to the screen, Doris asks, “You seem tired, Jenny. Is Willie helping you out enough?” Tyra presses the bread to her face, sitting on Jenny’s lap now. The butter smears across Tyra’s cheeks, and she pokes out her tongue to reach it. Jenny is holding her with one arm, and she uses the other to pick up a glass of water and take a big sip.
“He does his best. He’s got a lot going on at work, you know? He doesn’t have time.”
“What about the two of you, do you have time for each other?”
Jenny shrugs.
“Almost never. But it’s getting better. We just need to make it through this, the baby years. He’s good, he struggles a lot too. It’s not easy supporting an entire family.”
“Ask him for help. So you can get some rest.”
Jenny nods. Kisses Tyra on the head. Changes the subject.
“I really don’t want you to be alone over Christmas. Isn’t there anyone you can celebrate with?” Jenny smiles at Doris.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ve spent plenty of Christmases alone. You’ve got enough to think about as it is. Just make sure the children have a good Christmas and I’ll be happy. It’s a children’s holiday, after all. Let me see, I’ve said hello to David and Tyra, but where’s Jack?”
“Jack!” Jenny shouts loudly, but there’s no answer. She swings around, and Tyra’s bread drops to the floor. The little girl starts to cry.
“JACK!” Jenny’s face is red. She shakes her head and picks up the bread from the floor. Blows gently on it and hands it back to Tyra.
“He’s hopeless. He’s upstairs, but he … I just don’t understand him. JACK!”
“He’s growing up. Like when you were a teenager yourself, do you remember?”
“Do I remember? No, not at all.” Jenny laughs and covers her eyes with her hands.
“Oh yes, you were a wild child, you were. But look how well you turned out. Jack will be fine too.”
“I hope you’re right. Sometimes being a parent is such a thankless task.”
“It goes with the territory, Jenny. It’s meant to be that way.”
Jenny straightens her white shirt, notices a lick of butter, and tries to rub it off.
“Ugh, my only clean shirt. What am I going to wear now?”
“You can’t even see it. That shirt suits you. You always look so pretty!”
“I never have time to get dressed up these days. I don’t know how the neighbours do it. They’ve got kids too, but they still look perfect. Lipstick, curled hair, heels. If I did all that, I’d look like a cheap hooker by the end of the day.”
“Jenny! You’ve got the wrong idea. When I look at you, I see a natural beauty. You get it from your mother. And she got it from my sister.”
“You’re the one who was a real beauty in her day.”
“At one point in time, maybe. We should probably both be happy, don’t you think?”
“Next time I fly over, you’ll have to show me the pictures again. I never get tired of seeing you and Grandma when you were young.”
“If I live that long.”
“No, stop it! You’re not going to die. You have to be here, my darling Doris, you have to …”
“You’re big enough to realise that we’re all going to die one day, aren’t you, my love? It’s the one thing we can be completely sure of.”
“Ugh. Please stop that. I have to go now, Jack has football practice. If you hang on, you can talk to him when he comes down. Speak again next week. Take care.”
Jenny moves the computer to a stool in the hallway and shouts for Jack again. This time, he appears. He’s wearing his football uniform, his shoulders as wide as a doorway. He runs down the stairs two at a time, his eyes fixed on the floor.
“Say hi to Auntie Doris.” Jenny’s voice is firm. Jack looks up and nods towards the small screen and Doris’s curious face. She waves.
“Hi, Jack, how are you?”
“Ja, I’m fine,” he says, replying in a mixture of Swedish and English. “Gotta go now. Hej då, Doris!”
She raises her hand to her mouth to blow him a kiss, but Jenny has disconnected her.
The bright San Francisco afternoon, full of chatter and children and laughter and shrieking, is replaced by darkness and loneliness.
And silence.
Doris shuts down the computer. She squints up at the clock above the sofa, the pendulum swinging back and forth, with its hollow ticking. In time with the pendulum, she rocks back and forth in her seat. She doesn’t manage to get up, remains where she is to gather her strength. She places both hands on the edge of the table and gets ready for another attempt. This time, her legs obey her, and she takes a couple of steps. Right then, she hears the front door opening.
“Ah, Doris, are you getting some exercise? That’s nice to see. But it’s so dark in here!”
The caregiver hurries into the apartment. Turns on all of the lights, picks things up, clatters around, talks. Doris shuffles into the kitchen and sits down on the chair closest to the window. Slowly organises her things. Moves them around so that the saltshaker ends up behind the phone.
The Red Address Book
N. NILSSON, GÖSTA
Gösta was a man of many contradictions. At night, and in the early hours of the morning, he was fragile, full of tears and doubts. But in the evenings preceding those moments, he was desperate for attention. He lived off it. Needed to be at the centre of the discussion. Climbed onto the table and broke into song. Laughed more loudly than anyone else. Shouted when political opinions differed. He was happy to talk about unemployment and female suffrage. But most of all, he spoke about art. About the divine in the act of creation. What the fake artists would never understand. I once asked him how he could be so sure he was a genuine artist himself. How did he know it wasn’t the other way around? He pinched me hard in the side and subjected me to a long tirade about cubism and futurism and expressionism. The blank look on my face was like fuel. It ignited his laughter.
“You’ll understand one day, young lady. Form, line, colour. It’s so fantastic that, with their help, you can capture the divine principle behind all life.”
I think that he enjoyed my lack of understanding. That he was relieved when I didn’t take him as seriously as the others did. It was like sharing a secret. We could be walking side by side through the apartment; he would hang back, then jump forward, from time to time, to resume our pace. “Soon I’ll say that the young lady has the greenest eyes and the most wonderful smile that I’ve ever seen,” he would whisper, and my face would always flush, the same shade of red. He wanted to make me happy. In that alien environment, he became my comfort. A replacement for the mother and father I missed so dearly. He always sought my eye when he arrived, as if to check that I was OK. And he asked questions. It’s odd; certain people feel particularly drawn to each other. That was how it was with Gösta and me. After just a few meetings, he felt like a friend, and I always looked forward to his visits. It seemed he could hear what I was thinking.
Occasionally, he would bring company when he came over. It was almost always some young, tan, muscular man, far removed, in both style and demeanour, from the cultural elite who generally frequented Madame’s parties. These young men usually sat quietly in a chair, waiting while Gösta emptied glass after glass of deep red wine. They always listened intently to the conversation, but never joined in.
I saw more than that, once. It was late at night, and I had stepped into Madame’s room to fluff up her