New York City

New York is where Michael carries out Hanna’s final instructions by bringing money to the surviving daughter, and where his longing for Hanna meets the fact of her death. The journey’s autumn landscape briefly gives shape to an imagined home, but the city’s measured streets and the daughter’s composed reception return him to the unsettled history that brought him there.

Purpose of the Visit

It is autumn before Michael can act on Hanna’s instructions. He is traveling to New York for a meeting in Boston and uses the occasion to bring the daughter the money: a bank check and the cash kept in a tea tin. He has written to her, identified himself as a legal historian, mentioned the trial, and asked to speak with her; she has invited him to tea. The visit therefore joins a practical task—delivering the money—with the personal and historical connection established by the trial.

The Journey and Its Longing

On the train from Boston, the autumn-colored woods recall the pictures Hanna made in her cell. The landscape also prompts Michael to imagine a life with her in a house among the hills. In this imagined scene Hanna is older than when they first met but younger than when he saw her again, and he pictures her moving through the house with ease. The fantasy is checked by the circumstances of their actual lives: Hanna is dead, did not speak English, and could not drive. Michael recognizes that his desire has fixed on Hanna without her being its true object; it is a desire to come home.

The Daughter’s New York

The daughter lives on a street near Central Park lined with old, dark-sandstone row houses. Their nearly identical façades and matching stoops give the street a severe, repetitive appearance, while young trees stand at regular intervals along the sidewalk. At her home, the daughter serves tea beside large windows overlooking small backyard gardens, some green and colorful, others little more than collections of trash. These specific surroundings place Michael’s intimate errand within an ordinary city setting rather than a return to the past he has imagined on the train.

The Meeting and Its Significance

After welcoming Michael in English, the daughter switches to German once they sit down and asks what has brought him. Her manner is matter-of-fact, as are her gestures and dress; Michael finds her face difficult to place in memory, unable to recall how it looked during the trial. He tells her about Hanna’s death and her last wishes. When she asks why Hanna chose her, Michael answers that she is, as far as he supposes, the only survivor. New York thus becomes the setting for the final transfer between Hanna and the person who survived the camp: money and wishes pass to the daughter, but the encounter does not resolve Michael’s longing or erase the distance between the past and the present.