Читать книгу A Book of Common Prayer - Joan Didion - Страница 16

A GOLD CIGARETTE LIGHTER ENGRAVED “D.N.C. ATLANTIC CITY ’64.”

A letter of introduction from the Wells-Fargo Bank in San Francisco to the Banco de la República, collapsed two regimes back.

A California drivers’ license, recently expired, and credit cards from American Express, Gulf Oil, the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans, I. Magnin and Saks Fifth Avenue.

$26 American and an equivalent amount in local currency.

An unsealed envelope addressed only to a post-office box in Buffalo, New York. An unfinished letter describing the resemblance of the Capilla del Mar to the Tivoli Gardens.

Two lipsticks, one broken pencil, a folded envelope containing four sulfathalidine and two salt tablets, a vial containing a scent predominantly gardenia, a fortune-cookie tape printed “A surprise is in store for someone you love,” and a frayed clipping of one day’s horoscope from Prensa Latina.

This is a list of the items said to be in Charlotte Douglas’s possession (and later returned to the manager of the Hotel del Caribe) at the time of her death in the Estadio Nacional. The square emerald she wore in place of a wedding ring was neither listed nor returned. I took the gold cigarette lighter to Marin in Buffalo but Marin said she had no interest in the past. I do.