If it hadn’t been for his father’s workshop. An inheritance to look after. A duty to fulfil. He obediently went to the workshop every morning, even after Grandpa died, to stand next to an apprentice in that drab space, with stacks of boards along each wall, surrounded by the sharp scent of turpentine and mineral spirits. My sister and I were usually allowed to watch only from the doorway. Outside, white roses climbed the dark-brown wooden walls. As their petals fell to the ground, we and the neighbourhood children would collect them and place them in bowls of water; we made our own perfume to splash on our necks.
I remember stacks of half-finished tables and chairs, sawdust and wood chippings everywhere. Tools on hooks on the wall; chisels, jigsaws, carpentry knives, hammers. Everything had its rightful place. And from his position behind the woodworking bench, my father, with a pencil tucked behind one ear and a thick apron of cracked brown leather, had a view over it all. He always worked until dark, whether it was summer or winter. Then he came home. Home to his armchair.
Pappa. His soul is still here, inside me, beside me. Beneath the pile of newspapers on the chair he made, with the rush seat my mother wove. All he wanted was to venture out into the world. And all he did was leave an impression within the four walls of his home. The highly crafted statuettes, the rocking chair he made for Mamma, with its elegantly ornate details. The wooden decorations he painstakingly carved by hand. The bookshelf where some of his books still stand. My father.
Even the smallest movements require mental and physical exertion. She moves her legs forward a few millimetres and then pauses. Places her hands on the armrests. One at a time. Pause. She digs in her heels. Grips the armrest with one hand and places the other on the dining table. Sways her upper body back and forth to get some momentum. Her chair has a high, soft back support, and the legs rest in plastic cups, which raise it a few centimetres. Still, it takes her a long time to get to her feet. On the third attempt she manages it. After that, she has to stand still for another second or two, with her head bowed and both hands on the table, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
Her daily exercise. The stroll around her small apartment. Down the hallway from the kitchen, around the sofa in the living room, pausing to pick any withered leaves from the red begonia in the window. Then on to her bedroom, and her writing corner. To the laptop computer, which has become so important to her. She gingerly sits down, in yet another chair resting on plastic supports. They make the chair so high, she can barely fit her thighs beneath the desk. She lifts the lid of the computer and hears the faint, familiar whirr of the hard drive waking up. She clicks the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and the online version of her newspaper greets her. Every day, she is amazed by the fact that the entire world exists inside this tiny little computer. That she, a lonely woman in Stockholm, could keep in touch with people all over the world, if she wanted to. Technology fills her days. It makes waiting for death a little more bearable. She sits here every afternoon, occasionally even in the early morning or late at night, when sleep refuses to co-operate. It was her last caregiver, Maria, who taught her how it all worked. Skype, Facebook, email. Maria had said that no one was too old to learn something new. Doris agreed, and said that no one was too old to realise her dreams. Shortly after that, Maria handed in her notice so that she could resume her studies.
Ulrika doesn’t seem so interested. She has never mentioned the computer or asked what Doris is up to. She just dusts it in passing as she sweeps through the room, ticking off task after task on her to-do list. Maybe she’s on Facebook, though? Most people seem to be. Even Doris has an account, the one Maria set up for her. She also has three friends. Maria is one. Then there’s her great-niece, Jenny, in San Francisco, plus Jenny’s older son, Jack. Doris checks in with their lives every now and then, follows images and events from another world. Sometimes she even studies their friends’ lives. Those with a public profile.
Her fingers still work. They’re a little slower than they used to be, and sometimes they start to ache, forcing her to rest. She writes to gather her memories. To get an overview of the life she has lived. She hopes it will be Jenny who finds everything later, once Doris herself is dead. That it will be Jenny who reads and smiles at the pictures. Who inherits all of her beautiful things: the furniture, the paintings, the hand-painted cup. They won’t just be thrown out, will they? She shudders at the thought, brings her fingers to the keys, and starts to write, in order to clear her thoughts. Outside, white roses climbed the dark-brown wooden walls, she writes today. One sentence. Then a sense of calm as she navigates through a sea of memories.
The Red Address Book
A. ALM, ERIC DEAD
Have you ever heard a real roar of despair, Jenny? A cry born of desperation? A scream from the very bottom of the heart, which digs its way into every last atom, which leaves no one untouched? I have heard several, but each has reminded me of the very first, and most terrible.
It came from the inner yard. There he stood. Pappa. His cry echoed from the stone walls, and blood pulsed from his hand, staining red the layer of frost covering the grass. There had been an accident in his workshop, and a piece of metal was wedged in his wrist. His cry ebbed, and he sank to the ground. We ran down the steps and into the yard, towards him; there were many of us. Mamma tied her apron around his wrist and held his arm in the air. Her cry was as loud as his when she shouted for help. Pappa’s face was worryingly pale, his lips a shade of bluish-purple. Everything that happened next is a haze. The men carrying him to the street. The car that picked him up and drove him away. The solitary dry white rose growing on the bush by the wall, and the frost embracing it. Once everyone had gone, I stayed where I was in the yard and stared at it. That rose was a survivor. I prayed to God that my pappa would find the same strength.
Weeks of anxious waiting followed. Every day, we would see Mamma pack up the remains of breakfast — the porridge, milk, and bread — and head off to the hospital. She would often come home with the food parcel unopened.
One day, she came home with Pappa’s clothes draped over the basket, which was still full of food. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying. As red as Pappa’s poisoned blood.
Everything stopped. Life came to an end. Not just for Pappa, but for all of us. His desperate cry that frosty November morning was a brutal end to my childhood.
The Red Address Book
S. SERAFIN, DOMINIQUE
The tears at night weren’t mine, but they were so constant that sometimes I would wake and think they were. Mamma started sitting in the rocking chair in the kitchen once Agnes and I had gone to bed, and I got used to falling asleep to the accompaniment of Mamma’s sobs. She sewed and she cried; the sound came in waves, through the room, across the ceiling, to us children. She thought we were sleeping. We weren’t. I could hear her sniffing and swallowing, trying to clear her nose. I felt her despair at having been left alone, no longer able to live securely in Pappa’s shadow.
I missed him too. He would never sit in his armchair again, deeply absorbed in a book. I would never be able to crawl into his lap and follow him out into the world. The only hugs I remember from my childhood are the ones Pappa gave me.
Those were difficult months. The porridge we ate for breakfast and dinner became more and more watery. The berries, which we had picked in the forest and then dried, started to run out. One day, Mamma shot a pigeon with Pappa’s gun. It was enough for a stew, and it was the first time since he had died that we were all full, the first time the food had made our cheeks flush, the first time we had laughed. But that laughter would soon die out.
“You’re the oldest, you’ll have to look after yourself now,” she said, pressing a scrap of paper into my hand. I saw the tears brimming in her green eyes before she turned away and, with a wet cloth, began frantically rubbing at the plates we had just eaten from. The kitchen we stood in at the time, so long ago, has become a kind of museum of childhood memory for me. I remember everything