"Lisa Goldstein - Lilyanna" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldstein Lisa)

I’d memorized the photograph by this time, of course, but I went back to my
office to look at it one more time. The earrings shone white as a shell, nacreous and
pale.
No, it was ridiculous. Someone had dropped the damn thing; that was all.
Despite my protests, though, I put the pearl in my drawer along with the photograph
and the ticket stub.
The next evening, as I went through my usual routine, I swung between hope
and something very like despair. I told myself not to expect much, either a
maddeningly vague clue or nothing at all. What I found was a piece of paper partly
covered in writing. I read a few lines, then had to sit at a table to stop my heart from
pounding.
“Dear Selwyn—” it said.
“It’s not like you to be so horrible. What I said was a joke, of course. I don’t
give a fig for your work, and I’m sure Edith doesn’t either. And what you told us
was hardly damning—unless, as you said, your boss should come to hear about it.
And there’s no reason he should, not if you’re as careful as you say you are.
“I’ll be at the Pearl on Tuesday night, as always. I hope I’ll see you there. I
never have as much fun without you—none of the others have your spirit and
generosity.
“Lilyanna”
I thought a hundred things all at once. That now I knew her name. That her
handwriting was bold and a bit old-fashioned, with more flourishes than someone
would use today, especially in her headlong dashes. That she had written on creamy
linen paper; she could afford luxuries, perhaps, or she cared about how she looked.
Most of all I wondered what it meant. What terrible thing did Selwyn do at
work? Who was Edith, and who were the others? It was one of those frustrating
stories that don’t make sense if you come in in the middle, and it was dreadful to
think that I might never know the answers.
There was a date at the top; I hadn’t seen it in my rush to read the letter.
October 12, 1938. I tried to remember the date today, and realized with growing
amazement that it was also October the 12th.
All my doubts disappeared. I was meant to find this letter, and to find it now.
In fact—and suddenly the notion seemed as clear to me as if it was written on the
piece of paper I held—I could find her, Lilyanna, meet her at the Pearl on Tuesday.
The only problem, of course, was that I had no idea where the place could be.
I went to the circulation desk, too much in a hurry even to go to my office,
and turned on the computer. I searched for “Pearl” together with various cities
around the Bay Area and got nothing but gibberish. There were, I was surprised to
see, a few hits for “Lilyanna,” but the people mentioned were all too old or too
young or in another country. So much for my thought that she might be a movie star.
A man tapped at the glass on the door; he’d seen me and thought the library
was still open, despite the Closed sign and the dim lights. I ignored him. He knocked
harder, and I waved him off impatiently. Finally he dumped his books in the outside
bin and strode off, no doubt writing an irate letter to the library board in his head.
I turned back to the computer. It was Friday now; I had a few days yet to
track her down. I clicked on another link for Lilyanna and found an office-worker’s
diary. But she was far too young, and Lilyanna would never work in an office.
Suddenly I realized just how old she had to be. If she was twenty in 1938, say,
she would be nearly ninety today. Probably she was dead.
But of course I wasn’t thinking of her as old. In my mind she was still the