The Red Address Book

by Sofia Lundberg

“I think your memories must be wrong there, Doris. I wasn’t well behaved. All kids are difficult. Even me.”

  “Not you. You were born a little angel. You had well-behaved written on your forehead, I remember that with certainty.” She raises her hand to her lips and blows a kiss, which Jenny pretends to catch, laughing.

  “Maybe I was extra nice when you came. I needed you.”

  “Yes, I suppose you did. And I needed you. I’m convinced we needed each other.”

  “Need, I’ll have you know. Can’t you jump on a plane and fly over?”

  “Uff, silly, of course I can’t. Have you had your cake yet?”

  “No, not yet. Tonight. Once all the kids are back from their activities. Half an hour before they go to bed. That’s when we’ll eat it.” Jenny winks.

  “You certainly need it. You look thin. Are you eating properly?”

  “Doris, I genuinely think there might be something wrong with your eyes. Can’t you see my muffin top?”

  She pats her stomach and grabs a roll of fat between her fingers.

  “All I see is a slim, beautiful mother of three. Don’t go on a diet now, on top of everything else. You’re perfect. A bit of cake every now and then won’t do you any harm.”

  “You’ve always been a good liar. Do you remember when I was going to a dance at school and my dress was far too small? It was so tight that the seams split. But you found a solution straightaway, with that pretty silk scarf that you draped around my waist.”

  Doris’s eyes glitter. “Yes, I remember it well. But you were actually a little chubby back then. It was when that dark and handsome chap . . . What was his name? Mark? Magnus?”

  “Marcus. Marcus, my first great love.”

  “Yes, you were so sad when he broke up with you. You ate chocolate cookies for breakfast.”

  “For breakfast? I ate them constantly. All day long! I hid them all over my room. Like an alcoholic. Chocoholic. Gosh, I was so sad. And I got so fat!”

  “Lucky you met Willie in the end. He got you in order.”

  “I don’t know about order.” She gestures toward the kitchen table and the piles of newspapers, dirty glasses, and toys.

  “Well, at least you aren’t fat,” Doris says.

  “No, OK, I know what you’re getting at.” Jenny laughs. “I’m not fat. Not like that.”

  “No, exactly. That sounds better. Where’s Tyra? Is she sleeping?”

  “Sleeping? No, that kid doesn’t sleep. She’s here.” Jenny angles the screen so that Doris can see the little girl. The brightly colored pot that she is playing with has her undivided attention.

  “Hello, Tyra,” Doris coos. “What are you doing? Are you playing? What a nice pot you have there!”

  The girl grins and shakes the pot in the air, making its contents rattle loudly.

  “So she understands a little Swedish then?”

  “Yes, of course. I speak only Swedish with her. Almost, anyway. And she watches Swedish kids’ shows online.”

  “That’s good. What about the others?”

  “They’re so-so. I talk to them in Swedish and they reply in English. I don’t know how much Swedish they’re actually picking up. I’ve started to forget certain words myself. It’s not easy.”

  “You’re doing the best you can, my love. Did you get my letter?”

  “Yes, thank you! It arrived on time. And the money. I’ll buy something nice with it.”

  “Something just for you.”

  “Yeah, or for us anyway.”

  “No, you know the rules. It has to be something only you want. Not the kids or Willie. You deserve a bit of luxury every now and then. A nice top. Some makeup. Or a trip to one of those spas people go to these days. Or, oh, I don’t know, go out to dinner with a friend and spend the evening laughing.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ll see. I’d like to take you out to dinner and laugh at old memories. We’re coming next summer, I swear. The whole family. You have to . . .”

  Doris frowns. “I have to what? Live until then?”

  “No, that wasn’t what I meant. Or yes, of course you have to live. You have to live forever!”

  “Goodness me, I’m an old biddy, Jenny. I won’t be able to get up on my own soon. Surely it’s best to just die, no?” She studies Jenny with serious eyes, but then lights up and exclaims:

  “But I’m not planning on dying before I get to squeeze that little cutie’s cheeks! Isn’t that right, Tyra? You and I need to meet. Don’t we?”

  Tyra holds up a hand and waves while Jenny blows kisses with both hands, waves goodbye, and turns off the camera. The screen, so recently full of life and love, turns black. How can silence be so overwhelming?

  The Red Address Book

  P. PONSARD, JEAN

  It felt a bit like being sold. As though I had no other choice but to get into the back seat of that car and drive off toward the unknown. Wave goodbye to the secure life behind Madame’s red painted door. She spoke my language. She had walked my streets.

  Though we were sitting next to each other in the back of the car, Monsieur Ponsard didn’t speak. Not for the entire journey. He just stared out the window. The car’s tires bounced over the cobblestones as we drove down the hills, and I dug my fingers beneath the edge of the seat to hold on.

  He was very handsome. I studied his hair, the strands of silver beautifully blended with the black. Combed to lie flat. The fabric of his suit shimmered in the light. His gloves were made of thin white leather; perfect, without a single fleck of dirt. His shoes were black, polished until they shone. I glanced down at my own dress. The black fabric looked filthy in the sunlight filtering in through the car window. I ran my hand over it. Picked off a few bits of dust, used my index finger to scrape away a spot of dried dough. That dough was probably still rising back at Madame’s house.

  He never asked me about myself. I don’t think he even knew which country I came from. He wasn’t interested in what was going on in my head. That might be one of the most degrading things you can subject someone to, not caring about their mind. The surface was all he was interested in. And he was quick to point out my flaws. My hair was too dry and too frizzy. My skin was too tan. My ears poked out when my hair was tied back. My feet were too big for a certain pair of shoes. My hips were too narrow or too wide, depending on which dress I was trying on.

  My suitcase became my wardrobe. I hauled it in and out from beneath my bed in the apartment I shared with four other live mannequins. We were all equally young, all equally lost. I never thought I would be staying there so long.

  Watching over us was a matron with stern eyes and pursed lips. Her constant look of disapproval was reinforced by the wrinkles on her face. They meandered downward, from the corners of her mouth toward her chin. The sharp, deep lines on her upper lip made her look angry even when she fell asleep in her armchair in the living room. Her obvious hatred of the beautiful girls she was forced to live with manifested itself in many ways, such as her manic control of our food intake. There was to be no eating after six in the evening. Anyone arriving home later would have to go to bed hungry. She also didn’t let us go out after seven. It was her job to make sure we got our beauty sleep.

  She never talked to us. Whenever she had a spare moment, she would sit in a chair in the kitchen and knit tiny sweaters for a child. I always wondered who ended up wearing them. And whether she spent any time with the child. Whether it was hers.

  We worked hard during the day. Long days. We put on beautiful dresses, which we showed off at department stores and occasionally in shop windows, holding our backs straight. Old ladies would nip us here and there with their fingers, feeling the fabric, studying the seams, complaining about small details to bring down the price. Sometimes we had to stand still in front of a camera hour after hour, posing. Turning the head, hands, and feet ever so slightly, to find the very best position. Standing perfectly still while the photographer pressed the button. That was what being a live mannequin involved.


  With time, I learned what my face looked like from every possible camera angle. I knew that if I squinted just a little—not enough to wrinkle the skin beneath my eyes—my gaze would become more intense, even slightly mystical. I could shift the shape of my body through the mere tilt of a hip.

  Monsieur Ponsard oversaw everything very closely. If we looked too pale, he would come over and pinch our cheeks himself. Always keeping his eyes fixed on something other than ours. Those thin, well-manicured fingers of his pinched firmly, and he would nod happily when he saw redness spread across our cheeks. We blinked the tears away.

  6

  “Are you crying?”

  The temp comes over to where Doris is sitting with her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. She jumps and quickly wipes her cheeks.

  “No, no,” she replies, but the tremble in her voice gives her away. She pushes a couple of black-and-white pictures to one side, turns them upside-down.

  “Could I have a look?”

  Sara, that’s her name, has been to see her a few times now. Doris shakes her head.

  “They’re nothing special. Just old pictures. Old friends who are no longer with us. Everyone dies. People try to live for as long as possible, but do you know what? Being the oldest is no fun. There’s no point in living. Not when everyone else is dead.”

  “Do you want to show me? Show me a few of the people who meant something to you?”

  Doris’s fingers brush the stack of images. Then she pauses, her hand still.

  Sara tries again. “Maybe you have a picture of your mother?”

  Doris pulls a picture from the pile. Studies it for a moment.

  “I didn’t know her very well. Only my first thirteen years.”

  “What happened then? Did she die?”

  “No, but it’s a long story. Too long to be interesting.”

  “You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to. Pick someone else instead.”

  Doris turns over a picture of a young man. He is leaning against a tree trunk, his feet crossed and one hand in his pocket. He’s smiling, his white teeth lighting up his entire face. She quickly turns it upside-down again.

  “Handsome. Who is he? Your husband?”

  “No. Just a friend.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “I don’t actually know. I don’t think so. It’s a long time since we last met. But it would be wonderful if he was.” Doris smiles shrewdly and gently strokes the photograph with the tip of her index finger.

  Sara puts an arm around Doris’s shoulders, doesn’t say anything. She is so different from Ulrika. Gentler and much kinder.

  “Do you have to stop coming when Ulrika gets back? Can’t you stay longer?”

  “I can’t, sadly. Once Ulrika is back, we’re on the usual schedule again. But until then, we’ll make sure we have a good time, you and I. Are you hungry?”

  Doris nods. Sara takes out the foil carton and dishes the food onto a plate. She carefully separates the vegetables, meat, and mashed potato, which she smooths with a spoon. Once the food is warm, she slices a tomato and arranges the pieces in a pretty half-moon.

  “There now. Looks good, doesn’t it?” she exclaims happily, putting down the plate.

  “Thanks, it’s nice of you to dish it up like that.”

  Sara pauses and gives her a questioning look. “What do you mean, like that?”

  “You know, so nicely. Not all mixed together.”

  “Is your food usually mixed up? Doesn’t sound so good.” She wrinkles her nose. “We’ll have to change that.”

  Doris smiles cautiously and takes a bite. The food really does taste better today.

  “Pictures are so handy, though.” Sara nods toward the pile of photographs on the table, next to two empty tin boxes. “They help us remember everything we might have forgotten otherwise.”

  “And everything we should have forgotten a long time ago.”

  “Was that why you were sad when I got here?”

  She nods. Her hands are resting on the kitchen table. She brings them together, interlaces the fingers. They’re dry and wrinkled, and her dark-blue veins almost seem to sit on top of the skin. She holds out a photo of a woman and a small child for Sara to look at.

  “My mother and my sister,” she says with a sigh, wiping away yet another tear.

  Sara takes the picture, studies the two figures for a moment.

  “You look like your mother; you have the same twinkle in your eye. It’s the most beautiful thing when you can see the life in people’s eyes.”

  Doris nods. “But they’re all dead now. So far away. It hurts.”

  “Maybe you should sort them into two piles, then? One for the pictures that give you positive feelings, and one for the negative.”

  Sara gets up and starts rifling through the kitchen drawers.

  “Here!” she shouts when she finds what she is looking for: a thick roll of tape. “We’ll put all the negative pictures in one box. And then we’ll wrap it in tape until there’s no more left.”

  “You’re full of ideas, you are!” Doris’s eyes light up.

  “Let’s just do it!” Sara laughs. Once Doris is finished eating, Sara takes command of the stack of pictures. Holds them up one by one, and lets Doris point to the box where each should go. Sara doesn’t ask questions, though her face reveals some curiosity about the people and places from the past who go flickering by. She calmly places the pictures in the boxes, upside-down so that Doris doesn’t have to look at them. Many of the older black-and-white images end up in the negative pile. The modern color photographs, showing sweet giggling children, land in the positive. Sara studies Doris’s face as she makes her decisions, gently strokes her back.

  The stack is soon sorted. Sara winds the transparent tape round and round the tin box. Then she rummages through the drawer again, finds more rolls. She continues with the beige masking tape, then finishes with a few layers of silver tape. She giggles in satisfaction when she places the box in front of Doris.

  “Try to get into that now!” Sara is beaming, and she raps the box with her knuckles.

  The Red Address Book

  N. NILSSON, GÖSTA

  The sheet of paper was blank. I was tired. Had no words. Had no joy. I sat on the mattress, curled up against the wall, a cushion supporting my back. The room was green, and the color nauseated me. I wanted to get away from the wallpaper’s symmetrical leaves and flowers. The flowers were big and plump, slightly lighter than the dark-green background, with stalks and leaves snaking around them. Every time I’ve seen similar wallpaper since, it has reminded me of my nights in that room. The idleness, the tiredness, the forced politeness among the girls. The aches in my body and the boredom in my soul.

  I wanted to write to Gösta. Wanted to tell him everything he was longing to hear. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t manage even a few nice words about the city I had come to hate. The last golden rays of sunlight found their way in through the window, making the wallpaper even more loathsome. I slowly turned the pen so that the polished steel cast a glow on the opposite wall. A thin strip of light danced as I went over everything that had happened lately. Despairingly, I tried to transform my experiences into something positive.

  My scalp ached, and I adjusted my hair, a strand hanging over my face, to lessen the pain as best I could. The hard, spiked rollers that were wound into my hair every morning left red marks, and sometimes even broke the skin. The hairdressers could be rough; they would pull and yank to achieve the perfect style. It was all about being as perfect as possible for whichever photo shoot or viewing we had ahead of us. But I was also expected to look equally beautiful the next day, and the day after that. I couldn’t let holes in my scalp or skin problems get in the way, ruining the impression of a young, fresh-faced woman. The kind of woman everyone would want to be.

  My appearance was my only asset, and I sacrificed everything for it. I went on diets. Squeezed my body into corsets and girdles. Applied face masks, homem
ade from milk and honey, in the evening. Rubbed horse liniment into my legs, to improve the circulation. Never happy, always on the hunt for more beauty.

  I was beautiful. My eyes were big; my eyelids didn’t droop. The color of my cheeks was pretty and even; this was before the sun’s rays worked their way in and ruined the pigmentation. The skin around my neck was tight. But no cure in the world could improve my view of myself. We never know what we have until it’s gone. That’s when we miss it.

  I suppose I was too caught up in my own unhappiness to write to Gösta. The environment I lived in was far removed from Gösta’s idealized Paris. What would I write? That I longed to come home and cried myself to sleep at night? That I hated the noise of the traffic, the smells, the people, the language, the hustle and bustle? Everything that Gösta loved. Paris was a city where he felt free, but I was held prisoner in it. I put pen to paper and managed to scribble a few words. About the weather. I could describe that, at least. The stubborn sun that continued to shine day after day. The sticky heat on my skin. But what did he care about that? I ripped the sheet of paper to shreds and threw it away. The pieces floated down into the wastebasket to join all the other letters I’d never sent.

  The buildings in the area of the department store were beautiful, ornately decorated, but the ground was all I saw. Because of the long, hard days, I could not discover and appreciate my surroundings. Most of all, I remember the smells as I walked home. Whenever I smell garbage, it reminds me of Paris. The streets were so dirty, the gutters full of rubbish. By the kitchen doors of restaurants, it wasn’t unusual to see piles of fish guts, meat, and rotten vegetables.

  Around the department store, everything was nice and clean, the errand boys in their tweed caps, white shirts, and vests sweeping carefully with their brooms. Gleaming cars, driven by chauffeurs in black suits, parked in a fan around the store, facing the sidewalk. I was fascinated by the elegant ladies who skipped gracefully along the streets, then in through the large doors. They became our audience. They never spoke to the live mannequins. Not a single word. They just studied us. From top to bottom, from bottom to top.