“Humptey! Come and see what Sandra has made! All by herself!”
And shortly thereafter he appeared out of the whirling snow, out of the whining of the wind that obliterated all other sounds. He was the gorilla in high spirits, slightly bent forward, forehead wrinkled in creases, and hands dangling listlessly in front of him, almost dragging the ground when he walked forward quickly. And with his sights set on Lorelei.
“Here comes the snow gorilla to get you!” the Islander roared. “Ugh! This is an attack! The ape is back!”
“Stoppp! Tjuuuh!” Lorelei Lindberg shrieked but it was too late. Before anyone knew what was happening the Islander had thrown himself at her and both of them had lost their balance and fallen over on the ground where they rolled back and forth, back and forth, wrestling, snickering, over the angel in the snow which, of course, was destroyed beneath them.
Sandra barely had her moment of triumph, then it was over. The angel had only just been made (and to what effect? that was something you could really ask yourself) and it was obliterated from the face of the earth.
Then Sandra was beside herself again. But this time in the usual way, in the way she had been beside herself in her parents’ company so many times before.
“You’ve messed it up!” she cried and burst into tears. The tears sprayed out of her eyes, she squatted in the snow and just roared. Of course the moon boots did not tolerate this kind of shifting of body weight, so she just tumbled down on her back and ended up in an odd position half sitting on the ground; it was really uncomfortable and did its part in making sure the crying would not stop.
Finally her parents paid attention. They finally stopped with their games. Lorelei Lindberg ran up to Sandra and tried to put her arms around her but Sandra just flailed wildly and became even more hysterical.
“My goodness, sweetheart,” Lorelei Lindberg tried. “Calm down. It was just a game.”
But Sandra did not calm down, nothing helped now, certainly not what someone tried to say. Everything was already destroyed, Sandra was inconsolable. And the Islander and Lorelei Lindberg stood powerless beside her; and now they had to accept standing there, discouraged and bewildered in the cruel storm, like two fools.
But not for very long of course. If there was, as said, something Lorelei Lindberg was not blessed with it was an angel’s patience and, above all, this applied to her only daughter’s cries and howls, which were, as said, frequently occurring.
“My goodness, child!” she finally yelled. “Get it together! I said that it was only a game! I’m not thinking of standing here and staring at you one more second!”
And Lorelei Lindberg turned around and started with great determination to trudge back through the snow toward the promenade that led to the village from which they had come, the village with all of the hotels, restaurants, and the nightclub the Running Kangaroo, which was the gathering place for the international jet-setters. And with all of the people. Once Lorelei Lindberg had gotten started she went straight ahead without so much as a glance over her shoulder. And quickly, very quickly, she was swallowed up by the storm and the fog—just like the house, the woods, the Alps, and the entire magnificent puzzle game had just been swallowed up.
Everything that was wide open becomes a closed world again.
Now there was just snow, and there in the middle father and daughter. Sandra, who was really trying to calm herself down now and gradually managed to do so, and the Islander, who was so often standing on both sides of the fence. His daughter on one side, his wife on the other. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
No. Getting there using reason was not possible. And that was a good thing indeed because that kind of musing would not have gotten him anywhere. He would just have remained standing in the snow, stiff and frozen in place just like his angel daughter was a moment ago.
No, as luck would have it the Islander was, in contrast to his daughter, someone who WAS NOT endowed with a complicated inner life. One second’s thinking was enough, then he had turned toward her again:
“Listen up, little Miss Sourpuss! It can’t have been that bad! Look at Dad!”
. . .
And he had thrown himself on his back in the snow and started waving his arms up and down, up and down, a few quick strokes and presto he had created a new angel next to the old one, Sandra’s angel, the one that no longer existed.
“SIMSALABIM! Who’s been here? No one other than director Houdini!”
He jumped up and brushed off the snow, made a stupid theater bow at the same time as he once more, carefully, almost in secret, glanced in the direction where Lorelei had walked into a wall of snow, where she could no longer be seen. He pretended not to be bothered by it, but as was so often the case when the Islander was pretending, what he was trying to hide became that much more obvious. He put his arm around his daughter and pulled her a little, just a little bit, again almost unnoticeable but the message was clear. Now he wanted to leave.
“You don’t understand anything!” Sandra hissed and tore herself out of her father’s grip. She was calm again but truly angry. Now it was enough! With all of it! Everything!
And she started running. Ran out into the snow, ran and ran, even if it was toward the road because if you did not hurry now it would be difficult to find your way back to the village at all (in the Alps the snow could block off roads in a second, she had read about that in the hotel’s brochure just the day before).
In other words she WAS NOT running after Mom. She was running away. In general. Out into whiteness. Away from Mom, away from Dad, away from the evil eye, away from the house, the ominous house.
Little Bombay. Silk rasgulla. An exclusive blend. Not authentic, but it hangs so softly, so softly.
Little Bombay, the winter, one of those half-dark days, and at dusk, no one in the store.
There was never anyone in the store.
In other words, no customers. Almost. Just Lorelei Lindberg, that is what we call her, and the little girl.
A small silk dog, who was wagging its tail.
Or just lying, under a table, panting by her water bowl.
And the fabric fell over the edge of the table.
The fabrics that Mom cut, sometimes.
Dupioni. Italian. It is the best, the one with the very highest quality.
Then follows, in that order, the Indian and the Chinese.
Little Bombay, all of the fabrics.
And, when you looked outside, a wet snow was falling against the dark asphalt, so wet that it melted before it reached the ground.
There were not any customers in the store. Or: sometimes someone came in and bought a zipper or fabric for a lining.
One person would want Thai silk, but the texture of the one they had suddenly was not good enough.
It was supposed to be two-ply, not four.
These people, what do they think of themselves? thought Lorelei Lindberg, but she didn’t say it out loud.
She didn’t say anything out loud. Why should she? She wasn’t the one who lit a cigarette and reveled in ambiguity.
She did not even smoke.
She arranged spools of thread and made estimates in her notebook. Sometimes she looked up and asked questions. Sandra, little Sandra, what do you think the Islander is doing right now?
And they guessed.
That was before the period of constant telephoning. He rarely called. Almost never. But he came to the boutique just before closing time.
It was her friends who called, girlfriends.
“And now we’ve chatted away another hour again.”
Organza.
They played music. Her music.
The banana record.
Sometimes she put puzzles together. “Alpine Villa in Snow,” 1,500 pieces.
They were never finished.
“I’m waiting for the man” was one song.
“Heroine.”
Another.
And:
“Take a walk on the wild side
.”
You didn’t understand what they meant, you didn’t listen to the words.
It was like when Bob Dylan sang:
“To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.”
It wasn’t the words. Of course it didn’t mean anything.
Just rubbish.
But you understood perfectly.
The Islander came at closing time.
And he took her home.
Another song that was played a lot at that time:
“Our love is a continental affair, he came in a white Jaguar
I waited for him in my red raincoat because it was raining that day.”
Was that how it went?
They stood in the rain outside Little Bombay and waited.
The mom, the silk dog.
And it rained.
And yes, it rained.
Shantung.
Little Bombay, the soft silk dog.
And all of the fabric.
But the girl’s cheeky, independent objective to run away on her own did not last very long. She had barely gotten up speed in her wretched boots before she understood she was in no way alone, she had someone after her and someone quickly beside her, someone who was not going to give up, which was confirmed by a familiar and playful smack on the back. It was the Islander of course, who else?
“Now we’re going to accelerate these machines!” he shouted. “Now we’re going to catch up to Mom!”
As if everything was still a game. And Sandra realized again that it was incurably hopeless, all of it. But at the same time, she had to give up. She could not resist him either. He was so funny after all, so happy, her very own father the Islander, the charming one in high spirits. She could not do anything about it either, that the temperament was incorrigibly infectious.
It was impossible to be angry with him for long. Because in Sandra there was also a little dog, the soft silk dog, the one who wagged its tail, wagged and wagged because it also wanted to join in and play.
And they ran together and in the whirling snow someone howled like a lighthouse on a foggy sea:
“Lorelei! Guess what! Sandra and I just came up with a brilliant idea! Now all of us are going to run back to the hotel as fast as we can and then we’re going to stay in the room and drink hot toddies all day long!”
A moment’s silence, and then a radiant “my fantastic small super piglets!” could be heard in response.
And the snow dispersed just in that moment and she was standing in the middle of the road in front of them, Lorelei Lindberg, arms spread out as if to envelop both of them in her embrace.
“What a delightful idea, by the way!” she continued, lowered her hands and smiled so tenderly and devoutly. Nothing more was needed in order for the small, soft silk dog also to obey, run laughing toward Mom, so playful and so eager, nosing against her mother’s stomach and wagging her tail.
Little Bombay.
They argued over whether IT was silk taffeta or habotai.
They argued, believe me. We prefer habotai. It’s so thin and light.
Like a veil.
“Waiting for the man.”
So porous, as if it wasn’t fabric.
As if it almost didn’t exist.
“Little Sandra, what are you going to be when you grow up?” Lorelei Lindberg asks Sandra Wärn, her little girl, in Little Bombay, among all of the fabrics.
“I’m going to be a silkworm. A cocoon so soft so soft.”
“Ha ha ha,” said Lorelei Lindberg. “I don’t think so.”
“Or a silk dog.”
And to the Islander, so soft and light:
“She says she’s going to be a silk dog when she grows up. Isn’t there something special about her? Isn’t she wonderful?”
And to Sandra:
“I think, sweetheart, that you’re going to be a clothing designer when you grow up. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Silk chiffon and silk georgette. Two thin, thin materials that cannot be confused with each other.
We prefer georgette. Because a really nice georgette is difficult to find.
“But we have this one, you can see on this sample.”
“Feel.”
And it was in Little Bombay, among all of the fabrics.
Said and done. The family stayed indoors at their hotel the rest of the day. First in the bar and later in the restaurant and after a pass by the jet-setters’ nightclub the Running Kangaroo to their own hotel room again, with room service. It rocked, rocked. Sandra Wärn would not have many memories of that evening and that night and what followed after, a few days. Mostly gaps, hallucinations brought on by the alcohol, she would became very sick from the alcohol she drank in secret and could not tolerate.
But from these gaps the following would, in any case, stand out. The image of Jayne Mansfield’s dead dog among the shards of glass after a car accident that was fatal for everyone involved; the movie star and the dog, and also a small, crushed whiskey bottle would remain lying on the asphalt. In the end that was the picture she threw up on, when there sort of became too much of everything. Then it was already night and it finally dawned on her parents that something had gone wrong. And there was a quick end to the festivities.
In the hotel room: the Islander and Lorelei Lindberg “discussed.” When they had “discussed” they started arguing. The Islander and Lorelei Lindberg loved to fight but had a silent agreement that this fact should not be revealed. If you did not fight for real then you could not make up for real afterward. And the best thing about fighting was making up. And then no one was allowed to bother them.
It was just when the fighting had reached its culmination that the nauseous feeling that could not be stopped welled up inside the little girl. And then hallucinations brought on by the drunkenness and the hangover, followed in a state between sleep and consciousness, a pounding headache and stomach pumping at a hospital where black-clothed nun-nurses with troubled expressions kept watch over the little harelipped girl.
But still, this was in any case indisputable. One morning, not the next one but maybe the one after, the storm had abated and there was sun and it was clear again and it was probably pretty late although Lorelei Lindberg was still lying in bed, asleep. The Islander shook Sandra, waking her where she was lying on the sofa in the big room that was almost a suite (“It’s ALMOST a suite” was, among other things, the sort of thing her parents had the habit of arguing about). The Islander indicated she should be quiet and get dressed quickly and come with him. And out with the girl again and before she knew it she and the Islander were back on the wretched promenade again, this time in a real taxi.
“This is going to be our home,” the Islander said and pointed over the field at the same house whose magic power had not been banished.
“Here?” Sandra asked weak at the knees and for a moment she thought, despite her young age, she understood all of those people who drink themselves into a stupor to avoid coming face-to-face with reality. And she tried to put all the hesitation and all the resistance she could muster in this little “here?” But it was obviously not much. Her head continued to pound in the sunshine, her angel had been buried for good, her angel, other people’s angels, everyone’s angels, and now a completely neutral sun was shining from the clear and soaring sky again, a sky that was extremely indifferent toward them.
“Not here,” the Islander said impatiently. “In our home country of course. Come, let’s go and ring the bell. I need to take some pictures.”
They had waded through the snow, first the Islander, then his daughter. Sandra had straggled behind anyway, perhaps deliberately. Everything was crazy, all of it, and it was spiraling in her head and her stomach was knotting up too. She saw how the Islander ran up the long stairs and rang the bell. And what was it? Some kind of alpine march suddenly started playing loudly in the idyllic nature. In other words, it was the doorbell.
Thrilled, the Islander yelled from the landing where he was standing, “What a
gizmo!” down to his daughter, who was not the least bit enthusiastic. He waited and waited, the song died out, no one opened.
The Islander had to manage with the camera by himself as best he could, so it turned out that he captured only the outside of the house on his roll of film.
And soon he was busy with the camera: click, click, click, and click.
The girl closed her eyes because of the dizziness, and suddenly, she saw an alpine villa next to a muddy marsh in front of her. A house with a decomposing façade and a long staircase. And a woman who fell down the staircase, rolling violently down all the gray, concrete steps. Then coming to rest on the ground like a dead person.
Driven to the hospital, stitches in the neck with a stitch called butterfly.
And inside the house, in the basement, a swimming pool without water. And there was someone who was running in it, back and forth between the two short sides. Running and running, arms making swimming strokes in the empty air in front of her.
Imaginary swimming. That she was the child, she saw that too. And in the background SHOTS. Pang.
Though pang. Maybe it was just snapping in her head because the girl had gone down on the ground now in the alpine sun, she could not stand upright in all her day-after weakness and she knew that she was about to faint.
But then the Islander was there shaking her, holding her, and everything was okay again.
“Am I not an Ålänning worth the name?” the Islander said in a brilliant mood in the taxi on the way back to the hotel. “A damned impressive one with captains in the family going back generations?”
“Mmm,” Sandra said because that was the way she had the habit of answering when he was going on like that.
The American Girl Page 6