THE ADDRESS

Chapter- 2
Snapshots

About the Author

Marga Minco (pseudonym ( Real Name) of Sara Menco, born 31 March 1920) is a Dutch
journalist and writer. Her real surname was Menco, but an official accidentally switched the
first vowel. She was born in Ginneken to an Orthodox Jewish family. In 1957 Minco
published her first book, Het bittere kruid [nl] ("The bitter herb"). The title of her later book
was Een leeg huis ("An empty house").

Awards
1957 – Bureau voor Postreclame en Adressen De Mutator N.V. Short-story Prize for Het
address
1958 – Vijverberg Prize for Het bittere kruid
1999 – Annie Romein Prize for her entire oeuvre
2005 – Constantijn Huygens Prize for her entire oeuvre

INTRODUCTION
It is the story about a young girl who goes back to the place of her mother’s friend, Mrs.
Dorling, to find her old belongings only to find that they do not carry the same value in a
different setting with unfamiliar people.
The setting of the story is post-World War II and the persecution of the Jews by Hitler’s Nazi
forces. The girl and narrator and her mother Mrs. S are Jews who lived in Germany (or maybe
Austria or Holland).

SUMMARRY BASED ON DIFFERENT PHASE OF THE CHAPTER

The Return
After the war had ended the narrator felt confident and safe enough to visit her old place. She
found her old house was not there and started living in a small hut. Reminiscing the old times
she decided to visit the address: House Number 46, Marconi Street.

This is the address of her mother’s old acquaintance Mrs. Dorling whom the narrator had only
seen once and that was before the War.

She used to borrow her mother’s belongings and possessions like clothes, utensils, silverware,
etc for safekeeping in case their family had to flee their house protecting themselves against
the Nazi repression.

When the narrator, Marga Minco, reaches the address a broad-backed old lady opens the door
incompletely as if to hide some secret. She is wearing her mother’s old cardigan.
The girl recognizes the woman and acknowledges the same. The woman claims to know
nothing about her. The girl reminded her of Mrs. S, her mother and their house.

The woman realized who she was and enquired how did survive when the rest of her family
died in the war and repression. The girl said she had returned to the place after the war and
wanted to see her mother’s things.

The woman rebuffed her advances and said that she did not have time to get into old stuff at
that moment and that the girl should return some other time. The woman’s daughter asked
about the visitor from inside the house but the woman claimed that it was nobody familiar.

The betrayal of her mother’s old friend shocked and hurt the narrator. She decided to return
with a heavy heart and dashed hopes.

The Memory
On her way back the narrator remembers the day she came back to her mother’s at the
beginning of the war. She may have returned from a hostel or a trip. She looked at the house
and the rooms and found several pieces of furniture, crockery, silverware etc were not there.

She became worried and enquired about the missing stuff from her mother. Her mother
downplayed the issue and instead appreciated her keen observation. One morning when the
girl was striding down the stairs she saw a woman leaving her house and her mother escorting
her out.
This woman was carrying their crockery and furniture and loading them in a carriage. She tells
her mother about the woman and why she took their stuff. Her mother told her that it was Mrs.
Dorling an old friend of hers who had reconnected with her in recent times.

She was taking their things to keep them safe in case they had to flee in an emergency. They
would collect their things after peace was established and they were safe in their place. The
girl did not feel comfortable and found the woman mysterious and sinister.
Her mother asked her to refrain from suspecting her friend as she was helping them at the risk
of her own life. She told her about her address at Marconi Street.It was house number 46.
Unfortunately, the family was driven to the concentration camps and none survived to save the
narrator.

The Revisit
Growing frustrated at her last visit, the narrator decides to go back to the same address and
reclaim her mother’s belongings. She was determined and approached the door. But this time
a new face opened the door. It was Mrs. Dorling’s daughter.
She asked the narrator to come inside and escorted her to the drawing-room. The room was
filled with the narrator’s old things that belonged to her mother. The burnt mark on the
tablecloth to the silver spoons, everything reminded her of the past.
The things looked the same but they were in a different place, lifeless and strange. They
lacked the life they had before, they lacked the touch of her mother or the smell of their house.
They were a reminder of what the narrator had actually lost and that it could never be
recovered.

The girl obviously did not know that her mother was a conniving and wicked woman. The
narrator asked her if she knew where her mother had got these things. She thought that her
mother bought the objects at an auction.

The narrator was soon overwhelmed by the flushing memories and decided to leave the house
and the possessions. Without giving any explanation to her host, she scampered from the
house which became hauntingly difficult for her to stay in.

She made a commitment to never return to the place and those forgotten things. In the end, she
decided to forget the address and all the history that went with it. For her, it was a burden she
was relieved to get off her mind and heart.

KEY THOUGHTS OF THE CHAPTER

The story depicts the complex human emotions of intimacy, trust, hope, and betrayal. It speaks
of the greed and vices that afflict a human being and how it makes them do horrible things like
breaking other people’s hopes, lying, stealing, cheating, etc.

Mrs. Dorling refuses to return what she took from her friend and do her duty as a friend and a
responsible human being. She actually used the opportunity to take advantage of her friend’s
difficult circumstances.
This represents the worst of human nature. The background of War and persecution of
innocent lives has strong connotations and beautifully foreshadows the story itself.

CONSOLIDATED SUMMARRY

The story The Address is all about human predicament that follows war. The story narrates
how a daughter goes to her native place in Holland in search of her mother's belongings after
the war.
In the beginning of the story it is narrated how the protagonist was given a cold reception
when she went to her native place after the war in search of her mother's belongings. After
ringing the bell of House Number 46 in Marconi Street, a woman opened the door. On being
introduced,the woman kept staring at her in silence. There was no sign of recognition on her
face. The woman was wearing her mother's green knitted cardigan. The narrator could
understand that she had made no mistake. She asked the woman whether she knew her mother.
The woman could not deny this. The narrator wanted to talk to her for sometime. But the
woman cautiously closed the door. The narrator stopped there for sometime and then left the
place.

In the subsequent sections, the memories of the narrator's bygone days come to light. Her
mother had provided the address years ago during the war. She went to home for few days.
She could find that various things were missing. At that time her mother told her about Mrs
Dorling. She happened to be an old acquaintance of the narrator's mother. Lately she had
renewed contact with her and had been coming there regularly. Every time she left their house
she took something home with her. She told that she wanted to save all their nice possessions.
The next day the narrator saw Mrs Dorling going out of their house with a heavy suitcase. She
had a fleeting glimpse of Mrs Dorling's face. She asked her mother whether the woman lived
far away. At that time the narrator's mother told about the address: Number 46, Marconi
Street. After many days the after the war,the narrator was curious to take record of the
possessions that must still be at Number 46, Marconi Street. With this intention she went to
the given address.

The concluding part of the story describes the second visit of the narrator. As the narrator's
first visit yielded no result so she planned to go once again. Interestingly, a girl of fifteen
opened the door to her. Her mother was not at home. The narrator expressed her wish to wait
for her. The girl accompanied her to the passage. The narrator saw an old fashioned iron
candle holder hanging next to a mirror. The girl made her sit in the living room and went
inside. The narrator was horrified to find herself in a room she knew and did not know. She
found herself in the midst of familiar things which she longed to see again but which troubled
her in the strange atmosphere. She had no courage to look around her. But she no longer had
desire to possess them. She got up, walked to the door, and left the room. She resolved to
forget the address and moved on.

KEY THOUGHTS TO REMEMBER

The story depicts the complex human emotions of intimacy, trust, hope, and betrayal. It speaks
of the greed and vices that afflict a human being and how it makes them do horrible things like
breaking other people’s hopes, lying, stealing, cheating, etc.

Mrs. Dorling refuses to return what she took from her friend and do her duty as a friend and a
responsible human being. She actually used the opportunity to take advantage of her friend’s
difficult circumstances.

This represents the worst of human nature. The background of War and persecution of
innocent lives has strong connotations and beautifully foreshadows the story itself.

CHARACTER SKETCH

1) Mrs. Dorling
She was an extremely rude person that can be well judged by the way she treated the narrator.
She faked complete ignorance when asked if she recognised the narrator. She was extremely
unwilling to strike a polite decent conversation with the narrator. She chose convenience over
etiquettes in inviting her inside the house. She was very discourteous and impolite.

2) Mrs.S.
She was a simple, trustworthy woman who allowed Mrs. Dorling to take her things so that
they would not be destroyed in the war. She was good by nature and could not think of
insulting anyone.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE TITLE “THE ADDRESS”

The title of the story is quite appropriate. The whole action centers around it. The title is quite
suggestive & occurs at the beginning, middle & end of the story. The author focuses the
readers’ attention on it by her self-assurance that she had reached the correct address.

The middle part of the story reveals how she came to the address. It was her mother who had
informed her about the place where Mrs. Dorling lived and asked her to remember it.
Finally the story ends dramatically with the narrators’ resolve to forget the address. She had
remembered it for so many years & now since the belongings of her mother stored there have
lost their usefulness she finds that forgetting this address would be quite easy.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

Reading with Insight

Q1. 'Have you come back ?' said the woman. 'I thought that no one had come back.'
Does this statement give some clue about the story ? If yes, what is it ?

Ans- The given lines do give a glimpse of the story. They bring forth the idea that some
important event had occurred because of which Mrs. Dorling had thought that there was thin
chance of anybody coming back after it. This becomes clearer when the war and struggles
related to it are mentioned in the story which explains Mrs. Dorling's surprise on finding out
that the author had not only survived the war but had also returned. Moreover, the lines also
give the hint of the speaker being guilty or answerable in some way to the author. This aspect
also gets more lucid when it is revealed that she had taken in many of Mrs. S's belongings in
the name of safe keeping before the war and apparently had not harbored any intention of
returning them.

Q2. The story is divided into pre-war and post-war times. What hardships do you think
the girl underwent during these times?

Ans: The story, “The Address” is divided into pre-war and post-war times. There are clear
indications of the hardships which the narrator, a young girl, had to undergo during these
times. The girl came from a rich family. The family had a lot of valuable belongings. Then the
war broke out. Mrs. Dorling renewed her contact and started visiting their house. She took
away all their possessions on the ground that she wanted to save all their nice things in case
they had to leave the place. After the war was over. Things became almost normal. Now the
girl was living all alone in a rented house. She wanted to meet Mrs. Dorling and ask for the
valuables. When she went to meet Mrs. Dorling she found that Mrs. Dorling was using her
mother's things recklessly. Suddenly, she lost interest in the things that had belonged to a
connection that no longer existed. She decided to leave it all behind and resolved to move on.

Q3. Why did the narrator of the story want to forget the address?

Ans. The narrator goes back to the house of Mrs. Dorling who had kept many valuable items
of her mother during the war days. The address given by the narrator's mother helped the
narrator in finding the house of the lady. After her visit, she wanted to forget the address, since
the narrator found that the belongings of her mother were kept in strange conditions. The
articles and objects had lost all their aura and emotional value for the narrator since they were
placed in a different kind of an environment. She found it pointless to get back the "nice
things" that belonged to her mother who had died. She was shocked to see the "nice
belongings" of her mother lying abruptly in unpleasant surroundings in Mrs. Dorlings house.
She realized there is nothing the address could return to her. She knew it could neither return
her loved ones nor peace of mind nor the former state of well being. The address that held so
much importance to her lost all value as she realized that it could give her nothing but pain.
She felt that it was better to forget the address of the uncharitable Mrs. Dorling, which
symbolizes a tragic past.

The narrator now lived in a small rented room and she had no place to keep all these
things anymore. The lady treated her very audaciously. She even refused to recognise the
narrator. She did not let the narrator come into the house. Due to all these reasons, the narrator
wanted to forget the address.

Q4. 'The Address' is a story of human predicament that follows war.

Ans: The phenomenon of war brings lot of suffering for human beings. It brings with it death
and destruction. It kills the feelings of love and sympathy. The story Address is based on this
theme. The narrator's mother leaves all her valuable things with an acquintance during the
war. The mother dies and many years later, the narrator comes to the woman to have a look at
her mother's belongings. But the woman shows no human feelings towards her. Rather, she
behaves in a very hard hearted manner. She doesnot even let the narrator come in and sit a
while. She closes the door. Thus, we find that war leaves the world desolate not only on the
physical level but also on the emotional and spiritual level.

*****Thank You*****