UNKNOWN DESTINATION

In the realization that my language is powerless to describe what has happened in the seven years since I first met her, I am compelled to recount the story of my wife, the beautiful Raya Mira Salomon, who disappeared on the night of August 31, 1997, our daughter’s sixth birthday, at the age of thirty-seven. . . .

It was a hot, rainy summer evening when Gideon’s enigmatic wife, Raya Mira, with painted lips and her hair gathered up in a single clip, went out to get a pack of cigarettes at a café around the corner and never returned.

One year later no trace of her has been found.

Now Gideon sits down to open a suitcase she left behind. Hoping to put his wife to rest at last and move on with his life, he discovers that she remains very much alive inside the cracked seams of the suitcase, which is full of childhood postcards, letters, photographs, and scraps of paper with jotted down thoughts.

Instead of assuming the role of widower, Gideon renews the promise he made with her seven years ago on the eve of their marriage: to be faithful to her until the end. So what was intended as a liberation becomes a pact more powerful than death, more intense than love, more implacable than fidelity.

Unknown Destination is a haunting, unforgettable first novel revealing one man’s emotional journey through deduction and madness as he tries to make sense of his wife’s inexplicable disappearance. It is a lyrical and elegant debut that eloquently demonstrates how a battered soul can learn to live with a tragic past–and make peace with the shattering truth.

Maya Rasker studied German linguistics and literature at the University of Utrecht. Unknown Destination, her first novel, was longlisted for the Netherlands’s most prestigious literary award, the Golden Owl 2001, as well as for the ECI Book Award. She received the Golden Dog-ear Award 2001 for best literary debut of the year. She currently lives in Holland with her two daughters.

Translated by Barbara Fasting