Dear Anya

Dear Anya, 

Your eyes were blue, weren’t they? The colour of a hundred uninterrupted summers at the lake, its shallow waters forever churning under the persistent, gleeful splashing of tiny feet at the water’s edge. 

Or maybe not. 

They were green, the colour of thousands of leaves bursting overhead silently, a rich emerald canopy so thick the sky couldn’t stick its sapphire head through, however hard it tried. 

Maybe they weren’t. 

I now realise that they were brown. You’ll have to excuse me: my memory is not what it used to be. 70 years have passed and regretfully, I’ve begun to forget your face. 

I’d ask you to forgive me, but you’re dead. 

Sorry about that. 

I remember that they were brown because it was memorable to me that they were not memorable. The colour of a rusty pool of still rainwater minutes after an unexpected July shower, or the chalky layers of meadow dirt that caked the soles of our scuffed shoes after a day spent outside, supposedly oblivious to the persistent calls of concerned mothers with already-lined faces on dust-strewn doorsteps. 

It’s funny how time changes memories. I remember that summer to be perfect, or perhaps I made that summer so that it was perfect. Either way, it was because of you. 

I am writing this letter over six thousand miles away from where you rest now, but I want you to know that my heart is still there. In fact, it never left. Although there is not now a mismatched sage patchwork canopy of trees over my head but layers of artificially lit floors of bustling people, with their own lives and their own problems, their own hopes and dreams, I never left your side, just so you know. 

I remember the first time we locked eyes. Mines are grey, just so you remember. The colour of steely clouds gathering on the horizon, the colour that signals a storm is brewing. The colour the world turns when the heavens are about to open and all hell is about to break loose. You once said that they were nice. The clouds had not parted by then. 

The desks lining the classroom were pockmarked and bruised black, blue and red by the sins of those who came before us, still talking to us now. It is important we listen to their message, and never repeat their mistakes. Your brassy locks were coiled tightly in two bunches on either side of your head, icy, translucent veins pushed to the surface of a pale forehead not yet accustomed to a summer where we were born. I’d joke you looked like an alien now. You probably wouldn’t laugh. 

You did laugh the first time we spoke, however, and I remember that as a fact. Your laugh was trapped in your throat, stuck halfway between a huff and giggle, partly surprised at the audacity of being approached by a girl a year younger and a whole head shorter than you, and partly surprised by the sharp scent of perfume I’d stolen more than a few sprays of from from my mother’s dressing table that morning.

They say first impressions are important. I believe that because you walked home with me after classes that day, after the tinny school bell finally ceased its incessant ringing. It made my head pound, or maybe I was just giddy with excitement at being able to talk to you. One of your braids had gotten loose and was swinging in a fair, incomplete half loop as you spoke of this and that, of everything and nothing. 

You lived in the middle of town, in the middle of the hustle and bustle, between pastel awnings framing tiny shops, their windows displaying goods ranging from freshly-baked bread and pots of scarlet jams to the headless chicken carcasses with their pale-goosebumped flesh. I don’t eat meat anymore, just so you know. 

The cobblestone streets were long and thin and unnavigable spider web of interlocking walkways and sometimes I reckoned they went on forever. But that day, they didn’t. Your voice was high-pitched and sickly sweet, lilting sharply upwards at the end of long, mismatched sentences with seemingly no punctuation nor reason. I wanted more of it, to bottle it up in a jam jar like those in the shopfronts and to seal it up with a pink ribbon, to keep it for myself. Your tiny pale hand almost touched mine as we reached your front steps. Almost. The tiny colourful flags that were strung haphazardly overhead swayed gently by spring’s last breath. In a house down a narrow, rickety lane well outside the hustle and bustle of town my weary-eyed mother told me they were for a birthday in the hushed tones of someone not invited to the party. I didn’t know what she meant then, and wish I didn’t now. 

At the weekend the lake was packed, the soil dotted with young families with their red and white checked blankets, ham sandwiches and screaming plum-faced babies. Gangs of our giggling schoolmates patrolled the area, armed with sticks and serious expressions, ready to wage war. The sun, glossy and isolated, occupied the highest point in an azure sky unblemished by clouds. Summer had arrived, and you had as well, your small figure occupying a makeshift seat at the sheltered base of a sturdy oak tree. The tight braids were gone and in the sunshine, your hair flowed, long and pinstraight and liquid gold down your back. You asked if I was going to swim and I responded with cheeks tinted cherry red and pulsing with blood that I could not, in fact, do so. You responded, plump lips curled at the corners and brown eyes amber in the daylight, that you were an excellent teacher. 

I’d agree with that, but some would say I’m a biassed source. 

The lake bed was lined with slimy green reeds that the slippery baby eels flitted between, narrowing avoiding my panicked, clawing fists as I fought to keep my gaping mouth out of the water. You became at one with them, disappearing for short periods of time into the crystalline depths and appearing a distance away, the expression on your face as I flailed awkwardly in the shallow playful but never gloating. My name never sounded more beautiful than it did on your lips, and I’d do anything to hear it once more. 

Your hair clung to your scalp, damp with water and as dark as mine as we sat back under your oak tree. Your eyelashes were long and curled at the tips. A droplet of salt water sat in one, just then. I remember because it was memorable. We were more similar than the biology textbooks said. You braided my hair for me then, your long, delicate fingers intricately weaving the jet black strands so that they fell in a single neat plait down the middle of my back, the wet staining my cobalt summer dress in the centre. 

The first summer evening was both an anomaly and a precursor for what was to come. A flock of birds swooped dangerously close to the water's gently swirling surface, their caws the only sound in the valley as invisible strings pulled down the sunset orange backdrop of the evening. As the stars took their unchanged positions in the velvety purple night sky, the heat from the day remained. Tensions were rising, and my forehead was slightly sunburnt. 

The next time I saw you it appeared you didn’t see me. The school yard bustled, but you knew I was there. We locked eyes. The storm continued brewing. A plethora of freckles had blossomed across your nose and onto your cheeks. I wanted to trace them with my finger. Your legs were red raw and sore and your eyes were no longer amber, just brown. They were puffy. You hadn’t slept. Unremarkable. Dangerous eyes. Eyes tell a lot but lips say more. 

Your lips later told me, baby pink and chapped, that your father did not want us to be friends. You were wearing a new, neatly starched uniform. Brown jacket, red armband. Stiff. It did not suit you and you did not like it. 

So we met at the tree. Its lustrous leaves provided a parasol from both the sun and suspicious eyes. It became our spot. You did not wear your uniform nor I mine. My mother and I did not attend the birthday party. We had no invitations. 

Soon not only the sun heated up the narrow streets we called home: only I was not allowed to call it that anymore. My people’s words were set aflame, shouts, rallying cries and songs fought viciously to be heard against the crackling of pages, of spines, of hundreds of years of history largely thought best forgotten. Ash littered the still streets that quiet dawn. The sun reared its golden, sleepy head as you tip-toed down the creaky stairs of that old house. The heat had gone. You found out that the black-ringed, ashy pages couldn’t be stuck back together. What a pity, you thought; books were your favourite. Your nose hair was singed.

School ended with a final ringing of the tinny bell. This time my head did not hurt and I never went back. I’m pretty sure that the whitewashed, church-like building still stands. I do not miss it like I miss you. 

I mastered swimming soon after, managing to tread water with little more grace than an over-excitable puppy dog breathing heavily and weighed down by its waterlogged fur. You were proud and told me so, tears in your eyes. I am not sure you were crying because of my small childhood triumph over water, or because of something else. I hastily knit together the stems of a hundred daisies so that you could place them around your neck in the muddy backyard of a dishevelled farmhouse no villager now bought milk from. Poisoned, rotten, evil. My father had no work. There were holes in my clogs. My stomach rumbling at night became my younger sister’s lullaby. But the new necklace made you smile. The flowers would rot in a few days, white petals browning at the edges and slowly curling inwards. Your mother threw them out. On your way back from music practise our eyes would meet knowingly across the town square. Shutters would close for the night. I'd bring a pot of jam, the glass stained with blackberry blood, home to my mother. 

Unchanged by speech or song, by textbook or by ballot box, the tree remained the same, your tree, our tree, the old oak tree by the lake. It had been wrinkled by time, left wise by secrets. Your skin was brown but your shoulders pale where the sun couldn’t kiss them, the light yellow summer dress you wore no longer reached your knees. Your voice was no longer high nor squeaky but characterised by a maturity, a confidence a girl your age should not yet have achieved.  

We hatched a plan then, a plan to escape. 

My handwriting was spidery, a collection of vowels and consonants strung together by a shaky hand and not enough years in education, my drawings a collection of jagged lines and random dots on brown, water-stained paper. X marks the spot. We would leave on foot, silvery moonlight would be our only guide on the single uneven road out of nowhere. In the sleepy next town over, creamy shutters still closed for the night, we would get a ride with the postman, our teenage bodies stowed away between rough burlap sacks full of smooth white envelopes stamped with scarlet lettering and destined to go far far away. 

They would make it further than us, naturally, as we never left. 

Well, I did. 

I did not mean to leave without saying goodbye. I had to: a storm was brewing. I’d hope you could forgive me, but it seems I’ve asked you too late. Hindsight is a beautiful thing. 

My last impressions of Germany were at a cramped, crowded port that smelt of the stale sea air and the odour of too many human bodies crammed together in too small of a space. I do not regret that I have decided never to return. After all, my reason for returning is gone. 

My life in New York has been categorised by the sequence of glorious successes and crippling failures that humans largely accept as life. It has been dotted with moments where I have been crippled, completely and utterly hopeless and moments when I felt so overwhelmed with optimism and positivity it has moved me to tears. There have been too many of them to write down so I will spare you the details: it will suffice to say I have lived. I will die with four published books, an edited compilation of poems and a fashionable, tastefully underfurnished Manhattan apartment like the one we dreamed of all those years ago. I did not have any children and I would not consider it a regret. I have been loved. 

I would have liked that you too did not die with any regrets. I also would have liked that the car that hit you would have stopped before it crashed into you, in a second of fortunate recollection by its driver. We can’t always have what we want. 

I am writing this letter with the knowledge that it will never be read. After I have passed it will be regarded as the final ramblings of a sentimental old woman, my head not in the clouds but trapped in the last days of my youth, in the shady haven of that old oak tree in that summer so many decades ago. You forever wear a daisy chain around your neck. It suited you, just so you know. 

I am sorry that I left you there, an old, stained cloth rag containing your dearest personal objects slung over one shoulder, your eyes anxiously scanning for the silhouette of a figure who would never arrive, my words blown away in the soft July breeze so that almost no trace of our promises were left. Unlike the lost books, lost in an inferno of heat, flames, light and shouting, the tree heard our quietly murmured words, saw as we interlocked our fingers in a sweaty, yet solemn vow I knew even then would be ruptured. The tree holds me accountable even now. 

I hope that you can both forgive me. 

Yours forever, in body and mind, 

Mila.