Dead Letters Anthology by Conrad Williams

showed some men outside the Hotel Schlüssel in Lucerne. In another, there were men and cars gathered on a mountain road, and on the back of this one, someone had written, ‘WHERE IT WAS DECIDED’. ‘I assume that my father took the photographs, and I wondered if one of the men might be your father, but I didn’t remember him well enough to be sure. Now I’ve seen you, though, I swear that one of them must be either your father or your grandfather. There is a man – seen walking away from the Hotel Schlüssel, and in the gathering on the mountain road – who is the spit of you, right down to the trilby and the walking stick.’
    ‘Is that right?’ said Lukas. ‘That’s very interesting.’
    ‘The photographs are at my house in London,’ said Karla. ‘I could send you a copy when I get home, but I’d very much like to look at them with you. Are you ever in England?’
    Lukas said that he had no plans to come to England in the foreseeable future.
    ‘Never mind,’ said Karla. ‘I’ll send them in the post.’
    Lukas came to Karla’s room that night. Sitting on the edge of her bed in the lamplight, he asked her about the photographs. Having studied them many times, she could tell him all manner of details, such as, outside the hotel and on the mountain road, it was raining – the men were wearing overcoats and carrying big black umbrellas; and one picture showed an incoming ferry whose name was
Rigi
; and it was possible to read the time on the clock at the ferry terminal, and the name of a street, Löwengraben, and the number plate of one of the Volkswagen Beetles on the mountain road.
    When Karla had told him everything she could, Lukas said goodnight and returned to his room.
    In the morning, Karla phoned her daughter, told her where she might find these photographs and asked her to send them to the hotel so that she and Lukas could look at them together. The post should only take a few days.
    Karla looked for Lukas in the breakfast room, so that she could tell him, but he wasn’t there; she didn’t see him anywhere that day, or the next. By the time the photographs arrived – found and posted promptly, with a note on the envelope to say ‘They were where you said they would be’ – Karla had discovered that Lukas had gone. His luggage, she had learnt from the reception desk, had been sent on to the Hotel Schlüssel in Lucerne.
    Karla asked the receptionist to find and dial the number of the hotel. Lukas could not at first be reached – he did not appear to have arrived – but some hours later the Hotel Schlüssel returned her call, putting Lukas on the line. Karla said to him, ‘What are you doing there?’
    ‘I looked online,’ he said, ‘and saw that the hotel was still here. It has a good rating on TripAdvisor.’
    Karla could hear some commotion going on around him. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
    ‘It’s my luggage coming in,’ he said. ‘I’ve only just got here. I went via home to collect a few things. I have rather a lot of luggage, including a few awkward items.’
    ‘Well, I’ve just received the photos. I asked my daughter to send them here. Are you coming back?’
    ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ said Lukas.
    ‘Well, how long will you be in Lucerne for?’
    ‘Indefinitely,’ he said.
    He was exasperating. Karla put the phone down and looked at the packet of photographs in her hand. She would send them on to him.
    In her room, she made use of the hotel stationery, addressing an envelope to Lukas at the Hotel Schlüssel and enclosing the packet of photographs. She went to the post office before lunch.
    When she did not hear from Lukas, she called the Hotel Schlüssel again and was told that Mr Birchler had gone.
    ‘Gone?’ she said. ‘Gone where?’
    ‘I don’t know exactly,’ the receptionist said, ‘but he said that you might call. I didn’t personally see him leave but he has gone, although he left behind many of his belongings.’ Amongst these abandoned