Theodore,

I’m making travel plans now. My doctor looks poorly on extended travel, but well on time in the country. I’ll split the difference.

I envy how expressive you can be about me. You’ve always had a better touch for poetry, for the heart. In another life, you became a poet and wrote works to rival Shir HaShirim. I fear academia’s wiped my own meager talent from my mind: a creature of fact and logic remains, all formalities. All I can say is ‘I miss you greatly’ and hope that gets the message across.

It is a good time for a break. I’ve spent months arguing with the government for funding. Despite my misgivings, your ‘Reynard’ has been helpful in confirming other primary sources I’ve been able to gather; every year, my expedition proposals grow stronger, more elaborate. Unfortunately, I don’t think any amount of support will get it funded. The implications are too potentially damning for anyone in politics to risk taking it forward: damned as a fool if I fail, damned as an iconoclast if I succeed. When I return from Missouri, I’ll have no choice but to seek private funding.

Enough of that talk. I don’t want to think about talking to men in top hats into giving money to an ailing Jew. I am coming for you. We’ve waited long enough, paid the price of our youthful scandal. I miss you, and I worry about your ‘Reynard’. I cannot prove how many of his endless anecdotes are meaningless fluff, and it is not my business if he prefers his own tall tales of his past to whatever actually happened. Still, his care towards you is callous; I’ve said it before and I’m saying it now. Perhaps, in person, I’ll see what you see in him. If not, perhaps I’ll be able to show you how careless he’s been to you.

No, enough of that talk as well. I am coming to see you; that is enough. I will take you into my arms like we used to; that will be enough. Remember to shave; your beard tickles too much otherwise.