Karin Alvtegen - Shame

‘I could take her outside for a bit if you like, so you can have a little peace and quiet. I notice there’s a playground.’

Pernilla leaned her cheek against her daughter’s head.

‘Would you like that, sweetie? Do you want to go outside and swing a little?’

Daniella raised her head and nodded. Monika felt the panic subside. Her heart calmed down and fell back into its normal rhythm. She had passed the first test.

Now all she had to manage was the rest.

There was blood in the toilet when she peed. She had discovered it several days before, but it may have been going on for longer than that. It was a long time since her periods had stopped, so she knew it meant that something was wrong. But she couldn’t deal with it. Not that too. She tried to drive it into all the whiteness, but the boundaries were no longer there. Everything that had been kept outside at a safe distance had returned and taken shape in a sharp cone of light, and it left Maj-Britt with a sadness that was too much to bear. So a little blood in her urine didn’t matter much. Everything was still intolerable.

Vanja was right. The images in her memory had neither been invented nor distorted, and her black words on white paper had forced all of Maj-Britt’s emotional memories to return. She was back in the midst of the terror. She had partially sensed it when it was actually happening, but she couldn’t fully understand it.

Because you don’t do that to your child.

Not if you love her.

That would have been easier to forget.

She stood by the balcony door and looked out across the lawn. A woman she had never seen before was pushing a child on a swing. She recognised the child. It was the girl who used to be there with her father and sometimes also with her mother, who always seemed in some sort of pain. She wondered if that was the family Ellinor had told her about, the family with the father who had died in a car crash a little while ago. She looked towards the window where she had seen the mother standing, but it was empty.

A week had passed since everything that no longer existed had suddenly reappeared. She knew that it had happened because of Vanja. And because of Ellinor. For seven days Maj-Britt had tried giving her the silent treatment. She had come and gone but Maj-Britt hadn’t said a word. She had done her chores but Maj-Britt had pretended she didn’t exist. But she needed to know. The questions were growing stronger with each day that passed, and now she couldn’t stand living in uncertainty any longer. The terror was still strong enough, and the threat she felt from both of them was more than she could handle. How did they know each other? Why had they suddenly decided on a concerted attack? She needed to know what their plan was so that she would have a chance to defend herself. But what was it she was supposed to defend? The only thing they had achieved by forcing Maj-Britt to remember was to rob her of all incentive.

To defend something.

But she had to find out what that something was.

She heard the key in the door and then Ellinor’s greeting as she hung up her jacket. Saba appeared in the bedroom doorway and went to meet her. Maj-Britt heard them greeting each other and then the sound of Saba’s paws on the parquet floor when the dog went back in and lay down. Maj-Britt stood there by the window and pretended not to notice that Ellinor looked at her on her way to the kitchen. She heard her put down the shopping on the kitchen table, and at that moment she made up her mind. This time she wasn’t going to get away. Maj-Britt went out in the hall, felt Ellinor’s jacket to make sure that her phone was in one of the pockets. She mustn’t have it on her. Because now Maj-Britt was going to find out everything that was going on.

She stood there and waited. Ellinor came out of the kitchen with a bucket in her hand and stopped when she saw her.

‘Hi.’

Maj-Britt didn’t reply.

‘How are things?’

Ellinor waited a few seconds before she sighed and answered herself.

‘Fine, thanks, how are things with you?’

She had adopted this annoying habit during the past week. Creating her own conversations instead of putting up with Maj-Britt’s silence. And it was astonishing how many words that skinny girl’s body could contain. Not to mention the answers she supplied on Maj-Britt’s behalf. Astonishing was the word. She walked around in her deceitfulness with no shame in her body. But now there would be an end to that.

Ellinor opened the bathroom door and disappeared from view. Maj-Britt heard the bucket being filled with water. It was only three steps. Three steps and then Maj-Britt slammed the door.

‘What are you doing?’

Maj-Britt leaned her whole weight against the door and watched the door handle being pressed down. But the door couldn’t be budged. At least not by such a tiny creature as Ellinor, when a mountain was standing on the other side and holding it shut.

‘Maj-Britt, stop it! What do you think you’re doing?’

‘How do you know Vanja?’

There was silence for a few seconds.

‘Vanja who?’

Maj-Britt shook her head crossly.

‘You can do better than that.’

‘What do you mean? Vanja who? I don’t know any Vanja.’

Maj-Britt stood silent. Sooner or later she would have to confess. Otherwise she’d have to stay there in the bathroom.

‘Maj-Britt, open this door. What the hell are you up to?’

‘Don’t swear.’

‘Why not? You’ve locked me in the goddamn bathroom!’

So far she was only angry. But when she understood that Maj-Britt was serious, an uneasiness would come creeping in. Then she would find out what it felt like. How it was to find yourself in the midst of a piercing, paralysing fear.

And to be utterly at someone else’s mercy.

‘Oh… you mean that Vanja Tyrén?’

There now.

‘Exactly. You’re a clever idiot.’

‘I don’t know her, you’re the one who does. Open the door now, Maj-Britt.’

‘You’re not getting out of there until you tell me how you know her.’

The stabbing pain in her lower back almost made her black out. Maj-Britt leaned forward in an attempt to relieve the pain. Sharp as an an icepick, it dug through layer after layer. She was breathing fast through her nose, in and out, in and out, but it refused to relent.

‘But I don’t know Vanja Tyrén. How would I know her? She’s in prison.’

She needed a chair. Maybe it would get a little better if she could only sit down.

‘What’s this all about? Did she say we know each other, or what? If she did, she’s lying.’

The closest chair was in the kitchen, but then she’d have to leave the door, and she couldn’t do that.

‘Come on, Maj-Britt, let me out and then we can talk about this, otherwise I’ll call security.’

Maj-Britt swallowed. It was hard to speak when it hurt so much.

‘Go ahead. Can you reach your jacket out in the hall?’

It was silent on the other side of the door.

Maj-Britt could feel her eyes filling with tears, and she pressed her hand against the point where the pain had gathered. She needed to empty her bladder. Nothing ever went the way she wanted. Everything was always against her. This wasn’t such a great idea after all. She realised it now, but there was nothing to be done about it. Ellinor was locked in the bathroom and if Maj-Britt didn’t find out now then she never would. The probability that Ellinor would come back after this was nil. Maj-Britt would be left not knowing, and some other repulsive little person would show up with her buckets and contemptuous looks.

All these choices. Some made so quickly that it was impossible to comprehend that their results could be so crucial. But afterwards they sat there like big red blots. As clearly as road-signs they marked the route through the past. Here’s where you turned off. Here’s where it all began, everything that came afterwards .