In the evening, I would often soak my feet in a bucket of ice-cold water. It stopped them from swelling after a long day in heels. The shoes I wore were often too small. Scandinavian girls tend to have big feet, but no one ever paid attention to that. The shoes had to fit everyone. They were size 37, or 38 if I was lucky. But my feet were 39s.
The weeks passed. It was the same routine over and over again. Long days, demanding hairstyles; raw, swollen feet; makeup that melted into your pores and made your skin burn. I scrubbed it off, using oil and a piece of paper. The oil got into my eyes, making my vision blur, and it was almost always with gritty eyes that I read the letters that arrived from Gösta at odd intervals.
Dear Doris,
What has happened? I feel sick with worry. Every day that passes without the postman bringing me word from you is a disappointment.
Please, let me know that you are living and doing well. Give me a sign.
Your Gösta
His anxiety became my security. I leaned against it. Played with it as though we were a pair of confused lovers with no hope of a future. I even placed a picture of him on my bedside table—a clipping from a newspaper that I had saved in my diary. I put it in a small golden frame that I found at a flea market. The oval opening was so tiny, there was barely room for Gösta’s chin, and I had to cut off some of his hair too. It looked like his skull was completely flat. His face made me smile at night before I fell asleep. He looked silly. But his eyes looked straight into me. It’s strange. I missed him more than I missed my own mother and sister.
I think I was slightly in love with him. Though I knew he didn’t see me that way, that he didn’t have that ability with women. But we had something different, something very special. A link between our hearts, a glittering rainbow that brightened and dimmed over the years. But it was always there.
7
She rests her hand on the stack of printed sheets, slowly strokes the surface. Measures it with her finger. The pile reaches from the fingertip to the second knuckle of her index finger. What was supposed to be only a simple letter to Jenny has become so much more.
There are so many memories.
She starts to sort through the sheets and arranges them in piles by name. People who no longer exist. She opens her address book. The names are the only physical trace of those who could once laugh and cry. The dead become different in memory. She tries to picture their faces, tries to remember them as they were.
A tear falls heavily and lands at the top right-hand corner of the address book page, where, years ago, she had crossed out Gösta’s name and written the word DEAD. The paper absorbs the liquid and the ink starts to spread. Small, swirling streams of sorrow.
A lonely home is so quiet, even the smallest sound grows loud. Tick. Tick. Tick. She listens to the white alarm clock with numbers as large as coins. Follows the red second hand on its way around the minute. Shakes it and picks it up to better see the numbers. It is two o’clock in the afternoon, isn’t it? Not one? She holds the clock to her ear and listens; it continues to tick away. There’s no doubting the eagerness of the second hand. She feels her stomach rumble; it’s way past her usual lunchtime. Outside the kitchen window, the snowflakes are falling heavily. She can’t see anyone out there, just a solitary car struggling up the hill. Once it disappears, the apartment falls silent again.
The clock strikes half past two. Three. Half past three. Four. Once the hour hand reaches five, Doris starts to rock gently back and forth in her chair. She hasn’t eaten anything since the tasteless, plastic-wrapped cheese sandwich she had for breakfast. The one Sara left in the fridge on her last visit yesterday. She braces herself against the kitchen table and makes it onto her feet. She needs to get to the pantry. The box of chocolates Maria gave her before she left is still in there, a big, beautiful box with a picture of the crown princess and her husband. She put it there straightaway; it was too beautiful to open. But now she’s far too hungry to care about that. A slight case of adult-onset diabetes also makes her sensitive to low blood sugar.
Her eyes are fixed on the door. She takes a few hesitant steps but has to stop when she starts seeing bright flashes of light. Small white stars forcing their way into her field of vision, making the room spin. She reaches out, tries to find the counter, but clutches at thin air and falls. The back of her head thuds against the wooden floor, as does her shoulder, and her hip is dealt a firm blow by the corner of a kitchen cabinet. The pain spreads quickly through her body as she lies on her back, on the hard floorboards, panting. The ceiling and walls become blurred, eventually fading into complete darkness.
When she regains consciousness, Sara is squatting next to her, a hand on her cheek. She is clutching a phone to her ear.
“She’s awake now. What should I do?”
Doris struggles to keep her eyes open, but her lids droop. Her body is heavy on the floor. The uneven boards are pressing into the base of her spine.
One of her thighs is pointing to the side, and her leg seems to be twisted at an unnatural angle. Doris pats the leg gently with one hand and then groans loudly in pain.
“You poor thing, it must be broken. I’ve called for an ambulance, it’ll be here soon.”
Sara tries to hide her worry, and strokes Doris’s cheek calmingly with her finger.
“What happened? Did you get dizzy? It’s all my fault. The truck carrying the food crashed, and the entire delivery was late. I didn’t know what to do, so I waited for it. And then there were so many other people to see. I should’ve come straight here, what with you having diabetes and everything . . . I’m so stupid! Doris, I’m so sorry!”
Doris tries to smile, but she can barely make her lips move, even less her hand to pat Sara on the cheek.
“Chocolate,” she whispers quietly.
Sara looks over to the pantry.
“Chocolate, you want chocolate?”
Sara rushes over and searches among the cans and the bags of flour. At the very back of the cupboard, she finds the box of chocolates, and she tears back the thin plastic wrap and opens the lid. Carefully chooses a soft piece and holds it to Doris’s mouth. Doris turns away.
“You don’t want it?”
Doris sighs but doesn’t manage to say anything.
“Were you trying to get to the chocolate? Was that where you were going?”
Doris tries to nod, but a wave of pain shoots down her spine, and she squeezes her eyes shut. Sara is still holding the chocolate in her hand. It’s old; the surface has turned grayish-white. She breaks off a small piece and holds it out to Doris.
“Here, have a little bit in any case, to give you some energy. You must be starving.”
Doris allows the chocolate to slowly melt against the roof of her mouth. When the paramedics arrive, it’s still there. She closes her eyes and focuses on the sweet taste spreading through her mouth as the paramedics place their cold hands on her body. They unbutton her blouse and fasten electrodes to her chest. Link her up to machines measuring her heartbeat and blood pressure. Their voices seem to be directed at her, but she can’t make out what they’re saying. Doesn’t have the energy to reply. Doesn’t have the energy to listen. Keeps her eyes closed and dreams that she’s somewhere safe. She jumps when they give her an injection for the pain. Whimpers quietly and clenches her fists when they try to straighten her leg. As they finally lift her onto the stretcher, she can’t bear the pain any longer; she screams and hits the paramedic. Her tears well up and run slowly down her temple, forming a cold pool inside her ear.
8
The room is white. The sheets, the walls, the curtain around the bed, the ceiling. Not eggshell white, but blinding white. She stares up at the ceiling light in an attempt to stay awake, but her body is drowsy and just wants to sleep. She squints. The floor is the only thing that isn’t white. Its dirty yellow color makes her realize that she isn’t dead. Not yet. The light she is staring up at isn’t heaven.
The pillow beneath her shoulders is lumpy, the sm
all clumps of synthetic stuffing digging into her back. She slowly turns, but the movement sends a wave of pain through her pelvis, and she screws her eyes shut. She is lying in a twisted position now, and she can feel the strain from the effort in her side, but she doesn’t dare move back, for fear of more pain. Her eyes and fingers are all she can safely move. She drums a slow melody with her index and middle fingers. Quietly hums the tune of a familiar song: “The falling leaves . . . drift by my window . . .”
“Here she is. No visitors, no family in Sweden. She’s in a lot of pain.”
Doris glances over to the door. She can see a nurse standing next to a man in a black suit. They’re whispering, but she hears every word as though they were right next to her. They’re talking about her as if she will soon be dead. The man nods and turns toward her. His white priest’s collar glows against the black fabric of his suit. She squeezes her eyes shut. Wishes she wasn’t so lonely, wishes Jenny was here, that she was holding her hand.
God, if you exist, make the priest go away, she thinks.
“Hello, Doris, how are you feeling?” The man pulls up a chair and sits down by her bed. Talks loudly and enunciates clearly. When she sighs, he places his hand on top of hers. It’s warm and heavy against her cold skin. She looks at it. His veins loop like worms across his wrinkled skin. Just like hers. But his hand is tan and freckled. And younger. She wonders where he has been and whether he takes off his collar at the beach. She looks up at him to see whether she can make out a tan line on his neck. She can’t.
“The nurse tells me you’re in a lot of pain. How awful that you should fall like this.”
“Yes.” She whispers, but her voice still breaks with the effort. She tries to clear her throat, but she can feel the vibration in her pelvis, and she whimpers.
“It’ll be fine, you’ll see. I’m sure you’ll be up and walking again very soon.”
“I couldn’t walk all that well before, either . . .”
“Well, we’ll make sure you get back on your feet. Won’t we? Do you need help with anything? The nurse said you hadn’t had any visitors.”
“My computer. I need my computer, it’s back in my apartment. Can you help me with that?”
“Your computer? Yes, I can arrange that. If you just give me your keys. I heard you didn’t have any family in Sweden. Is there anyone else? Anyone I can call?”
She snorts and fixes her eyes on him.
“Can’t you see how old I am? My friends have all been dead a long time. You’ll see, once you’re my age. One by one, they all die.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” The priest nods compassionately and looks her straight in the eye.
“For years, funerals were the only celebrations I went to. But now I don’t even go to funerals anymore. I should probably start thinking about my own.”
“We all die one day. No one can escape that.”
Doris is silent.
“What are your thoughts on your funeral?”
“My thoughts? About the music, maybe. And who’ll be there. If anyone will be there.”
“What do you want them to play?”
“Jazz. I love jazz. I’d love it if they played some upbeat jazz. So they’ll realize that the old biddy is having fun up there in heaven with all her old friends.”
Her laughter turns into a cough. And yet more pain.
The priest gives her an anxious look, reaches out for her again.
“Don’t worry,” she manages between coughs, “I’m not afraid. If the heaven you priests always talk about really exists, it’ll be great to get up there and see everyone.”
“Everyone you miss?”
“And the others . . .”
“Who are you most looking forward to seeing?”
“Why do I have to choose?”
“No, of course you don’t. Everyone has their importance, their own place in our hearts. It was a silly question.” She can sense that he is studying her thin, feeble body.
She fights to stay awake, but the priest becomes more and more blurred, and his words blend together. Eventually, she gives up. Her head slumps gently to one side.
9
Even at night, it never gets dark in a hospital. Light from doors, windows, reading lamps, and corridors always finds its way between the eyelids, precisely when you need the darkness most. No matter how tightly she closes her eyes, it doesn’t work—not that she could sleep anyway, with the effort that requires. The alarm button rests next to her right hand. She runs her thumb over it but doesn’t press it. The chair the priest was sitting in earlier is now empty. She closes her eyes again. Tries to sleep, but if it isn’t the light, it’s the noise. The beeps when patients press their alarms. Someone in her room snoring. A door in the distance opening and closing. Feet wandering back and forth in the corridor. Some sounds are interesting, make her curious. Like the clatter of steel or the sound of someone receiving a text message. Others make her stomach turn. Old people crying out, spitting, farting, vomiting. She longs for morning, when the light and the bustle of the ward seem to absorb the very worst of the noise. Every day she forgets to ask for earplugs, but she doesn’t want to bother the workers on the night shift.
Her sleeplessness makes the pain more tangible, despite the medicine. It radiates right down into her feet. In a few days, she’s scheduled to have an operation. She needs a new hip joint; her own broke in the fall. She had shuddered when the nurse showed her the size of the screw, the one that will be driven into her bone, so she can get her movement back. Until then, she has to lie still, even though the hospital’s physical therapist comes to see her every day, torturing her with small movements that seem impossible to carry out. It would be good if the priest came back with her computer soon. She doesn’t dare hope; he’s probably forgotten all about it. Her thoughts fade as she finally nods off.
When she wakes, the world outside the window is light. There is a small bird on the windowsill. It’s gray, with a hint of yellow. A great tit, perhaps? Or maybe it’s an ordinary house sparrow. She can’t remember which of them is yellow. The bird fluffs up its feathers and plucks at its stomach with great concentration, on the hunt for irritating little insects. Her eyes follow its movements. She thinks about the squirrel back home.
The Red Address Book
P. PESTOVA, ELEONORA
Nora. So long since I last thought of her. She was straight out of a fairy tale, the most beautiful creature I’d ever met. The one everyone looked up to, wanted to be. Even me. She was strong.
I was still suffering with terrible homesickness. Not that I was alone in that, of course. At night, sporadic sobs could often be heard from the beds in the apartment on rue Poussin, but come morning, we would patiently get up, go to the ice cupboard, and get cold glass jars to hold beneath our eyes, to reduce the swelling. Then we would be made up and spend our days flashing fake smiles at rich ladies in the department store. We smiled so much that the muscles in our cheeks would sometimes ache when we got home.
Something happens to people who experience intense longing. Their eyes slowly dim, and they lose the ability to see the beauty in their surroundings, in their everyday life. The only way I could look was back. I embellished everything from my past, everything I could no longer be a part of.
Still, we endured; we were poor, and the opportunities drove us forward. We held our tongues. We put up with pins pricking our backs and hairstyles torturing our scalps.
But not Nora. She was always smiling. Perhaps it’s not so strange—she was in great demand. Everyone wanted to work with her. While the rest of us posed and smiled in department stores, she was being photographed for Chanel and Vogue.
Eleonora Pestova—even her name was beautiful—came from Czechoslovakia. Her cropped hair was brown, and she had brilliant blue eyes. When she wore red lipstick, she looked just like Snow White. With the stiff girdle laced tight around her upper body and bottom, she embodied the boyish ideal we all strove for in the early 1930s. Back then, the dresses were
straight and the skirts short, even if more feminine shapes were slowly becoming more popular. Today’s newspapers write about young people being slaves to fashion, but you should have seen what it was like then!
While the rest of us walked to our bookings and had to make sure our makeup and hair stayed fresh, cars arrived to drive Nora around. We earned just enough to get by, but she made considerably more. She did buy nice bags and clothes, but luxury didn’t seem to impress her. She spent her evenings curled up in bed with a book. On the bedside table that I shared with her, my picture of Gösta lived alongside her growing pile of books. Just as I had done while living with Madame, she used books to escape reality, and once she discovered that I shared her interest, she let me borrow a couple. I read them and then we sat together, night after night, curled up on the French balcony, smoking and talking about books. At least ten cigarettes per night; that was part of the diet prescribed for us. Fat girls got no work, and cigarettes—or, as they were known back then, diet cigarettes—were the miracle cure of the day. The nicotine made us giddy, so that we giggled at things that weren’t even funny. Once the cigarettes stopped having an effect, we started drinking wine. We camouflaged it in large teacups, so that the matron wouldn’t find out what we were up to.
Thanks to Nora and those happy evenings, Paris finally started to gain some color in my mind. I began writing to Gösta again. I no longer needed to lie; I just described what I saw all around me. I also borrowed from many of the authors I was reading, bulked up my letters with their vision of the city. On our days off, Nora and I would visit the places they wrote about. We fantasized about the nineteenth century, about the women’s long, sweeping skirts; the street life, the music, the love, the romance. About life before the Depression that was now hanging over the world.
The Red Address Book Page 6