He sat down at the kitchen table and pulled the letter out of the envelope. After one glance at the paper, he held it up to the light instead of reading it. “That’s a curious watermark.”
“I thought so, too. That’s how I’m hoping to trace the source of the paper.” The watermark on the letter was hard to discern at first because of the writing that covered the page. But I was able to distinguish it on the back side. It was a row of stylized turtles at various intervals, and every few inches, the word Charente appeared.
I had learned to make watermarks while taking classes in papermaking years ago. There were several ways to do it, but the most common was to take thin wire and bend it into the shape you wanted, affix the wire to a drum—these were called dandy rolls and looked like large rolling pins—and roll the drum over the paper. Where the wire hit the paper, it created a slight indentation. You might not be able to see it unless you held it up to the light.
The process was more complicated than that, especially when it came to mass production, but that was the easiest way to explain it.
“Charente,” Derek murmured.
“Yes,” I said. “It sounds French, doesn’t it? I figured it’s the name of the paper company that made the stationery. But the design is unusual and artistic enough that it could also be the name of the papermaker himself. Or herself.”
Derek glanced up. “It’s also the name of a river in southwestern France.”
“Is it? Well, maybe that’s where they made the paper.”
He nodded absently as he studied the page. “Perhaps.”
“I want to get a better look at that mark.” I jogged back to the bedroom where I had stashed my set of portable bookbinding tools. Pulling out my magnifying glass, I returned to the kitchen and sat down to study the paper more closely.
“I don’t recognize the language,” Derek said. “There are a few French prefixes here and there, but they’re mixed up with Hebrew symbols and it’s all nonsensical. At least to me.”
“I’m bummed.” There were so few languages he couldn’t translate at least partially. “Should I ask Gabriel?”
“Certainly, but I’m not sure he’ll have any better luck with it.”
I scrutinized the handwriting more closely. “I guess I could ask my bibliophile chat group.”
“Good idea,” he said. “And describe the watermark to them, too. They always come up with interesting theories.”
“That’s why I thought of them.” I pushed my chair back and stood.
“There is one more thing,” he said, looking up at me.
“What’s that?”
“The letter wasn’t written by a schoolgirl. That is an adult’s handwriting.”
*
As Derek watched the late news in the family room surrounded by Maggie and Charlie, I sat alone at the desk in the Quinlans’ office with my computer logged onto my online bibliophile chat group. They were in the middle of a chat about foxing, a favorite topic of bookbinders because those pesky brown spots were a perennial problem with old books.
The chat group was full of eclectic and brilliant minds, so after first apologizing for interrupting their conversation, I described the watermark and the quality of the paper and asked if anyone was familiar with it.
“It’s most likely French,” I added. “And probably made in the nineteen forties or fifties.”
I was immediately bombarded with comments, mostly from people thanking me for changing the subject. Nobody liked talking about the heartbreak of foxing, but we couldn’t help ourselves.
A few of my online friends were intrigued and promised they’d look into it and get back to me.
To thank them, I mentioned that I’d found a beautiful French edition of Journey to the Center of the Earth and regaled them with the childish blood oath I’d discovered on the flyleaf. The chatter picked up, and the conversation veered off into horror stories of books damaged by children.
A while later I was about to sign off but decided to throw them one more question. It wasn’t exactly related to bookbinding, I explained to the group, but it was part of the letter I was researching.
I typed out the first paragraph of the letter and then asked, “Does anyone recognize this language? Our current theory is that it’s a mashup of several extinct languages, including, possibly, medieval French. I appreciate any help you can give me.”
I received six comments, but only one of them was helpful. Claude, a genius of a librarian from Maryland, suggested that the letter might’ve been written in Chouadit, an extinct Jewish language once spoken in southern France.
“The word Chouadit means Jewish in the old Judeo-Proven?al language of the area,” Claude wrote. “There might be some Aramaic thrown in there, too. I won’t get your hopes up, but give me a day or two to work on the translation itself, and I’ll let you know what I come up with.”