Dvr. H.Adler

PAL/30765
68 R.8. T. Coy
RASC

M.E.F.

November 1942.

I do hope darling that you have received my letter and know that I had been suddenly transferred to another company. You are doubtless more or less up to date with the deep reasons that were behind this transfer.

Now I am on leave for four days (leave I could not refuse) and here I am in Tel Aviv, a stupid, characterless town, but filled with my good friends and touching memories of the beginning of my happiness. Is it not there that I first got to know you? I am installed now in a tranquil corner of one of the town’s hundreds of cafes and my thoughts, as always and everywhere, fly towards you.  And I am happy and sad at the same time. Calm and edgy.

Joyous to know that you are thinking of me, enveloping me in your tender warmth, filling me with well being, loving me. Sad, to be so far from you, to have between us this cruel war that separates us brutally, capriciously and immorally; sad not to be able to find rest, after my difficult hours, in your beautiful and noble soul, in your lovely arms, in your loving eyes.

I am calm because I know you are an intelligent, understanding woman who bears a deep and sincere love for me and for my ideal and who is, therefore, in everything that concerns us, patient and confident.  But I am horribly edgy, my dear, dear little Yvette, because my heart and my hands, my eyes and my lips, my body and my spirit – my whole being- pines terribly for you, my dear.

Ten days ago I was together with you. Since then I have had no news of you. Not one of your lovely letters that know so well how to cradle my heart wounded by its separation from you.  Oh I know you have written and that it’s only my leaving which has prevented me for the time being from reading them. I know too that one fine day the postman will deliver me your letters and then my trembling fingers will hold the leaves that you held and filled with tender and generous words for me, that my heart, as my eyes greedily swallow each of your words, each of your thoughts, will beat strongly and that a divinely sweet wave will sweep through my whole body. Yes, it will happen. But it hasn’t, as I haven’t yet received your letters. So it is only natural that I should become completely absorbed again in that marvellous day, about ten days ago, that we spent together in Cairo. I don’t know what it means to you. But I would like to imagine, rather I feel, that it made you happy.  But for me, darling, it was enough to make me good, courageous and intelligent for the rest of my life.

I remember everything. Absolutely everything. Not a minute has been lost; not a word pronounced by your lips has been wiped out of my spirit, not a movement of your body, which is not forever engraved in me. The car, the street, the restaurant, the room and the two of us in all that. It is beautiful, darling, it is good. (I must change my pen)

Things that in themselves are not especially attractive become mysteriously beautiful under the effect of your contact.

Oh darling, don’t believe that I am digging over the past to recall all the sensible things you said on so many subjects. Oh no, darling. Your intelligence is not in dispute. It is a fact and a happy one. What srtikes me, cradles me, caresses me such a lot to remember are those simple, innocent words that came effortlessly from your lips to tickle my ears and my soul like the most beautiful, enchanting melodies. What transformed my heart into an inextinguishable source of love ceaselessly flowing, violently and peacefully towards you, darling, was the delicate poetic gesture with which you carried off and hid the ugly coat stand in our beautiful Cairo room.

It is for all that. That I thank you.  I thank you for letting me love you and for loving me. Thank you for being beautiful, good and intelligent. Thank you because your love causes me to be better, more patient with things and people. Thank you, finally, because no one but you has known how to create that [perfect harmony between my body and spirit which has been lacking throughout my life and which now makes me strong and sound as I have never been before. Listen, most beautiful and most loved of women, the nature of my love for you surpasses all that thinkers across the ages have analysed, catalogued and arranged under different headings in those great grey books. It’s an innovation. A sentiment unknown until now. Something so powerful and it is me, alone, who has discovered it.

Listen again to this darling.

When I had to quit my company after low intrigues, I reacted violently, as I have done more than once before during my past activity, when I ran up against the intrigues of opponents. To run into pettifogging, meanness, dirty tricks- is Yvette, something current in a world torn by political passions and by huge economic antagonisms that brutally wipe out any notion of humane morality. I know, when I reflect coldly, that there are situations where only low intrigue can get results. It may be sad, but it’s a fact.

But this time, my reaction was stronger than ever before. Led not only by my brain but each muscle of my whole body, defended, attacked, and struggled. Perhaps I also made logical mistakes but on the other hand it was a frankly human reaction, quite simply human.

And why? I have already had a whole week to analyse this incident so brusque and believe me darling, I didn’t need all that time to clearly understand everything that was happening inside me. I know that you see me as a complex being. I know that you are mistaken and I will do everything, given time, to disabuse you. It is clear and couldn’t be simpler.  The reasons? Here they are. I have inside me a certain tradition that make me always revolt violently when I witness injustice committed consciously against anyone at all. I have in me a certain tradition that always makes my blood boil when someone takes away arbitrarily my rights. I have in me a tradition that makes me always hold high and with dignity the flag of my ideal for which I have battled for so long and above all if one struggles against it with methods of great dim caves (?) That’s how it is. But this time, darling, I had within me, much more deeply within me, another feeling, another reason, and I don’t care if this feeling is more powerful than the others and I am not ashamed of it and I don’t hide it. It is that horrible sadness of knowing that I had to go far away from you without you knowing about it, without holding you against me beforehand.  It is that horrible sadness of knowing that the plans we had so lovingly constructed would be overturned, that this life that we had managed more or less to work out would be so brutally interrupted for who knows how long, it is knowing that your letters would take more time to be forwarded to me and I would stay a long time without any news of you and without— and without looking in your eyes, feeling your hair.

Yvette darling, Yvette my love, my wife, my all – it is that which I felt in my head, my feet and my hands. It is that which enraged me and caused a burning misery that tore my body. Oh dear little wife, fat, redhead, full of freckles, you the most beautiful, the most beloved, I love you I love you I love you, I love you- I have tears in my eyes, great joyous, beneficent tears. I walk through the streets of this town, idiotically and fervently murmuring your name darling, Yvette. I take myself into those rare corners where we were one day together, me loving you, you not knowing it and I look for you and don’t murmur your name any longer- I shout it and the shout comes from the deepest part of my soul

I tell my friends of my happiness, I tell then that I have just been married. Those who know you are jealous of me and those who don’t know you – Oh yes, I am sure of it – will be jealous of me when they know you. But that makes me feel good because I can then pronounce your name, darling, in a human way, Yvette.

They introduce me to a woman, saying, “Does she resemble yours?” Oh no, I say “mine” is much more beautiful! And this frankly, loudly right in front of this poor girl who falls on the couch with her mouth open and her eyes all round.  What a cad, eh?

I have been for a long time surrounded by friends who discuss important matters- my spirit is for the most part of the time absent. It is near you, Yvette. Yvette. It is a name that has stopped being a name. It is a symbol.

And what must I do now, Yvette, without you near to me?  Go to a concert? Do you think that the sounds of all the instruments in a symphony orchestra could cover up this great incessant cry that is so well installed in my interior faith?  Could the most beautiful music of the greatest of geniuses make me forget for an instant my little Yvette? And what would you like him to do without his little one… He listens to the melody of melodies, the Song of Songs that consists of only one word: Yvette.

The news is good. The Allies have taken a serious step towards the opening of a definite front in Europe, which will lighten the burden on the Soviet people and hasten victory. Stalingrad is still Soviet. France, darling, be patient and indulgent towards that noble people, your people, she will live.  I see that the day is not far off when the people will begin to move and nothing at all will stop them in their bloody triumphal march. Soon I will come again to you. My papers for our marriage I have them already in my pocket. Beautiful, dear papers.

You see, everything is going well. And however…. And however, I am cold, stupid, depressed. Because without you I respond to all these victories like a machine, Without heart. It is you who must be near to me, very near, before my joy can properly burst out.

Darling, you are my darling and I have never had any others. And I never will have any others.

A terrible fact now confronts me, the fete: I imagine that you will receive this letter just as you are leaving that great sad room filled with bloody flesh. Tired, overcome, revolted, this insipid letter will fall into your hands. Before all the blood that you can see now, darling, you can only smile at the frivolity of your husband.   Goodoh. I will send it just the same.  Although I am ashamed of it. But be a little indulgent, darling; I too have been before in the bloody mud at the front like the men that you care for. And my wounds are also sad and fresh…    I love you,

Your Henri

I write you my address although it will soon change. Doesn’t matter. Still write. And the papers?