That in Aleppo Once...

That in Aleppo Once... Summary | Detailed Summary

"That in Aleppo Once..." is Vladimir Nabokov's short story about adultery, jealousy, and remorse in the war-torn France of 1940.

The story is written in the form of a letter directed to the narrator's friend, named 'V,' whose address was provided by an old, mutual friend. The narrator is writing to tell V that he is also now living in New York City. He proceeds to tell V some of the events that have occurred, since they were last together as young writers in France.

The narrator begins by telling V of his marriage a month after V left France in 1940. The narrator has the marriage documents but no other proof that his wife ever existed. He now views his relationship with her as if she were a character in one of V's stories. The narrator continues by saying that he held no real emotional attachment to the woman and decided to marry her on a whim, when she said something clever during an evening walk.

The narrator has difficulty in remembering his wife's face and thinks that, if she had worn more makeup, it would have helped his recollection. The narrator's wife had been quite a bit younger than he and possibly attracted to the fact that her husband was a poet but then became disillusioned, when she encountered the real man.

Due to the political unrest of the time with the invasion of France by the Germans, the narrator had hoped to move to America to follow V's example. The narrator's wife has an uncle living in New York City, yet no reply comes from him after a letter is sent. The narrator has received more positive news from a colleague living in Chicago. Therefore, the process of getting the appropriate travel papers has begun.

Realizing that the American travel paperwork takes a while to complete, the narrator and his bride begin their honeymoon and find themselves in the midst of people trying to escape Hitler's reach. As time goes on, the narrator realizes that he and his wife are running from something more monstrous than "a booted and buckled fool."

The narrator begins to realize the extent of his wife's compromised mental state, when she laments the loss of a dog that they neither owned nor talked about owning. The trip turns even more disturbing, when the narrator and his wife encounter a refugee family. The family has tried in vain to bury an old man along the road but cannot dig the hard earth with the only tools available, their hands and sticks.

Moving on, the couple stops at a town called Faugeres, where the narrator exits the train during a brief stop to purchase food. When the narrator returns to the tracks, the train has left the station, and the attendant chastises the narrator for exiting the train. With diminished communications in this rural area, the narrator places failed phone calls, opting instead to send telegrams in an attempt to locate his wife.

The narrator then boards a train that takes him past the couple's initial destination of Nice but does not locate her along the way. So, he opts to take the train to Marseilles and then to Nice instead of returning to Faugeres, where the ill-fated parting occurred. Finding that the Nice police are of no real help in his search, the narrator turns to Russian expatriates in the area for help. The narrator learns of Russian Jews, who have been shipped to concentration camps, and puts his own situation in perspective. However, he still cannot help but feel a sense of loss, as he wanders this idyllic city.

A week after the narrator's arrival in Nice, a plain clothes detective accompanies him to a rundown hotel, where the young wife is supposedly living. The young woman in question is not the narrator's wife, and he argues that fact with the resolute detective but ultimately leaves and walks back to his own neighborhood. While passing a food store, the narrator sees his wife in line trying to look around a group of people to see what is available for sale that day.

The wife says that she had returned to Faugeres, although she did not return to the train station where her husband had left a message for her. Instead, the young woman joins a group of refugees with whom she spends the night in an empty bicycle shop, sleeping near three elderly women. As the narrator has the couple's money and train tickets, the young woman is forced to borrow money from one of the old women to purchase a ticket.

Unfortunately, the young woman boards the wrong train and has made her way back to Nice, arriving just two days ago. Members of a Russian church advise her that her husband is in the city and will certainly find her soon.

Later that day, the young woman tells her husband that she had lied about her activities during the past week. She had not been with refugees, but with a man she had met on the train. Over the course of the next several days, the narrator grills his wife for information about her illicit rendezvous. She only reveals a little bit of information each time, which increases her husband's jealousy with each revelation.

To complicate the strained situation, the narrator is still trying to obtain the U.S. travel papers, and the marriage is deteriorating quickly. One evening, the pressure reduces the narrator to tears. He tells his wife that all else would be bearable now, if she had not committed adultery. Amazingly, the young wife denies the adulterous behavior and that she made up the story of the man on the train to test her husband's love.

Over the next several days, the wife brings little gifts to her husband as gestures of reconciliation, and the narrator is able to write again. The marriage is now salvageable, and the narrator attributes the jealousy and sadness to the nature of true bliss.

During this time, the couple's travel papers are finalized. The narrator goes immediately from the documents office to Marseilles to purchase two tickets for the next ship sailing for America. When the narrator returns home, he discovers that his wife has left him and has not even left a note of explanation.

The friends of the couple either cannot or will not disclose any information about the young wife's location. Finally, one of the older women, Anna Vladimirovna, escorts the narrator to the garden, where she accuses him of being a bully. Apparently, the young wife had told all the couple's friends and neighbors about her love for a noble Frenchman, who could provide well for her. Yet, she stated, the narrator refused to grant a divorce.

According to Anna, the wife told of other atrocities within the marriage. However, Anna cannot forgive the narrator for hanging the young woman's dog before the couple left Paris. This fabrication is the last insult the narrator will bear. He determines to let his wife go her own way and sets out on the trip to America.

One morning, on deck, the narrator encounters a doctor he had known in Paris. The doctor inquires about the young wife's health on board. When the narrator claims that he is traveling alone, the doctor is perplexed. He had seen the young woman in Marseilles shortly before sailing, and she confirmed her imminent passage to America with her husband.

The narrator is not clear about whether his wife is an adulterer, a liar, or both. However, he does know that she never really existed at all. The address, which was given as the young woman's uncle's address, is empty space in New York, and the relatives moved to California upon the death of their child.

At the letter's end, the narrator shares his fear that his wife is still looking for him in Marseilles. He feels that he has made a huge mistake by leaving France without her. The narrator's volatile state of mind prompts him to tell V that he fears "It may all end in Aleppo if I am not careful," alluding to Othello, who commits suicide when he discovers that he has killed his wife, who has not been unfaithful to him like he has been told. The narrator ends the letter by asking V not to use the Aleppo inference in a title for a story, which is clearly what V does.