Shame

by Karin Alvtegen

  There is no hell after death to which your God can condemn us. We create our own hell here on earth by making the wrong choices. Life is not something that ‘happens to us’, it’s something that we create and shape ourselves.

  I will follow your wishes and stop writing to you. But I must write one more thing before our paths part once again. If it’s true that you have pain somewhere, then I think you ought to have it examined, and for safety’s sake you ought to do it as soon as possible.

  You know I’m here if you need me.

  Your friend,

  Vanja

  13

  ‘Thanks for coming.’

  Åse was sitting on the sofa in her cosy living room, and Börje had placed a blanket over her shoulders. Upset but exceedingly grateful, he now sat next to her with one rough fist holding her hand. He used the other hand to wipe his eyes from time to time.

  Doctor Monika Lundvall had remained standing. Confident and professional on the surface, desperately holding herself together, she had made it through the past two hours despite her inner inferno. She spoke with the police and ambulance crew, asked the firemen what they were planning to do with the van, and, finally, full of information, drove Åse home and relayed all the essential facts to Börje. But there in the comfortable living room, Doctor Lundvall, for safety’s sake, had chosen to remain standing. If she sat down in one of the inviting easy chairs and permitted herself to relax, she was afraid that Monika the young girl would manage to break out. Locked in behind her rational façade young Monika was wandering about amongst the wreckage, desperate and terrified. At any moment she might escape, and in that event Doctor Lundvall would have to leave. She was just about to begin her parting comments when she heard the front door open.

  ‘Hello?’

  It was Börje who answered. ‘Hello, we’re in here.’ He looked at Doctor Lundvall and explained, ‘It’s our daughter Ellinor. I asked her to come over.’

  She appeared in the doorway, a young blonde woman with a purposeful step. She had only one goal in sight, her parents there on the sofa. She didn’t even see Doctor Lundvall as she passed her.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  The daughter sat next to Åse and leaned her forehead on her shoulder. In Åse’s lap all their hands met: mother, father, child. A close-knit family. They would stick together through thick and thin, all their lives.

  ‘There’s no danger, but she isn’t quite able to talk about it yet. They gave her a sedative.’ Börje’s voice was calm and low but his tenderness radiated from his hands as they rearranged the blanket that had slipped down from Åse’s shoulders. Then he stroked Ellinor’s hair.

  Monika was kicking and biting inside. Throwing herself again and again at the fragile shell that held her captive. Doctor Lundvall was having a hard time breathing, and things were starting to get urgent, very urgent.

  ‘If it’s all right with you I’ll be leaving now.’

  It was there in her voice. At any rate she could hear it herself. But maybe the people on the sofa were too immersed in their own gratitude to hear it. Börje got up and came over to her.

  ‘I don’t know what else to say but thank you. It’s a bit hard to find the words right now.’

  ‘You don’t have to say a thing.’

  She took his outstretched hand and pressed it fleetingly, then turned to Åse, who was looking at her with a bottomless sorrow in her eyes.

  ‘Goodbye Monika, thanks for coming.’

  When she heard her name the façade cracked, but she managed to make it out to the car before the scream came.

  The car knew the way better than she did. Incapable of making any decision at all, she suddenly found herself parked outside the cemetery. Her legs walked the familiar paths and the flame that had been lit in another time flickered in its holder. She sank to her knees. Rested her forehead against the cold stone and wept. For how long she didn’t know. Darkness had fallen and the cemetery was empty; she and a headstone and a candle flame were all that were left. All the tears that had been stifled with such obedience and restraint over the years came welling up in a frenzy. But they gave her no comfort, they only drove her deeper into despair. There was nothing she could do. A woman had lost her beloved and a child had lost her father, and she just sat there, alive and of no use to any human being. Once again she was the one who had survived and had managed to kill someone who should have been allowed to live. If there was a God, his ways were truly inscrutable. Why take Mattias and let her go? Two people depended on him. His new job would have been their salvation. And Monika herself was expected to continue on as if nothing had happened. Just drive home to Thomas with all her opportunities in safe custody and begin to build her future. Return to her expensive possessions and her well-paid job and pretend she was caring for human lives, when the truth was quite the reverse.

  She straightened up and read the words she had looked at thousands and thousands of times.

  My beloved son.

  So natural, always so present. And always so out of reach.

  She placed her palms over his name on the cold stone, and in the depths of her heart she had only one desire.

  That she once and for all might trade places.

  14

  Maj-Britt was sitting in her easy chair and the TV was on. Programme after programme rolled by; as soon as any thought managed to penetrate the images flickering past, she would click to another channel. The only thing she hadn’t managed to do was escape the pain in her back. After she read Vanja’s words it was more pronounced than ever.

  Before she retreated to what the TV had to offer, she had managed to confirm the conspiracy. She hadn’t said a word about her sore back, yet Ellinor had seen through her with her prying eyes. And she was the only one who could have told Vanja.

  Everything would have returned to normal if it hadn’t been for Ellinor. If Vanja sent any more letters, Maj-Britt could escape by refusing to read them, and what she had already been forced to read she could stifle with TV and food if she just made an effort. But then there was Ellinor. Pleasant little Ellinor, who in reality was in league with Vanja; it was no accident that they had both forced their way in at the same time and almost succeeded in overturning her world. Behind her back they had forged their evil plans; what they were after was incomprehensible. But hadn’t life always been this way? Against her. And she had never understood why.

  And then there was the shame. The fact that Vanja knew that she had lied about her life and knew that she was sitting there in the flat, dependent on home help for her continued existence. And the fact that through her lies Maj-Britt acknowledged what a failure she actually was.

  She heard no word of greeting when the door opened and then shut. Saba raised her head and wagged her tail a little, but stayed lying there next to the balcony door. She wanted to go out, but Maj-Britt hadn’t been able to get up.

  She heard footsteps approaching, and when they stopped she knew that Ellinor was in the room, only a couple of metres behind her.

  ‘Hi.’

  Maj-Britt didn’t reply, just turned up the volume with the remote. Ellinor appeared at the edge of her field of vision, on her way to Saba and the balcony door.

  ‘Do you want to go out?’

  Saba got up, wagged her tail, and squeezed her heavy body through the open door. Outside the wind was blowing, and when a gust tore the door wide open, Ellinor shut it again. Maj-Britt saw her standing there with her back to the room, gazing out through the glass door.

  Something was different. Ellinor’s usual chatter was gone, and there was an oppressive air about her that Maj-Britt found unpleasant. A confusing change that she had to handle in some way. Ellinor stood by the door for a long time, and when she suddenly started speaking it happened so unexpectedly that Maj-Britt gave a start.

  ‘Do you know anyone in this building?’

  ‘No.’

  She answered even though she considered refraining. Ellinor’s new behaviour scared her, especi
ally since she now knew that the person behind the friendly façade was concealing her real intentions.

  ‘There’s a family living across the courtyard; the father died yesterday. In a traffic accident.’

  Maj-Britt didn’t want to know, but she could picture that father, the one who used to go out and push his daughter on the swing, and that mother who seemed to be in some kind of pain. As usual she was being informed of things that she didn’t want to deal with, things she hadn’t asked to be told. She changed the channel.

  Ellinor opened the door to let Saba back in, and then Maj-Britt heard her go out to the kitchen. On the TV three people’s faces were being transformed using plastic surgery and make-up, and Maj-Britt succeeded in keeping up her defences for a long time. But then Ellinor was back. Maj-Britt acted as if she didn’t notice, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Ellinor come into the room with something in her hands and sit down on the sofa. She sat down with the self-confidence of someone who knows she can get back up from it at any time.

  ‘I thought I’d mend this.’

  Maj-Britt turned her head. Ellinor was sitting with her dress in her lap, one of the two she always wore. This one had started to come apart a bit at the seams. Maj-Britt wanted to object but knew it needed to be mended. The alternative was to take the trouble to have a new one made, and she shuddered at the memory of the last time she did that. Or sew it herself? Impossible. For some reason the thought had never crossed her mind, not even in the days when she could have managed it physically. She didn’t even own a needle and thread. But to watch Ellinor’s fingers moving over something that usually clung tight against her skin was repulsive.

  Maj-Britt pressed her lips together and went back to watching TV. But then she reacted to a movement from the sofa. Ellinor had stretched her arm up over her head. Maj-Britt never had a chance to think. She never had a chance to figure out rationally what made her turn all her attention to Ellinor; at the same time she was filled with a terror so strong that she suddenly couldn’t move. She stared at Ellinor. Between her hands was an arm’s length of sewing thread, and Maj-Britt couldn’t defend herself. As if bewitched she followed the thread down to the spool in Ellinor’s left hand. And then it was too late. The memory forced its way in from the whiteness. Like a shade pulled down, with the spring stretched to the breaking point, and suddenly it rolls up with a snap. Maj-Britt sat as if paralysed and looked at what was taking shape before her. What had so long been repressed but which without warning had come back through all those years. And there was nothing she could do to protect herself.

  Nothing.

  She was sitting in the kitchen, but it wasn’t her kitchen at home, it was the kitchen that belonged to the pastor and his family. She had been there for almost two weeks, sleeping in a cold room with two beds, and the pastor’s wife had slept in the other bed. She had not been left alone for a minute, and she had not been allowed to leave the room for a second except to go to the bathroom, which she was allowed to do each morning and evening. But not alone; the door was always left ajar, with the pastor’s wife waiting outside.

  It was a big wooden house, and she didn’t recognise the sounds that inhabited it. Particularly at night. The sounds would creep unexpectedly into the room through the dark floorboards, and then she was glad she wasn’t alone. In the daytime she would have liked to be left in peace for a while. But that wasn’t allowed. She was being punished and she knew it was necessary, knew that it was for her own good. It was meant to help her after the game they had played in the woodshed. It was supposed to help her drive out those thoughts that came over her and made her do things she didn’t want to do.

  Now she was sitting on a kitchen chair and watching the pastor’s wife setting out cups and plates on a tray. She felt that she ought to help but didn’t dare ask. In spite of the fact that they had spent every minute together the past few weeks, except for an hour now and then when the pastor himself had taken over, they didn’t really know each other. Much of the time had passed in silence, and the rest they had devoted to prayers and the Holy Scriptures. Maj-Britt felt gratitude towards the woman who was willing to sacrifice so much of her time to help her, but she was also scared of her. It was quite clear that the pastor’s wife didn’t actually like her but was acting out of a sense of duty. It was something that had to be done.

  Maj-Britt inhaled the sweet fragrance of newly baked buns and glanced towards the window. It had grown dark outside. So many times she had stood on the other side, outside the fence down by the road, and looked towards the lovely house. Gazing at the illuminated windows and fantasising how it would feel to be allowed inside. In there on the other side, in the house that was so full of love that God Himself had chosen the man who lived there to preach His Word. And now she was sitting here in the kitchen. They had taken her in, opening their home and offering their time to help her and her parents to set everything right. She was filled with tremendous gratitude. They knew what she had done, and the first days she hadn’t dared look any of them in the eye. She had done all she could to try and repress the memory, how she was standing in her knickers with her trousers pulled down in front of Vanja and Bosse when her father had discovered them. Bosse had been the doctor and Vanja the nurse, and they hadn’t intended to do anything else, just pull down their pants one by one. The worst shame was admitting to herself that she had felt a tingling in her chest from excitement and curiosity. She hadn’t even felt sick when Satan had seized hold of her, but she didn’t dare admit to this. It would have to remain a secret that she would hide away forever, although it was impossible to keep any secrets from God. And maybe it was also impossible to keep any secrets from the pastor, because each night he had read to her: ‘Though evil is sweet in his mouth, and he hides it under his tongue, though he spares it and does not forsake it, but still keeps it in his mouth, yet his food in his stomach turns sour; it becomes cobra venom within him. He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly. He will suck the poison of cobras; the viper’s tongue will slay him.’

  And she had prayed all the more fervently that God might help her. For two weeks she had prayed to be chosen as the others in the Congregation had been chosen, that she too might be enfolded by His love and grace. She didn’t ask to understand, she knew that His ways were inscrutable, but she wanted so much to be able to obey! For Him to force her into submission so that she might be cleansed.

  Now she was sitting here in the kitchen and didn’t know why, and since she didn’t have anything else to do she began to pray, the way she had learned she should do the past two weeks. The Lord’s grace must not be misused.

  At regular intervals she heard the sound of china cups being returned to their saucers and the pling of the spoons as they slid beside the cups. The pastor’s wife had gone into the dining room and it was from there the sounds were now finding their way back to the cupboards from which the cups had been taken. Everything felt homey and safe. The aroma of the buns and the sound of the table being set. She had been let out of her room, and that must mean she had fulfilled their expectations, that they had been successful in curing her and now trusted her to rejoin the rest of humanity.

  ‘Maj-Britt, can you come here?’

  She got up at once and went towards the dining room, from which the pastor’s wife had called. She was standing behind a chair at the end of the table, resting her hands on the chair back. It was a beautiful room. A large brown table in the centre of the room with twelve chairs around it and then four more along two of the walls. The third wall was covered by a gigantic china cabinet which matched the rest of the furniture, and by the fourth wall stood Maj-Britt in the doorway to the kitchen.

  ‘You can go and sit down there.’

  She pointed to one of the chairs along the wall. Maj-Britt did as she was told. She wondered why the table was set with such lovely china and whom they were expecting for evening coffee. She almost felt a little thrill of anticipation, it had been so many da
ys since she had seen anyone but the pastor and his wife. And she wondered whether Mamma and Pappa would come. Then she could show them that she had done penance and that their prayers had not been in vain. She could almost feel a hint of pride, nothing big or boastful, but more a slight sense of relief. She had managed to get rid of everything inside that had led her astray. Of course she had received help, but she was the one who had done it. Through her fervent prayers she had finally succeeded in taking control of the thoughts that were constantly slipping beyond the rules she had laid down for herself. God had finally listened and come to her aid. In His grace He had forgiven her and would not let her suffer anymore. Or her parents either, they would also be spared.

  The pastor’s wife went over to the china cabinet and pulled out the drawer beneath the centre door. With her back to Maj-Britt she rummaged around and there were sounds of small things being moved about. Then she turned round with a spool of thread in her hand. A wooden spool with pure white thread on it.

  ‘Now take off your skirt and underwear.’

  Maj-Britt didn’t understand at first what she had said. For a fleeting moment there was still only the smell of freshly baked buns and hopeful trust. But then the terror came sneaking over her. Her clothes didn’t need mending. What was the pastor’s wife going to use the thread for? Maj-Britt inspected her skirt, looking for a seam that had split, but she couldn’t find any.

  ‘Just do as I say and then sit back down on the chair.’

  Her voice was kind and friendly. It didn’t match her words, and Maj-Britt didn’t understand what she meant even though she understood what she said. Then the pastor’s wife raised her arm above her head and pulled out an arm’s length of thread. On the way down she glanced at her watch.