Shame (14 page)

Pernilla pulled out a chair and set it underneath the smoke alarm.

‘I have a problem with my back, and raising my arm above my head is simply impossible.’

Monika climbed up on the chair.

‘What sort of problem do you have with your back?’

An attempt to break the ice. They didn’t know each other. Starting now Monika would forget everything she already knew.

‘I was in an accident five years ago. A diving accident.’

Monika twisted the alarm box off the holder.

‘That sounds serious.’

‘Yes, it was, but I’m better now.’

Pernilla fell silent. Monika handed her the alarm. Pernilla picked out the battery and went over to the counter. When she opened the cupboard Monika glimpsed cleaning supplies and a pull-out recycling bin.

Pernilla turned round and Monika realised that she was expecting her to leave now that she had finished her task. But she hadn’t finished. Not by a long shot. Monika turned to the portraits on the wall.

‘What a lovely portrait of Sofia Magdalena. It was Carl Gustav Pilo who painted it, wasn’t it?’

She could see that Pernilla was surprised.

‘Yes, it could be. I’m not really sure.’

Pernilla went over to the portrait to check whether there was a signature, but apparently couldn’t find one. She turned to Monika again.

‘Are you interested in art?’

Monika smiled.

‘No, not in art particularly, but in history. Especially the history of Sweden. You pick up a few artists’ names in the process. I go through periods when I get almost fanatical about reading history books.’

Pernilla gave a little smile, and this time her eyes began to sparkle a bit.

‘How strange. I’m really interested in history too. Mattias often used that very word. That I was almost fanatical.’

Monika stood silently, relinquishing the initiative. Pernilla looked at the portrait again.

‘There’s something consoling about history. Reading
about all these destinies that have come and gone. At any rate it’s helped me gain a little perspective on my own problems, I mean all the trouble with my back after the accident and all.’

Monika nodded with interest, as if she were actually following along. Following along intently. Pernilla looked down at her hands.

‘But now I don’t know.’

She paused for a moment.

‘How there could be any consolation in history, I mean. Other than that he’s dead like all the rest.’

Just listen. Don’t try to comfort her, just listen and
be there
.

Silence. Not only because of what she had learned in her courses, but because she couldn’t think of anything to say. She glanced furtively at the jumble on the refrigerator door. She wanted so badly to have a closer look. Try to find more ways into Pernilla’s life.

‘He had to choose between this and what he had on when he died. When he was packing, I mean.’

Pernilla stroked the big woollen jumper she was wearing. Pulled up the collar and pressed it against her cheek.

‘I did a big load of laundry the day before he died. Emptied the whole laundry basket. So now I don’t even have the smell of him left.’

Just listen
. But they hadn’t said much at those courses about how to act to be able to withstand everything you heard.

It was Daniella who rescued her. A newly awakened discontent was audible from the room next to the kitchen. Pernilla let go of the collar and left. Monika took three steps over to the refrigerator and
quickly began looking through the collage. Family photos. Coupons from a pizzeria. A strip of pictures of Mattias and Pernilla from a photo booth. Several incomprehensible drawings by a child. Some clippings from a newspaper. She had barely managed to read the headline of one of them before Pernilla returned.

‘This is Daniella.’

The child hid her face against her mother’s neck.

‘She’s just woken up but she’ll be wide awake soon.’

Monika went over to them and put her hand on Daniella’s back.

Daniella pressed her face even harder into her hiding place.

‘We’ll have to say hello later after you’ve had time to wake up.’

Pernilla pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down with Daniella on her lap. Once again the feeling that she expected Monika to leave, as she had asked her to do. But Monika wanted to stay a bit longer. Stay here where it was possible for her to breathe.

‘What an elegant ceramic bowl.’

She pointed to a bowl on the windowsill.

‘Oh, that. I made it myself.’

‘Really?’

Monika went over and took a closer look. Blue and thrown a little askew.

‘Really very fine. I once took a pottery course too, but I haven’t had a chance the past few years. My job takes up too much time.’

That wasn’t even a lie. She had taken ceramics as an option in high school.

‘That one is really crooked. I only saved it as a
reminder that I had to stop ceramics when I injured my back. I just couldn’t sit still very long anymore.’

Pernilla sat looking at the bowl.

‘Mattias liked that one too. He said it reminded him of me. I wanted to throw it out but he absolutely insisted we keep it.’

Each time his name was spoken Monika could feel her own heartbeat. How her pulse quickened, signalling danger. Daniella had come out of her hiding place and sat looking at her. Monika smiled.

‘I could take her outside for a bit if you like, so you can have a little peace and quiet. I notice there’s a playground.’

Pernilla leaned her cheek against her daughter’s head.

‘Would you like that, sweetie? Do you want to go outside and swing a little?’

Daniella raised her head and nodded. Monika felt the panic subside. Her heart calmed down and fell back into its normal rhythm. She had passed the first test.

Now all she had to manage was the rest.

T
here was blood in the toilet when she peed. She had discovered it several days before, but it may have been going on for longer than that. It was a long time since her periods had stopped, so she knew it meant that something was wrong. But she couldn’t deal with it. Not that too. She tried to drive it into all the whiteness, but the boundaries were no longer there. Everything that had been kept outside at a safe distance had returned and taken shape in a sharp cone of light, and it left Maj-Britt with a sadness that was too much to bear. So a little blood in her urine didn’t matter much. Everything was still intolerable.

Vanja was right. The images in her memory had neither been invented nor distorted, and her black words on white paper had forced all of Maj-Britt’s emotional memories to return. She was back in the midst of the terror. She had partially sensed it when it was actually happening, but she couldn’t fully understand it.

Because you don’t do that to your child.

Not if you love her.

That would have been easier to forget.

She stood by the balcony door and looked out across the lawn. A woman she had never seen before was
pushing a child on a swing. She recognised the child. It was the girl who used to be there with her father and sometimes also with her mother, who always seemed in some sort of pain. She wondered if that was the family Ellinor had told her about, the family with the father who had died in a car crash a little while ago. She looked towards the window where she had seen the mother standing, but it was empty.

A week had passed since everything that no longer existed had suddenly reappeared. She knew that it had happened because of Vanja. And because of Ellinor. For seven days Maj-Britt had tried giving her the silent treatment. She had come and gone but Maj-Britt hadn’t said a word. She had done her chores but Maj-Britt had pretended she didn’t exist. But she needed to know. The questions were growing stronger with each day that passed, and now she couldn’t stand living in uncertainty any longer. The terror was still strong enough, and the threat she felt from both of them was more than she could handle. How did they know each other? Why had they suddenly decided on a concerted attack? She needed to know what their plan was so that she would have a chance to defend herself. But what was it she was supposed to defend? The only thing they had achieved by forcing Maj-Britt to remember was to rob her of all incentive.

To defend something.

But she had to find out what that something was.

She heard the key in the door and then Ellinor’s greeting as she hung up her jacket. Saba appeared in the bedroom doorway and went to meet her. Maj-Britt heard them greeting each other and then the sound
of Saba’s paws on the parquet floor when the dog went back in and lay down. Maj-Britt stood there by the window and pretended not to notice that Ellinor looked at her on her way to the kitchen. She heard her put down the shopping on the kitchen table, and at that moment she made up her mind. This time she wasn’t going to get away. Maj-Britt went out in the hall, felt Ellinor’s jacket to make sure that her phone was in one of the pockets. She mustn’t have it on her. Because now Maj-Britt was going to find out everything that was going on.

She stood there and waited. Ellinor came out of the kitchen with a bucket in her hand and stopped when she saw her.

‘Hi.’

Maj-Britt didn’t reply.

‘How are things?’

Ellinor waited a few seconds before she sighed and answered herself.

‘Fine, thanks, how are things with you?’

She had adopted this annoying habit during the past week. Creating her own conversations instead of putting up with Maj-Britt’s silence. And it was astonishing how many words that skinny girl’s body could contain. Not to mention the answers she supplied on Maj-Britt’s behalf. Astonishing was the word. She walked around in her deceitfulness with no shame in her body. But now there would be an end to that.

Ellinor opened the bathroom door and disappeared from view. Maj-Britt heard the bucket being filled with water. It was only three steps. Three steps and then Maj-Britt slammed the door.

‘What are you doing?’

Maj-Britt leaned her whole weight against the door and watched the door handle being pressed down. But the door couldn’t be budged. At least not by such a tiny creature as Ellinor, when a mountain was standing on the other side and holding it shut.

‘Maj-Britt, stop it! What do you think you’re doing?’

‘How do you know Vanja?’

There was silence for a few seconds.

‘Vanja who?’

Maj-Britt shook her head crossly.

‘You can do better than that.’

‘What do you mean? Vanja who? I don’t know any Vanja.’

Maj-Britt stood silent. Sooner or later she would have to confess. Otherwise she’d have to stay there in the bathroom.

‘Maj-Britt, open this door. What the hell are you up to?’

‘Don’t swear.’

‘Why not? You’ve locked me in the goddamn bathroom!’

So far she was only angry. But when she understood that Maj-Britt was serious, an uneasiness would come creeping in. Then she would find out what it felt like. How it was to find yourself in the midst of a piercing, paralysing fear.

And to be utterly at someone else’s mercy.

‘Oh … you mean that Vanja Tyrén?’

There now.

‘Exactly. You’re a clever idiot.’

‘I don’t know her, you’re the one who does. Open the door now, Maj-Britt.’

‘You’re not getting out of there until you tell me how you know her.’

The stabbing pain in her lower back almost made her black out. Maj-Britt leaned forward in an attempt to relieve the pain. Sharp as an an icepick, it dug through layer after layer. She was breathing fast through her nose, in and out, in and out, but it refused to relent.

‘But I don’t know Vanja Tyrén. How would I know her? She’s in prison.’

She needed a chair. Maybe it would get a little better if she could only sit down.

‘What’s this all about? Did she say we know each other, or what? If she did, she’s lying.’

The closest chair was in the kitchen, but then she’d have to leave the door, and she couldn’t do that.

‘Come on, Maj-Britt, let me out and then we can talk about this, otherwise I’ll call security.’

Maj-Britt swallowed. It was hard to speak when it hurt so much.

‘Go ahead. Can you reach your jacket out in the hall?’

It was silent on the other side of the door.

Maj-Britt could feel her eyes filling with tears, and she pressed her hand against the point where the pain had gathered. She needed to empty her bladder. Nothing ever went the way she wanted. Everything was always against her. This wasn’t such a great idea after all. She realised it now, but there was nothing to be done about it. Ellinor was locked in the bathroom and if Maj-Britt didn’t find out now then she never would. The probability that Ellinor would come back after this was nil. Maj-Britt would be left not
knowing, and some other repulsive little person would show up with her buckets and contemptuous looks.

All these choices. Some made so quickly that it was impossible to comprehend that their results could be so crucial. But afterwards they sat there like big red blots. As clearly as road-signs they marked the route through the past.
Here’s where you turned off. Here’s
where it all began, everything that came afterwards
.

But it never worked to go back the same way. That was the problem. It was a one-way path.

He stood there with his hoe and the woven basket next to him, trimming the garden path. It didn’t look like it really needed it, but that had never made any difference. It was the joy of doing the task that was the goal. Maj-Britt knew that because they had told her. But she also knew that it was important for the garden to be perfect, and that wasn’t something they needed to say. It was important to be exacting about everything that was visible. Everything that was seen outwardly. You were responsible for the unseen yourself, and there the Lord was the absolute judge.

Her father stopped hoeing when she opened the gate. She took off her cap and brushed back her hair from her high forehead.

‘How did the practice go?’

She had been to choir practice. In any case that was what they believed. For a year there had often been extra choir practice at the oddest times, but now her double life had become a strain. Continuing to hide the truth began to feel impossible. To keep sneaking around with the love she felt. She was nineteen and had made her decision. For months she had been
gathering her courage, with Göran supporting her. Today they would lay all their cards on the table, but until that moment he stood out of sight a short distance away.

She looked around the garden and then caught sight of her mother. She was down on her hands and knees by the flowerbed outside the kitchen window.

‘Father, there’s something I need to discuss with you. You and Mother.’

Instantly, her father got a worried furrow between his eyebrows. This had never happened before. That she took the initiative for a conversation.

‘Nothing’s happened, I hope?’

‘Nothing dangerous that you have to worry about, but I have to tell you something. Could we go inside for a bit?’

Her father looked at the gravel path at his feet. He wasn’t really finished yet, and he hated to interrupt a task before it was completed. She knew that. She also knew that this wasn’t the best situation for the conversation that was to come, but Göran was standing out there on the road and she had promised. Promised to give them finally the opportunity to create a life together. A real life.

‘Go on inside. I just have to get someone I want you to meet.’

Her father looked at once through the gate. She saw it in his eyes. Would have known it even if her eyes had been closed.

‘Do you have guests with you now? Because we’re busy …’

He looked down at his work clothes and ran his hands over them hastily as if that would make them
cleaner. And she was already regretting it. Bringing home guests without letting her parents prepare themselves was against the unwritten rules of their home. This had turned out all wrong. She had let herself be talked into something that was bound to fail. Göran had such a hard time understanding how it was. Everything was so different in his own family.

‘Inga, Maj-Britt has a guest with her.’

Her mother stopped weeding the flowerbed at once and stood up.

‘A guest? What sort of guest?’

Maj-Britt smiled and tried to radiate a calm that she didn’t feel.

‘If you just go on in we’ll be there in … Is fifteen minutes all right? And you don’t have to make coffee or anything, I just want to introduce …’

She had intended to say ‘him’ but wanted to wait with that. Things were bad enough already. Her mother didn’t reply. Just brushed off the worst of the dirt from her trouser legs and hurried in through the kitchen door. Her father picked up the basket and hoe to put them back in the shed. It was obvious. He was already annoyed at being interrupted. He looked around when he crossed the lawn to make sure that nothing else was lying outside making a mess.

‘You could bring in Mother’s tools over there.’

It was not merely a suggestion, and she did as he said.

They stopped on the steps for a minute and held hands. Göran’s hand was damp, which was unusual.

‘Everything will be fine. By the way, I promised my mother we’d ask if they’d like to come over for coffee
someday so that they can finally meet. Remind me, so I don’t forget to say it.’

Everything was so easy for Göran. And soon it would be for her too.

She put her hand on the doorknob and knew that now was the time. It was now or never.

She had made up her mind.

No one met them in the hall. They hung up their jackets and heard the water running in the kitchen and then the slapping sound of someone wearing thin-soled shoes approaching. Her mother appeared in the doorway. She was wearing her flowered dress and her black shoes that she only wore on special occasions. And for a moment Maj-Britt thought they might understand what a solemn occasion this was. That they were doing it for her sake.

Her mother smiled and held out her hand to Göran.

‘Welcome.’

‘This is my mother, Inga, and this is Göran.’

They shook hands and her mother’s smile grew wider.

‘It’s nice of Maj-Britt to bring one of her friends home, but you really must excuse us for not preparing anything. I had to fix something from what we have.’

‘But that’s not necessary. Really.’ Göran smiled back. ‘I just wanted to come by and say hello.’

‘Nonsense, of course we have to offer you something. Maj-Britt’s father is waiting in the living room, so you can go on in and I’ll be there in a moment with coffee. Maj-Britt, please help me in the kitchen.’

Her mother left and for a moment they looked at each other. Squeezed each other’s hands hard and
nodded. We’ll get through this. Maj-Britt pointed towards the living room and Göran took a deep breath. Then he silently mouthed the three words that filled her with new courage. She smiled and pointed first to herself and then to him and nodded. Because she really did.

Her mother was standing with her back to her, pouring boiling water into the coffee filter. They had taken out the fine china and the elegant porcelain coffee-pot with the blue flowers on it. She suddenly had a guilty conscience. She should have warned them that they were having company instead of subjecting them to this. She saw that her mother’s hand was shaking. She seemed suddenly in such a hurry.

‘You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.’

Her mother said nothing, only let a little more water run over the side of the saucepan and mix with the black sludge in the coffee filter. Maj-Britt wanted to go into the living room. She didn’t want to leave him alone in there with her father. They had decided that they would do this together. As they would everything else from now on.