Heligoland

HELIGOLAND

by Shena Mackay

 

Nominations: Booker Longlist 2003, Women's Prize Finalist 2003

 

Date Read: September 28, 2021

 

This may be the place where a building, the Nautilus, is as much a character here as the remaining residents. Rowena, a twice-over orphan from India but raised in England, has just moved into the Nautilus. The building, once a thriving community of artists and eccentrics, has fallen into disrepair and the tenants have dwindled down to just three. With Rowena moving in the population has swelled to four.

 

The Nautilus sounds like a bizarre building. Based on a shell, the flow of the rooms move in a swirl until the center where a vast circular library can be found. There once was a communal dining room and a bar, closed due to some misbehaving former residents. 

 

Rowena, however, has never found her tribe. She has drifted through her life and doesn’t have much to show for it. She has no family, including adoptive family. She has had brief affairs but nothing lasting. No kids. No husband. She has been falsely accused and falsely fired for stealing money from a senior she was caring for. Her generosity and kind disposition has never been truly embraced by anyone.

 

As her tenancy in the building begins to grow roots, she revives the kitchen and the communal dining room. She seems to offer each resident a part of herself that they had lacked until she arrived. And slowly, ever so slowly, it becomes apparent that Rowena may have eventually stumbled upon her tribe. Better late than never, right? The birthday party they all throw for her is truly heartwarming and I am so relieved she finally has “people.”

Having now finished, I still don’t really understand what Heligoland is. I looked it up and apparently it’s a small island in the North Sea. I had supposed that it was a idealized place, some kind of intangible heaven. Who knows? Maybe Heligoland is exactly that.