Shame

by Karin Alvtegen

  This was unheard of. Not on her life! Never ever would she think of exposing herself to this person who didn’t have the sense to keep her distance. Ellinor and Vanja. It seemed like the whole world had suddenly ganged up on her, had decided to break in and come after her at any cost.

  ‘Get out of here and leave me in peace! I’m trying to write a letter and you’re bothering me!’

  Ellinor stood in silence for a while, looking at her. Maj-Britt kept her eyes fixed on the letter she was writing. Then she heard a little snort and, out of the corner of her eye, saw Ellinor back out of the room. Saba was still standing there but only for a moment; then she too turned her back on Maj-Britt and followed Ellinor.

  Considering that you slaughtered your entire family and are sitting in prison for life, I don’t really think I have any obligation to read your sick speculations! Your letters are disturbing and I say no thanks to anymore letters from you. My family and I only want one thing – to be left in peace!!!!

  Maj-Britt Pettersson

  She wrote the address and without reading through what she had written she licked the envelope and sealed it. The sounds of Ellinor’s movements in the flat were hard and angry, and it wasn’t long before she appeared in the doorway again.

  ‘I’ve put the food away in the fridge.’

  She was clearly irritated.

  ‘But I only bought meat, as you asked.’

  Then she vanished again. Starting banging about with buckets and the vacuum cleaner, doing her duties. And Maj-Britt stayed in bed and realised that Ellinor had met her halfway yet again. Risking her job by ignoring all the regulations to please her. Maj-Britt covered her face with her hands. There was nowhere to flee to any longer. Her sanctuary had been invaded.

  Suddenly, Ellinor was standing in the bedroom doorway. Maj-Britt had heard the front door open and, after a brief pause, close again. When the footsteps approached she had heart palpitations. Ellinor came over and sat down on the edge of the bed, down by Maj-Britt’s feet where there was a little spot free. Saba left her basket and went up to her.

  ‘My big brother was born with no arms. When we were little, I don’t think it occurred to any of us that he was different, it was just natural because he had always been that way. Mamma and Pappa didn’t make a big deal of it either. Obviously they were shocked when he was born, but they always made the best of the situation. He was the world’s best big brother. Jesus, what games he could think up.’

  Ellinor petted Saba on the head and smiled.

  ‘It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he understood how different he was. Like when he fell in love the first time and realised that he couldn’t compete with boys who had arms and were like all the others. Who were “normal”.’

  Her fingers left Saba’s neck and made a gesture in the air to indicate what she thought of the word ‘normal’.

  ‘My brother is one of those guys that all girls dream of meeting. Funny… smart… kind. He has a sense of humour and an imagination like no one I’ve ever met, arms or not. But then as a teenager there were no girls that even saw him, they just saw the space where his arms should have been, and eventually he did too.’

  Maj-Britt pulled the covers up to her chin and hoped that this strange confession that Ellinor felt compelled to make would soon be over.

  ‘And then when he realised that he would never become the man he dreamed of being, he became the opposite. Overnight he turned into an utter pig and nobody wanted to have anything to do with him. He was so awful that you didn’t want to be anywhere near him. No one could work out why he was acting that way. Eventually he demanded that mother and father get him his own flat in a care home, but the staff could hardly cope with him there either. He was eighteen then. Eighteen years old and completely alone. He didn’t want to see me or our mother and father, even though we were the only ones who really looked out for him. But I didn’t care. I went there a couple of times a week and told him exactly what I thought. That he was a fucking self-pitying tosser who could go ahead and rot at that care home if that was what he wanted. He told me to piss off but I kept going to see him anyway. Sometimes he even refused to open the door. Then I would just shout through the keyhole.’

  Good Lord, such language she was using! How was it possible to use so many swear words? Uneducated and vulgar, that’s what she was!

  Ellinor suddenly fell silent, and Maj-Britt presumed it was because she needed to catch her breath. Evidently not even she could keep up her inexhaustible torrent of words without oxygen. Too bad it didn’t take long for her to catch her breath. Ellinor looked Maj-Britt right in the eye and continued.

  ‘So, just keep sitting here, you fucking coward, and destroy your life. But don’t think you’re going to get rid of me. I’ll be showing up here regularly to remind you what a fucking idiot you are.’

  Maj-Britt clenched her jaw so tight it hurt.

  ‘That was what I told my brother…’

  Ellinor petted Saba’s back one last time before she got up.

  ‘Today he’s married and he’s got two kids, because in the end he couldn’t stand my nagging. Is there anything special you’d like me to get next time?’

  11

  A new flame was flickering on the grave. She watched her mother’s hands put back the burnt match in the box, for the umpteenth time. However many times it had been, she only knew it was far too many.

  Her decision was final. She would tell Thomas the truth, for the first time in her life confess what had happened and what she had done. And not done. This time she wouldn’t let the fear destroy everything. Not again.

  The flat smelled stuffy and she was on her way over to the living-room window to open it when her mobile rang. She had just thought about calling him herself and would really have liked to first. Her mobile was in her handbag, and she went back out in the hall to retrieve it. An unfamiliar number showed on the display and it made her hesitate. He was the only one she wanted to talk to; she had absolutely no desire to get involved in a long conversation with someone else. But then she let her sense of duty take over.

  ‘Hello, Monika here.’

  At first she thought it was a wrong number, or someone trying to play a joke on her. A woman’s voice she didn’t know was shrieking from the phone, and it was impossible to understand what she was saying. She was just about to hang up when she suddenly realised it was Åse. Secure, matter-of-fact Åse who with her mere presence had helped her through the past few days. Åse belonged back at the course, and her voice sounded odd here in her airless flat.

  ‘Åse, I can’t hear what you’re saying. What’s happened?’

  Suddenly she was able to catch a few words. Something about coming over, she was a doctor. She didn’t have a chance to be scared. Not now. For a few seconds there was silence. She heard the sound of sirens approaching. Only then did she feel the first glimmer of trepidation. Nothing alarming, only a hint of heightened alertness.

  ‘Åse, where are you? What’s happening?’

  The sound of panting. Shallow, rapid breathing, like a person in shock. Unknown voices in the background, a wordless wall of sound yielding no information. She made her decision unconsciously. Something about what was going on made Monika slip into her professional role.

  ‘Åse, now listen to me. Tell me where you are.’

  Maybe Åse could hear the change in her voice. Maybe that was just what she needed. Authority. Someone telling her what to do.

  ‘I don’t know, somewhere on the road… it just crashed, Monika… I didn’t see it, I didn’t even have a chance to hit the brakes.’

  Her voice cracked. The secure, self-confident Åse started sobbing desperately. Monika’s professional persona closed around her even tighter as she acknowledged Åse’s desperation. Like armour it slid into place, protecting her from becoming emotionally involved.

  ‘I’m coming.’

  It was as a doctor that she drove off. Her thoughts were running along an objective path that required on
ly information; no emotional nonsense was allowed to penetrate. No hasty conclusions before verifying reliable facts. After every curve she expected to see an oncoming ambulance, but none appeared. Her phone rang once and she saw his name on the display. He didn’t belong here right now, he would have to stand aside; right now she was a doctor on the way to an accident site.

  She could see it a long way off. At the far end of a long row of flashing blue lights against a greyish-blue horizon. All the way up to the top of a hill. Emergency vehicles had parked every which way, and were now confined behind traffic cones and red-and-white plastic tape. A small queue of traffic had formed, and a policeman did his best to let it trickle past on the hard shoulder. Monika pulled over to the side and parked, her car’s emergency lights flashing. It was a hundred metres to the cones and she jogged alongside the cars. All that existed was the accident site up ahead. It was the only thing that meant anything. Step by step she came closer. She was almost there but a fire engine was blocking her view. She slipped underneath the red-and-white tape.

  ‘Hey, this area’s blocked off.’

  ‘I’m a doctor and I know Åse.’

  She didn’t stop. Didn’t even look at him. Just searched the surroundings for data. The rear of the red van was sticking up from the ditch. ÖRJE’S CONSBTRUCTION. Normal letters, perfectly legible. A cable from a tow-truck was fastened to a hook on the van and was slowly pulling the vehicle from its position.

  Firemen, police, ambulance crew. But something was wrong. A disturbing calm prevailed in the midst of the visual chaos. No one but herself seemed to be in a hurry. A fireman was calmly and methodically packing up his tools. A paramedic in the front seat of the ambulance was filling out a report.

  Then she caught sight of Åse. Leaning forward, her face in her hands, she was perched at the rear of the ambulance. Next to her sat a female police officer with an arm around her shoulders, and the expression on the woman’s face took Monika’s breath away. She stood motionless in the midst of it all. Someone came up and said something but she only saw a mouth moving. Only a few steps to go. More than two this time but just as difficult for her to take. What she wanted to know was concealed down there in the ditch, but the taut cable grew shorter and shorter and at any moment would reveal the full extent of the catastrophe. She put her hands in front of her eyes. In the darkness she heard that they had found the elk some distance away, in the woods. The engine noise from the tow-truck stopped, but she kept her hands where they were, not wanting to know.

  She was back there again. Once again she stood there, very much alive, and it was all her fault. It was impossible to change a thing, to undo it; she had set the trap and Mattias would never get out.

  She opened her eyes and something finally fell to pieces inside her. Where the passenger side had been there was only crumpled sheet-metal and a piece of shattered window.

  And then she saw the mangled body that was impossible to identify but should have been hers.

  12

  H i, Majsan!

  I suppose I should begin by thanking you for your letter even though I have to admit it didn’t make me very happy. But that probably wasn’t the point either. You can calm down, I won’t continue our correspondence alone, but this letter seems necessary to send. It will be the last one.

  I beg your pardon if I offended you with my speculations in my last letter, it was really not my intention. On the other hand, I don’t intend to apologise for actually having the opinions that I have. If there’s one thing I’m tired of it’s people who think they’re so perfect in their faith that they feel entitled to look down on that of others and condemn it. And in no way am I condemning your parents’ faith as you said. I’m merely exercising my right to believe otherwise. I plan to keep thinking about things and see whether I can find some good new answers, because maybe we can agree that what we’ve had so far has not created a particularly pleasant world. As I read in a book the prison chaplain gave me: ‘All great inventions and advances have been made based on a willingness to admit that no one has been correct so far, and then put all correctness aside and rethink things.’

  As far as my ‘home-made heathen belief’, the simplest answer is that our beliefs are very different, but that’s completely okay by me. The Bible says quite eloquently that only God has the right to judge. Most of us have thoughts about eternity now and then. I don’t understand why we human beings, as soon as we find something to believe in, have to run out and try to convince everyone else that we’re right, as if we don’t dare believe anything by ourselves but have to do it in a group for it to count. Then it suddenly becomes important for everyone to believe the exact same thing, and how do we achieve that? Well, we set up laws and rules that fit into the framework we have erected, and to be included we have to adapt. We quite simply have to stop asking our own questions and hoping to find any answers, since the right ones have already been written down in the laws of the religion. That must be the purest coup de grâce for all types of development, don’t you think? Then it’s merely a matter of power, isn’t it? In any case, that’s what religion is about for me, because no religion was created by any God but by us humans, and history has shown us what people think they can do in religion’s name.

  As I read over what I’ve written I realise that I’ve probably offended you in this letter too. I just want you to know that I am also a believer, but my God is not as judgemental as yours. You wrote that considering the fact that I’m serving a life sentence, there is no reason to read my sick speculations. Well, that may be, but I still want to conclude by telling you my version of why I’m sitting here today.

  Do you remember that I always dreamed of being a writer? In my childhood home that was just about like dreaming of becoming king, but our Swedish teacher (remember Sture Lundin?) encouraged my writing. After you and I lost contact I moved to Stockholm and there I studied to be a journalist. Not that any of my articles have become immortalised, but I made my living as a journalist for almost ten years. Then I met Örjan. If you only knew how much time I’ve spent trying to understand why I fell so crazily in love. Because looking back it’s inconceivable that I closed my eyes to all the warning signs. And there were certainly more than enough of them. The strangest thing of all is that I felt safe with him, even though everything he said and did should have made me feel exactly the opposite. Even then he was drinking far too much, and he always had money without ever telling me where it came from. Now I realise that it was because he reminded me of my own father and that the ‘security’ came from recognising my own childhood. I felt at home with him and knew exactly how to act. I never fell in love with any of those ‘kind, friendly’ men I had run into over the years, because they made me feel insecure. I never knew how I should act with them. Örjan didn’t like women to be too independent, and I didn’t have to work because he could provide for us with his money. And fool that I was, I tried to adapt myself to his wishes, and about six months after we met I quit my job. Then it was my friends he didn’t want me to see, and to avoid a fight I stopped communicating with them. Of course that made them stop calling me as well. In only a year I lost all contact with the outside world and had become more or less a slave. I won’t tire you with the details, but Örjan was a sick person. He wasn’t born that way, of course, but he had grown up in an abusive home and kept on living the way he had been taught. It began almost imperceptibly. A nasty little comment now and then that gradually became so commonplace that I got used to it. Finally I ended up believing those things, and I began to think he had a right to say them. Then he started hitting me. There were days when I could hardly move, but it served me right, he said, because then he knew where he had me. But he knew that anyway, because I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without asking his permission, which he never gave.

  Now this is the hard part, telling you about my dear children. They are still in my thoughts, and so many times I’ve gone over and over all the ‘if onlys’. But 17 years and 94 days ago, I s
aw no other solution than to take them with me into death, to save them from the hell we lived in, and it was MY fault they were born into it. I could see no other solution. I was so bone-tired of always being afraid. Maybe only a person who has lived in constant fear for a long time can understand how it feels, and how powerless you become in the end. What happened to me was not important, but I could no longer stand watching my children suffer. I was so ashamed of myself and everything I had let happen that I didn’t dare seek help. I was guilty too, after all! I hadn’t stopped him in time! I had seen how he went after the children, and I hadn’t dared stop him then either. I desired nothing more than death, but I couldn’t leave my children with him. At that point my brain was so mixed up that there seemed no other way out. I saw it as our only salvation. I gave them sedatives and suffocated them in their beds. It was never my plan to kill Örjan, but he came home early unexpectedly, and found me in the children’s bedroom. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. I managed to get out and run to the kitchen, and when he caught up with me I had a butcher’s knife in my hand. Afterwards I emptied the petrol can that Örjan kept in the storeroom and lay down with the children and waited. What I remember most strongly about those hours was how I felt when I heard the flames crackling downstairs, slowly but surely destroying our prison. For the first time in my life I felt total peace.

  The worst moment I’ve ever had was when I woke up in the hospital a couple of weeks later. I’d survived, but my children were with him on the other side. I survived, but it means nothing to me that I got my life back.

  I’m not trying to make excuses for what I did, but it’s some solace to me to try to understand the reason why everything turned out the way it did. My punishment is not being locked up here. My punishment is a thousand times worse and will last the rest of my life. For every second that remains, it’s seeing my children’s eyes before me, remembering the looks they gave me when they saw what I was doing.