Karin remembers herself in a picture from when she was 16 years old, taken by A in Paris in 1983. Her shoulders are exposed and she’s wearing long earrings. The photograph no longer exists but she’s trying to piece together, now as a 55-year-old author in Oslo, how the photograph came to be. Karin speaks to her shadow-sister, ‘you’, who has followed her since childhood. The shadow-sister disappeared for a while but has now come back to her in middle age and won’t leave her alone.
Karin met A for the first time in an elevator in New York. He calls Maxine, an agent, to set up a meeting between them. Karin is living with her actress-mother. She rarely attends school, faking her mother’s signature on the notices of absence. Karin has later searched on the internet for A’s and Maxine’s names to find recordings of their voices, hoping it will spark her memory from those days. She doesn’t find anything. Karin has forgotten a lot from those years, not just because she drank a lot – her brain just has blackouts in memory from that time.
A invites Karin for a drink in his apartment. He suggests she go with him to Paris for a photoshoot; he works for French Vogue. Karin’s mother forbids her to go. Then she takes Karin shopping for new clothes for the trip. She doesn’t remember much from the trip, other than – That she’s lost. She doesn’t know her way around Paris and asks a couple for help, she has forgotten where her hotel is. They decline to help. Someone helps her find A’s apartment, she has his address on a piece of paper.
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