‘The Address’ by Marga Minco is a very touching story of psychological internet. It explores the working of a young mind in war times.
Summary
The story begins with the narrator coming back to her country after the war to see a woman named Mrs. Dorling. The narrator tells the lady that she is the daughter of “Mrs. S” and she has come to take her mother’s belongings.
The lady is surprised to see the narrator and hides herself behind the door denying knowing anybody by the name of Mrs. S. The narrator, for a moment, believes that she has come to a wrong address but when she notices the lady wearing her mother’s cardigan she becomes sure that she has come to the right place.
The lady closes the door on the narrator. The narrator leaves and goes back to the station. On her way to the station, she remembers her past. In the past when the narrator had come home she had found some things missing. On asking, her mother had told her that Mrs. Dorling, an acquaintance of hers, was kind enough to take their valuables with her. She would keep them safely in her house so that during the war if they had to leave the country, their valuables would be safely kept with her. The narrator got a glimpse of Mrs. Dorling while she was moving out of her house with a heavy suitcase. It was at that time that her mother had told her Mrs. Dorling’s address, 46, Marconi Street.
As she continued to walk back to the train station, she saw old streets that were burnt up and old memories ran through her body. She decided to make one more try and went back again to Mrs. Dorling’s house. This time a little girl, Mrs. Dorling’s daughter opens the door and invites the narrator in. As the narrator moves she informs that her mother has not burnt table cloth, the pewter plates and even the silver cutlery was theirs.
The narrator feels disgusted to see her things being used and arranged in a tasteless and callous manner. She realizes that those things were important to her as they were associated with her mother and her past life. Now, disconnected from them and being used so callously those things had no value for her. She leaves without meeting Mrs, Dorling or taking her mother’s belongings and consoles herself thinking that she now lives in a small rented apartment and has no place to keep those things.
She decides to go back and forget the address. She had let go off and forgotten many sorrowful things about the past. She feels that compared to that this will be the easiest thing to forget.