Karin Alvtegen - Shame

The pastor’s wife came over and knelt down by her side. Then she took the thin thread and tied it tight to her right leg; right below her knee she tied it with a simple knot before she tied the other end to the chair leg.

‘We’re doing this for your own good, Maj-Britt, so you will understand the seriousness of what you did.’

She took the pile of clothes and stood up.

‘It’s out of love for you that your parents and all of us in the Congregation are trying to help you find your way back to the true path.’

Maj-Britt was shaking. Her body was trembling with humiliation and fear. He had duped her, He had not forgiven her, only lulled her into false hope, biding His time.

‘Out of love, Maj-Britt, even though it might not seem so now, but when you grow up you’ll understand. We only want to teach you how you should have felt when you exposed yourself to that boy. And how you will feel for eternity if you don’t change your behaviour.’

She folded up the clothes in a neat pile and went out to the kitchen. Maj-Britt sat utterly still. She was terrified that the thread would break if she moved.

Time passed. Totally white time, without seconds or minutes. Only moments that moved forward and grew more and more meaningless. There above the table hung a large crystal chandelier. The prisms blinked and shimmered. And the table was so beautifully set. Delicate white cups and two platters filled with the loveliest cinnamon buns. And it was good that she was tied to the chair, because otherwise she might have eaten all of them before the guests even arrived. But they seemed to be doing so now. She heard the doorbell and voices murmuring but not what was said, but it was surely none of her business. The draught from the front door made the prisms in the crystal chandelier glitter like gemstones. Imagine being able to sit and gaze at such a fantastic creation. And now all the guests were coming into the room, in pairs or one by one they sat down at the table; the Gustavssons and the Wedins, and there came Ingvar who led the choir. And the Gustavssons had their Gunnar with them, look how big he had grown. They were all wearing such fine clothes, suits and dresses, as if they were going to church on Sunday. Even Gunnar had a suit on, although he was only fourteen. It was dark blue and he was wearing a tie and looking so grown-up. And then Mamma and Pappa. It was so nice to see them because it had been quite a while, but they didn’t have time for her now and she understood that. The pastor had begun to talk about things that had to do with the Congregation, and now the buns were passed around and coffee poured into the cups. But her mother looked so sad. Several times she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and Maj-Britt would have liked to go over and comfort her, tell her that everything was all right, but she stayed in her chair and she knew that was what she had to do. They had done this for her sake, even though they were pretending she didn’t exist. Only Gunnar stole a glance at her from time to time.

And suddenly everyone was leaving. They all got up and went out together to the hall and then all the voices stopped. Only a quiet murmuring which she had become accustomed to hearing from the pastor and his wife, and then time became divided into seconds again.

She was sitting on a chair in the pastor’s dining room with no clothes on the lower part of her body, and now she understood how she should have felt.

And she had learned that she would never again do what she had done.

The next day she was allowed to go back home. They let her take the spool of thread as a reminder. It was put on the shelf in the kitchen so that she would never forget.

Some things were not meant to be kept by anyone. The sole purpose of some things was merely to pass by and remind certain people of what they would never be able to have. To make sure that they didn’t neglect their hopeless longing, or simply forget about it. Or maybe even learn to live with it and feel a sense of contentment. No, when people didn’t want to acknowledge their need it was time to remind them, give them a little taste, refresh their memory a bit.

Thomas had been that sort of person.

A reminder who had stopped by to tell her how life could have been. If she hadn’t been someone who lived at the expense of others.

Someone who had squandered her right to life.

Everything was shattered. The dizzying feeling of hope had run out, dissolved in the limitless hopelessness that replaced it.

She was sitting on a chair by the living-room window. Her lovely living room where no price tag had hindered her, everything hand-picked, exquisite and meticulously arranged. A source of pride for the one who lived there and a challenge to those who came to visit.

Offering comparisons.

Making them want to have these things, too.

All her fine, expensive things.

All the lamps in the flat were turned off. A cold glow from outside painted a wide path on the parquet floor but stopped halfway up the bookshelf on the opposite wall. Just above the shelf with the glass sculpture, the sculpture that many of her fellow doctors also owned. Not quite identical but almost, which showed that they had both the means and the taste.

She had turned off the sound on her mobile phone. He called several times but she didn’t answer. She just sat by the window in the living room, which was growing less and less important as the hours went by.

It had been easy to fill up the rest of her time. TV, gym, late nights at work. As a single person she was used to organising her time precisely, avoiding gaps when everything would come to a standstill and the worrying could take over. It was tough enough just to be alive. And when it got to be too much it was always possible to find consolation in a new jumper, an expensive bottle of wine, a pair of new shoes, or something to make her home even more perfect. And she could afford it.

All she was missing was a life.

And no fortune in the world could fix what had now been shattered.

The contours of the path of light at her feet grew vaguer and finally dissolved as dawn broke. A new day was approaching for her and for everyone else who was still here. But not for Mattias. And for Pernilla and their daughter the hopeless journey towards an acceptance of life’s injustices and its unfathomable purpose was now starting.

The first day.

She closed her eyes.

For the first time in her life she wished she had some religious belief. Merely a tiny handle to hold on to; she would gladly exchange every object in the room for the ability, for a single second, to possess even a scrap of faith. A feeling that there was some meaning, some higher cause that she didn’t understand, a divine plan to rely on. But there was none. Life had once and for all proven its total absurdity; no amount of effort had any effect at all. There was nothing she could believe in. No consolation to be had.

Her world was built on science. Everything she had learned, made use of, trusted in, had all been precisely weighed and measured and confirmed. She accepted only exact and rigorously worked experimental results whose validity could be proven. That was where security could be found. And here, in the perfect home. Things that could be seen and evaluated. That was how everything acquired worth. But now it no longer sufficed, not now that everything was toppling and shrieking for a purpose. It would be enough to have a sense of a tiny, tiny ‘maybe’ – the slightest hint, if only to enable her to set aside all logic and feel reassured.

The telephone rang. The usual four rings before the answering machine started.

‘It’s me again. I just wanted to say that I… I don’t really know if I can handle things being this way… I would be extremely grateful if you’d call me and explain what’s happening, so I know. Surely that’s not asking too much… or is it?’