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Today we have a letter from Helene in Vienna to Harry who is about to graduate from Mission High School in San Francisco.
Vienna, 27 May 1941
Dear boy of my heart and newspaper boy! The Lord God himself must have felt sorry for me because he saw my useless waiting for letters from you. In order to right this injustice your letters from April 30 and from May 8 from Frisco came today. The great detail in these made me even happier and my resilience - Papa hasn’t really suffered that much from not getting letters. I almost believe it increased his agility and his activity has helped him make quite a bit of progress on our matter. As soon as we receive our passports and clearance certificates [certificates of good conduct] from Berlin, there will be nothing to stand in the way of our departure. The harmlessness [?] will have happened by then. The only thing that still remains a big question mark is the statement from the American Consulate. The general consul will not issue a visa until one can show that the travel tickets have been booked, but the travel tickets are not issued until one can show a visa. So maybe Papa can figure out how to prove which came first — the egg or the chicken.
Can perhaps Mr. High School Graduate recommend some way of decreasing the specific weight of all the things that we must bring with us? I’m not too sure yet how I should do that. Should I leave all of my left shoes or all of my right shoes behind and should I present myself for my trip across the big pond as Mona Vonna when I intend to reach the holy ground of the United States? I would be very grateful to you for any advice on this. Fortunately, Papa and I have over the past few years developed sort of a common wardrobe. I wear almost exclusively his sports shirts as blouses and he enjoys wearing my trousers and my handkerchiefs - that I wear the pants at home [wear the pants in the family?] is only some sort of malicious invention of Jo’s. As far as your second aphorism goes that marriages turn into a 30 to 70 year war - I must tell you that here in Seidlgasse we are seen as a model of a married couple. Papa has never been so gallant as now, and this after we’ve been married for 21 years. Vitali by the way is commanding me to finish this up now because if I write more he will not have enough stamps to put on the envelope. Of course you will be very happy to have me stop since I am going on in this kind of tone. I hope that there will be no interruption in postal service, especially not to such an extent that I would really have to wait and pick it up myself. I would like to be able to help you deliver the newspapers.
Many, many kisses
Helen
According to Wikipedia, La Joconde nue or Monna Vonna was a charcoal drawing from the school of Leonardo da Vinci. Other artists made similar paintings and Monna Vanna appeared in literature, music and film.
At this point, Helene and Vitali have been downsizing for over a year, thinking in vain that they were on the verge of getting on a ship for the U.S. And yet their luggage is still too heavy to meet the travel allowance.