Karin Alvtegen - Shame

‘Maj-Britt?’

Someone was saying her name. There was no possibility of escape. She was surrounded in her own home.

‘Maj-Britt. You two can go into the bedroom if you like, and I’ll wait out here.’

It was Ellinor. Maj-Britt saw her walk over to the bedroom door and call Saba to her.

Maj-Britt forced herself to walk towards the bedroom. She felt that the doctor was on her heels and she heard the door closing behind them. Now it was only the two of them in the room. She and the person who quite soon would force herself on her. She no longer remembered why she had voluntarily gone along with this. What could she possibly have wished to achieve?

‘Would you begin by showing me where the pain is?’

Maj-Britt turned her back and did as she was told. The tears were running down her cheeks but she didn’t dare wipe them off out of fear of being exposed. The next moment the hands were on her. Her body stiffened and she squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to retreat back into the darkness but in there she was only more conscious of them. The way they groped and squeezed the spot she had pointed out. Imagine that she just stood there and let it happen. She was waiting for the terrible part. To be asked to take off her clothes.

‘Is this where it hurts?’

Maj-Britt nodded quickly.

‘Have you had any other symptoms?’

She couldn’t answer.

‘I’m thinking of fever, weight loss. You haven’t seen any blood in your urine, have you?’

And that was when she first realised what she had got herself into. In her stupidity she had thought that if she went along with the examination, then everything would go back to normal. She would put a stop to Ellinor’s eternal nagging and maybe even get some medicine prescribed, but she hadn’t thought any further than that. She had been so afraid of the examination itself that she hadn’t even considered what the results might be. Now she realised that the doctor, behind her back, suspected the reason for her pain, and she was suddenly unsure that she wanted to know. Because what could it lead to but more outrages?

She had let herself be duped.

The hands went away.

‘I need to feel your back better. You only need to pull up your dress.’

Maj-Britt couldn’t move. She felt the hands return and fumble along her sides. When her dress was pulled up, the disgust she felt was so strong that she wanted to throw up. The fingers groped over her skin and in between her rolls of fat, pressing and squeezing and finally she could no longer hold back. Her body convulsed. She felt to her relief that the hands went away and her dress fell back and again covered her legs.

‘Ellinor! Ellinor, do you have a bucket?’

She heard the door open and their voices out there in the flat and in the next moment Ellinor was next to her with the green bucket. A dishrag lay like a dried shell in the bottom but Ellinor let it lie there, holding up the bucket in front of Maj-Britt, but nothing came out. She hadn’t eaten anything since the day before, so her stomach was empty. Slowly the terror retreated into its crevices and left the field free for the anger to which she was entitled. She shoved away the bucket and glowered at Ellinor who had tricked her into this, and Ellinor knew it as well as she did. Maj-Britt could see it in her eyes. That Ellinor only now understood what she had subjected her to.

‘Out!’

‘Does it feel better now?’

‘Get out of here!’

And then she was alone with the doctor again. But she was no longer afraid. From now on she intended to decide what they would be allowed to do with her.

‘So. What’s the diagnosis?’

She felt that her voice had regained its strength, and she looked the doctor straight in the eye.

‘It’s too soon to tell. I want to do a few tests as well.’

And Maj-Britt complied. She sat there obediently on the chair while she was stuck in the inside of her arm and watched her blood being collected in various vials. They would not be allowed to do anything to her unless she gave permission. Not a thing. It was still her body, even if there was a disease in it. The doctor did her best to take her blood pressure, and Maj-Britt felt relatively calm again. Now that she had regained control.

‘I’ve seen you out in the playground a few times. With that child who lives across the way.’

She had intended it as a polite thing to say, an ordinary attempt at some sort of conversation. She knew of course that chit-chat wasn’t her forte, but she never would have suspected her words would have such an effect. The change was palpable through the entire room. An invisible shift in power had occurred. Maj-Britt noticed the woman’s movements suddenly stop and then resume at a faster pace, but at first she didn’t understand what had happened. All she knew was that the doctor who had just taken her blood pressure had reacted to her words. All the little unwelcome people who had come and gone in her flat in the past twenty-five years had chiselled out a unique ability in her to sniff out people’s weaknesses. It had been a matter of pure instinct for self-preservation, her only possibility of retaining something of her dignity in the face of their contempt. To quickly assure herself of their weak points and make use of the knowledge when it was needed. If for no other reason than to get rid of them. Ellinor had been her first failure.

The doctor rolled up the blood-pressure cuff and stuffed it back in her bag.

‘No, it must have been someone else you saw.’

And to her surprise Maj-Britt realised that she had sniffed correctly. The doctor was lying to her. Lying right to her face. And one other thing she knew clearly, and that was the satisfaction of suddenly having regained her equilibrium. The invisible power shift meant that she could now demand respect. She was no longer subject to that woman’s hands and well-educated supposition about a possible illness. Thin, successful and superior, in her great mercy she had agreed to see Maj-Britt despite her minuscule importance. Made the effort to come here since she wasn’t in any shape to leave her flat. An inferior being.

Without a clue to how it had actually happened, she had become aware of a possible tiny advantage. That was always good to have if the person should prove to be too pushy and it became necessary to get rid of her. And people did have a tendency to become that way.

Pushy.

She should never have gone there. As soon as she heard the address she should have realised the danger and pulled out of it, but by then she had already promised. And she didn’t want any sort of conflict with Åse. Why not, she had no idea; she only felt an indefinable need to stay on good terms with her. With everyone who might know the true story. No one could accuse her of being someone who failed to come through in an emergency, who refused to take her share of responsibility. At least she had that remaining on the plus side, and she wouldn’t let anyone take it away from her.

She could still sense the irrational fear she had felt during the conversation with Åse. With astounding clarity it was hovering just beneath the surface, as if waiting for the right opportunity to reappear at the slightest reminder. The threat that she would have to confront Pernilla, be forced to confess. In a lucid moment she had realised to her dismay that the guilt had only grown greater. Her sacrifices were being annihilated in the shadow of her lies, and becoming mixed in with everything she had done that was already unforgivable. If Pernilla ever found out the truth, her contempt would eliminate every way out but one, and that was to vanish from the face of the earth.

But Monika owed it to Mattias to stay put.