Chapter 1: The Letters

The letters stopped coming. Every week, Rebeca had sent a letter to Brazil to her mother, Mrs. Francisca, as soon as she got a room at a pension or boarding house as the Austrians prefer to call such places. The rooms were rented primarily to university students. Mrs. Francisca found it unsettling when into the eighth week and after eight letters no further news arrived. Family members tried to downplay her worries with possible and positive explanations on the whereabouts of the daughter. However, after four consecutive weeks without even receiving a postcard, they too became alarmed.

Rebeca had finished her third year of college and decided to go to Europe to pursue an independent course of study. She suspended her enrollment for one semester and departed soon after the family’s New Year’s party, planning on returning only after the June Festivals.

Her passion was literature and she wanted to become a journalist and eventually a writer. For her, writing came naturally like riding a bicycle and her letters were rich in details about the locations, the people and their daily lives in the small university city of Stadtberg, where she would immerse herself in the literary tendencies of that country. Her father had come from Austria, and she was the only one of three siblings who took interest in their cultural heritage. Everyone in the family, including Mrs. Francisca’s neighbors who read the letters imagined themselves being with Rebeca, visualizing the colors and objects, hearing the sounds of the city, and even savoring the delicacies of that region.

Mrs. Francisca wrote several letters to her daughter, asking if she was well and begging her to send news, so that she could stop worrying. However, after several weeks, when her second and third letters were returned from abroad, anguish hovered over the family like a dark and threatening cloud. Bruno, the older brother of Rebeca, suggested that they call the pension where she was staying. All they had to do was find someone who could speak German. However, they were disappointed when they discovered that none of Rebeca’s letters included a telephone number. The only thing she mentioned was that:

There is no telephone in my room. The only apparatus – in the style of the past century, black, resting on its hook like a lazy cat – is located in the reception lobby and can only be used for emergencies. I would love to hear its ring, a magical sound from the past, however until now the telephone has been silent like a mannequin in a store window. There is a post office near the university with several telephone booths both for domestic and international calls, and I promise to call at the end of the month.

Another member of the family suggested they contact the Brazilian Consulate to visit the pension and talk to Rebeca. That idea was soon swept under the rug, when they saw that none of her letters contained a return address that would allow someone to locate the pension. Everyone became more frustrated. Not even the name of the establishment was mentioned.

According to Rebeca, someone at the hotel where she stayed the first few days upon arrival to the city had indicated the pension to her. It was cheaper and quieter.

I was in awe as I rounded the corner and saw the pension with its stucco façade, painted in my favorite peach color. The windows, framed with salient stucco in white, are wide and tall to allow the maximum amount of light to penetrate the rooms, especially during this wintery time of the year with shorter days. The recessed doorway in the form of an archway is also framed with salient stucco like the windows, and has wooden doors carved with details of vines and grapes, characteristic of the vineyards in this region. Everything looks like something out of a fairy tale.