Read On... Carefully Divorce Thinking Slow... Really Slow Ehrwald Reminders	Down Side Up
	Zero Storm One Common Drama Two for One Three Pivotal Years Four Generations Five Ring Circus
	Subject: Just so that I don't forget Date: Saturday, February 14, 1998 02:48:06 -0500 From: Jérôme To: Silvana Overwhelming. New things. Old things. It is all so confusing. At this point, I just want to keep track, by writing things down. It ought to make things clearer and keep the telephone bill in check. I started on the warehouse today. I am now bobbing in an ocean of documents. Waves of photographs are settling on top of those documents. Catherine as a baby. Taken in Niagara Falls. Catherine on Santa's knees; two years in a row. With a frame from Jordan Marsh, a major department store in Boston. A place ritualized by my mother. Every year, we would go there to have my photograph taken on Santa's knees. She was really happy in those moments. When the shots came in the mail, they would immediately find their place on the dresser. A set of photographs of my father's graduation at Harvard. The classic pose, with that odd-looking square hat and dildo hanging off it. One photograph, taken in Harvard Yard, had been on the dresser for a long time and it burned its way into my memory cells. The rest were totally unknown to me. My dad with my mom, him and Catherine, and all three together. This confirms the post card I found yesterday. Catherine knew me. He knew Catherine. Everyone knew me. I knew none of them. Including my own mother. Another photo of all three together. They looked happy together. But the environment of this photo appears European. The three together in America, the three together in Europe. They did follow the same paths for quite some time... Maybe my father accepted that I carry the name Camus, because it was already there, because Catherine was close... And there were the issues with his own name... Hey, two more brain cells are now talking to each other... were my mother and father actually married? Next, I am carried away by a tide of letters from Armand Camus to my mother. Let us put them in chronological order and see if I can build a story. These letters are rather dry, business-like. Mostly dealing with money. The alimony was one hundred dollars per month. He mentions transferring the money to Lu. That name rings a bell. I think it was my mother's brother-in-law, the husband of Magda... I am not too sure, but I feel confident about this assumption. Besides, my mother always said I had a Chinese uncle. My mother annotated some letters, underlining important bits. On occasion, she added a small piece of paper with longer comments on it. Nothing stapled. No one can really date these little notes. One thing is sure, they hurt. Bitterness transpires through each and every one of them. Some hurt more than others. She found Armand to be cold. My mother found me to be rather cold on many occasions. We did not have the best of relations; since her world and mine were often confined to the same walls, explosions were inevitable. For which I had to develop my own defenses, like ducking when she would throw on of her smoke screens. Nonetheless, this is more punishment she has managed to exact upon me, without even being here. These letters cover a period of three years. Very few interesting facts can be drawn from them. Catherine is not very present in these letters. That bothers me... Armand's return addresses did not capture my attention at first, aside from the fact that he had moved from Cambridge to Brookline, a nearby town. Now I notice his address in Cambridge was on Bigelow Street. That means something. When I was born, we lived at 281 Harvard Street, between Inman & Bigelow. A friend of my mother's owned and managed houses. Two on Bigelow, one on Inman and another in.... Brookline. Another coincidence I ought to clear up. That is all the dust I am willing to raise today. Take care, Jérôme