I met him one rainy day, and he left a dark storm in his wake.
No one wanted to travel to Europe during that early summer of 1941. The civilian boats had long since stopped; clay pigeon shooting in the middle of the Atlantic had been replaced by cargo ships carrying missiles and fighter planes. I knew all this. And yet I had still made up my mind not to leave that harbor unless it was on board a ship. Even if I made it only to England or Spain, I would still be closer to Allan. And Gösta. I walked along the pier and looked out at the boats anchored in the harbor. I was barefoot, stepping between rubbish and puddles, gasping in pain whenever the small, sharp stones cut into my soles. My shoes were stashed away in my bag. I didn’t want to ruin the last good pair I owned. I had only a small suitcase with me, containing a few items of clothing. My beloved locket hung around my neck. The rest of my belongings were in a trunk in Carl’s attic. I hoped I would see them again one day.
“Miss! Miss! Are you looking for someone?” A man came running up behind me, and I flinched in fear. He was slightly shorter than me, but the strength in his shoulders and arms was evident beneath his thin white undershirt. His clothes were flecked with oil, as were his hands and cheeks. He smiled and took off his cap in a polite greeting. Then he reached for my suitcase. I guarded it with both hands. The rain fell gently all around us.
“Let me carry your bag. Are you lost? No passenger ships depart here these days.”
“I need to go to Europe. I have to. It’s very important,” I replied, taking a step back.
“Europe? Why would you want to go there? Don’t you know it’s at war?”
“It’s where I’m from. And now I need to go home. There are people there who need me. And I need them. The only way I’m leaving is on a boat.”
“Well, the only way to get over there is to find a job on one of the cargo ships. But you’ll have to take off that dress.” He nodded to my red skirt. “You got any trousers in that bag?”
I shook my head. I had seen quite a few women in modern long trousers, but it wasn’t a type of clothing I had ever owned.
He smiled.
“OK, we can fix that. I might be able to help you. I’m Mike. Mike Parker. There’s a boat leaving tomorrow morning. It’s full to bursting with weapons for the British army. We need a cook; the man who was meant to be coming is sick. Can you cook, miss?”
I nodded. Lowered my bag to the pier. My fingers had gone numb from its weight and my cramped grip.
“It’s hard work, you need to be prepared for that. And I’ll have to ask you to cut your hair. You’ll never get the job looking like that, like a lady.”
I shook my head, my eyes wide. No, not my hair . . .
“You want to go to Europe or not?”
“I have to.”
“There’s no chance they’ll take a woman on any boat leaving this port. That’s why we need to cut your hair and dress you like a boy. We’ll have to find you pants and a shirt.”
I hesitated. But what choice did I have when what I needed was to leave the country? I followed him into a small office among the barracks and pulled on the clothes he tossed to me: brown trousers made from a thick wool fabric of some kind, and a beige shirt with dried patches of sweat beneath the arms. Everything was too big and everything smelled terrible. I rolled up the arms and the legs. I wasn’t ready for the first snip when he crept up behind me and chopped off a thick chunk of hair, and I cried out.
“You want to come or not?” He snipped the scissors in the air.
I bit my lip, nodded, and squeezed my eyes shut. He got to work. My beautiful, glossy hair was soon spread across the battered wooden floor.
“It’s going to be fine,” he said with a grin. I was shaking, anxious and unsure.
He tipped the contents of my suitcase into a jute sack and threw it to me.
“Come back tomorrow at seven. We’ll row out to the ship in that.” He pointed to one of the small rowboats bobbing by the dock.
“Can I stay here tonight? I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Sure, do what you want.” He shrugged and then left me without a goodbye.
A night alone in a harbor involves so many sounds. A mouse running across the floor and then stopping, the wind making the doors and windows rattle, the hiss of a drainpipe beneath the dock. I lay down with the jute sack as a pillow and my red coat, the one I had worn when Agnes and I first stepped off the boat in America, as a blanket. It had been new back then, but now it was tattered and worn. Imagine if I had known then how it would all turn out! The bag beneath my head contained several crumpled remnants of my glamorous life in Paris. I wondered how Gösta was, whether he was safe in his bed in Stockholm. And Allan, was he still alive? I shuddered with worry, but the memory of our love made me forget my fear for a moment. In the distance, I could hear a door banging in the wind. Its rhythm eventually sent me to sleep.
The Red Address Book
P. PARKER, MIKE DEAD
When dawn finally broke, fog lay thick over the harbor. Weak pinkish rays of light made their way over the surface of the steel-gray water, which split to foaming white against the hull of the boat. Mike rowed with powerful strokes. My eyes were on Manhattan, the Empire State Building’s sharp point rising into the sky. Ahead, the American flag hung wearily on the flagpole at the front of the ship. Suddenly, Mike stopped and fixed his eyes on me.
“Keep your head down when you climb on board. Don’t look anyone in the eye. I’ll tell them you don’t speak English. They find out you’re a woman and you’re off.” Mike dropped the oars, stepped over to my side of the boat, and pressed his hands to my breasts. The boat tipped. I gasped and met his stern look with terror.
“Take that shirt off. We need to hide these.” I carefully started to undo the buttons, but he hissed that we were in a hurry, pushed my hands away, and tore open the last one. I sat there with my bra and stomach exposed. The damp morning air washed over my body and gave me goose pimples. He rummaged through a first-aid kit and found a roll of bandage. He wound it tightly over the top of my bra so that my breasts were pulled flat against my rib cage. With that, the last trace of my femininity disappeared. He pulled a hat over my cropped hair and then rowed us to the ship.
“Remember what I said. Eyes down. The entire time. You don’t know a word of English. No talking to anyone.”
I nodded, and when we climbed up the rope ladder hanging against the steel hull of the ship, I tried to move like a man, with my legs wide apart. I had my bag of clothes on my back, the rope crossing my chest. It rubbed painfully against my bound breasts. Mike introduced me to the crew and told them there was no point in talking to me; I wouldn’t understand a thing they said. Then he showed me the kitchen and left me alone with all of the boxes of food to be unpacked.
In the compact darkness of that first night, I discovered Mike’s real motives. He hadn’t wanted to help me at all. He held my wrists tight with one hand, pushed them up against the headboard of the bed, and whispered into my ear:
“One word, and you’re overboard. I swear. A single peep and you’ll be sinking to the bottom of the sea like a rock.”
With his other hand, he spread my legs. He spat into his palm and carefully wet my genitals. Rubbed his hand back and forth and then pushed his fingers into me, one to begin with, then two. I felt his nails catch and tear at the delicate skin down there. Then, in one breath, he forced himself inside me. He was big and hard and I had to bite my lip to stop from crying out. Tears of pain, fear, and degradation ran down my cheeks, and my head banged against the headboard in time with his rough thrusts.
That same scene repeated itself practically every night. I lay quietly, unmoving, parted my legs to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. I tried to get used to his panting breaths in my ear, his weathered hands on my body; tried to put up with his tongue licking my firmly closed lips.
During the day, I worked silently in the kitchen. Boiled rice and sliced salted meat. Washed up. The crew came a
nd went. I met their eyes but never dared speak to them. Mike had taken control of me, and I feared what might happen if I tried to get away.
I was cleaning up the kitchen one evening when we were just a few hours from England. Suddenly, I heard noise up on the bridge. The captain was shouting. Men running. And then the shots echoing out across the water. The ship was loaded with weapons and ammunition, and I could hear desperation in the captain’s voice as he cried:
“Reverse! Reverse! Turn around! It’s the Germans! It’s the Germans! We’ll explode if we’re hit!”
The floors and walls thundered, and I felt the vibrations through my body as the engines went into reverse. I was still in the safety of the kitchen, my refuge, but I knew I would soon have to go up, closer to the deck. When I tried to open the door, I found it locked. Maybe Mike had locked me in, maybe the vibrations had tripped the mechanism, but I had to get out. The shots were growing closer, rattling like fireworks. At one end of the kitchen was a round window facing the messroom. I broke the glass with a pan and then squeezed through it, feet first. The shards of glass tore at my legs and upper arms. The boat was still in reverse, and the engines were straining loudly. I sneaked upstairs and onto the afterdeck. Using my hands to guide me, I found my way to the chest of life jackets. I pulled one over my head and then sat down to wait, pressed up against the cold wall.
It wasn’t long before the German ship caught up with us. Our crew turned on the floodlights and shot wildly. The Germans didn’t hesitate in retaliating. Several bullets hit the metal directly above my head, and I ducked, terrified that they would ricochet. I was pressed against the floor when one of the hands spotted me. Our eyes met just as he was about to climb over the railing at the far end of the deck, and he waved me over to follow him. I readied myself and ran the few meters to where he was standing, my arms covering my head. I didn’t know where he was going, but I followed his lead and quickly climbed down the rope ladder. At the end of it, my foot struck something hard. He grabbed my ankle and pulled my foot down into the bottom of a small lifeboat. Then he pushed us off from the ship, and we slowly drifted away. Bullets whizzed above our heads, and the current carried us closer to the enemy ship. We lay down, our heads beneath the bench and our arms pressed tightly to our ears. The roar of the shots sounded different through the water surrounding the thin hull. Like a faint clucking. In my mind, I went through all of the prayers I had learned in school but never used.
The minutes felt like hours.
Then, suddenly, we heard the dreaded explosion from the ship we had just left. A warm shock wave hit us, and we were both tipped into the water. I heard my savior splashing and gasping for help, but his voice drifted farther and farther away, growing softer and softer, until finally it fell silent. I bobbed in the chilly water, surrounded by pieces of burning wreckage. I watched the huge ship capsize and slowly start to sink, like a blazing torch in the black water. My cork life jacket kept me afloat, and I managed to make my way back to the little lifeboat. It was upside-down now, but I crawled up onto it and straddled it. The Germans had left, and the sea was calm once more. No echoes of shots, no men shouting.
When dawn broke, I was alone, surrounded by charred wreckage and bodies. Some of the men had been shot; others had drowned. I never again saw the man who had saved me.
Mike floated past, a thick layer of dark blood covering his neat beard. He had been shot in the head; it drooped over the edge of his life jacket. His forehead was half submerged in the water.
All I felt was relief.
21
It’s late at night, San Francisco time, when they finally make it back to the apartment on Bastugatan. The fatigue is almost paralyzing. Jenny makes some porridge while Tyra sits at her feet, playing with the pans, pulling them out of the cupboard and babbling happily. She’s so content down on the floor that Jenny just places the bowl of porridge in front of her and pulls back the rug in case there’s a spill.
Jenny opens and closes boxes and cupboards, rifling through Doris’s things while Tyra makes a mess with her food. On the kitchen table, a number of items are set out neatly on the blue tablecloth. She picks them up one by one. A magnifying glass covered in dust and grease marks, with a crumpled lace ribbon that has frayed at one end. She studies the remaining items through its dirty lens. The image is blurry. She breathes on the glass and rubs it clean with the corner of the tablecloth. The light-blue fabric wrinkles, and when she tries to smooth it out again, she can only partly do so. She picks up the saltshaker instead. A few yellow grains of rice are visible through the glass. She shakes it and they disappear.
The pillbox contains three days’ worth of tablets. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So Doris must have fallen on a Thursday. Jenny thinks back, tries to remember when they first spoke. It was a school day, so it must have been Friday. She wonders what kind of medicine it is. Whether Doris has had heart problems before. Whether the doctors know about it. Maybe this recent heart attack happened because she hadn’t been taking her medicine?
Jenny shoves the pillbox into a pocket in her bag. She’ll ask the doctor tomorrow.
Tyra tips her bowl over on the floor and starts crying loudly.
“Should we go to bed, sweetie?” Jenny mumbles. She picks up her daughter, quickly wipes the floor, rubs Tyra’s face with a wet wipe, and pushes her pacifier into her mouth.
It doesn’t take long before she hears the faint whimpering sound Tyra always makes just before she falls asleep. Jenny climbs into bed, right next to the girl, her nose buried in her neck. She closes her eyes. From the pillow, she can make out the comforting scent of Doris.
It’s seven in the evening. Tyra pulls at her hair, pokes Jenny in the eye, and whines. Jenny squints at the glowing hands of her watch and tries to work out what time it is in San Francisco. Ten. The exact time Tyra normally wakes from her morning nap. Dizzy with exhaustion, Jenny tries to lull her back to sleep, but her efforts are in vain. The girl is wide-awake.
The lamp on the table gives off a cloud of dust when she switches it on, and she waves her hand in front of her. The apartment is cold, and she wraps herself in a blanket as she heads into the kitchen, aware that Tyra will soon start crying with hunger. She searches the changing bag for something edible. At the very bottom, she finds a couple of broken crackers and a pouch of puréed fruit, which she opens and hands to Tyra. The girl happily slurps down a little of the fruit, then throws the pouch to one side and turns her attention to the crackers. She places them in one of the pans on the floor. She bangs the lid a few times before plunging her chubby little hands into the pan and picking out piece after piece of cracker, which she then throws back, over her shoulder.
“Cookie, cookie,” she laughs, amused.
“You’re meant to eat them, love,” Jenny says in Swedish, then with a smile switches to English. “Eat the crackers.” She still feels dizzy. Outside, the sky is dark, and there are no lights on in the building opposite. Just dark, empty windows whose glass reflects the yellow glow of the streetlamps. Golden sparks in the night.
The stack of paper Doris has printed out is on the kitchen table. Jenny picks it up again and leafs through page after page of words. Rereads the first lines:
So many names pass by us in a lifetime. Have you ever thought about that, Jenny? All the names that come and go. That rip our hearts to pieces and make us shed tears. That become lovers or enemies. I leaf through my address book sometimes.
The address book. Jenny searches through the items on the table. Picks up the battered old red-leather book and strokes its yellowed pages. This has to be the one Doris is talking about. She starts reading. Name after name has been crossed out. After each of them, Doris has written DEAD. DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. Jenny drops the book as though it has burned her. It’s too painful to realize how lonely Doris must be. If only she lived a little closer. She wonders how many days Doris has spent alone. How many years. Without any friends. Without any family. With only her memories for company. The beautiful. The painfu
l. The awful.
And now Doris might soon be one of them. One of the dead names.
The Red Address Book
J. JONES, PAUL
Many times that night I cursed myself for leaving the safety of America. For what? For a Europe at war. For a dream of meeting Allan again. A naive dream that would never come true. I was sure this was the end, right there in the cold ocean. I lay across the hull of the boat as dawn broke, fantasizing about his face. I felt the cold metal of the locket against my chest, but I couldn’t open it. I closed my eyes and tried to bring up a picture of him. Just like that, he was so present that the threatening sea seemed far away. He spoke to me. He laughed, loud and shrill, the way he always did when he told a funny story. Ruining the punch line but making me laugh all the same, his sense of fun was so infectious. He danced all around me, and suddenly he was behind me, then he looked straight ahead and kissed me before disappearing again. Joie de vivre shone bright in his eyes that dark night.
The water was black, the whitecaps glittering like knives in the hazy sunlight. Other than the whistling wind, it was silent. The hull of the lifeboat was warm; my body felt firmly pressed against it. I dug my fingers between the wooden boards to get a better grip, but my strength was deserting me and my arms fell limp to my sides. The thick cork of the life jacket cut into my stomach. Involuntarily I slid ever closer to the water, unable to stop the movement but well aware of what was about to happen. Death was awaiting me, embracing me with a splash as I eventually fell in. The weight of the water pressed against my head as it sank beneath the surface.
I could hear a crackling sound and smell burning wood. The heat streamed toward me, and my cheeks flushed and tightened. I was wrapped in a thick wool blanket, so tight that I couldn’t move my arms. I blinked. Was this how it felt to be dead? In the faint glow, my eyes scanned a room. There was a huge walled fireplace in the middle, its chimney rising high above the dark-brown ceiling beams. To the right was a small pantry, and to the left, a hallway and a window. It seemed to be pitch-black outside. I don’t know how long I lay there, gazing all around, studying every last detail. The strange tools on hooks in the hall, the ropes, the wads of paper shoved into the cracks in the wooden walls. Where was I? I wasn’t afraid. In an odd way, I felt secure in the heat of the fire, and I drifted in and out of sleep. I started to wonder whether I hadn’t left the sea after all.
The Red Address Book Page 16
