FXC starts Part IV. of the Translator’s Note and forward with a description of her potential meeting with VMS and begins the tale of VMS’s murder/disappearance. She states that “in late May 1946, I received a telegram from Straka summoning me from New York to the Hotel San Sebastián in Havana. Here it read, he would hand me the tenth and final chapter of his new novel, Ship of Theseus.” After translating thirteen of Straka’s novels without any known meeting, it appeared that VMS was ready to trust FXC through an actual meeting. This trust and meeting would have been a major turning point in both their professional, and possible personal, relationship.

There are also a series of footnotes and marginalia on this page.

Footnote 6 describes FXC’s conflict with finishing the translation Ship of Theseus without the final chapter, which VMS had said that he would only share in person. It is also revealed that this novel was originally written in Czech.

Czech->Hruby?

Eric made the suggestion that because the manuscript was in Czech, VMS may have been, “The noted Czech poet and playwright Kajetán Hruby” mentioned on p.viii of the Translator’s Note and Forward. While this claim is too obvious to answer the question of who is Straka, it is reasonable for the naive Eric to make during an initial reading of Ship of Theseus.

Additional exchanges in response to Footnote 6 shows Eric’s skepticism in FXC and her perceived relationship with VMS that would lead him to trust her with a face-to-face meeting.

hard to imagine anything VMS would be less likely to do
You don’t believe FXC here?
I don’t believe FXC anywhere
He sounds sincere to me.

Footnote 7 has a list of novels that FXC translated and she also mentions that “no translator has ever been credited with work on Straka’s first six novels.” This showed that VMS trusted FXC with his final novels and that her work had earned his trust.

While Jen was impressed, Eric had reservations to FXC’s claims to translating from many languages to many languages. This shows that both VMS and FXC were multilingual and makes it harder to determine their identities.

Impressive for one person.
but a little hard to believe, right

Footnote 8 shows FXC’s claim that she did indeed destroy and burn all of her correspondence with Straka. This may have been added as a footnote directed at Straka specifically. It would show him that she is trust worthy and opens the possibility of another attempt at a meeting after the Havana incident.

To this, Jen responds But some still exist right?

Footnote 9 is FXC’s reiteration of her fortitude and how she believes she is trustworthy, even after “threatening encounters, harassment, burglaries, break-ins, pursuits, and surveillance.” This is a repeated attempt to show her perseverance in protecting Straka’s anonymity.

Why go through all of this? What makes someone so devoted?
commitment to art? politics?
I’ve got time to kill at work and access to all kinds of databases. Might be more available about FXC these days. Gonna look.

If Jen had done research to find any existing correspondence, there could be the conclusion that without physical evidence, Straka is protected or that FXC could be lying about the whole intention to meet up at Hotel San Sebastián. This may connect to Eric’s initial skepticism in her reliability as a translator.