Alix

ALIX

By Janet Caplan

Over the years and several relocations, Alix remained with me, leaving her drawer in one home and returning to it in the next. The move we were now undertaking was different – an extensive downsizing was in order and I gave everything a second thought. Yes, I like/love it, but do I need it? I was now into dresser drawers and that’s where I came across Alix. She, along with countless pieces of junk jewelry as well as my collections of seashells and rocks were up for grabs and so I’d asked Emily to come over.

“Here you go, Emily. I knew that she would be yours one day. Well, guess what…today’s the day.”

Emily looked at me, somewhat wide-eyed.

“Are you sure Mom? I mean she’s been in that drawer for decades. You’ve had her for what, 60 years? I know you promised Alix to me and I’d love to have her as a keepsake, but really I never thought you’d hand her down before…”

“What, before I died?” I laughed. “Emily, the doll has been in a drawer for 60 years, not even on a shelf. It’s time she saw the light of day,” I said, straightening out the doll’s dress. “She’s yours and the other clothes that Grandma made for her as well -all yours. Take her Emily. Find her a shelf to sit on at your place.”

“Okay Mom. For the sentimental person I know you to be, you sure don’t sound that way about Alix. But I always liked her and her story, so I’m thrilled to bring her home. Thanks so much.”

Alix was a Madame Alexander doll and had arrived in a beautifully wrapped box from F.A.O. Schwartz in New York. She’d been sent by an American aunt and uncle to eight-year-old me as a get-well gift. I’d gone through major surgery and would be recuperating at home over a few months. New dolls, new toys and books were all welcome. Alix was a pretty and precious addition, and as such, she’d been nice to look at but not so much a plaything – she didn’t fit in with my dolly tea parties, I guess. 

Nevertheless, she’d stayed with me long after I’d outgrown all the others. Sentiment I suppose - as Emily said, that was practically my middle name. And even though she didn’t often sit at the tea table, Alix had been special in other ways. Her clothes, matching pink floral dress, bonnet and panties were hand-stitched; her red hair braided and curled. Alix’s 8-inch-long plastic body had moveable legs and arms and bendable knees, and she could open and close her eyes and turn her head. For her time, the late 1950’s, she was an innovator. None of my other dolls were as self-sufficient. It was up to me to assist with their mobility.

Emily discovered Alix when she was probably five or six. I had pulled some shells out of my dresser drawer to show her. I stashed anything I considered a keepsake into my dresser drawers: cards, seashells, rocks, personalized items from various events and Alix. As I told Emily about the large pink scallop shell we’d found in the drawer and described where I’d picked it up, she began rummaging through a second drawer that I’d opened.

“Oh…what’s this?” she said. “What a pretty dolly. Is she yours, Mummy?”

“Yes Emily. She is and her name is Alix. Here you can hold her,” I said gently taking the doll out of her corner of the drawer. “And here’s another set of clothes for her. Grandma sewed them. Take a look.”

“She’s so little and cute. And old-fashioned, I think.”

My young daughter was growing up in the age of Barbie and all that came thereafter. Sweet, rosy-cheeked dolls were not common, and I suppose Alix appeared as a novelty to Emily.

“Would you like to play with Alix for a while, Emily?”

“Oh yes. Can she come to my room and meet my other dolls?”

“Sure, have fun. Maybe she’d appreciate a tea party?” Emily and I laughed as she left the room.

Sometime later I tiptoed down the hall to see what Emily was up to. I’d heard all kinds of noises, from dishes rattling to giggles. I peeked into her room and found Emily seated regally at her small, red table surrounded by four or five dolls, all apparently enjoying cups of fine tea accompanied by delicious bites of plastic slices of cake and pieces of fruit. At the centre of all of this sat Alix, the guest of honor. I listened as Emily introduced her to the other dolls, filling them in on the details of her home in my dresser drawer.

“Quiet girls,” Emily addressed her guests. “Alix wants to drink her tea and get used to you and my room. Maybe she’ll come to live here too.”

Emily did ask if Alix could join her doll family, but I told her that maybe it would be better to wait until she was a bit older. Alix was delicate and wasn’t up to much play. She was already quite elderly, and her moving parts no longer functioned as freely as they once had. Emily carefully returned her to my drawer, and I promised that she could bring her to future tea parties.

Emily did just that over the next few years, but when she was around ten or eleven, Emily grew tired of dolls and Alix was relegated to my dresser. Emily would occasionally take a peek at her to make sure that she was still safely in place but that was about the only contact they had.

And so, I kept her in my drawer, waiting for the right moment to disengage from my own childhood memories of Alix and how and why I came to possess her. The year of the surgery been difficult, and Alix was a reminder of that. She represented something that I had wanted to forget.

Facing the reality of the current period in my life, getting older, clarified the need to simplify physically, mentally and emotionally: what from my past did I really need to carry forward? Alix was a token of that past and it was time to hand her along to Emily.  She, not I, had been the girl who genuinely loved Alix and if the doll needed a new home, what better time than now and what better place than Emily’s.