Dear Alice

Dear Alice,

If you are reading this, true to cliché, I must be gone. I have left something for you. I know you will figure it out, you were always a smart one. I want to have one final adventure, but be kind to my memory, sometimes we don’t get to choose our path.

I read the words over and over, the last letter I would receive from my mother. She had an old-fashioned love of fountain pens and textured paper. I found the words cryptic, I was confused.

The letter sat on top of a shoe box, a curated wonderland of mementos to sift through. I shimmied the lid off the box and the first photograph on top was a picture of me in her arms. She smiled adoringly down at my ugly little newborn face. Second was a black Moleskine notebook, just bigger than the size of my palm. The dog-eared pages contained notes and sketches, none of which looked important or familiar. Underneath was a piece of paper with something large wrapped inside. It was two large bundles of money in fifty dollar bills. I was stunned, my mother seemed to be a woman that would spend the inheritance rather than save it. On the inside of the paper there was another note -

the Charles Bridge is best at dawn.

I knew some stories of her travel through Europe during her studies at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, before settling in Melbourne to work as a pastry chef. My early memories of travel were based on the croissants or the fresh pastries we would sample at any opportunity just after dawn. I remember the texture of raisin cookies in the local German Bakery when I was seven years old. I remember the taste of the Pain au Chocolat on my way to school when I was eleven years old. I cannot tell you what my school was like, or the house I grew up in, those things weren’t important.

Some pages of the notebook contained techniques for rolling pastry and the address of her regular coffee shop in Paris. The days after her study in Europe seemed unimportant.

The notes became scattered, some sketches and sums of currency. It seemed like she wrote these notes each day, there was no diary after this. One page stood out but I didn’t recognise the name.

Zdenek Smetana – September October November December 1986

I guess this was the beginning of the adventure.

I had a solid night sleep in my suite with river views. I booked a reputable hotel closest to Charles Bridge and had slept off the jet lag. The air was so cold it took my breath away, walking briskly I blinked away light snow flakes as they landed on my face. The sun hadn’t risen, and the streets were empty. I stood alone on the bridge, looking at the romantic skyline. The sandstone buildings and gothic castles made me feel like I was trespassing in a historic novel. If these streets could talk. I strolled towards the old town and chuckled as I smelt hot bread before I could see the shop front along the lane.

I entered the café. White walls, black lacquered tables and Parisian style café chairs. The wall was covered with dozens maybe hundreds of small photos in frames. A chalkboard next to the till advertised the specials and a brightly lit cabinet was filled to the brim with exquisite pastries. I ordered a mille feuille, a cheese kolach and a strong coffee. I sat in the corner next to the window. I watched people walk past and felt giddy I was inside in the warm and about to have a sweet breakfast.

When I finished my cakes I stood and walked along each side of the cafe, looking at the pictures. They were family photos, many generations in country cottages and ski fields. I smiled seeing the young children with birthday cake faces and grandmas with curls in their white hair. I stopped dead. My photo. There I was in my mother’s arms as a baby. The same picture mum had left me

‘Excuse me!’ I shouted to the waitress.

‘This picture, this is me! This is my picture!’ I stated, in shock I realise that poor woman probably had no idea what I was saying. I pointed to myself, I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out my novel and had used my photo as a bookmark. She ran into the back of the café and a moment later she came out speaking Czech with a man similar to my age. He was wearing kitchen clothes and looked at me with confusion.

‘Hello’ he said, gesturing for me to sit down.

‘Hello’ I replied.

I sat on the edge of the chair

‘You have a photo of me?’ He asked, gesturing to the wall.

‘Oh, no!’ I chuckled, ‘It’s me, you have a picture of me on your wall!’ I said, showing him my photo.

He looked more puzzled.

‘No, I am that baby.’ he said gently.

‘And there I am again and again getting older, these are my family photos’ he said, waving at the wall.

I looked at him, I looked at the photographs, my mind racing. I took out my notebook and flipped through the pages. I handed it to him to decipher to see if there was anything he recognised. I explained that my mother had left the notebook and I was on a sort of treasure hunt. He turned through the notes about Prague, the name and the dates, and went white as a sheet as he traced the one page I had marked. He called out Zdenek sharply, which startled the other couple of diners in the café.

A moment later another man walked out from behind the counter, much older, his hair white.

They spoke to each other in Czech and the younger man showed him the notebook.

He froze as he looked at me, his eyes wide with recognition.

‘You look like your mother.’ Tears welling in his eyes.

He put his hands to my face and I breathed in his warmth. By this moment I was shaking, uncontrollable tears streamed down my face.

‘This is Zdenek,’ the younger man said, ‘my father’.

I may have blacked out for a few minutes, because I certainly don’t remember anything that happened in this time. It was a shock of white noise.

The waitress brought me a shot of slivovice, a cure all in these parts – feeling sick, have a slivovice, feeling well, have a slivovice, feeling hungry, have a slivovice, feeling bloated, have a slivovice…

Zdenek took my arm as he climbed the stairs to the apartment above the café. He was a little unsteady on his feet and he seemed out of breath. He spoke softly and slowly.

‘We met in Paris, and I loved her the first time I saw her. She lit up the room. I moved back to Prague, and things were difficult in those days. I was married and we had tried to have children, but couldn’t. Your mother knew, and when she found out she was pregnant, she came to Prague to find me and she gave us the gift of our son Jan.

She was a selfless woman, and I know it devastated her, but there was only one chance to escape and she had to take that chance. It was a grey December and a group of dissidents were arranging to cross the border to Austria across the high wires above the forest, and into no man’s land. I don’t know how she succeeded, but I received one note from her after leaving.’

He opened the drawer of a small oak table, and took out a note.

There was my mother’s cursive handwriting in violet ink.

Son, December 1986

‘September, October, November - S-O-N’ I repeated with a laugh, she had written code in her notebook.

‘Alice-’

I turned to the doorway, and there she was smiling at me.

‘Mum?!’ I leapt from the chair and ran to her.

In the few weeks since we had been apart she had grown frail, but she looked happy.

We held each other for a long time, more tears. In her last few months she had realised that part of her was missing

‘See, I knew you’d find me’ she said grinning.