It might not matter to you, but my brother was having an affair with my wife.

It might not matter to you, but my brother was having an affair with my wife. I didn't kill my wife. I want to go back to her, because I forgive her. If you release me I will be a good person, quiet, out of the way. Please consider my appeal. Kurt Schluter, Inmate 24922 My uncle later told me that the inmate had been in prison for more than forty years. He had gone in as a young man. When he wrote the letter to me he was old and broken. His wife had remarried. She had children and grandchildren. Although he never said it, I could tell that my uncle had befriended the inmate. He had also lost a wife, and was also in a rison. He never said it, but I heard in his voice that he cared for the inmate. They guarded each other. And when I asked y uncle, several years later, what became of the inmate, my uncle told me that he was still there. He continued to write etters to the board. He continued to blame himself and forgive his wife, not knowing that there was no one on the other nd. My uncle took each letter and promised the inmate that they would be delivered. But instead he kept them all. They illed all of the drawers in his dresser. I remember thinking it's enough to drive someone to kill himself. I was right. My ncle, your great-great-uncle, killed himself. Of course it's possible that the inmate had nothing to do with it. ith those three samples I could make comparisons. I could at least see that the forced laborer's handwriting was more ike my father's than the murderer's. But I knew that I would need more letters. As many as I could get. o I went to my piano teacher. I always wanted to kiss him, but was afraid he would laugh at me. I asked him to write a etter. And then I asked my mother's sister. She loved dance but hated dancing. asked my schoolmate Mary to write a letter to me. She was funny and full of life. She liked to run around her empty ouse without any clothes on, even once she was too old for that. Nothing embarrassed her. I admired that so much, ecause everything embarrassed me, and that hurt me. She loved to jump on her bed. She jumped on her bed for so any years that one afternoon, while I watched her jump, the seams burst. Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter ept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly if there wasn't someone, somewhere, laughing? I went to my grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, and asked her to write a letter. She was my mother's mother. Your father's mother's mother's mother. I hardly knew her. I didn't have any interest in knowing her. I have no need for he past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me. hat kind of letter? my grandmother asked. I told her to write whatever she wanted to write. You want a letter from me? she asked. I told her yes. Oh, God bless you, she said. The letter she gave me was sixty-seven pages long. It was the story of her life. She made my request into her own. Listen o me. learned so much. She sang in her youth. She had been to America as a girl. I never knew that. She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary. I earned that she never learned to swim, and for that reason she always loved rivers and lakes. She asked her father, my reat-grandfather, your great-great-great-grandfather, to buy her a dove. Instead he bought her a silk scarf. So she hought of the scarf as a dove. She even convinced herself that it contained flight, but did not fly, because it did not want o show anyone what it really was. That was how much she loved her father. he letter was destroyed, but its final paragraph is inside of me. She wrote, I wish I could be a girl again, with the chance to live my life again. I have suffered so much more than I needed to. And the joys I have felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my randfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It was too big for me and would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler to make it that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of verything I have been trying to say. If I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice. With love, Your grandmother I had a letter from everyone I knew. I laid them out on my bedroom floor, and organized them by what they shared. One hundred letters. I was always moving them around, trying to make connections. I wanted to understand. Seven years later, a childhood friend reappeared at the moment I most needed him. I had been in America for only two months. An agency was supporting me, but soon I would have to support myself. I did not know how to support myself. I read newspapers and magazines all day long. I wanted to learn idioms. I wanted to become a real American. Chew the fat. low off some steam. Close but no cigar. Rings a bell. I must have sounded ridiculous. I only wanted to be natural. I gave p on that. had not seen him since I lost everything. I had not thought of him. He and my older sister, Anna, were friends. I came upon them kissing one afternoon in the field behind the shed behind our house. It made me so excited. I felt as if I were kissing someone. I had never kissed anyone. I was more excited than if it had been me. Our house was small. Anna and I hared a bed. That night I told her what I had seen. She made me promise never to speak a word about it. I promised her. She said, Why should I believe you? I wanted to tell her, Because what I saw would no longer be mine if I talked about it. I said, Because I am your sister. Thank you. Can I watch you kiss? Can you watch us kiss? You could tell me where you are going to kiss, and I could hide and watch. She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes. Sometimes it was in the field behind the shed behind our house. Sometimes it was behind the brick wall in the schoolyard. It was always behind something. I wondered if she told him. I wondered if she could feel me watching them, if that made it more exciting for her. Why did I ask to watch? Why did she agree? I had gone to him when I was trying to learn more about the forced laborer. I had gone to everyone. To Anna's sweet little sister, Here is the letter you asked for. I am almost two meters in height. My eyes are brown. I have been told that my hands are big. I want to be a sculptor, and I want to marry your sister. Those are my only dreams. I could write more, but that is all that matters. Your friend, Thomas I walked into a bakery seven years later and there he was. He had dogs at his feet and a bird in a cage beside him. The seven years were not seven years. They were not seven hundred years. Their length could not be measured in years, just as an ocean could not explain the distance we had traveled, just as the dead can never be counted. I wanted to run away from him, and I wanted to go right up next to him. I went right up next to him. Are you Thomas? I asked. He shook his head no. You are, I said. I know you are. He shook his head no. From Dresden. He opened his right hand, which had NO tattooed on it. I remember you. I used to watch you kiss my sister. He took out a little book and wrote, I don't speak. I'm sorry. That made me cry. He wiped away my tears. But he did not admit to being who he was. He never did. We spent the afternoon together. The whole time I wanted to touch him. I felt so deeply for this person that I had not seen in so long. Seven years before, he had been a giant, and now he seemed small. I wanted to give him the money that the agency had given me. I did not need to tell him my story, but I needed to listen to his. I wanted to protect him, which I was sure I could do, even if I could not protect myself. I asked, Did you become a sculptor, like you dreamed? He showed me his right hand and there was silence. We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it. He wrote, Are you OK? I told him, My eyes are crummy. He wrote, But are you OK? I told him, That's a very complicated question. He wrote, That's a very simple answer. I asked, Are you OK? He wrote, Some mornings I wake up feeling grateful. We talked for hours, but we just kept repeating those same things over and over. Our cups emptied. The day emptied. I was more alone than if I had been alone. We were about to go in different directions. We did not know how to do anything else. It's getting late, I said. He showed me his left hand, which had YES tattooed on it. I said, I should probably go home. He flipped back through his book and pointed at, Are you OK? I nodded yes. I started to walk off. I was going to walk to the Hudson River and keep walking. I would carry the biggest stone I could ear and let my lungs fill with water. ut then I heard him clapping his hands behind me. turned around and he motioned for me to come to him. wanted to run away from him, and I wanted to go to him. went to him. e asked if I would pose for him. He wrote his question in German, and it wasn't until then that I realized he had been riting in English all afternoon, and that I had been speaking English. Yes, I said in German. Yes. We made arrangements or the next day. is apartment was like a zoo. There were animals everywhere. Dogs and cats. A dozen birdcages. Fish tanks. Glass boxes ith snakes and lizards and insects. Mice in cages, so the cats wouldn't get them. Like Noah's ark. But he kept one corner lean and bright. e said he was saving the space. or what? or sculptures. wanted to know from what, or from whom, but I did not ask. e led me by the hand. We talked for half an hour about what he wanted to make. I told him I would do whatever he eeded. e drank coffee. e wrote that he had not made a sculpture in America. hy not? haven't been able to. hy not? e never talked about the past. e opened the flue, although I didn't know why. irds sang in the other room. took off my clothes. went onto the couch. e stared at me. It was the first time I had ever been naked in front of a man. I wondered if he knew that. e came over and moved my body like I was a doll. He put my hands behind my head. He bent my right leg a little. I ssumed his hands were so rough from all of the sculptures he used to make. He lowered my chin. He turned my palms p. His attention filled the hole in the middle of me. went back the next day. And the next day. I stopped looking for a job. All that mattered was him looking at me. I was repared to fall apart if it came to that. ach time it was the same. e would talk about what he wanted to make. would tell him I would do whatever he needed. e would drink coffee. e would never talk about the past. e would open the flue. he birds would sing in the other room. would undress. e would position me. e would sculpt me. ometimes I would think about those hundred letters laid across my bedroom floor. If I hadn't collected them, would our ouse have burned less brightly? looked at the sculpture after every session. He went to feed the animals. He let me be alone with it, although I never sked him for privacy. He understood. fter only a few sessions it became clear that he was sculpting Anna. He was trying to remake the girl he knew seven ears before. He looked at me as he sculpted, but he saw her. he positioning took longer and longer. He touched more of me. e moved me around more. He spent ten full minutes bending and unbending my knee. He closed and unclosed my ands. hope this doesn't embarrass you, he wrote in German in his little book. o, I said in German. No. e folded one of my arms. He straightened one of my arms. The next week he touched my hair for what might have been