Today’s letter was written exactly a year after the one I posted yesterday. This letter is written to Eva and Harry. The censorship numbers are barely visible in pencil at the top of the page. Helene begins the letter with the number 70, which means she has written at least 70 letters since her children left Vienna. When she sent separate notes to each child and to other family members, sometimes each letter has the same number. I have many of the letters she wrote, but not all of numbers are accounted for. Presumably those never made it to San Francisco.
I have no idea who the cousin in Sandy Hook was, but perhaps I’ll find out one day. The name Jo appears in many letters – a friend and neighbor whose last name I do not know. At the time of this letter, my mother was in nursing school and working with patients.
Vienna, 29 January 1941
#70 My dear children!
Eureka! I got mail this week! The day before yesterday #14 from December 10 and today I had #13 from December 3. I can hardly tell you how happy I am about this. It is unfortunate that you did not extend my greetings to my cousin in Sandy Hook and didn’t tell her how much I crave seeing her. She is like the guiding light of the family. Don’t you want to remind her that she has relatives in Vienna who are counting on her? Everl’s letter to Gina B I will send in a couple of days. I had a copy made of the passport picture from Stambul [Istanbul] and I think she will be happy about this. The letter today included an enclosure for Jo. According to the answer, I think she must have written to you some fairly confusing stuff.
There is not much new here. Papa says I am addicted to Jupiter. When I don’t get letters, usually that’s followed by sleepless nights. It’s not so easy to spend a sleepless night because of the blackout requirements. I can’t turn the light on and read. That’s not possible because my bedroom has no light. I have no lighting fixture in there, so I don’t have to black it out completely. So if it’s not too freezing, I just get up and look out at the stars from the next room. My planetary favorite is in fact Jupiter which smiles at me at night in such a friendly way. I ask him if he knows you and ask him to extend greetings to you. I am not interested in Mercury and Mars is too busy with other things to worry about the problems and wishes of some earthworms. The difference between moon addiction and Jupiter addiction is that those affected by the first can simply go to bed quietly after they climb up on the roof and see the moon and then they go right to sleep. But those who are addicted to Jupiter can’t even think about sleeping. These days I really want to have a closer look at my friend and on Friday and Monday I can see it from Urania [a street 1/2 mile from Seidlgasse and the muse of astronomy].
What Goethe in Dichtung und Wahrheit means about Chrien (not a typo?) [“From my Life: Poetry and Truth” – available online in German at Project Gutenberg], I don’t know. Maybe you, Harry, can show me the spot or the chapter. I’d like to read that and maybe look it up.
Eva is welcome to tell me her hospital stories. I am not afraid of anything. I am jaded and hardened about such things.
Paul is a sweetheart. Through what he wrote on Hilda’s letter I found out that Robert had written, but he didn’t tell me what he said about himself and his life. Maybe he assumed that such a distant relative as I would not be interested in that. If Harry had not mentioned in one of the most recent letters that Robert is doing well both health-wise and otherwise, I would probably be worrying about him, even more so because all my questions about this seem to fall on deaf ears. Nobody answers them. Imagine if things were turned around. I can’t even think about it!
Papa is coming home. He is now doing things a little differently in life than when you were here. At the markets there are now some new, and for Vienna at least, rather exotic types of vegetables appearing. One example is “fiocchi” [Ger: Fenchel; fennel]. I was not familiar with this green stuff that looks kind of like an onion and I forgot that Papa had shown me this and said “this is fiocchi”. At first I didn’t know what I should do with it and I went and got my Hierz kitchen book to get some advice. What is the name of this stuff? I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to imagine an Italian menu. Here we are - Succhetti - how could I forget that? “Zucchini made in the style of Milan” I read in the kitchen bible. I would have rather made it Viennese style but we Viennese don’t know this spinach stuff. I got to work. I translated Milan-ish into Viennese-ish and look, Papa thought it was delicious! It tasted quite excellent to him. “Who told you that you could prepare fiocchi this way?” I answered, “Fiocchi? That’s Succhetti.” I cleared him up about that. At least you can prepare it that way. The second new thing in the kitchen which I like quite a bit better because it is something that Papa will just eat raw. Early in the day and evening, he calls them “bananas” but the real name is chicory. They look better than they taste, but Papa insists that there’s basically a whole pharmacy in them and it’s really, really good to keep you from getting kidney stones. If I forget to put a “banana” on his breakfast plate, I hear the following: “Now I don’t understand - you only have one husband and you don’t even care about him?” Oh, poor Papa.
Because of the 40th anniversary of Verdi’s death, there is a Verdi hour on the radio. Otello just killed Desdemona and he is bellowing “kiss me again, kiss me again!” I find that a bit intense so I’m turning it off. Even though I can handle Eva’s hospital stories, I really don’t want to listen to something like that….
Now I have an order from Papa to Eva, which I hesitate to communicate to her because I know how terribly busy she is and I don’t want to burden her with more things. However, Papa needs it for his studies and so I don’t think I have the right to not pass on this request. Everl, please write down the date of birth, date of admission to the hospital, the illness, and the date of leaving the hospital for all of your patients. Maybe you could put in a little vocabulary book so that nothing gets lost. Please don’t be mad at me Everl, but Papa seems to think this is really important. He’s asked me several times.
That’s enough for today. Many kisses!
Helen
According to written testimonials by satisfied customers, my grandfather was quite the diagnostician. It sounds like he wanted to practice long distance using information about patients Eva was seeing.
You can see from the letter that food is increasingly scarce so Helene and Vitali make the best of things by pretending that they are feasting on delicious delicacies while really just trying to choke down whatever food they could find.
Helene continues to beg for news about everyone, including her dear nephew Robert who apparently is “such a distant relative as I would not be interested in that.” I can feel the guilt seeping into my soul even though Helene’s letters were not written to me!