Karin Alvtegen - Shame

She felt nothing when she heard his voice. He was calling from another life that no longer had anything to do with her. She had no right to it now. And she had no obligation to him; it was to others that she was indebted.

The telephone stood on the windowsill. She picked up the receiver and dialled his number, those familiar digits, for the last time and he answered immediately.

‘Thomas.’

‘This is Monika Lundvall. You left a message on my answering machine and asked for an explanation, so I just wanted to say that I don’t want us to see each other anymore. Okay? Bye.’

She went out to the kitchen and poured water in the coffee-maker, pressed the button and stood there. It was twenty to seven. Somewhere not far away a little one-year-old would be waking up, and she no longer had a father. She went into her office, found the phone book and looked up his name. There was only one Mattias Andersson, but at least he was there. In the next issue he would be deleted. She wrote down the address and stored the number in her mobile. She went back to the kitchen. Steam was hissing out of the coffee-maker and she looked at the green button that showed the coffee was ready. She ignored it. Instead she went out to the hall and put on her coat.

It was a U-shaped block of flats, four storeys tall. On the lawn in the middle there was a little fenced playground with a bench, some swings and a sandbox. The door with their number on it was on the left. She stopped for a moment and took in the atmosphere, searching for signs that indicated someone in the building had recently been struck by a tragedy. A sound made her turn her head. On the ground floor of the right wing a balcony door opened, and the fattest dog she had ever seen stuck its head out through an opening in the railing. It looked at her for a moment before it lost interest and contemplated the steps to the lawn.

Monika began walking towards the outside door she knew led to the Anderssons’ stairwell. With each step she was conscious that she was walking in his footsteps, that it was his path she was taking. She put her hand on the black plastic doorknob. She closed her eyes and left her hand there. It was a strange thing about doorknobs. She never thought about them, but when she returned many years later to buildings she had lived in before, her hands always remembered the feel of the doorknob. They never forgot. Hands had their own ability to store memories and knowledge. This doorknob had been his. His hands had borne the memory of its shape, confidently pulling open the door each time he came home, and he had had no inkling on Thursday when he left that he would never do it again.

She opened the door and entered the stairwell. On the left wall, behind glass, was a list of the names of the residents, in white plastic capital letters on blue felt. The Anderssons’ flat was on the third floor. Slowly, she started up the stairs. She let her hand glide up the banister and wondered if he also used to do that. The morning sounds seeped out of the doors she passed, muffled voices, someone running water. Further upstairs a door opened and was locked with a rattling bunch of keys. They met on the stairs between the second and third floors. An elderly man wearing a coat and carrying a briefcase said a polite ‘hello’. Monika smiled and returned the greeting. Then he was gone and she took the stairs up to the third floor. There were three doors. The Anderssons lived behind the middle one. That’s where they were.

A child’s drawing was taped over the letter-box. Monika bent closer. Incomprehensible lines and curlicues drawn every which way with a green felt pen. Red arrows came out of the curlicues, and at the other end of them someone who could write had interpreted the artist’s work: ‘Daniella, Mamma Pernilla, Pappa Mattias.’

She moved her hand close to the door handle, letting it hover above without touching, wanting merely to experience the feeling of being really close. At the same moment Daniella started to cry inside, and she quickly pulled her hand back. The sound of another door being opened somewhere in the stairwell made her hurry back down the stairs and out to her car.

But now she knew where they were.

He was waiting outside her flat when she came home. Sitting in the deep window seat on the landing. She saw him before she took the last steps up the stairs, and her feet slowed down but didn’t stop entirely. She walked straight past him and up to her door.

‘I thought I made myself clear on the phone. I don’t have anything else to say.’

She had her back to him, and her fingers were searching for the right key. He didn’t reply, but she felt his gaze on the back of her neck. She unlocked the door and turned round.

‘What do you want?’

He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes and stubble on his chin. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms.

‘I just wanted to see you say it.’

Monika shifted impatiently from one foot to the other.

‘Okay. I don’t want us to see each other anymore.’

‘You don’t have any intention of telling me what happened?’

‘Not a thing. I just realised that the two of us don’t fit together. It was a mistake from the beginning.’

She took a step in towards her flat and started to close the door.

‘Did you meet someone else?’

She stopped in the midst of her motion, thought for a second and realised that that was precisely what she had done.

‘Yes.’

The noise he made sounded like a snort. Instinctively she had a need to defend herself; if a person snorted she had earned his contempt.

‘I’ve met someone who really needs me.’

‘And I suppose I don’t, in your opinion.’

‘Maybe you do, but not as much as he does.’

She shut the door and cut him out of her life. And she knew that every word she had said was true. She had met someone else; Thomas didn’t have to know that he was now dead. Mattias’s weighty responsibility lived on, and it was her duty to take over now. That was the least she could do. It was impossible to undo things, so the only thing left was to try and set right as much as she could. By allowing herself a relationship with Thomas she had attempted to grab for herself the happiness to which she had no right. What had happened to Mattias was the final rebuke. The only thing left to do was subordinate herself. Her sacrifice was nothing compared to the devastation she had wrought.

She went into the bathroom and washed her hands. She heard the street door slam behind him out in the stairwell, and not until she saw her face in the mirror did she realise she was weeping.

Her fingers punched in the speed-dial number for the head of the clinic. For the first time in the eleven years she had worked there she called in sick. Since she didn’t want to infect any of the others, they should probably count on her being off for the rest of the week. Then she went into the living room and let her index finger glide along the spines of the books. On the third shelf she found what she was looking for; she pulled out the book then, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the table, went to lie down on the sofa, and turned to the first page of The History of Sweden .

She was standing in front of the mirror in her room, twisting and turning and trying to see how she looked from the back as well, but to see that view she had to contort her body in the most awkward way. The way she looked there in the mirror wouldn’t be how she looked at all when she was facing straight ahead. And it was important how she looked from the back, because that was the direction he usually saw her from. But not today. Today it was going to be special.

She had been allowed to borrow Vanja’s new blouse. Vanja, the only one who knew, the only one she had dared tell. It was so strange with Vanja. They had been friends for years but she really didn’t understand why, they were such an improbable pair. Vanja was so brave; she didn’t hesitate a second to say what she thought and she would stand up for her views in any situation. Maj-Britt knew that she had a tough time at home. Her father was a notorious figure in the community; everyone knew about him, and especially about his alcohol problem. But Vanja didn’t let herself be dragged down by the gossip. If she so much as caught an inkling of any condescension she would strike back like lightning. She punched like a verbal boxer. And Maj-Britt would stand beside her and admire her, wishing that she could speak so frankly, and that, above all, she also dared stand up for her own point of view.