The doll workshop was sandwiched between a run-down milk bar and a denture clinic. Office workers wearing long overcoats rushed past like shadows. On the other side of the dusty front window a silhouette sat hunched over the workbench, repairing a doll.
Anna heard the insistent knocking, even though the sign on the door said OPEN. She knew never to get up too soon. Whoever it was would eventually realise the door was unlocked. A customer needed time alone with their own memories before they approached her with the business of what they thought they had come in for. The job itself was never that important: a doll could usually be cured, at least the older ones. Yeti, her lazy cat, sat in a box of discarded plastic doll limbs, licking his white fur. The latest models of dolls seemed to be manufactured to fit in with a growing throwaway lifestyle, one in which newer was always better. They cracked easily along visible seams left over from the moulds of their mass production. Hair now made from strings of nylon instead of wool from Angora goats, or real human hair for the high-end dolls, made them safety hazards for children, too. Dolls were supposed to provide refuge from the daunting world of adults, Anna mused. She repaired dolls, but felt that her real job was to give people back their childhoods by restoring hidden memories – to help people find what they didn’t even realise was missing. What people nowadays didn’t seem to understand was that dolls have always taken much more care of their owners than the owners have of them. Like Lalka, who had been her constant companion – more trustworthy, more reliable than many of the people in Anna’s life.
The knocking finally stopped and the bell tinkled, the wooden door opening into a theatre of frozen faces that stared at the customer from every angle. Brides dressed in white lace, babies in crocheted cardigans and bonnets, and teddy bears with floppy ears lined the shelves and tables or sat propped up in baskets and miniature wicker prams. Antique dolls rested in a special glass cabinet tucked away in the corner of the room, seated neatly in a row on each shelf. Sweet painted smiles invited visitors to enter the lair and, once inside, trapped them inside the wilds of their childhood.
She was eager to close for the day and go upstairs to start preparing dinner, but she kept working on Betty, fitting her head back onto her body now that her eye had been replaced. Seated at her worktable, Anna could hear the heavy steps of the customer as he walked around the shop, his initial loud guffaws and laughter ebbing away into tiny sobs he attempted to disguise by coughing. She let him seek her out, waiting quietly until he stood beside her, clearing his throat like a child trying to gain the attention of its mother. Glancing up, Anna could see he was young and wiry with a head of wild, straw-coloured curls. His belt was drawn tight around a pair of baggy trousers; he looked like he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in a while.
‘Good evening.’ He spoke with a familiar accent.
She cleaned a final dab of glue from Betty’s eye and stood up slowly, reaching to place the doll on a wooden shelf beside the workbench.
‘Would you like some help?’ The young man reached out his hand.
‘No!’ She shielded the porcelain head with her body. ‘I can do it myself, thank you.’
She turned around, glaring at the overzealous fellow, and suddenly felt faint. It was impossible. The twilight visitor looked just like – but no, it couldn’t be. Years had gone by; surely he would have aged since then? Besides, she had heard he had moved to Montreal soon after they – well, no, she must be confused, overtired, seeing things. She rubbed her eyes.
‘We are just about to close.’
A gentle voice floated over the top of the dolls’ heads. ‘The sign says you’re still open.’
Right on cue, the bell announced someone else walking in off the street.
The blond man turned and beckoned his friend over. ‘Menachem. Hello! Come in, come in.’
A short man with a smiley round face limped towards them.
‘He insists on buying me a going-away present,’ the scrawny one told Anna, patting his friend on the back. ‘A tchatchke for the journey.’
‘I want that he should have something to remember me by,’ the short man said, taking off his hat as he smiled at Anna. He waved his hand around, pointing at the dolls. ‘He loves all this junk. I told him he’d make more parnose, a good living, if he stuck to Australian landscapes – they’re very popular here and are worth a lot more money. But no. He is a poor artist, obsessed with painting broken dolls and rusty toys.’
The blond man snorted. ‘Haven’t I told you a hundred times not to call me an artist? I’m a painter. I get up every morning and I shmeer. Painting is a profession, a real job. An artist is nothing more than a flotser – all wind.’
‘I know, I know. And that is why you’re always broke, Yosl.’
Yosl poked out his tongue, like a child.
‘So, choose something already,’ Menachem said, feigning exasperation.
The chatty blond man picked up a dusty old toy.
His friend laughed. ‘Of all the things in this shop, that’s what you want? An old nodding, wooden donkey? That’s the thing you’ll remember me by Yosl when you’ve become a famous artist – sorry – painter? Narisher mentsh. I always knew you were a little crazy.’
‘And you, Menachem, I’ll remember you for that time Frankie Simons made a wager with Jimmy Dolianatis that you wouldn’t be able to swim across the Murray. Every soldier in Tocumwal came out to place their bets that day. And you, my little friend, Menachem, mit der krume foos, made it, despite your crooked foot! Polio-shmolio. You were a real champion that day!’
Tiny heads lined the shelf beside Anna’s workbench; small arms and legs lay scattered. Yosl pointed to them. ‘They look almost human, don’t they?’
His brilliant blue eyes stared right through her, across time and place. The ache she felt was sudden and unexpected, as though she had been stabbed in the chest. His face disappeared into a sepia wash of memory. Even the way he spoke was the same.
‘Like small golems,’ he added.
Here he was, himself a kind of golem brought to life, right before her eyes. Anna watched him as he wandered around the showroom, his hands reaching out to touch only the strangest and most forlorn among the toys and dolls.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘Away.’
‘Isn’t that where everyone goes?’
‘I’ll be attending art school in Montreal. I have a dear uncle living there, who is sponsoring me. He was quite an adventurer in his day; used to live in Australia for a while. He is quite a well-known Yiddish poet nowadays. Maybe you have heard of him?’
‘Alter Mayseh,’ she said. Just speaking the name out loud made her shiver.
‘Ha! How did you know?’
‘You look just like him.’
‘That’s what everybody tells me. They say we have the same blue eyes.’ He placed his finger on the wooden donkey’s head, making it nod. ‘You knew him? That’s incredible. Sadly, he is very ill – he had a weak heart his whole life, but it finally gave way. The doctors don’t know how long he has left. A natural coward, but also capable of crazy acts of courage.’ He spoke of Alter in the past tense, as if he were already dead. ‘High drama, day and night. You know, when I was a child back in Radymno he used to disappear for months on end, always returning with exciting tales of his travels filled with adventure and danger – which none of us ever believed, of course. He saved my life bringing me out to Australia just in time, but soon ran off to Canada, leaving me here all alone.’
‘Not exactly alone,’ Menachem slapped him on the back.
Anna felt parts of herself clicking into place, put together and reassembled like a toy. To be given a second chance and poured into a new mould, emerging freshly minted with no indentations or scars. Unbreakable now. She wouldn’t give up. She had been ripped apart like some despicable creature, but Leo had saved her from the scrap heap, scooping her up and giving her a job, a roof over her head and undying love. But the murmuring inside her never stopped. Some days she had no choice but to collaborate with the crumbling dead, as they rustled beneath her feet like dry leaves blown by an ill wind wherever she trod. They whispered their pleasure that she had returned to them, calling her quietly to join them.
She sat still, steeped in her own memories. Searching the young man’s face, she finally made peace with all that she had lost.
‘By the way, how did you know my uncle?’ he asked.
‘We were acquaintances.’
Yosl stared at her as she spoke. He didn’t seem to be listening to what she said, or to care much about her answer. ‘You have such unusual eyes. They are hauntingly beautiful. Would you let me paint your portrait?’
‘Me? I am nothing but a rotting ghost.’
‘Ha! All the better for me.’ He smiled. ‘Ghosts are impenetrable to decay. Besides, I am the heir to an entire family of phantoms. They don’t frighten me anymore.’
His friend Menachem limped over to them. ‘So, Yosl. What will it be?’
Yosl reached up quickly and lifted Lalka down from the shelf. ‘I like this old doll very much,’ he laughed. ‘She has a lot of character.’
Menachem pulled out a five-pound note from his pocket. ‘How much?’
‘Give that back.’ Anna glared at the young man. ‘She’s not for sale.’ She reached out to grab Lalka back.
‘What can I do? The crazy meshugene likes to paint pictures of tsekrochene, broken old toys that he collects,’ Menachim said, throwing another five-pound note down in front of her. ‘And not only that. He loves to draw junk – rusty old graters, lamps. He’s an eccentric, but I’m going to miss him when he’s gone. Livens things up around here, you know.’
‘I told you,’ Anna pushed the money back towards them. ‘She’s not for sale.’
‘No, no! It’s okay. I’ll take the donkey instead.’ Yosl looked at Anna and smiled, returning Lalka back to her place on the shelf. ‘We’ll leave this one here where it belongs. Yede hartz hot soydes.’
Every heart has its secrets.