bad in order to be good, but even that is very hard when they start to cry. They stopped crying before they were done, even though there was something wrong with them and they didn’t cry when they should, but eventually some of them started crying, and then I stopped them from crying, but they weren’t done, and now I have to cry the tears they didn’t finish crying, and I don’t think I’m going to stop for a very long time.

The Lady is my hunt-mistress; I shall not hunger.
She maketh me lie down in tall grasses: She leadeth me beside sick herds.
She testeth my soul: She leadeth me in the paths of destruction, for her
name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil: For yours is the valley, and mine is the shadow.
Thou preparest a battlefield before me in the presence of mine allies:
Thou anointest my blade with oil, the chosen fall before me.
Surely terror and mercy shall follow me until My Lady is done with me:
and I will rest in her quiet embrace forever.

We have more work to do in Malta. I don’t want to go. I want to stay here in the clean, dead desert with my Knight of the sparking night. Please don’t make me go mamma. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t complain. I know I need to do this. I know someone else would have to, and I’m different, and it doesn’t hurt me as much. I’m very good at what I do. Maybe I should learn how to be happy about that. It can be beautiful, and it can be fun, when the people are bad and stupid. Hunting dogs are happy when they’re doing their jobs, even when they’re terriers killing rat after rat after rat. I could try to be a better hunting dog.

This is the best way for me to be a good girl. I wish I knew why you chose me. I know I have to be broken to do a good job. But why was I chosen, why did you have to break me? Why can’t we take turns being broken? Joyce and Martin and I used to do that, take turns being the broken one.

Please don’t show this to my boyfriends, it would scare them away.

Take care of Martin’s sisters.

Love,

Lillian