[A special ‘thank you’ to Lola for her inspiration and her friendship]
Doris Doll
The wind was dry and the scent of hay and dried flowers mixed with traces of dust, producing an aroma that Doris had not smelled anywhere else but in this small village a few miles east from Florence. It was the first time that she went to Italy and after a few days on the beach, she and some other girls from the group had rented a car to go to see Pisa and Florence. On the way back to the hotel, they passed by a village that just looked like time had not went on there for eighty years. The main road was paved and the girls heard the sounds of goats and horses from the barn as they stopped their car to watch the scene. Maria had the idea to make a contest about who made the best photo with her digital camera so the girls split up and tried to find the perfect scene for a shot.
Doris had already taken a few pictures but none of them could catch the atmosphere on the small display that she felt as she walked down the small rural road. Suddenly she stood in front of the display window of a small store where a dozen of hand made dolls smiled decently at her. She tried to take a photo but her reflection in the window made it impossible. But then Doris realized, that such a doll would make the perfect souvenir. It would be something true, something authentic and not the industry made crap they sell only to tourists. So she entered the store and heard a small bell ring as she opened the door.
“Buon giorno” she said to the dark haired woman who held a doll in her hands to make a few stitches and who’s dress perfectly fittet to the vintage impression of the village. “Buona giornata” the woman replied with a polite smile and smoothly gestured Doris to come closer. “Potete inglese?” the girl asked shyly and the woman nodded “Si, my name is Giulia. Do you like my dolls?” “Oh yes, they are beautiful. The dresses are so fancy, and their faces all look so natural. I don’t think that I saw dolls like these anywhere else.” She made a small pause. “Oh, and my name is Doris.” she added with a shy smile.
Giulia smiled and rearranged a few dolls on the shelf as she continued to speak to the foreign girl. “Are you looking for a present or for a doll to play with yourself?” Doris gave her a puzzled look and giggled “I should take it as a compliment, but do I really look so young as I would still play with dolls?” The woman smiled and shook her head. “It’s not about your age. I would surely not mistake a beautiful young woman like you for a child. But what would one do with a doll if not play with her? I am fourty-two and I still play with my dolls.” “With all of them?” Doris asked in unbelievingly. “Not with those I have here for sale” Giulia replied, visibly amused. “These dolls here are not mine, I just made them for other people. The dolls I made for myself are not for sale and are upstairs in my private rooms of course.”
It felt a bit strange to imagine this woman who could be her mother still play with dolls, but she said it in such a natural tone, that Doris just nodded. She took a doll in a flowery blue garb and examined the detailed work. The hands and the face were painted carefully to give them lively features and there was a pair of deep blue eyes that almost looked natural. Doris tilted the doll slowly to see if they were sleep eyes, but they remained open. “No, they don’t work like that” Giulia said as saw Doris try. “They are not regular sleep eyes, but an invention I made in order to make playing with them more fun.” Doris looked up “How do you mean?” Giulia gently took the doll from her hand and laid it into her palm, explaining “Nobody’s eyes slam shut when he lays down, so why should a doll’s? I was always annoyed of the dolls with the regular sleep eyes because it would always look unnatural when I put them to bed.”
The tourist girl listened curiously. “The closing mechanism is connected to a small spring inside the head. When it’s wound up, the doll is awake. Now there is a tiny weight on a lever and a gear that gradually unwinds it when you put the toy into a steady, swaying motion. In other words, you can rock the doll to sleep.” Doris was amazed. She had never heard of a doll with such a feature. Giulia positioned the doll on her arm as if she was about to rock a baby to sleep and pointed to the eyes. “Look, I will show you how it works.” she said and then started to put a smooth swing into her torso that made the doll on her arm go back and forth steadily.
A small, almost inaudible clicking came from the doll’s head as Giulia kept rocking it slowy and Doris watched intriguedly. “There, now the doll’s mechanics is little by little unwinding the spring inside and our little dolly will soon be very very tired.” said Giulia with a soft chuckle. “All we have to do is just to keep holding and rocking her.” Doris saw how the deep blue eyes of the doll started to droop slowly and now it really looked as if the doll was getting sleepy. “Putting this doll to sleep feels so much more natural than it does with those made-in-who-knows-where figures they sell out there.” the woman continued “Just look, our little girl here is looking really tired now, isn’t she?” Doris nodded slowly and watched how the doll’s eyes began to look heavy and sleepy. Click-click-click came softly from the hidden gears and Giulia’s voice had such a soothing tone now. “So sleepy now, so sweetly sleepy, isn’t she, Doris? So sweet that you could just grow sleepy with her too. Looking into her small blue eyes and hearing the little clicks, just imagine you had a gear in your head like she has. And it’s clicking along with hers, making you sleepy. Click, click, click, click.”
For some reason, the idea of having a similar gear in her own head sounded pleasantly intriguing to Doris.What would it feel like if the clicks came from her own head instead of the dolls? Click-click-click made the doll—she would grow tired, thought Doris. Click-click-click, yes the doll looked so tired and sleepy. She would feel just as... click-click-click... tired... click-click-click... sleepy. Doris felt her eyelids grow heavy with the doll’s. Like she also head a gear in her head, clicking away, making her drowsy. “And it’s so easy. All it does is to unwind the spring that keeps the eyes open.” explained Giulia and Doris started to feel that big spring inside herself unwind slowly with every click. She watched the doll in Giulia’s arm sway back and forth and her eyes looking so drowsy, almost asleep. She knew that she would soon be like this as well, because she heard the gear in hear head click softly and unwind her spring that kept her eyes open. The spring felt very loose already and Doris’ eyelids felt heavy and tired as the result of it. “Now she goes to sleep” she heard Guilia say. She could not see it any longer.
She had fallen asleep. That was the first thing, Doris remembered when she opened her eyes. She realized that she was not in the store any longer when she looked around and found herself sitting on a comfortable wooden bed in a small rural room. The sensation on her skin was new and as she looked down she found that her clothes were gone and had been replaced by a short night gown, which was the only piece of clothing she was wearing. A small key was hanging on a band around her neck. Someone was holding a measuring tape to her arm. It was Giulia. “What happened?” asked Doris, not sure yet if she was awake or dreaming.
“I wound you up again.” said the italian woman as she wrote down the measurement and put the tape away. “You wound me up?” “Well, not literally, it’s more like a special phrase. But it has the same effect.” Doris squirmed a little bit. “Wound me up... like a doll?” “Yes of course, because you are my doll, Doris.” The words sounded so natural that Doris doubted her own mind for a moment. “And my clothes?” “Oh, they didn’t fit you at all, dear. But don’t worry, I am going to stitch you a nice dress, Doris Doll.” This woman must have done something to her. Doris did not know exactly what it was yet, but she knew she would have to get out of the place as soon as she could. She hoped Maria and Janet would still wait by the car. She needed to get away from this weird place.
“It will take a while til I have your clothes ready.” said Giulia with a warm voice. “So I think you will best take a nap until I’m done.” and with these words she took the key with the band from Doris’ neck. A gentle, steady clicking started in Doris’ head and made her eyelids grow heavy. Giulia smiled and walked out, just leaving the door ajar. Click-click-click-click... Doris was feeling so tired already. She tried to think about how she could stop the gears from clicking, but then she remembered that Giulia had taken the key with her. And then she was too tired to think. But she remembered how sweet the doll looked when she was rocked to sleep by Giulia, and with a smile, Doris laid back on the bed and listened to her spring unwinding as her eyes closed.