Karin Alvtegen - Shame

Now she was finally speechless.

‘Maybe you think someone might get fat, if they didn’t exercise?’

‘It was just a suggestion. I’m really sorry.’

‘So what you’re saying is that it would be dangerous to get fat. Am I right?’

So. This one shouldn’t be any problem in future.

Ellinor had already opened the front door when Maj-Britt handed her the letter.

‘Could you post this for me?’

‘Of course.’

Her eyes scanned the address with curiosity just as Maj-Britt had foreseen.

‘I didn’t ask you to deliver it in person. Just stick it in a post-box.’

Ellinor put the letter in her handbag.

‘It was nice meeting you. I’m the one coming next time too, so we’ll be seeing each other again.’

When she received no reply, she closed the door behind her. Maj-Britt looked at Saba and sighed.

‘We can hardly wait, can we?’

It turned out as she had anticipated, only easier. As soon as the letter was out of the flat, the walls managed to regain something of their old ability: to provide a boundary between herself and everything out there she didn’t want to deal with. She felt safe again.

She had two days to be happy. Then Ellinor was back again, and Maj-Britt understood right away that she hadn’t managed to shut her up as properly as she had intended. The girl wasn’t in the flat more than a few minutes before her torrent of words caused another deep rift.

‘Say, is it okay if I ask you a question? I know you don’t like to talk to any of us who come here, but…’

She had both asked the question and answered it herself. Why should Maj-Britt have to join in her conversations? She caught Saba’s eye, and they were in agreement. They had to see about getting this person replaced.

‘That letter that I posted…’

She didn’t even have to finish her sentence before Maj-Britt wanted with all her heart to get her out of the flat so that she could open the refrigerator undisturbed and select what she was going to stuff in her mouth.

‘Was it the Vanja Tyrén?’

Maj-Britt was trapped again. Once more her long since forgotten ‘best friend’ was trying to force her into something against her will. She didn’t intend to permit it. She didn’t intend to reply. But it was no use. When Ellinor didn’t get an answer she just kept going on her own, and the words she said made the cracks grow to huge holes exposing her to the hostile outside world.

‘The Vanja Tyrén who killed her entire family?’

L eadership – tools and methods that produce results .

She had agreed several months earlier to take the course, a long time before Thomas had come into her life. At a time when any of the infrequent breaks in her monotonous daily life had been more than welcome. Back then she had looked forward to the trip.

Now everything was different. Now she didn’t know how she was going to make it through the four days.

A pharmaceutical company had offered to pay her course fee. Not for a moment had they managed to convince her that they were worried about her leadership skills or ability as a boss to motivate her staff. Perhaps they were worried about her ability to motivate her staff to select their company’s brand of medicine when they were writing prescriptions, but both sides participated in the game. It wasn’t the first time that a pharmaceutical company had shown some of the clinic’s doctors a little extra appreciation. Nor would it be the last.

She didn’t consider herself a particularly good boss, but as far as she knew the staff in her department were satisfied. Her poor leadership qualities seldom had any effect on them; on the contrary, she was the one who usually took on the most extra work. Delegating tedious tasks had always gone against the grain; it was easier to do them herself and avoid resentment. She always felt a need to compensate in some way if she asked them to do something, keep them in a good mood. But actually it was more about ensuring continued goodwill towards herself. So that nobody would think badly of her.

In her role as a physician she had more self-confidence. If she hadn’t been regarded as highly skilled and goal-oriented, she never would have been offered the job four years ago. The clinic was under private management with a foundation as the primary shareholder, and to be offered a position as head surgeon was a clear endorsement. There were nine departments in the building, and she was the head of General Surgery. Even so, her leadership skills could definitely use some work, and in her former life, the one before she met Thomas, she would have thrown herself into the assignment wholeheartedly. Now it no longer felt so important. Thomas thought she was fine the way she was, despite all her shortcomings. Right now she just wanted to enjoy that feeling.

Except that there was one shortcoming she hadn’t revealed yet.

The nastiest, lowest of them all.

She stood at the bus station and waited. Thomas had given her a lift there, and despite the fact that they had been urged to keep their phones turned off during the four-day workshop, she had promised to call him every night. Now she was sorry she hadn’t taken her own car. A woman she didn’t know had called and offered her a ride, saying she had got Monika’s name and number from course management. And why not? At least that’s what she thought when the matter first came up. Now she wished she could have the time to herself, that she could sit all by herself and enjoy the giddy feeling she was experiencing. Everything was suddenly transformed into a sense of warm, exhilarating anticipation. Things were perfect, she didn’t need anything else. If this was what they called happiness, then she suddenly understood all human striving for it.

She looked at the clock. It was already eight-thirty and the woman had promised to pick her up at twenty past eight. It was almost 200 kilometres to the course venue, and if they didn’t get going soon they would arrive too late for the first session. She always prided herself on being punctual, and she felt a slight pang of annoyance.

She turned round and glanced over at the newspaper kiosk. Involuntarily she scanned the placards with the headlines from the evening papers.

‘13-YEAR-OLD girl held as SEX SLAVE for three months.’

And then its competitor alongside:

‘8 out of 10 diagnosed incorrectly. A COUGH can be a DEADLY DISEASE. Test whether you are affected.’

She shook her head. One might almost imagine that the newspaper publishers were trained in neurophysiology. Appealing directly to their buyers’ primitive alarm systems was a foolproof method of catching their attention. It lay embedded deep inside the ur-brain, and as in all other mammals its purpose was to search its surroundings constantly for possible danger. The placards acted as one big warning signal. A potential threat that had arisen. But someone who was afraid needed to be informed why , not merely how , and especially not in disgusting detail. It wouldn’t put a stop to any fears; on the contrary, and consequently she suspected that the evening papers’ placards had a greater effect on the tenor of society than people realised. No one could avoid them, and what else could the readers do with all the fear that was constantly being forced upon them but hide it away in some nook and let it lie there, to be mixed with a suspicion of foreigners and a general feeling of hopelessness?

The fact that people bought newspapers that used placards like this was the triumph of the primitive ur-brain over the intelligence of the cerebral cortex.

A red van came driving at high speed from the direction of Storgatan, but she didn’t pay it much attention. Painted on the side was BÖRJE'S CONSTRUCTION in big letters. If she remembered correctly, the woman had introduced herself as Åse. The van slowed to a stop with the engine running. The woman behind the wheel was in her fifties and leaned across the passenger seat to roll down the side window.