The History of Love

Alma wakes up on August 30 feeling overwhelmed by the approaching new school year, her 15th birthday, and her adult life. She takes off her clothes in the bathroom and contemplates her skinny frame. She asks her mother more questions about The History of Love and determines that Alma Mereminski is never younger than 10 or older than 20 in the book. This means she must have left for the United States at 20, ending her relationship with the author, whom Alma assumes is Litvinoff.

She heads back out to search for a marriage license with Alma Mereminski’s name. Finally, she has a stroke of luck. The man at the City Clerk’s Office finds a record of Alma Mereminski marrying Mordecai Moritz in 1942. Alma calls information and finds an address for Mr. Moritz in Manhattan. She imagines visiting the apartment and meeting Alma Mereminski, telling her about her father and The History of Love. However, when she reaches the apartment building, the doorman informs her that Alma Moritz is dead. In a last-ditch effort, she asks the doorman if he knows anything about a book called The History of Love. He doesn’t, but he suggests that she speak to Alma Moritz’s son, Isaac Moritz, a famous writer who might know something about a book.

After returning home, Alma has dinner with her uncle Julian. They talk about love and relationships over Indian food, and Alma admits to reading the partial letter she found in the bathroom trash. When Alma gets home, she is alarmed to learn that her mother sent off the next installment of The History of Love before she could add a new love letter. Alma feels like her mission has failed, and she decides to give up. She stays up late reading The History of Love, hoping to find a closer connection to her father. September begins, and Misha still doesn’t call. Uncle Julian prepares to return to London, but before he goes, he gives Alma a birthday gift, registering her in an art class called “Drawing from Life.”

Litvinoff starts copying The History of Love with no intention or expectation. He doesn’t mean to plagiarize Leo or to make Rosa fall in love with him. He doesn’t think about copying out the whole book. However, one page at a time, he begins the work, changing the names from Polish to Spanish and making the setting South American. When he gets to Alma’s name, he cannot bring himself to change the name to Rosa. He also remembers Alma from childhood and knows she is the whole reason for the book’s existence.

When he finishes copying The History of Love, Litvinoff tries to throw away the original manuscript. He puts it in the garbage can under the sink, then the outdoor trash cans, then under his bed, and then buries the pages in his yard, worrying that Rosa will discover the original. Knowing the location of the buried pages continually eats away at Litvinoff, and he eventually digs them up and hides them in a locked drawer in his desk.

In her introduction to the second edition of The History of Love, Rosa describes the day of Litvinoff’s death. The two sat in the hot January sun and looked at the sky together. They read from a book of Chinese poems, and Litvinoff told his wife it was time for him to go. However, the narrator notes that this is not exactly what happened. The night before his death, Litvinoff told Rosa he had something he needed to tell her. He doesn’t manage to confess his secret but says, “I wanted you to love me” (188). Rosa answers that she has, and the conversation is over.

When The History of Love is accepted for publication, Litvinoff’s editor requests a few changes. Litvinoff tries to make them, even though changing his friend’s words feels wrong. Finally, he makes one change that the editor did not ask for. Litvinoff adds a final chapter to the book. Chapter 39 is The Death of Leopold Gursky and transcribes the self-obituary Litvinoff took from Leo’s desk so many years ago. It is the only hint of the text’s true author.

After the book is published, a letter arrives from Leo Gursky saying he has settled in New York and hopes for his manuscript to be returned. When Rosa reads the letter, she understands what her husband must have done. Feeling partly responsible but committed to protecting the secret, Rosa tears up the letter. She responds to Leo, explaining that her husband is ill and cannot write himself. She laments that the manuscript was destroyed in a flood. Then Rosa leaves the original manuscript on a low shelf and leaves the tap on while she and Litvinoff go out for a picnic.

Uncle Julian leaves. Alma’s mother stops responding to letters and only answers the phone to speak to Julian. Alma notes that her memories of her father are becoming fainter, and she wonders if this is happening to her mother, too. She attends the Drawing from Life class every Tuesday and feels shy about drawing “the hundred percent naked people” (193) who model for the class. The teacher calls her out, saying the breast in her drawing looks like “a Frisbee with a nipple” (193), and tells Alma to shade more.

The rain continues and is sometimes so hard that Bird has to leave his project in the vacant lot. Alma wonders what he is building and wishes she knew how to help him. She turns 15, and Bird gives her a lifejacket as a gift. She worries that he won’t grow out of his religious fanaticism, and she searches for his diary, but all she finds is her overdue copy of The Street of Crocodiles.

Alma asks her mother if she has heard of Isaac Moritz. She has but hasn’t read his books and doesn’t seem interested in discussing the matter. Alma heads to the library and finds a copy of The Remedy, Isaac Moritz’s most famous book. She reads the first sentence and discovers the book is about a man named Jacob Marcus. Shocked, Alma reads the sentence over and over. She realizes the letters her mother received must have been from Isaac Moritz, using his character’s name as an alias. She tries to call Misha to tell him the news, but he doesn’t answer.

That night, Alma wakes Bird and tells him he must stop talking to God and try to make friends. He points out that she doesn’t have any friends herself. Alma protests, but she has to admit that Bird is right. She begins thinking about everything she should do to be more normal. The following day, she gathers a map and Isaac Moritz’s address and asks Herman Cooper, a boy from school, to drive her to Connecticut.

The two have more in common than Alma imagined, and she tells Herman about The History of Love and her search. They get lost looking for Isaac Moritz’s house, and no one is home when they do find it. The two sit on Isaac’s porch for a while, and Herman kisses Alma. The kiss is less awkward than the one she shared with Misha, but Alma is left with the feeling that she is falling in love with someone else, not Herman. Isaac never appears, and Alma leaves a note on his door before leaving.

A week and a half later, Alma’s mother sees Isaac’s obituary in the newspaper. Alma wants to tell her mother everything, but she starts to cry, and all she can manage to say is, “I need you to be […] not sad” (202).