The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories Read online

  She sat and watched me with my blanket up under my chin. She was a bony little gray-haired woman, tanned and with small sharp eyes. She’d put her hat by her feet. She went on: “My suitcase is over there. Please bring it here if you can. It’s best to have your things close beside you in a place like this. Mind the cake box. That’s for Herbert.”

  Afterwards, more people came in, looking for their chairs. The boat was rolling violently and not far off someone was being sick into a bag.

  “It’ll be different in London,” said the old woman, pulling her suitcase nearer. “I just need to find out where Herbert is right now. D’you know where you have to go to find out people’s addresses?”

  “No,” I said. “But perhaps the purser—”

  “Are you going to sleep on the floor all night?”

  “Yes. I’m very tired.”

  “I can understand.” She added, “Whiskey’s expensive.” And a little later: “Have you got any food in you?”

  “No.”

  “I thought as much. There was food in the grill. But it was too expensive for me.”

  I huddled on the floor, buttoned up my overcoat, and tried to sleep. It didn’t work. How could this person go all the way to London without even knowing her son’s address? And they’d be sure to stop her when she landed; these days you had to give references and prove you had enough money before they’d let you in . . . Where was she from? Somewhere in the country . . . She’d baked a cake for that son of hers . . . My God, how helpless and unpractical can you get!

  I slept for a bit and woke again. She was snoring and had thrown an arm over the edge of the chair, her hand looked tired, a wrinkled brown hand with broad wedding and engagement rings. Now lots of people were being sick here and there around the room and the stench was frightful. I decided to go up on deck. My old dislike of elevators came over me at that moment, so I went up the stairs and passed the grill. People were still sitting and eating there. I hesitated a moment, then bought several large sandwiches and a bottle of beer and went back down the stairs and managed to find the place I’d just come from. She was awake.

  “No, but that was really kind,” she said and immediately attacked the sandwiches. “Won’t you have half?” But I wasn’t hungry any more, and sat thinking about how much money she might need to be allowed to land. Wasn’t there some sort of Christian hostel that looked after confused travelers? I must find the purser; perhaps he would know . . .

  “My name’s Emma Fagerberg,” she said.

  The person lying on the next chair emerged from under a blanket and said, “Shut up! I’m trying to sleep.”

  The other pulled out her handbag from under her pillow. “You’ve been so kind,” whispered Mrs. Emma Fagerberg. “I’ll show you some photos of my son. This is what Herbert looked like when he was four. The picture’s a little blurred, but I have several others which are much better . . .”

  Translated by Silvester Mazzarella

  THE GARDEN OF EDEN

  WEST OF Alicante, one day in February, Professor Viktoria Johansson arrived in the mountain village where she had arranged to stay at her goddaughter Elisabeth’s house. The village was small and very old, with narrow close-built houses that climbed up the side of the mountain just as they did on the picturesque postcards Elisabeth sent her from time to time.

  It had been a long, tiring journey. Viktoria was a little disappointed that Elisabeth wasn’t there to meet her at the airport as agreed. Perhaps not so much disappointed as astonished—they had been planning this trip for so long, and with such great anticipation. There was no doorbell. Viktoria knocked but there was no response, except that two multicolored cats slunk down from a wall and meowed. So she took Elisabeth’s spare keys from her handbag, unlocked the door, and went through into a patio. Not a large one, but it looked exactly the way a patio should—a yard paved with stone, plants in neat rows of bulging clay pots, and over her head a roof of light greenery. Viktoria put down her bags and said to herself, “Aha. A patio.” It was reassuring. It precisely matched her dream of this remote foreign country. As Elisabeth wasn’t at home, Viktoria unlocked the next door. The room seemed very dark after the strong sunshine. Its single window was small and framed a view of bright green leaves and oranges. You could lean out and pick one, thought the weary Viktoria—if, in fact, it really was Elisabeth’s tree and not the neighbor’s. There was total silence. Now she saw that the room was in great disorder—clothes, papers, the remains of a meal, everywhere signs of anxiety and haste—and in the middle of the table, a letter.

  She read it without sitting down: “Dear Godmother, Just heard that mother is seriously ill, catching a plane immediately. Hope you can manage, terribly sorry to leave you like this. If the gas canister runs out, José at the café in the square can help, also with firewood, he speaks a little French. In haste, love Elisabeth. P.S. Would have written but it wouldn’t have reached you in time.”

  Poor child, thought Viktoria—with Hilda going and falling ill right at this moment. But she was rather frail even all those years ago. The hills were too much for her, that time we went to Scotland. That must have been 19 . . . Anyway, we were very young. Such a whiny companion. We used to talk about going to “the land where the lemon trees bloom,” or to Spain. I’ll write to her. And to Elisabeth. But there’s no rush, one thing at a time. I wonder how you light the gas.

  She took off her hat. Sitting on a straight-backed chair in Hilda’s severe whitewashed room, she tried to remember more about her childhood friend. But Hilda grew hazier and hazier, hardly more than a little prick of conscience. She lit her third cigarette of the day and busied herself studying the window with the oranges.

  Viktoria Johansson had been a very popular teacher in her day. She had known how to hold people’s attention. Her sudden silences had nothing to do with absentmindedness; they indicated the shaping of some idea that needed to be presented with absolute clarity. Later, too, at the university where she lectured on Nordic philology, she commanded great respect, despite her mildness and total inability to find fault or control her papers and notes, which she was constantly losing or leaving behind. Perhaps what disarmed her students was her impractical helplessness and the invariable benevolence that misinterpreted every attempt at opposition or mockery. Even at a distance she inspired a sense of security, a small stable figure approaching calmly in snub-nosed shoes. She liked to go about in a trench coat and roomy, comfortable clothes, though she did have a chinchilla evening cape and real pearls. She would wear her pearl necklace whenever students came to visit her at home.

  Even before she taught at the university she’d been in the habit of giving a little party for her pupils once a week. In those days she served hot chocolate and pastries; later they got martinis and olives and were allowed to bring a friend if they liked. There were those who thought it was all a bit over the top, but they gave in to Viktoria’s utter lack of pretension. She wasn’t there to be judged; just observed and accepted.

  When young people came to Viktoria’s parties, they would make bets about what it would be that she’d need their help with. It became a kind of game. Maybe she couldn’t get the cork out of a bottle of vermouth, or maybe the flat was too dark because a fuse had blown and she didn’t know how to fix it, or there would be a window she couldn’t close, or an important paper had slipped down behind the bookcase. It was with a certain tenderness that they would sort things out, then laugh and say, “Dear old Viktoria!” Elisabeth had perhaps not been one of her best students, but she was very sweet and lovable.

  Elisabeth had gotten Hilda’s room upstairs ready for Viktoria—a dressing gown spread out on the bed, a spray of almond blossom, an ashtray. And, most thoughtful of all, an Erle Stanley Gardner. The dear child had not forgotten Viktoria’s weakness for murder mysteries.

  This window too was very small, but from here she could see the terraces climbing the mountainside higher and higher with long curving pink-and-white rows of flowering almond trees. Eli
sabeth had explained to her how the terraces held the soil in place and how they had been maintained for hundreds of years; though nowadays not many people knew how to build walls the old way, every stone fitted into place without mortar like the finest intarsia. Viktoria was particularly interested in walls. Once, out at the seashore at home, she had tried to repair a stone pier, but if you’re not good with your hands then, sadly, you’re just not.

  There was one more little staircase. It led up to a rooftop terrace, from where the wide landscape’s incredible beauty suddenly opened out. Mountain ranges rose all around in massive majesty, so that from here in the deep bowl of the valley, Viktoria felt no larger than a flea. A dramatic landscape, enormous and enclosed. What effect did it have on human beings? It was so utterly solitary. She stood still and listened, gradually becoming aware of how the silence was accentuated by never being absolute: Now and then a dog barked, a car passed on the road below the village, church bells rang a long way off. Points of comparison, she thought, like the way the ocean grows larger if there are islands breaking the horizon. We need contrast, she told herself. And now, I think this taxing day has gone on long enough. I won’t unpack or make myself anything to eat. I’ll just go to bed.

  Viktoria slept peacefully, her dreams great images full of mystery. Cocks started crowing before dawn; it sounded like there were a lot of them in the village. Then it was morning. The room was horribly cold, especially the stone floor. She put on all the woolen clothes she had and went downstairs. She opened the window with the oranges, leaned out and took an orange in her hand, but could not bring herself to pick it—somehow it felt wrong. Better to have a cup of tea.

  Thank goodness the gas worked; the canister wasn’t empty. There was another device, maybe something to do with hot water. Viktoria carefully turned a knob and it sprang into action with an alarming hiss, so she switched it off again and made her tea. The refrigerator was full of neat little plastic packages. She opened one but, suspecting it contained deep-frozen squid, she hastily closed it again. The jam jar looked just the way it should. Perhaps it was the ordinariness of the jam jar that disturbed her; she was intruding in someone else’s life, in another woman’s refrigerator, her bed, her distressed departure. I’m being selfish. What do I know about Elisabeth? There was a safety razor in the bathroom: Perhaps a man had to move out because of me.

  Viktoria put on her hat and coat, poured a saucer of milk for the cats, and went out. The morning was chilly; the sun had barely risen above the crest of the mountain. The village street ended in the square, a pretty little place with a pump in the middle and several trees which had not yet put out leaves; she must find out what they were. Plane trees perhaps? There was the shop, and José’s Café and a big yellow letterbox that seemed a safe and homely object to Viktoria. She needed to buy stamps somewhere and send scenic postcards to some of her old students. All the doors were still closed. An old man crossed the square and they greeted each other. I live here now, thought Viktoria with a little thrill of pleasure, and people say hello to me when they pass . . . Everything’s going to be all right.

  Back in the shade of the patio she buried herself in her Guide for Tourists: Useful Phrases: “Please. I’m sorry. Excuse me. Where can I find a shoeshine, tailor, souvenir shop, beauty salon?”

  At twelve there was a knock on the door and a young man came in with a toolbox, smiled, and explained something Viktoria didn’t understand. Then he began making a large hole in the wall. It’s funny, you think you’ve learned all these fine and useful things to say in Spanish, but when you need them they all just vanish. She gave the young man some of Elisabeth’s wine and a cigarette and fussed around him until the hole was finished. Then he left. A little later he came back, and with another nice smile presented Viktoria with an entire mimosa bush. She was overcome. Mimosa was a thing you bought in tiny sprigs for people’s birthdays. It was as if this foreign land had accepted her. It was unbelievable—she must remember to tell Elisabeth.

  Now the young man filled the hole with plaster. Then he cleared up after himself, looked at her, and laughed.

  “Very good work,” said Viktoria shyly. “Very, very good.”

  When there was a knock on the door the next day, Viktoria thought the young man must have come back, perhaps to do more work on the wall, but it was a red-haired woman who spoke English and was looking for Elisabeth. She had four small dogs.

  “How nice!” exclaimed Viktoria. “Please do come in! What a lot of little dogs. Do sit down. I’m so sorry, Elisabeth isn’t here; the poor child has had to go home because her mother’s been taken ill. I’m her godmother, Viktoria Johansson. May I offer you a cup of tea?”

  “Josephine O’Sullivan,” said the visitor. “Thanks, but maybe not tea, I don’t want to put you to any trouble. But Elisabeth usually has some wine in her kitchen cupboard.”

  Viktoria went and looked in Elisabeth’s cupboard and found half a bottle of whiskey.

  The dogs were lying close beside Josephine’s chair, and after a while two of them jumped up on her lap.

  “Cheers,” said Viktoria, who didn’t like whiskey. “Have you lived here long, Miss O’Sullivan?”

  “Only a year. But most of the colony have been here much longer.”

  “The colony?”

  “Yes, the English colony. And a few Americans. It’s so cheap here.”

  “And so beautiful,” added Viktoria. “So peaceful; a real paradise!”

  Josephine laughed, screwing up her small face which made her look older. She pushed the dogs off her lap and emptied her glass.

  “They seem very attached to you,” Viktoria said. “Would you like a little more?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “A cigarette?”

  “Thanks, I’ve got my own.” Josephine said nothing for a long time. She lit her cigarette, drew on it several times, then stubbed it out irritably in the ashtray. “Paradise, you say. We’ve our snakes here too, you know! It’s not safe to walk about in the village anymore. And no one does anything about it.”

  “But the Spaniards—” Viktoria began.

  Josephine interrupted impatiently. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said. “But please, don’t you worry about it.”

  One of the dogs jumped up on her lap again, while the others squeezed in under her chair.

  Viktoria said, “I’m so sorry Elisabeth’s not here. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “No. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Several motorcycles passed, then it was quiet again.

  Suddenly Josephine broke out vehemently, “No one cares! No one!”

  The smallest dog started barking.

  “Sit!” Josephine shouted. “Sit! You and your paradise! If someone had sworn to kill you, how would you feel!?”

  Now all the dogs began yapping.

  Viktoria said, “Don’t you think we ought to let them out?”

  When she had taken the dogs to the patio and come back, her visitor was standing at the window with her back to the room. Viktoria waited.

  “Her name is Smith,” Josephine continued, speaking quietly with her lips pressed together. “Smith, if you please. She goes around the village brandishing a knife and threatening to murder me. And she lives right next door to me with only a single wall between us! She hates dogs and stereos, she sticks threatening letters under my door and makes faces at my cleaning woman, and last week she cut down my mimosa! I went to the police but they said they can’t do anything until something has actually happened, in other words, until I’m lying there with my throat cut!”

  “Was it a large mimosa?” Viktoria asked.

  Josephine gave her an angry look. “A meter high,” she snapped.

  “And what do the dogs have to say about it?”

  “They bark, of course.”

  “My dear Miss O’Sullivan, let’s not be too hasty. Murder is a very big word; it should only be used with care and forethought. It’s quite chilly in here. What about a
fire? I think Elisabeth has some firewood out on the patio.”

  The wood turned out to be big chunks of olive and some sort of hairy brushwood. Josephine got the fire lit and it burned with an intense blue flame.

  “It burns so beautifully,” said Viktoria. “Differently. Not like at home.”

  Josephine stood still and gazed into the fire. “No,” she said, “not like at home.”

  Viktoria remembered times when students had come to her to talk about something terrible that had happened to them. It used to help a bit to let them light a fire in her tiled stove.

  “Miss O’Sullivan,” she said, “I want to think seriously about your problem and try and find a way to help you. But you’ll have to let me give it some careful thought.”

  Josephine turned to Viktoria. Her whole bearing changed and relaxed. The tension went out of her face and she whispered, “Will you really help me? Seriously? I can count on it, can’t I?”

  “Of course you can,” said Viktoria. “This has to be dealt with. But right now you go home and think about something else.” She was on the point of adding, “Read a nice murder mystery.” But she caught herself at the last moment.

  When Josephine and her dogs had gone, Viktoria took out paper and a pen, lit a cigarette, and settled down in front of the fire. She felt quite revived. First she wrote “The Josephine Case,” then after thinking a bit changed it to “The Woman with the Knife.”

  1. I shall call the woman with the knife X, which is better than Smith. Is it X or J who’s demented? Or both? (NB: Police no good, they won’t help.)

  2. Find out if it’s legal in Spain to run about threatening people with knives. She could at least be fined for disorderly conduct but that might make her even more belligerent. What sort of knife has she chosen? Stiletto? Kitchen knife? This would seem to be an important detail, at least psychologically. What do I know about X? Nothing.

  3. Motive. Dogs and stereo aren’t enough; there must be something else, something more significant. Discover the motive.