The American Girl (17 page)

Nothing had been decided then, with regard to the house or anything else. The cousin’s papa had his shotgun of course, but maybe the presence of a woman, not in and of herself, but as in women-and-children (Astrid and Björn), had kept the cousin’s papa’s violent temper in check.

And maybe some seeds had been planted anyway.

A few weeks later and everything had been utterly transformed due to the tragedy of fate.

The Dancer and his wife died in a car accident on the way to a dancing spot in the inland area of the country.

And the clan, that is to say what was left of it, the cousin’s papa and the three now orphaned children, left the house on the First Cape with a vengeance.

“In the end there was no need to evict them,” the cousin’s mama had a habit of saying at this point. “They certainly went voluntarily, after all. And”—with a slight giggle—“I got married.” That’s how the cousin’s mama had explained it to Doris Flinkenberg in the cousin’s kitchen so many times with the same light laughter in between, which Doris Flinkenberg was also very good at imitating. “And got all the kids at once. I who love children. And sometimes, dear Doris, it goes so well that you get more than you ask for.”

“One man’s death, the other man’s breath,” Doris Flinkenberg had the habit of saying again at just this point because she was already preparing herself for how the story would continue.

“Well, well, well,” the cousin’s mama had a habit of saying then, probably a bit frightened, even if she had already started
getting used to Doris Flinkenberg’s somewhat peculiar way of expressing herself. “Well, well, Doris. Maybe not exactly like that.”

But now we are getting closer to the definite climax of the story: during this time, little Doris Flinkenberg had her very own mother who, among other things, had burned Doris Flinkenberg with a fish grill so that she would not be so “obstinate” all the time. And her own father, who every now and again was angry at this mother, we can call her marsh mama, and had therefore set fire to the ramshackle cabin that the little family lived in over by the beaches of the Outer Marsh. Two whole times besides, and neither time by accident, but it was after the second fire that the police came. Both times were at night and the mother and the child, who was Doris Flinkenberg, had been lying and sleeping inside the cabin—though both times Doris Flinkenberg had woken up and at the last minute managed to save herself and her marsh mama from the flames.

At the police station the marsh papa had made no secret of the fact that it had been his intention to kill his wife and that that intention still remained. In that respect he also did not distinguish between the mother and the daughter. “Like mother like daughter,” he had said in marsh dialect, which had, of course, rendered him even more jail time.

At the same time, before during and after all of this was going on, the marsh mama was after her daughter, Doris Flinkenberg. Burning her and hitting her and carrying on, in various subtle ways too, so that Doris, who would otherwise have no problem using a bunch of peculiar words, did not have the slightest desire to provide any details. Sometimes Doris Flinkenberg was half unconscious because of the abuse, sometimes she dozed off right in the middle. And when the marsh mama went after her daughter she was also careful about leaving marks on places that could be concealed under clothes and she also had the utterly diabolical
habit of exhibiting desperation afterward. Then it often happened that she took little Doris Flinkenberg in her arms and rocked her and cried and tried to get Doris to understand that she must not utter a word to anyone about what had happened. “Otherwise they’ll come and take you away from me.” Then the idea was for Doris to comfort her. That Doris was supposed to feel sorry for her and promise her, “Dear Mother, I’ll never tell anyone about this.” The strange thing later was that Doris Flinkenberg had actually promised her that. And she also had not uttered a word about it to a single person. But on the other hand, whom would she have had to turn to? And to whom would she have told and what? Who would have listened, so to speak? It was already obvious after the first fire that one would rather turn a deaf ear when it really mattered, so to speak, with everything.

Doris had promised. Promised and promised and promised. “Dear Mama. Everything will be okay. I won’t tell anybody anything.” Even up until the time the marsh mama had taken the hot grill, or, possibly, something else before, maybe something before a thought started growing inside Doris Flinkenberg, quietly, quietly, but decidedly. It was quite simply a thought with the laconic message that she would die here with the marsh mama, or, not die directly, then just succumb in some other way. She could no longer think clearly (also, this thought took several days as long as years to formulate), she could not get any peace or be exempt from fear anywhere. And not to mention, everything looked like it was just getting worse. Already after the first time the marsh papa had tried to set fire to the house and its occupants it was as if the marsh mama had only become more eager in her enthusiasm to knock the “obstinate” out of her.

It was as though the marsh mama could sense that something was happening to Doris Flinkenberg, that Doris was about to drift away from her, so the last few times, above all the last time it was time for a beating, the marsh mama went after her particularly hard and with extreme force. It was also the case that
Doris Flinkenberg had started being gone a lot, for real. That was when she had started hanging out around the cousin’s house and the capes to the south, sometimes she did not come home at night either, it was summer of course so you would not freeze, you could sleep outside. The marsh mama did not understand any of this but it was not necessary either: she saw “obstinacy” and threats and that was enough.

Then, after that time when she was almost beaten to death, Doris Flinkenberg shuffled from her home by the Outer Marsh after her marsh mama had finally fallen asleep for the night, never to return.

That night Doris wandered around through the woods until she came to the southern parts of the District, where the cousin’s property and the First and the Second Capes were. She got into the house on the First Cape and lay down in a corner of the big room and waited to be found. Later, she lay there and prayed to God that the one who found her would be the cousin’s mama and no one else. She knew that it was possible of course because the cousin’s mama had a habit of being in the garden early in the mornings since she had obtained special permission from the real owners of the house to pick gooseberries and black currants in the garden.

Doris prayed to God and Doris’s prayers were answered.

At dawn it was the cousin’s mama who showed up in the house, the cousin’s mama who came and saw and called an ambulance.

Doris was taken to the hospital and while she was lying in the emergency room the cousin’s mama had made her decision. Doris would be saved; Doris would get a real home. That became the cousin’s mama’s purpose for the time to come, and at the same time it was also what got her back on her feet again after her Björn’s death and everything else that had happened at Bule Marsh a short time before that, which had shattered everything and made her powerless with grief. The reason she had not gone mad was that Bencku had been even crazier.

. . .

Bencku. Sandra had paid attention. The boy. Again.

“Wait a minute,” said Doris. “I’ll finish telling this now. We’ll get to him later.”

And now Doris was at the climax in her story, the story that was the most beautiful of all. And it started in the hospital where Doris had been lying and she made the decision that she would never become well again. Not healthier than she was at that moment anyway, which according to the diagnosis was “in stable condition.” She did not have any pain anywhere anymore and the burns were healing as well as they could under the disinfectant bandages. And, oh, how nice it had been just to have peace and quiet and be taken care of. Escape the fear, not having to be on her guard. And the best thing of all: having the cousin’s mama next to her bed, watching over her, both during and after visiting hours.

And so one time, it was an afternoon when it had been only the two of them in the hospital room, the cousin’s mama had gotten up and leaned over Doris in her bed, taken Doris’s little hand in hers and asked in a whisper, like a proposal:

“Do you want to be my girl, Doris Flinkenberg?”

Then the tears had welled in Doris’s eyes and she was so moved that at first she could not get a word out. That was unusual because otherwise Doris was, as said, rather quick-witted, for the most part all the time, everywhere. Which had also been one of the marsh mama’s hundred thousand excuses for beating her daughter with the grill iron, kitchen spoon, or just her fists: “Now, Doris, I’m going to hack that great stubborn big mouth out of you.”

But suddenly Doris also understood that it was important to be quick. This was her opportunity of a lifetime and it might never come back. And she grappled after the words almost in a panic and finally got out “yes.” And caught her breath and repeated, “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“Then, sweetheart,” the cousin’s mama replied in turn when she had gotten her tongue back again for her own sake because she was almost sobbing too, but softly now, so that no one else would hear them, “I promise to do everything in my power to make it so. Everything, Doris Flinkenberg, I promise. There is one thing you should know, Doris Flinkenberg. A lioness will stop at nothing when she’s fighting for her young. And I am a lion, Doris Flinkenberg, when it comes to my children.”

Doris had nodded solemnly in response, whereupon the cousin’s mama lowered her voice to a whisper that was even softer:

“But first you need to promise me two things, Doris Flinkenberg. First, all of this and everything that follows has to be kept between the two of us. You and me. Second, Doris Flinkenberg. You have to trust me. You have to do what I say. E.x.a.c.t.l.y. Can I trust you? Do you promise?”

And these two questions were aside from the wonderful
do you want to be my girl, Doris Flinkenberg
the two biggest and most important questions Doris Flinkenberg had ever been asked in her life.

Doris had not been late about answering either. And she answered “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

Shortly thereafter the marsh papa was sentenced to jail and prison and the marsh mama was also sentenced to jail and prison for check fraud, breaking and entering, and other lax morals. Yet not for having beaten her child; that sort of thing was so difficult to prove and it also would have meant that Doris would have been forced to testify against her mother. Instead it was the cousin’s papa who had testified. Strengthened with a bit of schnapps, he testified and testified and testified and testified. It was the cousin’s papa’s last big appearance before he finally locked himself in his room next to the kitchen in the cousin’s house and stayed there. Some people also said that everything the cousin’s papa testified to had not been true—but it played a
minor role because justice had prevailed and Doris got a home and that was the main thing.

“I live HERE now,” Doris had said over and over again the first days in the cousin’s house her new home that she had been allowed to come to when she was discharged from the hospital. At first she was a bit obstinate and a bit angry, as if it had been important to convince the surroundings that they would not get away with anything when it came to her, above all trying to get her out of there.

Little by little, when she felt safer, in order to convince herself. Was all of this really true? Or was she dreaming? To have a real home, was it this wonderful? And to have a mother, her almost very own? A cousin’s mama who promised to take care of her her whole life and never never leave her?

“I live here now,” Doris said but more to herself than anyone else, like an exhalation. “This is MY home now.”

And Doris Flinkenberg had sat with the cousin’s mama in the cousin’s kitchen and solved crossword puzzles and played music that was playing on Doris’s new radio cassette player that the cousin’s mama had given her as a “homecoming present” (though Doris said “wedding present” a rather long time afterward) when she came to live in the cousin’s house. “Our Love Is a Continental Affair” and the like, and sometimes she looked up and out through the window where the house on the First Cape could be glimpsed through the trees and other vegetation.

“A house of luck,” Doris had sighed. “If the house hadn’t been there you never would have found me,” she said to the cousin’s mama. “I would never have become your daughter here. In this house. How lucky that I was there.”

“We are two castaways,” the cousin’s mama whispered in turn to Doris Flinkenberg and took her in her arms. The cousin’s mama had lost her dear boy Björn, but she had gotten Doris Flinkenberg instead, even if only on loan. And the cousin’s mama had hugged Doris, the borrowed child, hard.

. . .

“Where were we then?” said Doris Flinkenberg. “With Heintz-Gurt?”

“. . . When the war was over Heintz-Gurt returned to Austria where he married a very ordinary Austrian girl with whom he had children, but in the long run the girl and family life became boring. He was a pilot after all and in Brazil he met a stewardess whose name was Lupe Velez and he moved to her home country with her and lived there with her until she grew tired of him and he had to return home to his wife with his tail between his legs. Then she was already so angry at him that she had decided not to say a word to him for the rest of her life. He tried to live amid this painful silence. And it was not very easy, so shortly thereafter he found himself living the life of a jet-setter, wandering around at the ski resorts, searching for adventure and more fun. That was how he met Lorelei Lindberg at a nightclub called the Running Kangaroo at that swanky ski resort . . .”

And Doris and Sandra walked back from the house on the First Cape, through the woods to the house in the darker part. Down to the basement and the pool without water, that place in the world which was theirs, their headquarters.