Karin Alvtegen - Shame

She had prayed and prayed but never managed to share their faith; God had not wanted her prayers. She gave up everything to show her obedience and to be embraced by His love, but He never answered. Never showed her a single word or sign that He was listening, that He saw her struggle and her sacrifice. He silenced her because she was not worthy. He rejected her and left her alone with her filthy thoughts.

She went into the kitchen. There was a little left of the meat she had seared, and she cut off a piece and placed it on her tongue. The meat was seared just on the surface. When she leaned back in bed again she let her saliva soften and warm the morsel of meat before she closed her eyes and swallowed.

A brief moment of pleasure.

Several times she had woken with her hands over her crotch, and the shame she felt was blood-red. Why had she been born in a body with such sick desires? Why had their God not been able to love her? Why had He punished her parents when she had been willing to sacrifice everything?

One night she hadn’t awakened until it was too late. She had woken up in the midst of her shame.

And her mother had spoken to her in her sleep.

They saw what she had done.

A large hall. She sat on a chair and the water all around her was back. She couldn’t move. There was something wrong with her right leg, something about the leg made it impossible for her to escape. A noise frightened her and she looked up. He was standing right in front of her in a black suit, he was so enormous that she couldn’t even see his face. She wanted to flee, but there was something about her right leg that prevented her. Behind him lay a severely wounded man on the floor, and his white clothes were cut to ribbons. Blood gushed from spike holes in his hands, colouring the water red, and he looked at her and appealed for help.

The voice of the huge man boomed like thunder.

‘Jesus died on the cross for your sins, because your hands seduced you and because of your unclean desire.’

She heard sounds behind her. People had gathered, they were there because of her, because of what she had done. Their eyes burned into the back of her neck.

‘There are three forms of love – our love for God, God’s love for us, and erotic love, which turns us away from God.’

The water was seeping in from all sides. Her parents sat some distance away with their hands folded. They looked up adoringly at the man who was speaking, beseeching him for help.

‘The shame of desire is that it is independent of will. Virtue demands complete control over the body. Do you understand, Maj-Britt?’

Her name echoed between the walls but she could not reply. Something was suffocating her. People behind her whom she could not see were placing their hands on her head.

‘Before the Fall, Adam and Eve could propagate without desire, without the lust that has now been forced upon us; their whole bodies were under the control of the will.’

The water was continuing to rise. The wounded man on the ground vanished beneath the surface and she wanted to rush over and help him, but she couldn’t. Her leg and all those hands held her back. Soon her parents would vanish too; they would drown because of her, because she had forced them in their despair to come here for help.

‘You must learn to cultivate and nurture your relationship with God, to cleanse your filthy soul. A true Christian refrains from the damnation of sexuality. What you have done is a sin; you have strayed from the true path.’

With a mighty noise the walls came crashing down and the room was completely filled with water. Her parents sat quite still in their grief and let the water wash over them. She could no longer breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe.

When she woke up she was lying on her back. She tried to roll over on her side but her body prevented her. The big pillow had slipped onto the floor and she was abandoned, trapped by her own weight. Like a beetle on its back she tried in vain to regain control, but the strain used up the last oxygen in her lungs. She was going to suffocate. She would die here, outwitted by her own body, the body that all her life had been her prison, both thin and fat. Now it had won. At last it had won what it wanted and conquered her, forced her to yield and give up.

They would find her here. That Ellinor would discover her tomorrow and tell the others that she had died lying in her own bed, suffocated by her own fat.

Shamed forever.

With one last effort she managed to roll over on her side and then fall to the floor with a hard thud. Her left arm was trapped under her but she didn’t feel the pain, only the relief when air found a narrow passage down to her lungs.

Saba barked uneasily and wandered back and forth. Saba. Dear Saba. Her faithful friend who was always there when she needed her. But now Saba could do nothing. Maj-Britt would remain lying here until Ellinor came, but at least she wouldn’t be dead.

The hours passed slowly. Her left arm went to sleep after a while, but she didn’t dare move, didn’t dare risk landing on her back again. Finally she was forced to move. With a minimum of effort she managed to free the blood flow down into her arm. Worse was the pain in the small of her back. The pain that had been throbbing lately; often it hurt so much that she had a hard time moving at all.

She was lucky. Ellinor came early. The clock by the bed showed only a little past ten when she finally heard the key in the door.

‘It’s only me!’

She didn’t reply; Ellinor would find her soon enough. She heard the food bags being laid on the kitchen table and Ellinor saying hello to Saba, who had left her side when the front door opened.

‘Maj-Britt?’

The next moment she was standing in the bedroom doorway. Maj-Britt could see that she was alarmed.

‘Shit, what happened?’

She squatted down by her side but still hadn’t touched her.

‘Jesus, how long have you been lying here like this?’

Maj-Britt couldn’t speak. The humiliation she felt was so deep that her jaws refused to move. Then she felt Ellinor’s hands on her body and it was so ghastly that she wanted to scream.

‘I don’t know if I can manage to get you up. I’ll probably have to call security.’

‘No!’

The threat caused a spurt of adrenaline and Maj-Britt reached her arm up towards the bedstead to try and get a grip.

‘We’ll manage by ourselves. Try to shove the pillow in behind my back.’

Ellinor worked as quickly as she could, and in a moment Maj-Britt was in a half-sitting position. The pain in her lower back made her want to scream, but she gritted her teeth and refused to give up. They kept on going. One pillow after another was forced in and it took them almost half an hour, but they did it. Without the security men and their awful touching. When Maj-Britt sank down in her easy chair, panting, and it was all over, she felt a strange emotion.

She was grateful.

To Ellinor.

She wasn’t required to do that; according to the rules she should have called in security. But Ellinor hadn’t, for her sake and together they had done it.

The words came from deep inside.

‘Thank you.’

Maj-Britt didn’t look at her when she said it, or the words would have stuck in her throat.

Not much was said during the next hour. The feeling that they had suddenly become a team, that their common experience had forced Maj-Britt to lower her guard, felt threatening. She was indebted now, and that could easily be exploited if she didn’t stay on alert. This did not mean that they were friends, far from it. She had Saba, after all, and needed no one else.

She couldn’t face dealing with the bags of food, and she heard Ellinor start to unpack them and open the refrigerator door.