The Looking-Glass Sisters (5 page)

Yes, there must be papers, an application, a confirmation of what she is planning. Can an envelope of special interest have been put in our letter box at the trading post? Can I have failed to notice that Johan, after one of his four or five trips, has come back with the letter she has been waiting for? Can I have overheard the small scratch of agitation in his voice when he flings open the door and shouts: Post! And when they sit down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee to sort the bills from the ads, can I have failed to notice the tense whispering between them when a particular envelope with the county authority’s elegant stamp is torn open, the suppressed jubilation after quickly reading such sentences as: ‘Your sister has hereby been approved for a place at our nursing home… She will be fetched by our ambulance team at the end of the month… We fully understand your difficult situation and hereby guarantee that your sister has been granted lifelong care…’?

Have these words been read in my proximity without my noticing the ill-will that surrounds them, the cold they release into the room? I feel like hitting myself. It strikes me as a possibility that I have dully and indifferently witnessed the planning of my own deportation.

I sharpen my senses. Follow Ragna’s daily activities with apparent lack of interest from the sidelines, stay more often in the kitchen, keep my bedroom door open and an ear cocked to everything taking place out there: the sound of drawers opening, paper rustling, pen being put to paper.
I listen out for possible telephone calls. But everything is as usual, and there is just that sentence quivering between us: You’ve got to go.

Ragna is only out of the house on rare occasions, when she goes to the village, which happens less and less now that Johan has taken over the weekly shopping. When she does go, I have my only time alone in the house. Then I take over all the rooms.

I like to look through her drawers – the smell of the wood and a musty tinge from her clothes. Here I find the reverse image of Ragna. Everything she takes care of tells me something different from what is expressed between us. The lace handkerchief, elegantly laid out around the brooch that has two stones missing, the amber ornaments, the old bottle of perfume that’s turned rancid: Ragna’s dreams of something better and finer, dancing and grand parties.

It’s the second Monday in August and, surprisingly, Ragna has gone off with Johan to the village. She announced this after my morning care. I pretended to ignore it, frightened of revealing my expectation, the agitated tingling sensation at the thought of being alone – to rummage through her things, perhaps find a letter from the nursing home, the draft of an application.

After waiting for a while, I am inside her room. I poke the door with my crutch, pull a chair over to the dresser, sit down, open the drawers, enter the forbidden land of Ragna.

All the contents are old acquaintances: every nightdress and sock, every jersey and pair of tights. Her jewellery, the long amber necklace and ear clip. Not for the first time do I preen myself in the mirror above the dresser. And once again I perceive this image of Ragna staring at her own perfect mirror-image, the jewellery that confirms her daily sacrifice, that she could have been a woman in a finer, more glamorous world.

In the bottom drawer I find a white box I haven’t seen before. I place my hand on the lid, let it lie there for a while before lifting it off. The contents are red, the material shimmers in my hands: a thin nightdress, a bra and – I don’t understand it to begin with – a tiny pair of panties. At the bottom, underneath the shimmering material, there lies a silver case: a crimson lipstick that smells sweet.

I hook up the bra, pull it over my head and down over my blouse. I do the same with the panties, bend down and pull them up over my trousers, lift my backside a bit in my chair, pull the elastic until it fits round my hips. I heave myself up and, with one hand on my crutch, I grab the lipstick and smear it on my lips with my face close to the mirror.

So this is Ragna. Her white body in red underwear. Johan must have ordered it – the cups are distinctly arousing, they bulge out, begging to be filled. Ragna is utmost poverty, a lifelong lean year, but Johan is hungry. If nothing else, the packaging stimulates the appetite.

Supported by my crutches and wearing Ragna’s bra and panties, I move from room to room to flaunt myself. I take a leisurely cup of coffee and eat the biscuits that Ragna has laid out before leaving, I open the front door so as to be gaped at by birds, heather and moor, I display myself to the lavatory, to all the things in my bedroom and hers. Gradually, I make her red secret pale, dull and my own – something Ragna doesn’t know. And in this way there is a shift in the balance of power in the space of just a few hours. I know everything about her little fairy tale, and she knows nothing about mine.

This erotic side to Ragna makes me wonder if her life – all these years in loneliness – has actually been as dull as I have tended to believe. For there’s no denying it, something jars in the way she behaves when meeting Johan. This abandon, this moral decline, the way she crudely and freely indulges in physical intercourse, they do not suggest an inexperienced woman. It’s possible that this sudden wantonness is merely biological, that it has lain dormant and unexpressed in her, waiting to be woken by the right man. But, and this is my theory, it may well be that she has become increasingly aroused as the result of a number of shameless encounters. It may well be that for several years now Ragna, on her trips to the village, on her weekly visits to the shop and the post office, exploited the opportunity to unleash the desire that had built up in the course of a long, strenuous week of nursing and domestic duties, and that on this day in the week she let it all go, her clothes included, that she
lay down in a house, a home, with some acquaintance or stranger, giddy and playful, just like the hunting dogs we had for a short period.

Can I have overlooked situations like this one:

Ragna, who, flushed with excitement and expectation, places small and secret objects in her bag, things intended to seduce, to arouse desire? Ragna, who shouts ‘Back soon!’ with a rusty voice, short of breath from the blood pounding inside her, who says, ‘See you later!’, full of hidden urges? Ragna, who, heavy with lust, calls out, ‘I’ll be back just after eight!’

And, God help me, I can almost see it: Ragna, who for twenty-nine years runs light-footedly among the taut, sap-filled birch trunks, along the muddy country road towards the open expanse of emptiness and who there, blood-sated and dazzled, panting, imagines the hours ahead of her.

‘Yes, master! I’m ready for anything!’

Back in the chair in her room, and having returned the underwear to where it came from, I start to wonder about Ragna’s real reason for going to the village. This sudden decision to leave – she’s been gone for several hours. Is she doing some serious shopping? A new snow scooter? I make a mental list. She needs a new coat, possibly some kitchen equipment. But there is really only one explanation for my uneasiness: Ragna is of course meeting with the staff of the nursing home.

I see it all: Ragna is probably sitting at this moment wringing her hands, on the very edge of the chair in the principal’s well-scrubbed office.

‘Please be so kind as to help me,’ she says in a weak voice. ‘I’m completely worn out. You can imagine it yourself: never any help, my work set out every day from morning to evening!’

The principal nods sympathetically, hands her a glass of water to encourage her to go on. Ragna swallows and tries to pull herself together, makes an effort to keep back her tears, but is surprisingly down-to-earth and clear in her account.

‘My sister is much worse on her legs, the spasms have increased and she often wakes up with cramp at night. She needs help for practically everything, even the most intimate arrangements,’ she says, brushing away the tears gathering in her eyes.

‘What do you mean, the most intimate?’ the principal asks gently.

‘I have to wipe her behind,’ is the meek reply. ‘She can’t manage that any longer.’

‘And?’ the principal says searchingly, encouraging her to continue.

Ragna swallows again and averts her eyes.

‘It’s the fault of the spasms. When she wipes herself she sometimes falls to the floor, and, well… you can imagine.’ She lowers her gaze, shy like a young girl, studies her hands.

The principal takes a deep breath and straightens up.

‘Terrible,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘But I gather that is not the worst thing?’

‘No!’ Ragna says with a sob that causes her voice to break. ‘The worst thing is that she has become so suspicious and aggressive! She rummages in my things and flails around with her crutches for no reason!’

‘How awful, how unbelievable,’ the principal says, and exchanges a concerned look with the nurse who has appeared and is wiping the sweat from Ragna’s brow.

Meanwhile, the principal fishes out a sheet of paper that she stamps with great authority and energy. She places the sheet on a shelf marked ‘Admissions’, rises and strikes the table with both hands.

‘There’s no doubt at all that you must have help! I’ve never heard of a worse case. Not only is your sister becoming increasingly disabled, but she also shows every sign of mental confusion. We will offer you all the support and assistance you need, Miss Ragna, from today!’

‘Come on, open the door!’

Someone is hammering on the front door. I’ve locked it. What else can I do? I’m lost, my time’s over. Through the window I’ve seen Ragna and Johan arriving. And it’s worse than my worst fears: they are accompanied by three powerful men.

‘What on earth are you up to? Open up, I said!’

Ragna shakes the door. Johan swears in the background.

‘It’s not that simple!’

‘What do you mean?’ she answers angrily.

‘To get rid of me.’

‘Pull yourself together. What are you babbling about?’

‘I won’t do it. I’m not moving!’

‘Open the door, damn it!’ she says, shaking the handle.

‘Those men,’ I try to say, placing my mouth close to the wood. ‘You’ve fetched help,’ I whisper softly.

Ragna kicks the door. Her voice is sharp.

‘What the hell are you talking about? These are Johan’s mates from Finland!’

‘Finland? They’re from the nursing home.’

‘Are you ill? Unlock the bloody door.’

‘You don’t fool me.’

She kicks the door again in reply and steps away, then starts talking to Johan. I place my ear up close. There’s something that doesn’t seem right. I can hear Ragna and Johan heatedly discussing things, but without any interruptions from the three men, who are standing talking a language there’s no mistaking.

‘Ragna,’ I say, banging on the door. ‘Ragna! Who are these men?’

Ragna comes back and places her mouth close to the door.

‘They’re from Finland, like I just told you. They’re old workmates of Johan’s. They’re here to put up a house for a building company and he’s invited them over.’

Ragna’s furious, so furious that what she says must be true. Het up and confused, but also suddenly frightened about the consequences of having insisted something else was going on, I turn the key in the lock. Ragna heaves at the door before it’s fully open. Her jaws are clamped shut, and if we’d been on our own she’d have hit me now, as she passes me. Johan follows immediately behind. He’s really mad and he hurries after her into the kitchen. The Finns
are clearly at a loss. They stand there, stamping their feet and spitting on the ground. I quickly register that two of them are Johan’s age, perhaps because of their weight, but the other one, a scrawny little bloke, must be a bit younger. Johan calls to them and waves them in. They enter reluctantly, distrustfully, nudging each other when they discover me up against the wall in the corridor.

‘Jee-zus,’ one of them mutters as they pass.

Ragna makes pancakes, the smell filling the house; a thin film of moisture now covers my bedroom window. I lie on my bed, listening to what’s taking place out there – Ragna and Johan, who are having guests for the first time. Conversation is halting, reduced to short sentences and words of one syllable, and I assume – since I can’t see them from the bed – full of facial expressions and gestures.

Laughter comes easily. It takes only a word or two for loud guffaws to hit the wall. I smile indulgently, think that it would hardly be as amusing if I weren’t in the next room, that they are idiots and charlatans who are trying to outdo each other showing off.

The noise level increases: the sound of sizzling from the frying pan, the clattering of plates and cutlery being laid out, feet shuffling, chairs scraping against the floor, huffing and puffing, hands that grip and let slip. I’ve never heard a racket like it. I shut my eyes, transform the sounds into pictures so that I can more easily follow what is going on out there, search for a reason for the visit: Finns, what are they doing here, when it comes to it?

‘Can I invite you men to partake of some rather decent firewater?’ Johan asks.

‘
Vitun
hyvää
,’ the Finns answer.

The cork is rolled off the bottle with a flat hand in a rapid movement, it’s easy to hear. It falls to the floor and rolls round. Cupboards are opened, glasses set out, drinks poured. There is much swilling and toasting, clearing of throats and contented sighing.

Ragna approaches the table, the men grab their cutlery, stick forks haphazardly into the pile of pancakes.

‘
Helvetin
hyvää
,’ says one of the Finns with his mouth full.

‘
Helvetin
hyvää
,’ the two others agree, and toast Ragna and Johan.

After the meal, the men dig out a pack of cards. While they try to agree on a game and on rules, Ragna disappears unnoticed into her room. Through the thin wall I hear her pulling out a drawer; it must be the bottom one, for now she’s lifting the lid off the white box.