The American Girl

by Monika Fagerholm

  And Doris had laughed as if liberated but then later she became hesitant and in her thoughts she went back to the cousin’s mama.

  “Though she’s probably quite worried now, the cousin’s mama. The idea wasn’t to fall asleep down there in your swimming pool. The idea was just to rest.”

  And prrrt. Was that the sound of a telephone cutting through the air?

  And it was the cousin’s mama of course, who was wondering where Doris was.

  “But now we have to hurry if we’re going to have time to play before she comes here,” Doris said when she had hung up the phone. “I mean. I was probably thinking about playing later too. But it’s not exactly the same thing. Should we go down to the basement again?”

  And Doris might as well have asked, “Will you marry me?” because Sandra would have answered yes all the same.

  “Yes,” Sandra said thus. “Yes.”

  And following Doris’s lead the girls returned to the basement and crawled down into the swimming pool without water. Doris caught sight of Sandra’s little backpack.

  “So you’re also a girl with a backpack. Open yours and I’ll open mine and then we’ll see.”

  And it was Doris with a backpack and Sandra with a backpack: two backpackgirls who emptied out the contents of their bags on the green-tiled bottom of the swimming pool so that everything mixed together. So that new connections arose and new, unexpected combinations. The one with the other, ideas, whims, big and small.

  In Sandra’s backpack there were, for example, strips with silk samples that came from Little Bombay, the scrapbooks, there like Jayne Mansfield’s dead dog, Lupe Velez, and Patricia in the Blood Woods, and all of those living their own lives between the worn, blue covers of three-ring binders. There were also some matchstick boxes from hotels and nightclubs from the jet-setter’s life, a plastic die with a lot of silver confetti inside. In Doris’s backpack, which was not nearly as expensive as Sandra’s and much smaller, there were cassettes with a lot of Lasting Love Songs for Moonstruck Lovers (Doris’s intolerable music, her favorite), a few copies of True Crimes (a magazine), a few books, Kitty Solves Another Mystery, The Woman’s Role in Love Life, and The Crossword Book, as well as a letter from the English royal house, addressed to B. Flinkenberg, Saabvägen. In that letter it said in English, Doris narrated at great length, that Prince Andrew, whom she had tried to start a pen pal exchange with, was reluctant to correspond with anyone who was not part of the family, or was, as it also in some way said, “comparable with.” And so on.

  The one backpack and the other backpack and everything inside them, games and stories, stories and games, games that were stories, would occupy Doris and Sandra for many, many years. And would be elevated, little by little, into another reality.

  And beyond, almost into adulthood.

  But now, for the time being, a relatively long time also, everything was still just fun. A joy and a humor that also spread to the others, those who were not directly involved.

  The cousin’s mama, for example, when she showed up at the house in the darker part a bit later that same day, she could not help but become infected by the happy mood down there in the pool without water. She became so happy that she also wanted to stay, so happy that she looked around and saw how dusty everything was. And when the Islander and Bombshell Pinky Pink showed up a little while later, a big cleanup was under way in the house in the darker part of the woods.

  It also made the Islander happy, and he instantly hired the cousin’s mama as the permanent housecleaner in the house in the darker part of the woods. This was, parenthetically speaking, the beginning of Four Mops and a Dustpan, the cleaning company that would gradually make the cousin’s mama into a real businesswoman.

  But Pinky, she rushed straight down to the basement and the pool without water and let out a childish yell.

  “I want to play too!” she yelled and climbed down to the girls in the pool. And she became so eager that her breasts almost popped out over the edge of her tight, glittery top and she stumbled in the long silk that Doris, the Lady of the Harem, had wrapped herself in.

  “Good day,” Doris Flinkenberg said and held her hand out to Pinky.

  “This is Bombshell Pinky Pink,” Sandra said politely and now she wanted to be careful about not hurting Pinky again and therefore presenting her in a dignified way. “Profession: striptease dancer.”

  But then Pinky looked at Sandra again haughtily.

  “Dad’s girlfriend. And nothing else.”

  “But striptease,” Doris urbanely got stuck on. “So interesting. It must be a truly demanding job. Tell me more.”

  And that became the start of a group project that Doris Flinkenberg would carry out in school without a group: Profession: striptease dancer. It was a project that later on would cause Doris Flinkenberg to be banned eternally from being in the same homeroom as Sandra Wärn who would rather soon transfer from the French School to the very ordinary junior high school up in the town center.

  And this is how it was, just about anyway, when Sandra and Doris met, became friends and playmates. Moreover the best of playmates, in their very own little world.

  They would have many games, long games. And no outsider would understand a bit of it.

  But some of the games would deviate, regardless. There would be two big games, two main ones. One would be Sandra’s game, the one founded on her life story. The other would be Doris’s game, and it would not exactly be based on Doris’s life, but on something rather close to it. Something that had happened in the District once. A terrible story.

  The games would not be played at the same time, but in turn. The first game would be the Lorelei Lindberg and Heintz-Gurt game, the other would be called the Mystery with the American Girl.

  And everything would be based on reality. Everything had to be true.

  The first game, the Lorelei and Heintz-Gurt game, it started like this:

  “And where is your mom then?” Doris Flinkenberg asked Sandra another day, one of the very first days they were together in the house in the darker part of the woods. They were in the kitchen then, eating a snack—Doris Flinkenberg always needed to eat snacks—in dress-up clothes from another game, an old game, which was already starting to get a bit boring.

  “What happened?”

  “There was someone who came and got her,” Sandra answered vaguely.

  “An angel?” Doris Flinkenberg asked expectantly.

  “Hm,” Sandra said ambiguously.

  “An angel of death?” Doris added helpfully. “Liz Maalamaa?”

  “Shh!” could be heard from the basement stairs where the cousin’s mama was busy polishing the steps shiny and smooth again, shinier and smoother than they had ever been when Lorelei Lindberg lived there.

  “It’s forbidden to eavesdrop!” Doris Flinkenberg yelled toward the stairs. “She would so very much like to listen,” Doris whispered, giggling so only Sandra would hear.

  “I’m going to close the door NOW because this only concerns four ears all together,” Sandra called in turn loud and clear so it echoed through the house. And even locked the door from the inside in order to guarantee peace and seclusion.

  And so the game started. And it started like all of the best games, with a rather long story.

  “He came and got her,” Sandra began softly, with what she had never told anyone before and would never tell anyone else, ever. That which was so private that Doris Flinkenberg was the only one in the wide world who would get to take part in. “From here. In a helicopter. It landed on the roof.”

  “Who? Her lover?” Doris caught on immediately.

  “Quiet now,” Sandra said impatiently. “Don’t interrupt. Otherwise you won’t get to hear anything. But yes, her lover. You can also look at it that way. And he was secret, of course. Because that’s what lovers usually are. But they had known each other for many years. They met at a nightclub in the Alps while living the jetsetters’ life, the one that was called the Running Kangaroo
. Here’s the mug in any case, it’s from there. I’ve drunk hunter’s tea from it, you know, tea with rum . . .”

  “Have you been drunk?” Doris Flinkenberg fingered the mug on which a kangaroo was pictured and was now so affected that she started rolling her eyes again.

  “Quiet now, I said.” Sandra held up her hand. “Yes, of course. I saw it with my own eyes. That they met, in other words. I was there. It was before we moved here to the house in the darker part . . . We were quite the jet-setters then. Well, anyway. He picked her up from here. The roof on the house is so flat, it’s incredibly easy to land on.

  “It was one day in the middle of the heat wave, last year. You know what it can be like on a day like that . . . completely still. And quiet. So quiet. The only thing to be heard were the insects that were buzzing and creeping around on the ground. All of those strange creepy-crawlies found in the marshes around here. Bullymosquitoes and fern ticks, the ones that tick when they move. Tick. Tick. Tick . . .”

  . . . And Doris had nodded in agreement while Sandra disappeared farther and farther into her story . . .

  “And heels. Her heels. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. That day. So nervous. So filled with restlessness. Heels that moved from upstairs to downstairs to the bedroom, from the kitchen to the bedroom to the Closet and back, and then down again. The pool section, walked around the pool. Round and around. You know, Doris, what it’s like when you’re waiting for someone. And that was what she was doing. Waiting. Though you did not know that until it was too late . . . down by the pool. And then clink . . . She had taken off the ring she had gotten from the Islander, it had a ruby the size of a tablespoon set in it. And it fell out of her hand and rolled down into the pool. And that was when she called for help. She called for me because there wasn’t anyone else in the house right then. ‘Sandra! I’ve dropped the ring in the pool and I don’t have my contact lenses in! Sandra can you please come and help me look!’ ”

  Sandra had probably heard Lorelei Lindberg calling for her, but she had pretended not to hear. Had not made her presence known in the slightest, instead she had snuck out of the house, run down the stairs to the grove next to the house where she had the habit of spending time—which was the place of the evil eye, where the boy had the habit of being sometimes—but of course she did not say a word about the boy to Doris Flinkenberg, it was too complicated. There was a rock that was good for hiding behind. And maybe it was then already that she heard the strange noise in the background for the first time even if it had not forced its way into her consciousness yet. The helicopter. A buzz in the back of her head . . .

  And no. Of course it was not that she had not wanted to help Lorelei Lindberg look for the ring—or any kind of ill will that she could feel sometimes, she was not a nice child, not really . . . it was just that she did not have the energy to stay in the house. Lorelei Lindberg’s anxiety was so immense it infected everything, there was no place where you could be left alone. And especially when the Islander was not home it became intensified, almost electric—and Little Bombay did not exist anymore. There was only this: Lorelei Lindberg looking out through the window at the overgrown marsh and sighing. Not one person—threw a glance at her little daughter—not a sensible person anywhere. One time when Lorelei Lindberg had looked at her like that Sandra had almost started crying, but that was earlier. She did not cry any longer; she was older now and there were no more tears.

  And this day, just this day: Lorelei Lindberg in a neck brace and her head shaved. A few stitches were visible on the bare spot on her head of the type that in medical talk was called butterfly. She had fallen on the long stairs, that was a few days ago. The Islander had hit her so that she lost her balance, and she had fallen, fallen, and rolled down the many, many steps while the horrid doorbell played in the background the whole time: Nach Erwald und die Sonne. Die Sonne. Die Sonne . . .

  But afterward, when the Islander had been so sad he just cried and cried—and Sandra had never seen her father cry before; it was rather unpleasant. But then he had left and come back home again and had the ring with the tablespoon-sized ruby with him.

  . . . When the sound that Sandra had been hearing in the back of her head for a long time became stronger, gradually completely deafening and a great shadow had sunk down over the bright summer day, Sandra threw herself behind the rock next to the house. She did not believe her eyes: it was a helicopter and it was flying so low that it almost grasped the treetops with its horrible insectlike legs creating an air pressure that pressed the grass and ferns and all remaining overgrowth, which there was of course a multitude of, down, down toward the ground. Sandra herself, mute from fear in the presence of the incomprehensible, but her eyes just as wide open in the presence of the same, just stared at how the silver-black helicopter sank down toward the house and landed on its wide, flat roof.

  At the same time, in another place, but not far away (but probably far enough), on a highway: the Islander was driving at least a hundred miles an hour in order to make it home. Suspicion had grasped hold of him: if the worst happened, then! Then he had to hurry! Now! He must not come too late, just could not! And he had floored it.

  But already, at the house in the darker part of the woods: Lorelei Lindberg had come out on the roof. She was dressed entirely in white, a white dress, white scarf around her head. She stood there and called to the man wearing a pilot’s cap with ear flaps and aviator glasses, leather jacket, boots, and light beige aviator pants, calling out as if to outdo the rumble of the helicopter—she had looked around and discovered her daughter Sandra, who had now stepped out from behind the rock where she had been hiding. The fear had left her in a heartbeat. Now she was standing there next to the rock, in case Lorelei Lindberg had happened to forget, like a reminder.

  “Das Mädchen,” Lorelei Lindberg called to the man, who was Heintz-Gurt, her secret lover, who had, in other words, come to take her away. “The girl,” Sandra Wärn translated for Doris Flinkenberg. “In German.” He was impatient to leave, he tried to push Lorelei toward the helicopter door—a scuffle almost arose up there on the roof of the house in the darker part.

  “Das Mädchen nicht! Nicht das Mädchen!” he yelled back and looked at her as well. “Not the girl,” Sandra translated for Doris Flinkenberg. “Not the girl at all, in German.” For a moment both of them looked at the little girl, Lorelei Lindberg and Heintz-Gurt. The adults on the roof. The girl in the woods. A moment.

  And then the moment was over. Lorelei climbed up into the helicopter and before disappearing inside completely, she turned around—of course, the classical—one last time and looked at the rock by the edge of the woods and then, in that microscopically short moment, it was only the two of them in the entire world.

  In case she happened to forget . . .

  She looked so helpless.

  And then, when everything was over and it was too late, Sandra lifted her hand—it was heavy like lead—to wave to Lorelei Lindberg one last time.

  And the helicopter rose and was gone. Just a few seconds and the great silence and paralysis and the heat had settled, quivering and quiet over the house in the darker part again.

  A car drove up, a door was slammed. The Islander, white in the face, came rushing toward his daughter who was sitting at the very bottom of the stairway up to nothing, on the last gray and decomposing step.

  And the Islander instantly understood that he had arrived too late. Everything had already happened, it was irrevocable. Father and daughter, on the bottom step, alone in the peculiar silence that had always surrounded the house in the darker part. They had gotten up and with arms around each other in an odd way, started walking up the steps back inside the house.

  “I went down into the pool that night,” Sandra finished her story for Doris Flinkenberg behind the closed door in the kitchen in the darker part of the woods, just in time to hear an audible cleaning and poking about on the other side of the door.

  It was the cousin’s mama of course, who was knocking on
the door, and she shouted in a very friendly but also decided way, “Girls, girls! Now you’re really going to have to let me in girls! I want my coffee break too!”

  But the ring. “I looked and looked.” Sandra lowered her voice, they were in the room now, her room, had climbed up into the bed that was still called the marital bed even though there was only a wan girl who slept in it alone and it was so big it took up almost the entire room. “Later. At the bottom of the pool. And—I found it. Though it really wasn’t easy to see. In other words. Tablespoon-sized. In that case it really was a rather small tablespoon that had been the model for it. And I . . .

  “. . . I took it and hid it and never told the Islander.”

  “I want to see it,” Doris Flinkenberg hissed.

  “Shh.” Sandra hushed. “I said it was top secret. We have to wait until we’re alone again.”

  And in the pool, later: Sandra took out the plastic die from her bag, the small one with the silver confetti inside, and there it was, at the very bottom. The ring. With the ruby. Well. It was not like a real tablespoon, not quite so big.

  Doris squeezed the small plastic die in her sweaty hand.

  “Here comes happiness,” Sandra said softly and with meaning and reached out for Doris’s hand, and Sandra slid the ring on Doris’s finger.

  “I would very much like to marry you, Heintz-Gurt,” Doris Flinkenberg said and looked Sandra Wärn sincerely in the eye.

  “That’s very good,” Sandra Wärn said in German, “because I think that’s a rather good idea too.”

  “And then,” Doris sighed happily with the ring on her finger, “they lived happily every after. In the Alps. In Austria.

  “But,” she added fatefully, “what happened to the little girl? The one who was left behind, alone?”

  “Well,” Sandra said dully and seriously, “it was probably so. That she was left behind, alone.”