“Is this really the right place?” Agnes whispered the words, as though she didn’t dare say them aloud. I shook my head and shrugged, and though I wanted to reproach her, I didn’t. Our situation hadn’t really changed, I tried to tell myself; it was neither better nor worse—we were still lost in a strange country, and in desperate need of help. We needed a roof over our heads and an income of some kind. The tin box in my suitcase was empty, and what little money we did have was rolled up in my bra. It was safer that way. Our last few dollar bills had been joined by the money from Allan’s wallet. That gave us a good wad of cash, and its weight was a constant presence against my breast. If we didn’t find Elaine, we would just have to do something else. We could manage a few more nights yet.
That said, as we began to pass boarded-up windows, we realized that we were more lost than ever. The wooden houses towered up like empty shadows, devoid of beachgoers, laughter, and life.
“There’s no one here. It’s a ghost town,” Agnes muttered, coming to a halt. I paused too, and we sat down on the larger suitcase, squashed up together. I picked up some gravel from the ground, sieving it between my fingers. From a blossoming career as a model in Paris, with high heels and dresses lined up in my wardrobe, to blisters and a sweaty blouse on a deserted road somewhere in rural America. In just a few short weeks. There was no holding back the tears that those thoughts brought up. They flowed freely, like a flood delta, down my powdered cheeks.
“Let’s go back to Manhattan. You can keep looking for a job. I can work too.” Agnes leaned her face against my shoulder and sighed deeply.
“No, let’s go a little farther.” I could feel my strength returning, and I wiped away my tears with the arm of my coat. “There are buses coming out here, so someone must live here. If Elaine’s here, we’ll find her.”
The suitcase we were carrying between us swung as we continued our walk. The bottom corner struck painfully against my shin whenever we lost our balance, but we continued to walk down the road. I could feel the gravel through the soles of my shoes, and somehow it seemed as painful as walking barefoot. But eventually, thank God, the number of houses increased and the gravel was replaced by asphalt. We spotted a few people wandering along the sidewalks, dressed in thick wool coats and knitted hats, their heads bowed.
“Stay here and watch the bags,” I said to Agnes when we reached what seemed to be the center of a town. There were a couple of men sitting on a bench. As I approached them with a smile, I was met by a long tirade of words I didn’t understand. The man saying them had a thick white beard and kind, wrinkled eyes. I replied in Swedish, but he shook his head. I came to my senses and switched into broken English.
“Know Elaine Jenning?”
He stared at me.
“Look Elaine Jenning,” I continued.
“Aha, you’re looking for Elaine Jenning?” he said, followed by more words I didn’t understand. I stared at him helplessly. He paused, took my hand, and pointed.
“There. Elaine Jenning lives there,” he said slowly and clearly, pointing to one of the houses farther down the street. A white wooden building with a cornflower-blue door. The building was narrow, with a round tower at one end, reminding me more of a boat than a house. The paintwork had peeled on the front, making the façade patchy. White shutters protected the windows from the strong wind. I nodded and curtsied in thanks, then took a few steps back and ran to Agnes.
“There!” I exclaimed, pointing. “She lives over there! Elaine lives there!”
The French words that came streaming out of Elaine’s mouth as she opened the door and saw us standing there felt like a big, warm, welcoming embrace. She herded us inside, gave us blankets and tea, and allowed us to calmly tell her everything that had happened since we parted ways on the dock. About Allan. About the letter that had arrived too late. About our days at the hotel in Manhattan. She sighed and hummed, but said nothing.
“Could we stay here a few weeks? To learn more English?”
Elaine got to her feet and started to clear away the teacups. I waited for her reply.
“We need to make some kind of life for ourselves in America, and I don’t know how,” I continued after a moment.
She nodded and folded up the lace tablecloth.
“I’ll try to help you. Language first, then a job, then somewhere to live. You can stay here, but you’ll have to be careful. My son can be a little particular.”
“We don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
“He doesn’t like strangers. You’ll have to keep hidden if you’re going to stay here. Otherwise it won’t work.”
Silence descended over the room. We had found help, but perhaps not in the way we’d been expecting it.
Suddenly, Elaine got to her feet and fetched a rectangular box, which she placed on the table.
“Let’s leave all that seriousness behind for now. Shall we play Monopoly?” she exclaimed. “Have you ever played? There’s nothing better for sorrow and grief than a good game of Monopoly. One of my neighbors gave it to me as a welcome present when I arrived here.”
Her hands shook as she unfolded the board, set out the pieces, and grabbed a small crystal bottle filled with dark-red liquid. She held out what looked like a small dog to Agnes.
“This one could suit you, Agnes? We call it dog in English.”
Agnes repeated the word and took the piece in her hand, studying the little pewter figurine. Elaine gave her an approving nod.
After a moment’s hesitation, I picked up a piece of my own.
“Boot,” said Elaine, but I was lost in thought.
“Say it after me, boot.”
I jumped. “I don’t want to play games, Elaine!” I dropped my “boot,” and it clattered onto the game board, then fell to the floor. “I want to make sure we can stay. What do you mean, hidden? Where are we meant to hide? Why?”
“Phew, we’re probably going to need a drop of this sherry if we’re going to do this.” She flashed us a strained smile and got to her feet to fetch some glasses. We sat in silence, watching her movements in the little kitchen.
“There’s a room in the attic; you can stay there. You can’t come down when my son is home, only during the day. He’s just a little shy, that’s all.”
She took us up to the attic room. There was a narrow mattress propped against one wall, and she pushed it over. We stood, watching the dust swirl as she got blankets and pillows. We helped one another carry up the suitcases. Once everything was ready, she gave us a bedpan and then locked the door.
“See you in the morning. Try to keep quiet,” she said before she pulled the door shut.
That night, we slept topped and tailed beneath the thick wool blankets. The wind wailed outside the window. Through its cracks, faint gusts of icy air entered, and we pulled the blankets tighter around our bodies, up to our ears, above our chins, and eventually over our heads.
The Red Address Book
N. NILSSON, GÖSTA
We quickly established a routine in that little white house by the sea. Every day followed the exact same pattern. When Elaine’s son closed the front door behind him in the morning, she would immediately come up to the attic and unlock our door. We emptied the bedpan in the outhouse in the yard and then sat down at the kitchen table, where we would be handed a cup of hot tea and a slice of plain bread. After that, the day’s English lesson would begin. Elaine would point and talk as we helped her with chores around the house. We cleaned, baked, sewed, darned socks, and aired rugs, always with Elaine chatting away and our own voices repeating everything. By the end of the second week, she had stopped speaking any French at all. We carefully followed the nuances of her language and the pronunciation of individual words, which we shaped into simple sentences. She asked us to fetch things or do certain chores. Sometimes we didn’t understand what she meant, but she never gave up. Occasionally she simplified a lesson by using fewer words or by gesturing and acting out a meaning until we laughed. Only then, with a wink, wo
uld she explain herself. Our lessons with Elaine were a welcome break from reality.
As dusk approached, she would shoo us back up to the attic. We heard the rattle of the key as she locked us in, followed by her footsteps down the stairs. She always went out to the porch to wait for her son, Robert, regardless of the weather. From the window in the attic, through a gap in the thin lace curtain, we could see her. She always got up and smiled warmly when Robert arrived, but he never said a word to her, just walked moodily past, his eyes focused on the ground. Day in and day out, we saw him punish her with silence; night after night, we saw her ignored.
Eventually, Agnes couldn’t help herself. “Do the two of you never talk?”
Elaine shook her head unhappily.
“I left him behind. My new husband got a job in Europe, and I couldn’t do anything but follow him there. Robert has never forgiven me for that. I came back when I got the chance, but too many years had passed. Now it’s too late. He hates me.”
He took out his anger on her. We heard him shouting whenever something went wrong. We heard her put up with it all, apologies for one thing after another. Swear her love and beg for forgiveness from the son she had lost forever. Her situation was much like ours—she was alone, a new arrival. Living in a country she no longer knew, confronting someone who no longer wanted anything to do with her.
The hours we spent in the attic passed more slowly than our time in Elaine’s company. I can still remember being trapped up there in the stale air. My sorrow and longing for Allan. He was constantly in my thoughts. I couldn’t understand how he could abandon me again. How could he move on to another woman so quickly, how could he be married? I wondered who she was, and whether time also came to a standstill when they were together.
Worries became overwhelming in that cramped space, and I tried to take my mind off them by getting in touch with Gösta. Every night, by the glow of a small oil lamp, I wrote long letters telling him all about our new home. About the sea and the sand we could see from the house, about the wind that whipped my face whenever I went out to the garden to get some air. About the English language and how it sounded to my ears, how the words mixed together to become noise when people spoke quickly, as Americans always seemed to do. I had experienced the same thing with French when I first arrived in Paris. I told him about Elaine and her strange son. She mailed the letters for me every day, and I waited patiently for a reply. But Gösta remained silent, and I became afraid that something had happened to him. I knew that the war was still raging in Europe, but it was hard to find out more than that. In America, everyday life continued as though nothing had happened, as though Europe wasn’t burning.
Then, one day, it arrived. The envelope contained a handwritten note with a few lines of text and a page torn from a newspaper. It was a review of Gösta’s paintings. The tone was critical, and the text finished by stating that the current exhibition would likely be Gösta’s last. Now I can’t claim that I ever truly understood his paintings, even if I did like the colors, so I wasn’t all that surprised by the negative review. That kind of modern art—abstract explosions of twisting color, surreal geometric perfection—certainly wasn’t for everyone. But the article helped me understand his silence, and the few short lines from Gösta himself revealed his frame of mind. I understood why he had written just one polite phrase about how we were doing, why he only briefly added that he was happy we were alive.
I remember feeling so sorry for him then. He was determined to cling to something he clearly lacked the talent for, which only made him unhappy. I missed him more then than I ever had before. Missed our conversations. Nine years had passed since I’d last seen him. There was a picture of him in the article, and I tore it out and pinned it up next to the bed. He stared down at me with a serious face and sad eyes. Every night, as I blew out the oil lamp, I wondered whether I would ever see him, or Sweden, again.
The Red Address Book
J. JENNING, ELAINE DEAD
Our secret existence in the attic had to come to an end; we had probably known that all along. And sure enough, early one morning, we were discovered. Agnes had left her cardigan on a chair in the living room, and we heard Robert shout:
“Whose cardigan is this? Who’s been here?”
“A friend, she stopped by for tea yesterday afternoon,” Elaine said quietly.
“I’ve told you that you aren’t to let anyone into this house! Not a single soul should cross my threshold! Do you understand?”
Agnes crept closer to me, and her movement caused the floorboards to creak. The voices downstairs immediately fell silent. We heard loud footsteps on the stairs, and the door was kicked open with a single blow. When Robert saw us there on the mattress, his eyes were full of rage. We quickly jumped up and fumbled for our clothes in the semidarkness. Half-dressed, we ran past him, out onto the street. He came after us, throwing out our bags. The hinge on the bigger suitcase broke, and the lid skidded across the road. Next came the clothes. Beautiful dresses from Paris landed in a heap in the mud. We grabbed them and shoved them into the bags. But what I remember most distinctly from that moment is how fast my heart was beating. From behind the new lace curtain that Agnes had sewn during our quiet hours in the attic, I saw Elaine peering out. She held up a hand, but didn’t wave. She had given us so much. Not least of all, her language. That was the greatest of gifts. Those terrified eyes behind the lace curtain were the last I ever saw of her. Robert stood on the steps, hands on his hips, as we picked up our bags and left. Only when the bus pulled up, at the stop farther down the street, did he turn and head back into the house.
The steel-gray flank of the bus reflected the day’s first sunlight, blinding us as we climbed on board. The red-and-white vinyl seats were already warm from its rays. We sat at the very back, peering through the window as the bus slowly trundled on. Sitting there, we had no idea what was going on back in the little white house. Despite everything, we actually felt a certain sense of relief. The language the other passengers were speaking was no longer entirely foreign to us; we could talk to the driver, tell him where we were going. Back to Manhattan. Our months in the house in Montauk had hardened us and prepared us for a life of freedom. Completely without warning, Agnes even started to laugh. Hilarity washed over her, and it drew me in.
“What are we even laughing at?” I said when I eventually managed to stop.
Agnes grew serious again. “It feels like we just escaped from prison.”
“Yes, that attic had started to feel a bit shut in. Maybe it’s for the best, who knows?”
Morning was passing. By the time we reached Manhattan, it would almost be evening, and we had nowhere to go. When the bus finally pulled up to the station, Agnes was sleeping deeply against my shoulder. We gathered up our things, left the bus, and started making our way toward the bright arrivals hall. We put down our bags in one corner.
“Where are we going to go now? Where will we sleep?” Agnes sounded dejected.
“We’ll have to stay awake tonight if we can’t find anywhere to stay. You watch the bags, and I’ll go and look for an inexpensive hotel.”
Agnes sat down, leaned against the wall.
A man with ash-blond hair suddenly appeared before us. “Excuse me, but you wouldn’t happen to be Swedish, would you?”
I recognized him from the bus. He was wearing a simple black suit and a white shirt. Agnes replied in Swedish, but he shook his head and said, “No, no.” He wasn’t from Sweden, but his mother was. We spoke for a while, and he offered to help us, to give us a place to stay until we found someplace of our own.
“I’m sure my mother would be happy to speak a bit of Swedish,” he said.
Agnes and I glanced at each other, hesitating. Following this strange man home wasn’t the obvious best choice. But he looked kind, and he seemed honest. Eventually, Agnes nodded and I thanked him for the offer. He picked up the heavier suitcase and we followed him out of the station.
We didn’t find out more a
bout Elaine until much later, when we returned to visit her. The house was boarded up, and we had to ask a neighbor what had happened. Shortly after we left the house that day, the neighbor told us, Elaine’s heart had suddenly given out during an argument with Robert. He had been crushed. For the first time, he was able to express his sorrow at having lost his mother all those years ago. The neighbor said he had left the house and gone to sea that same week. No one had seen him since.
14
On the other side of the curtain, the woman who was admitted last night coughs. The sound echoes off the walls. She has pneumonia and shouldn’t really be in this room, but they couldn’t put her in the infection ward because of a bedsore. When she coughs, it sounds as though the contents of her stomach are about to reappear. Doris shudders in disgust and covers her ears with her hands.
“Can I have my computer?”
Doris shouts out into the empty room, then repeats the question in a voice that barely carries. Because of her dry throat, the sound creaks and cracks against the roof of her mouth. The cool hospital room remains quiet—no footsteps of nurses coming to help.
“Press the alarm button,” pants the woman with the cough, when Doris shouts for help a third time.
“Thanks, but it’s not that important.”
“It’s clearly important enough for you to lie there shouting. Press the button,” the woman snaps irritably.
Doris doesn’t reply. When she doesn’t want help, the nurses are always there to nag her, but now that she really needs them, they’re nowhere to be seen. What if she tried to get the computer herself? She can see it, its lid now closed, on the table where the nurse placed it earlier. She had told the nurse to leave it open; why couldn’t they just do as she asked? Surely she can manage to get over there and fetch it herself? It’s not far at all. If she ever wants to go home, she will need to practice getting up. She picks up the remote control for her bed and tries pressing one of the buttons. The bed jolts and the foot end starts to rise. She tries to stop the movement by pressing one button after another. Now the head end starts moving, and the lower half starts rising beneath her knees. In panic, she presses the red alarm button as she shakes the remote control and continues to press every button she can. Eventually the bed stops.
The Red Address Book Page 12