Karin Alvtegen - Shame

She crossed out everything and wrote instead:

What you think and believe is your private business, but I would be grateful to be spared from sharing it. The fact that you presume the right to condemn my parents’ faith, only then to surrender to something resembling a home-made heathen belief upsets me, to tell you the truth, and in view of …

‘Hello!’

Maj-Britt quickly laid the pen and paper on the nightstand and pulled back the bed covers. She heard Ellinor hanging up her jacket on one of the hangers in the hall.

‘It’s only me!’

With great effort Saba managed to clamber over the edge of the basket to go and meet Ellinor. Maj-Britt heard the shopping bags being put down in the kitchen and Ellinor approaching the bedroom. Her heart beat faster, not from nervousness but from anticipation. For the first time in ages she felt calm, absolutely in a superior position. Her disgusting body was also her most powerful weapon. To expose it was to throw the viewer off balance.

Ellinor stopped short in the doorway. She seemed to want to say something but the words got stuck inside her lips. For a second Maj-Britt thought she had succeeded. For a second she managed to feel satisfied, but then Ellinor opened her mouth.

‘Good Lord, you’re a sight! We’ll have to put some cream on that eczema right away.’

Maj-Britt hurriedly pulled up the covers to hide herself. The humiliation burned like fire. The feeling of nakedness overwhelmed her and she knew that she was blushing. It hadn’t worked. The trick that always worked on the others had, as usual, not worked on Ellinor. Instead of gaining power and a safe distance, Maj-Britt had revealed her greatest shame, exposing herself and how wretched she was.

‘Don’t you have some lotion we can use? That must really, really hurt.’

Ellinor’s agitation was unmistakable; Maj-Britt swallowed and pulled the covers further up. She was defending herself from Ellinor’s gaze, and felt just as vulnerable as she had that time when…

This vague sensation dissolved and vanished into whiteness. But something had approached and she was suddenly having a hard time breathing.

‘Why didn’t you say something? You must have had that for quite a while.’

Maj-Britt reached for the letter while trying to hide her naked arm as best she could under the covers.

‘If we don’t do something about this you’re going to end up with open wounds. Please, Maj-Britt, let me take another look.’

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?’