In September on 1979 Clover Nolan, the sixteen year-old fille fatale from the dusty cotton fields of East Texas, announced her impending departure from New York and America. The blonde artist never explained her fascination with Mittel Europa and left never to be seen by her friends, although that winter I received two postcards from Clover, which I recently found in a stash of correspondences in Andrew Kozak’s closet.

The first one was from Mikolow. I asked Tony, a waiter at Velseka Restaurant, if he knew the town.

“Mikolow is in Lower Silesia, nice old place, but surrounded by filthy coal mines and when I say filthy I mean brudny.”

I got the idea and ordered an everything bagel with coffee and reread Clover’s words. Her handwriting was a little childish as expected from someone who had run away to San Francisco at fourteen to escape from a local oil baron three times her age.

Hello Boy! Well what do you know? It’s cold and snowing here. I mean who would have expected the Russian Front to be cold. Not me and I got a rude surprise. But it’s nice too. Kind of magical, if that doesn’t sound too hokey. “She’s in Poland and all she can talk about is the weather. What else? I and my art are doing just fine. I’m going to travel alot when I get out. I now speak Polish. I miss my home, my friends, you included. Kisses Clover.

Reading the line ‘I’m going to travel alot when I get out.’ I envisioned Clover in a woman’s prison. How had she got a visa to Poland. The State Police regarded all westerners as spies and I didn’t tell any of her friends about my suspicions.

I was glad to find a second postcard from Berlin in my mailbox a month later.

Her penmanship had improved over the young girl writing from Mikolow. The date on the postmark was 11/3/79. I hid both from Alice.

Peter_____Ah Berlin! I feel home at last. You know I’ve always considered myself a German, but the amazing thing that even now, with the culture and language difference I still consider myself one. This amuses them to no end, but they like it too_____I think the language is beautiful, so full and sensuous and chewy___Yum yum. Not hard, but strong___nice yes! I love it. By the way I had sex with you. Man looks exactly like you will be in fifteen years. Same face down to the pores and scars…very twilight zone___I can’t tell you how exact was the likeness …You were (will be) pretty good. Clover.

And that was all she wrote.

Mystery without any answers.

I’ve been to Berlin.

I’ve seen the Wall.

1982.

No sign of Clover, but she wasn’t the first woman I lost in Europe.

Nor the last.