The Doll Family

Abstract

The Doll Family Rosaleen Bertolino Forbidden to wander their city neighborhood, where their parents said they might be beaten or kidnapped or chopped into tiny pieces, the three girls had no one to play with but each other. Brown-haired and plump, they were stuck together, day in, day out. Carmen, eight years old and the eldest, was bossy; the middle sister, Alice, placid; and the youngest, Bella, boisterous and loud—but those who didn't know the girls well might not be able to tell them apart. They were like bees in a hive, birds in a nest, a set of tea cups. The dollhouse was two levels, with a pitched roof, each room wallpapered, intricately furnished with rugs and framed pictures and candlesticks and miniature bowls of fruit. The childless neighbors who'd built and decorated the dollhouse, a man and woman, accepted small glasses of brandy from the father, observed the three girls as they tentatively touched the tiny beds, the teeny rocking chair that really rocked. Then, unsmiling, they stood and said they must be getting home. "Say thank you," said their mother to the girls. As soon as the grownups left, Carmen moved the dollhouse toilet into the dollhouse kitchen. Alice, who liked to climb, balanced the velveteen sofa and the dining room set on the roof, and Bella gnawed at the miniature bowl of red apples, which were shiny and looked delicious but tasted bitter. By the time the three sisters had finished rearranging the furniture, the dining chairs had snapped to pieces, and the braid rug in the living room, reluctant to give up its position, tore and left threads and a yellowish lump of glue behind. The girls were disappointed in the dolls that had come with the dollhouse—a family molded of rubbery plastic that included their hair and clothes, which meant the father doll had to sleep in his suit and the children to bathe in their school clothes. The mother's apron never came off, nor did her shoes. Imagine, never being naked or barefoot. And imagine their poo and pee. The girls laughed at how disgusting the dolls probably were under their plastic clothes. They tried putting other dolls in the dollhouse, but they were too large. Barbie lay on the floor, too tall to stand up, too big to fit on any of the furniture. She scared the dollhouse family, who ripped off her head and stewed it for dinner. The girls' parents, thin and glamorous with coarse, flyaway hair, had no idea what their children were up to—they were too busy arguing quietly behind their locked bedroom door. The doll parents fought, too, but differently, kicking, slapping, jumping up and down on one another, shouting, "I've had it up to here!" But sometimes they were almost the same as the real parents. The doll [End Page 74] mother would hum, like their own mother did, "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair." The doll father lit a pipe made from a stolen match and went, "hmm," as the flame flared up and melted his nose. One Sunday, the family went for a drive out of the city and along the coastal highway. Their father stopped the car at a lookout. "Don't go too close to the edge," he said. Their mother grabbed their arms, cried out, "Watch out! You'll kill yourselves!" None of them fell off the cliff that day, although later the dollhouse parents climbed to the roof of the dollhouse and jumped off. They were driven to it by the stress of having such awful children; couldn't wait to be dead. They jumped off the roof hundreds of times, always with the same result: dying, springing to life again. The dolls did other terrible exciting things, and had terrible exciting things done to them—drownings, car accidents, poisonings—every terrible thing their parents warned them about. How happy the three girls were playing with the dollhouse. Then the girls' father became ill. He went to the hospital, came home. He lived in his pajamas and bathrobe, only one outfit, just like the dolls. The...