“I’m from a small city in the south of Spain. It’s known for...

“I’m from a small city in the south of Spain.  It’s known for skydiving.  In 1991 there was a huge event with delegations from all over Europe.  I was a twenty-four year old interpreter at the time, and they assigned me to the president of the skydiving union.  His name was Michel.  He was a retired soldier from France.  He’d been part of The Resistance, and still had a number tattooed on his arm from his time in a concentration camp.  We spent four days together.  Nothing romantic happened, but there was something forbidden about it.  He was forty years older than me.  We’d walk arm-in-arm.  He was dignified.  He was fascinating.  He was charming.  And after he went home, we began exchanging letters.  It became a beautiful friendship.  It lasted for years.  But my husband didn’t like it, so eventually I stopped responding.  Michel wrote a few more times but eventually gave up.  I never gave him an explanation.  Recently I discovered the letters while cleaning my room.  I decided to look him up on the Internet, but all I found was his obituary. He died four years ago.  He was eighty-eight.  Right now I’m on a journey through France, collecting information on his life.  I found some military records already.  Today I’m going to call his wife and ask for an interview.  I want to put everything into a book, a tribute of sorts.  I don’t know what I’m looking for.  It’s just something I feel like I have to do.  I want to end the story.”
(Paris, France)