Читать книгу The Red Address Book - Sofia Lundberg - Страница 20

P. PONSARD, JEAN

It felt a bit like being sold. As though I had no other choice but to get into the back seat of that car and drive off towards the unknown. Wave goodbye to the secure life behind Madame’s red painted door. She spoke my language. She had walked my streets.

Though we were sitting next to each other in the back of the car, Monsieur Ponsard didn’t speak. Not for the entire journey. He just stared out the window. The car’s tyres bounced over the cobblestones as we drove down the hills, and I dug my fingers beneath the edge of the seat to hold on.

He was very handsome. I studied his hair, the strands of silver beautifully blended with the black. Combed to lie flat. The fabric of his suit shimmered in the light. His gloves were made of thin white leather; perfect, without a single fleck of dirt. His shoes were black, polished until they shone. I glanced down at my own dress. The black fabric looked filthy in the sunlight filtering in through the car window. I ran my hand over it. Picked off a few bits of dust, used my index finger to scrape away a spot of dried dough. That dough was probably still rising back at Madame’s house.

He never asked me about myself. I don’t think he even knew which country I came from. He wasn’t interested in what was going on in my head. That might be one of the most degrading things you can subject someone to, not caring about their mind. The surface was all he was interested in. And he was quick to point out my flaws. My hair was too dry and too frizzy. My skin was too tan. My ears poked out when my hair was tied back. My feet were too big for a certain pair of shoes. My hips were too narrow or too wide, depending on which dress I was trying on.

My suitcase became my wardrobe. I hauled it in and out from beneath my bed in the apartment I shared with four other live mannequins. We were all equally young, all equally lost. I never thought I would be staying there so long.

Watching over us was a matron with stern eyes and pursed lips. Her constant look of disapproval was reinforced by the wrinkles on her face. They meandered downward, from the corners of her mouth towards her chin. The sharp, deep lines on her upper lip made her look angry even when she fell asleep in her armchair in the living room. Her obvious hatred of the beautiful girls she was forced to live with manifested itself in many ways, such as her manic control of our food intake. There was to be no eating after six in the evening. Anyone arriving home later would have to go to bed hungry. She also didn’t let us go out after seven. It was her job to make sure we got our beauty sleep.

She never talked to us. Whenever she had a spare moment, she would sit in a chair in the kitchen and knit tiny sweaters for a child. I always wondered who ended up wearing them. And whether she spent any time with the child. Whether it was hers.

We worked hard during the day. Long days. We put on beautiful dresses, which we showed off at department stores and occasionally in shop windows, holding our backs straight. Old ladies would nip us here and there with their fingers, feeling the fabric, studying the seams, complaining about small details to bring down the price. Sometimes we had to stand still in front of a camera hour after hour, posing. Turning the head, hands, and feet ever so slightly, to find the very best position. Standing perfectly still while the photographer pressed the button. That was what being a live mannequin involved.

With time, I learned what my face looked like from every possible camera angle. I knew that if I squinted just a little — not enough to wrinkle the skin beneath my eyes — my gaze would become more intense, even slightly mystical. I could shift the shape of my body through the mere tilt of a hip.

Monsieur Ponsard oversaw everything very closely. If we looked too pale, he would come over and pinch our cheeks himself. Always keeping his eyes fixed on something other than ours. Those thin, well-manicured fingers of his pinched firmly, and he would nod happily when he saw redness spread across our cheeks. We blinked the tears away.