Karin Alvtegen: Shame

But it wasn’t possible. And never would be. When the day came that Vanja would have the opportunity to do something, Maj-Britt would no longer exist. She had made up her mind, after all.

‘I have a year left in here and I think I have something important to do during that year.’

Do something together. A little disturbing possibility had opened up, but she would have to quash it here and now. Everything was still so utterly meaningless. She tried to sort out her thoughts as she listened to what Vanja was saying, but they kept wandering here and there, heading down small unknown turn-offs that hadn’t existed before. They dashed without permission down the new paths, cautiously testing to see if they would take hold.

She and Vanja?

Try to capture again a little of what they had lost?

Not be alone anymore?

‘I don’t know what it is yet but I hope I recognise it when it pops up.’

She tried to concentrate on what Vanja was saying.

‘Excuse me, I didn’t hear you right. What is it you’re going to do?’

‘That’s what I don’t know yet. Just that it’s something important. It might be that someone needs my help.’

Maj-Britt realised that she must have missed something Vanja had said.

‘How can you know that?’

Vanja smiled but didn’t reply. Maj-Britt recognised that expression. She had had it many times when they were growing up, and it always made Maj-Britt extremely curious.

‘It’s probably not a good idea to tell you about it. You wouldn’t believe me.’

Maj-Britt didn’t ask anymore, because she realised the direction the conversation was headed. She didn’t want to hear about any more dreams that came true. Everything was confusing enough as it was.

There was a knock at the door. The man who had brought Vanja stuck in his head.

‘Five minutes.’

Vanja nodded without turning round, and the door was closed again. Then she reached out her hand and placed it on Maj-Britt’s.

‘Keep your stern God if you like, although He scares you out of your wits. Someday I’ll tell you a secret, about what happened that time when I wanted to die and almost died in the flames. But if you can’t even believe in a lousy little dream coming true then it’s a bit too early yet.’

Vanja smiled but Maj-Britt couldn’t manage to smile back, and maybe Vanja sensed her anguish. She stroked Maj-Britt’s hand.

‘You don’t have to be afraid, because there’s nothing there to be afraid of.’

And then she smiled the smile that Maj-Britt knew so well. Only now did she realise how much she had missed it. Her Vanja who could always make her feel better, who with her fearlessness had helped her through childhood and always made her see things from another point of view. If only she could have the chance to do things over, to do everything differently. Why had she allowed Vanja to disappear from her life? How could she have abandoned her?

You don’t have to be afraid, because there’s nothing there to be afraid of .

More than anything she wanted to be able to share Vanja’s certainty. Leave all the terrors behind and once and for all dare to choose life.

‘Oh, how I wish I could believe like you do.’

And Vanja’s smile grew even wider.

‘Couldn’t you just be satisfied with a little “maybe”?’

Saba stood waiting at the door when she got home. Maj-Britt went straight to the phone and dialled Monika Lundvall’s number.

Ring after ring echoed over the line before she was forced to accept that no one was going to answer.

Snow had fallen during the night. The world lay concealed under a thin white blanket. At least that part of the world she could still see. She had scraped off a spot on a bench and sat looking at her white breath.

One night.

One night she had managed to get through, and now only one hundred and seventy-nine nights were left and just as many days. Then she would be free. Free to do what she wanted. In one hundred and seventy-nine days and just as many nights she would have served out society’s punishment for the crime she had committed and she would regain her freedom.

Freedom. The word had previously been such a natural part of her life that she had never even thought about its real significance. Perhaps it was the same with freedom as it was with everything else that was taken for granted. Only with its loss could you gain the ability to really understand its true value.

She had been so envied. A well-paid head surgeon with a fancy company car and luxury flat. A life full of coveted status symbols. The generally accepted proof that she was a successful person, someone important. But each step she had taken to raise herself above mediocrity had distanced her from freedom, because the more she had to protect, the more afraid she had become of losing what she had managed to achieve.

Now she had lost everything. In one single blow all the success she had built up with such effort was shattered, and it was as irrevocably gone as if it had never even existed. Was it really success, if it could so easily be taken from her? She no longer knew. She really didn’t know anything. All that was left inside was a vacuum, and she had no idea how she was ever going to fill it. One day when she was forced once and for all to look back on her life, to take stock in earnest with eyes wide open, what would she then find had been of real value? Pure and genuine. If she were forced at that moment to look back, there were only two things. Her overwhelming sorrow at Lasse’s death, and her breathtaking love for Thomas. But she had not permitted herself either of these life-changing experiences. She had shut them off, in favour of maintaining appearances. She had let herself be hollowed out so that in the end she had lived as a shadow. She had achieved so much. Oh, what she had accomplished, and, oh, what an effort she had made.

Yet she had lost it all.

Aggravated embezzlement from her superior.

In evaluating the extent to which it was an aggravated crime, they had taken into account whether she had caused her superior significant or pronounced injury.

They had decided that she had done so. The talented and successful Monika Lundvall.

She had deposited the money into the bank account of Save the Children and stuffed the deposit slip in an envelope with Maj-Britt’s address on it, and she thought she had posted it. A week later she had found the envelope in her coat pocket, but by that time it was all too late. When she came home from the bank she turned off all the phones, placed both the packet of Zopax and the one containing the sleeping pills within reach on her nightstand and went to bed. Three days later the head of the clinic and a colleague had entered her flat with the help of a locksmith. The bank had called up the head of the clinic. They just wanted to check that everything was in order with regard to the large sum she had withdrawn from the clinic’s donation account, and they mentioned her odd behaviour. Naturally they could have been mistaken, but she seemed to be under the influence of drugs. When she awoke in her bed with the head of the clinic and her colleague in the room, the shame she felt was so deep that she couldn’t even speak. And although he offered to refrain from filing a complaint with the police if she would only tell him what was going on and what she had done, she chose to keep silent, even when her ability to speak had returned. The daily life that had been hers was already lost. She would never again be able to look any of them in the eye if she confessed to what she had done.

She preferred to face the music.

And in some peculiar way she actually felt liberated after escaping from the absurd reality into which she had locked herself.