Heavyweight - #14 Isabel

Episode Date: November 30, 2017

In 1999, an old suitcase was found abandoned on a Brooklyn street corner. The suitcase contained 5 years worth of love letters between a young man and young woman. In this episode, Jonathan tries to track them down. Credits Heavyweight is hosted and produced by Jonathan Goldstein. This episode was also produced by Kalila Holt. The senior producer is Kaitlin Roberts. Editing by Jorge Just and Alex Blumberg. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Meg Driscoll, Kelly Coonan, Nicole Wong, Jonathan Zenti, Alvin Melathe, Anne Silk from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Jackie Cohen. The show was mixed by Kate Bilinski.  Music by Christine Fellows and John K Samson, with additional music by Chris Zabriskie, Blue Dot Sessions, and Michael Charles Smith. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Haley Shaw. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, sweetie. How are you? Okay, so I was just thinking about all that you do. Jesus. You're a mother, a professional MD, a friend. Oh, gosh. And for all of that, I just wanted to say to you, bravo. You know what that's doing to me, right? I'm just trying to say bravo.

Do you remember who once said bravo to you and you didn't like it? Yeah, some girl at a party. It really upset you. You don't like to be bravoed. Johnny, I don't like attention. But don't you feel you're a person who deserves attention? It just makes me feel tense. Well, I'd like to shine a spotlight onto you.

But if I say I don't like attention, why do you then say let me shine a spotlight on you? Because a spotlight doesn't... John, are you listening? Wait, hang on a second. A red hot spotlight does not necessarily mean attention. It's just a spotlight. From Gimlet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Isabel.

In 1999, an old-fashioned rectangular suitcase was found on a Brooklyn street corner by a man named Ed. For 15 years, Ed kept the suitcase stowed away in a storage locker in his basement. When he accepted a job overseas, he carried it over to his neighbor, a woman named Kendra. Kendra pushed the suitcase under an armchair, and that's where it's been sitting ever since, collecting dust. Until today.

Kendra lives in a small apartment building on a residential street. Thanks for coming. Take your shoes off? Either way, it's fine. She takes me into her living room and pulls the suitcase out from under an armchair. It's battered and old, like something you'd see in a black and white documentary, clutched in the hand of a door-to-door salesman drifting from town to town. Scott, please. Like, snips. door salesman drifting from town to town. She opens up the suitcase and there they are,

the letters, hundreds of them, charting from beginning to end the relationship between a young man named Brad and a young woman named Isabel. This is a lot. The letters were written over the five years they dated. The relationship was almost entirely long distance. Isabel was from Venezuela, and Brad was from North Carolina. He, I know, went to art school because a number of the letters are addressed to him there. She, I don't know where she went to school, but she clearly is also an artist. I mean, look at this. Kendra pulls out three photos attached by spider webs of white thread. Each photo shows

Isabel, tussled hair and heavy eyeliner, holding an old brownie camera. During those ignorant days, the only way to create a selfie, or self-portrait, as historians tell us they were called, was to pose with a camera in front of a mirror, like an animal. They're really, really cute. In another photo, Isabel and Brad sit on the beach in sunglasses and formal wear. The photo looks like a still from a black-and-white film

by Jean-Luc Godard. They're in their teens, early 20s. They are young and beautiful. I love this one. This is a menu, like one of those. Among the letters and photos are dozens of keepsakes, ticket stubs, and coins from foreign countries.

Well, this one has a leaf in it. Oh, wow. Look at that. Open that up. Each letter is a mini handmade art project. Even the envelopes are carefully decorated. On one, just under Brad's name, Isabel's drawn a row of fish swimming by.

The letters were written by Isabel and sent to Brad, who filed away each one in his suitcase. The story of their relationship, told through Isabel's letters, is like a diary where half the pages are missing. Kendra pulls out a letter at random. This is from Christmas Eve, 1990, and she says, Brad, today I got the best Christmas present ever. I'm talking about your letter and picture. Thank you so much for telling me your true feelings. Ooh, this is like a really personal one. You should not be afraid that I won't be there for you when you might need me. I want to be there. You are my

boyfriend and friend also. To me, you're more important than any other friend I have. I guess that with time, our trust toward each other will grow. Just as each day, I feel I know you a little bit more. Believe me, I'm also scared of getting hurt. I figured that if I'm scared that you might hurt me and you're scared that I might hurt you, then it must mean that we both know we don't want to hurt the other person. No? The last thing I would want to do is to hurt you

or even see you hurt. It's so romantic. It's just so... It's so vulnerable. They both were so afraid of getting hurt. And I mean, that's how people always go into relationships, you know, and then probably at least one of them did get hurt in the end. Kendra happens to be going into a relationship right now. She's about to move in with her boyfriend. This is why she's called me here today. Starting a new relationship with a suitcase containing a dead relationship feels inauspicious.

So she can't keep it, but at the same time, she doesn't want to throw the letters away. So you've gone through all of these? Yeah. I don't read Spanish and a lot is in Spanish so I haven't read the ones in Spanish. But it sounds like you've created

little stories about what their relationship could have possibly been. I mean it's kind of irresistible to do that. And what's your take? You think that it ended up on the sidewalk and found by your friend because it was disposed of? I think it was disposed of.

Yeah. My gut is that he got rid of it possibly because he was in another relationship and New York apartments don't have room for a lot of I don't want to say secrets, I don't think this was a secret but a lot of past stuff We should find her and we should get it

to her because it's an amazing time capsule of who she was at this time and it would like reopen this part of herself that she maybe forgot about I mean imagine if somebody contacted you out of the blue and they were like hey guess what I have a bunch of art and photos and stuff that you made and that was about you from the time that you were, I don't know, whatever, like 16 to 22 or whatever it is. I mean, wouldn't you want that back? Of course I would,

especially if it were something so irreplaceable. None of us will probably ever again have a collection of 100 handwritten letters mailed to us with photographs developed by an enlarger in a dark room. One day, when drones capture our every moment, when each of our pensies, written or perhaps unwritten, is housed in an ever-expanding cloud,

there may not be a need for such suitcases at all. All right, so I'm going to take this off your hands. Okay. And I'm going to do some... You sound sad. I am sad now that it's really the moment to say goodbye. Take good care of it. Thanks for coming.

We say our goodbyes, and Kendra walks me, suitcase in hand, to the front door of her apartment. Oh, I locked this one. This one up here? Yeah. My marching orders had been handed to me. Oh no, it's just the top one. I was determined to find Isabel.

I think you locked the bottom. And I would work tirelessly until I did. Here, you want me to get in there? No, I got it. Well, actually... Here, can I, you want me to get in there? No, I got it. Well, actually, um... Although New York apartments might not have a lot of room for past stuff, they certainly

make up for it with an abundance of locks. Yeah, actually, maybe you should do it. Okay. Sorry. No, it's okay. But as soon as I could get out, I'd set off in search of Isabelle. That's, yeah, you should probably figure that out. It's probably like a fire hazard if you... All right, you're free to go.

Oh, okay. Okay, great. After the break, life outside the Svokakta apartment. Okay. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Yo se que te quiero eso es todo lo que se. Las muchachas.

No, this isn't Latin lover Antonio Banderas, but Latin lover, because he loves Latin, Jonathan Goldstein. Since most of the letters between Brad and Isabel are in Spanish, and my own Spanish is like that of a 1950s Canadian housewife wandering Tijuana in a novelty-sized sombrero, I'd need a translator, someone to help me understand the letters and get them back to Isabel.

And so I enlisted Gimlet Media Editor Jorge Just. Are you ready for this? Jorge and I are always getting up to what CEO and Gimlet Media founder Alex Bloomberg calls shenanigans. Doing stuff like Jorge hiding my chair each morning, or Jorge stealing my laptop while I'm in the bathroom and liking a whole bunch of Nickelback fan pages. Alex discourages, quote, fraternizing on company time, unless there's a valid business reason.

fraternizing on company time, unless there's a valid business reason. Well, Alex, does returning a suitcase full of personal history to its rightful owner strike you as a valid business reason? Only God can judge me, Alex. So stand back and let my father do his job and let Jorge and me do ours. Gordo, R, does Gordo mean something in Spanish? It means fat. Fat? But it might be a nickname, like a, you know, like. My little fat one? Yeah, but it's a term of endearment.

Jorge and I spend the afternoon snacking on honeydew slices and sifting through honeydew juice-so soaked letters. We try to construct a timeline that'll lead us from the relationship's beginning to the discarded suitcase on the street. So this is September 29th, 1993. 3rd of March, 1992. July 18th, 1994. August 9th, 1993.

The correspondence begins in December of 1990, when Brad and Isabel first met on Christmas vacation in Florida. In these early letters, Isabel offers up little Spanish lessons, teaching Brad basic vocabulary and grammar. I'm going to show you the future tense. Tú caminas, tú vas a caminar. You walk, you're going to walk. It perhaps speaks to the intensity of his feelings. But before very long at all,

Brad's language is good enough for her to switch over to Spanish completely. Hola, pana. No ha pasado mucho desde que hablamos. El mayor cambio es que voy a empezar a trabajar este lunes. Isabel travels a lot, so her letters come from all over. Each one is composed of precise capital letters and arrives in an envelope that Brad meticulously slits, always along the width, careful not to tear the drawings. A lot of the letters are mundane, stuff you'd share across a dinner table or through rapid texts. No me gusta cuando me duelen los oídos.

My ears started to hurt when I went back to the apartment. I don't like it when my ears hurt. But for Isabel and Brad, this kind of chit-chat was a slow process. Between each message was a wait that lasted days. Brad would wait to hear if Isabel's family had begun to soften to the idea of her attending art school. And Isabel would wait to hear if Brad had saved up enough money to fix the brakes on his car. Whether he finally bought that photo enlarger he had his eye on. I'm really happy that you bought the enlarger.

I know that that's a great thing and that you really wanted it. Truly, it makes me really happy. Brad would wait to hear about what Isabel's plans were for the night. Velcro jumping. Tonight we're going out to a disco where there will be velcro jumping. This really is truly 1992. He'd wait to hear about her trip to Boston. I'm really happy.

I really, really like Boston. And I think that you'd like it too. When I went to the art museum, I wanted to have you with me. We'd be enjoying each other so much. Well, someday we will, right? The letter is stamped March of 1992. If Brad had been at the museum,

the two young photographers might have seen the work of another young photographer, Ansel Adams, whose early photographs were on exhibit at the time. Many of his early photos weren't of the barren landscapes that made him famous, but of people smoking, talking, dancing. The photos in the suitcase are also portraits that Brad and Isabel took of themselves and each other. Oh, wow. They're so young.

Yeah. Brad and Isabel at a wedding, Brad and Isabel on a hike, sitting by a lake, holding on to each other. In every single one, they're looking at the camera and not smiling. Because they're cool art students.

They definitely seem that way. And when they weren't together, they were making plans, always looking forward to the things they'd do when they'd next meet, like watching the 10th anniversary of the David Letterman show.

Yeah, and she says, Gordo, when you fix your VCR, we can rent it and watch it together. Oh, Gordo had a broken VCR. That's so nice, though. Yeah. Isabel says that she'd already watched the episode, but wanted to watch it with Brad.

Watch Brad as he watched Letterman throw watermelons off a roof and herd sheep into a cab headed to LaGuardia Airport. And then there are the love letters. And the love that Isabel expresses has the feeling of a kid in love for the very first time. And when I thought that I couldn't love you anymore,

every day I love you more, I'm so happy to know that we're together. Sometimes I wish I could just put time on pause so that everything could get fixed. And when I was ready to press play, we could just continue happy and together. Throughout these letters that span five birthdays... That looks like a birthday one.

This is a birthday one for sure. ...five Christmases, five summers and winters... It started to snow last night, and it's still going....that span years and countries... This is a birthday one for sure. Five Christmases, five summers and winters... It started to snow last night and it's still going. ...that span years and countries. There's always this vague hope that one day they'd be together, really together, in the same city, the same home, for good. But in the end, Isabel remained in Venezuela.

Except Venezuela no longer felt like home. She was aimless, knowing she should get a job, but not knowing what she wanted to do. March 14, 1994, and it's a fax. She ended up taking a job at her brother's office, which had a fax machine. I don't know exactly what I want for myself and my life. I feel totally lost. taking a job at her brother's office, which had a fax machine. I feel totally lost.

I have no idea what I want for myself or for my life. As unsure as she was, there remained one thing she always seemed sure of, her and Brad. Because at no point is there ever any sense that a suitcase full of her letters would one day end up abandoned. Jorge felt the same way. The more I read, the more surprised I am that these letters aren't, you know,

somewhere with Brad, that they're not in the basement that they own together. We search the suitcase, looking for the last letter ever written. The postmarks and addresses are many and keep changing. Florida, Savannah, Boston, and finally, Venezuela. That's the very last letter ever written. The postmarks and addresses are many and keep changing. Florida, Savannah, Boston, and finally, Venezuela. That's the very last letter. The last letter was sent by Isabel in March of 1995, almost five years after they first met. She says,

The address it's mailed to is in new york it seems brad had just moved there to start grad school in photography she's saying she's really sad she was shocked that he decided to move to new york oh really and that that she knew that he had been thinking about moving but that she never thought that he would move to new york and then she says that she talked thought that he would move to New York. And then she says that she talked to her mom and her mom helped her think through it and understand that it was a good decision for his career and that that's why he was doing it. And that's why she says, it's true, it's the center of photography. And she says, Gordo, you're very good at photography.

I'm sure when you get your portfolio together, you'll find everything that you want. One thing that I noticed is that everybody in New York has an air of confidence, of believing that they're the best. And if I saw that, then you don't have to worry because you too are good. You're better than all of them. I'm sure that it will go well for you you told me that you're not going to have a telephone in New York

you know I want to hear from you I need to know how you're doing I miss you when you move I'd love to have your address please call me and tell me what it is I promise you that we'll talk only the, you know, as little as possible, only what's necessary. I imagine the last thing you need

are big fat telephone bills. Sounds like he chose his photography over their relationship. Yeah, for sure. And this is the last letter because he never, maybe he never sent her his address. And the way that she signs it off is,

Isa, P.S., try to write when you have time. Oh. Am I just getting, like, really sentimental, or is this, like, sad? It's sad. Yeah. Kendra's friend found the suitcase in 1999, which means after that last letter,

Brad continued to hold onto the suitcase in his small New York apartment for four more years. Isabel had a very common name and no presence on the internet so I began looking for Brad since all the letters were from Isabel's pen I'd only gotten to know him through her as a young man with a letter opener and a broken VCR

determined to become a photographer someone who could hardly afford brakes for his car but was still going all in on a new VCR, determined to become a photographer. Someone who could hardly afford brakes for his car, but was still going all in on a new photo enlarger. And it looked like his determination paid off. Brad is now an architectural photographer, still living in New York. His photographs are no longer portraits, but sparse, empty interiors. A school without children. A hotel without guests. I dialed the number on his website and explained that a suitcase was found on a Brooklyn street corner and passed on to a woman

named Kendra, who passed it on to me. Anyway, long story short, it's a suitcase that has all of these letters. Does that ring any bells? Yes. What happened? How did the suitcase end up where it was found on the street? I let it go. You mean you threw it out? Yes. That makes me surprised because the letters from Isabel sound and feel really very affectionate, you know? Well, there was love. Something happened, I don't know what.

I asked her to marry me. I gave her a ring. She wasn't living in the country. I wanted her to come move to New York. Uh-huh. And she broke it off. Within a year of her breaking up with me, she got married. So there's not much to do after that. It's done.

I guess the impression that I had was that maybe you had broken up with her. No, certainly not. Was she trying to preserve some kind of friendship or something or remain in touch? That would be likely, yeah. Yeah. And I, what's the point of that? Once you've gone to that place with someone, you can't take it back a notch. I mean, it's all or nothing. And she chose nothing.

She chose nothing. She chose not to be married to me. That's how that seems to me. There's nothing that I would do differently at this point. This is, I have a different life now. You know, I have an incredible wife who has worked with me, and I just feel like we've been through so much. And, you know, it's not the path that I initially thought that I would be on. I was convinced that it would have been with Isabel.

But at this point, I am happy to be here, happy to be where I am. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you? Are you in a car right now? Yeah, I am. Are you heading home? No, I'm going to pick up my daughter from school. Well, you know, I mean,

it seemed like Isabel, it seems like maybe the right thing to do would be to get them back to her. Do you know where she lives? She lives in Italy helped, after some searching around, I found her on Facebook. In her black-and-white profile picture, she's holding an old-fashioned camera to her face, a self-portrait in front of a mirror,

just like the kind she'd take when she was a teenager. In the photo, the eye that is not looking into the viewfinder is opened wide. We'd assume that both eyes are opened wide. I send Isabel a message

telling her who I am, what I've found, and how I want to give it back to her. And then, I wait. The first day of my wait is spent imagining all the praise and gratitude that awaits me. Thank God for men like you. I never imagined there were gentlemen as generous as you. If you hand-deliver this suitcase,

I'll read you each letter after a picnic lunch of Italian delicacies in my father's vineyard. You've not truly ever tasted salami until you've eaten it under a Tuscan sun. The second day is spent indulging more of these lunatical imaginings and binge-watching MASH in triumph. But by the third day, still not having heard back from Isabel, I take to my bed for more MASH, though now binge-watched in defeat.

Why wasn't she getting back to me? And then, after a week and a half, I receive a message. Hello, Jonathan, Isabel writes. The letters are a part of my history, and in history they stay. I do not want to explain anything. Neither do I want the letters. Hope you understand. Life goes on. I have a life. Life goes on. I have a life. Wishing you all the best, Isabel.

Isabel also tells me how she now has a family of her own. She has a life. Brad has a life. Kendra has a new life with a new relationship. Evidently, everyone has a life except for one person who's stuck with an old suitcase

full of letters written in a language he doesn't even understand. Hablando of which, how fluent was Isabel's English anyway? Was something getting lost in the translation? I write her back, explaining that I don't want anything from her. I don't even need to understand what happened between her and Brad. That really, all I want is to give her back her letters. The next day, Isabel writes back. Jonathan, she writes,

I appreciate all the trouble you've gone through to get a hold of me. I have beautiful memories, but people grow and change. I am no longer the person who wrote those letters. Isabel. While all the peripheral characters, the Kendras, the Jorge's, the Jorges, the Jonathans, feel so invested in these letters that neither belong to nor concern them, both Isabel and Brad are not.

They have a similar way of being in the world, and you can understand how they might have been drawn to one another. They both seem to get it, get something, something that, for the life of me, I don't understand at all. Isabel, I write. For me, the most interesting thing about revisiting the past and the person I was isn't even finding out the ways in which I've changed,

but rather finding the ways in which I'm still the same person. Discovering that common thread, that thing that holds our lives together, gives our lives continuity and meaning. Maybe I'm talking the same person. Discovering that common thread, that thing that holds our lives together, gives our lives continuity and meaning. Maybe I'm talking about a person's soul. I'd come to know Isabel through her letters, and it feels fitting that I'm still getting to know her through her letters.

And in spite of all the technological advances of the intervening years, I'm still left sitting around, waiting. Isabel writes back, I take from the past the lesson it offers me and move on. That's the only thing that matters, that we learn something from every situation lived, good or bad. So to me, she writes, life is one lesson after another, which makes our soul grow and change. I personally do not have one letter from anyone in my past. And that doesn't mean I

had a bad past. It means that I've learned and moved on. I stop reading. Not one letter from her past? I'm the kind of person who saves post-it notes stuck to his computer screen by colleagues in the 90s, someone who never once erased a contact from his phone. Since you are antithetical to my way of being, Isabel writes, I also leave you the challenge of discarding that bunch of letters I'm counting on you to do that Who knows

Maybe doing it will help you in some aspects of your own life Just remember The future is built as we move forward Take care, Jonathan And as always The best to you Isabel.

After his death in 1924, Franz Kafka left behind a will instructing his friend, Max Braud, to burn all of his remaining writings, the unfinished novels, the journals, the letters. remaining writings, the unfinished novels, the journals, the letters. In 1939, just before the Nazis invaded Prague, Broad, clutching a suitcase containing all the papers it could fit, boarded a train and set out for Palestine. And with that, some of the most important writing in the 20th century was saved. Max Broad's reasoning was that if Kafka had really wanted his stuff destroyed, he never would have asked Broad to do it. He had to have known that Broad was the last person who'd destroy work that he loved so much. Isabel is not Kafka, and I, though I do admire his self-justifying, prevaricating style, am not Max Broad.

Yet after that final exchange, I unscrew a bottle of bourbon, turn on mash, and struggle over Isabel's challenge. It felt like a paradox. On one hand, these letters don't mean anything to me. But on the other hand,

discarding them just feels wrong. Throughout your life, if it's a good, long life, you let go and you wrong. Throughout your life, if it's a good long life, you let go and you let go of your ambitions, your hair, the people you love most. And then one day, after a lifetime of saying goodbye to the most important things, you suddenly find yourself unable to unclutch your hand from the handle of a suitcase that isn't even yours.

And for close to 30 years, it seems no one who carried this suitcase could easily let go. Not Ed, not Kendra. Even Brad, the most motivated, could only pack the suitcase, exit the front door, and make it only so far as the curb. And why? Why can't any of us destroy the letters? Is it because we believe in stories about love? The beauty of youth? The idea that somehow, contained within this little suitcase, a relationship still exists. One that's a stand-in for a relationship that we've all had.

And lost. I'd been looking forward to giving Isabel back these memories, but Isabel doesn't want my unsolicited gift. Instead, she's offering a gift to me. Permission to do the thing I normally cannot do, to simply let go of the past. Being unable to let go of the past feels small somehow and marks you as petty, the kind of person who holds on to grudges and painful memories. But in that net of memory, beautiful things get trapped too. Moments and emotions that once moved you, or a version of you, a first love, a great meal. Or that one fall evening when you pick up an innocuous-looking suitcase that had been sitting under your desk for months, and leave your office early with a Spanish-speaking friend, and head out into

the dark street, looking for the perfect Brooklyn street corner on which to let it go. How about over there? How about under that street light? Okay, hang on, I'll be right back. Part of you hopes that someone else, someone like you, will find it, and treasure it, at least for a little while. Alright.

And then, you run to catch up with your Spanish-speaking friend, who's already half a block away, prattling gleefully about something you barely understand. And that, more than likely, neither of you will remember. You want to grab a beer? Yeah. You know a place around here? Yeah, I think there's a place down the corner. Is it that place that you told me that only takes Bitcoins?

I was lying about that. I asked you if you were lying. I'm going to go to the bathroom. Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage deposit Take this moment to decide If we meant it, if we tried Or felt around for far too much From things that accidentally touched Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me, Jonathan Goldstein,

along with Kalila Holt. The senior producer is Caitlin Roberts, editing by Jorge Just and Alex Bloomberg. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Meg Driscoll, Kelly Coonan, Nicole Wong, Jonathan Zenti, Alvin Melleth, Chris Neary, and Silk from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Jackie Cohen. The show is mixed by Kate Balinski, music by Christine Fellows and John K.

Sampson. Additional music credits for this episode can be found on our website, gimletmedia.com slash heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Haley Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at heavyweight, or email us at heavyweight at gimletmedia.com.

Join us next week for the last episode of the season. By parallelograms of light On walls that we repainted white Sun in an empty room Sun in an empty room Sun in an empty room Sun in an empty room Sun in an empty room

How about this? Everybody clap your hands. And people know when to stop? There's no stopping. Really?