Karin Alvtegen: Shame

Copyright © Karin Alvtegen, 2005

Translated from the Swedish by Steven T. Murray

I swear upon my honour that in my work as a physician I shall strive to serve my fellow man with humanity and respect for life as a guiding principle. My goal shall be to preserve and promote health, to prevent illness, and to cure the sick and alleviate their suffering .

She had failed. The man who would soon die sat in the chair facing her, completely calm and still, with his aged hands resting in his lap. She sat with her eyes lowered to his voluminous file. Almost two years had passed since his first visit. Her assiduous attempts to cure him had amounted to nothing, and today she was forced to admit her defeat. To give him the news. It always felt like this. It was never a question of age or the fact that the disease was incurable, or that the lack of medical advances in research was not her personal failure. It was a question of life. Life, which she had not been skilful enough to save.

He gave her a friendly smile.

‘You mustn’t take it so personally. We all have to die one day, and this time it’s my turn.’

She felt ashamed. It wasn’t his job to console her, really it wasn’t, but in some way he had clearly managed to see straight into her thoughts.

‘I’m old and you’re young, think of that. I’ve lived a long life and lately I’ve actually started feeling quite satisfied. At my age, you know, there are so many people who have already passed on that it starts to get quite lonely down here.’

He fidgeted with a well-worn wedding ring on his left hand. It was easy to move it around; his sinewy fingers had grown gaunt over the years since the day it was slipped on.

It was always the hands that attracted her gaze in these situations. How strange it was that all the experience and knowledge that had been infused into them through all the stages of life would soon be lost.

Forever.

‘But sometimes I wonder what He was actually thinking, I mean everything else is so ingeniously worked out, but this dismantling you’re forced to go through, He should have done it a little differently. First you have to be born and grow up and learn, and then when you start to get into the swing of things it’s all taken away from you again, one thing after another. It starts with your eyesight and it just goes downhill after that. Finally you’re back just about where you started.’

He fell silent, as though pondering what he had just said.

‘But that’s what’s so clever about it all, when you think about it. Because when nothing works the way it should anymore, then it doesn’t seem so important in the big picture. You start to feel that maybe it’s not such a stupid idea to die after all, and finally have a chance to rest a little.’

He smiled again.

‘It’s just a shame that it goes on for so long, all that dismantling.’

She had no reply, no suitable words to offer to his musings. The only thing she knew was that the dismantling didn’t apply to everyone. Some were snatched away in mid-stride, even before the assembling was finished. And there was no rhyme nor reason to who was selected.

Whom the gods love die young.

There was no consolation in those words.

In that case, God must hate the ones who were left behind. Why else would God think that His own well-being justified the devastation that death left in its wake?

She didn’t want to be hated by God. Even though she didn’t believe in Him.

‘But you know what’s the best of all? Now I’m going to go home and pour myself a glass of really good wine, since I haven’t been able to drink anything for such a long time. I have a bottle I’ve been saving for a special occasion, and I suppose today could be considered one.’

He winked at her.

‘So, every cloud has a silver lining.’

She tried to return his smile but wasn’t sure she really succeeded. When he made a move to stand up she sprang out of her chair to give him a helping hand.

‘Thank you for everything you’ve done. I know that you put up a good fight.’

She closed the door behind him and tried to take a deep breath. The air in the room felt stale. She saw by the clock that there was a little time left before she had to leave. Some papers on her desk were out of order, and she went over to tidy things up. Her hands flew across the desk, and when everything was in neat piles she hung up her white coat and put on her overcoat. She was annoyed to see that there was still plenty of time, but she’d rather be on her way than spend any more time here.

Because it was impossible to run fast enough when what you were running from came from inside.

‘Hi, it’s Mamma. Just wondering what time you’re going to pick me up. Call me as soon as you get this.’

The message was on her voicemail when she turned on her mobile phone on the way to the parking lot. It was ten past five, and she had agreed to pick her up twenty minutes from now. Why she had to call and agree on the time again was a mystery to her, but not doing so would be a bad choice in this situation.

‘Yes, hi, it’s me.’

‘When are you coming?’

‘I’m on my way, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

‘I have to stop by Konsum and buy some new candles.’

‘I can do it on the way if you want.’

‘All right, but buy the 110-hour ones this time. The last ones you bought burned down too quickly.’

If her mother had even the tiniest clue about how these constant visits to the cemetery tortured her, she wouldn’t pretend that it was because of some kind of stinginess that the candles she bought didn’t last as long as promised. She would gladly buy candles that burnt for a whole lifetime if anyone made them. But they didn’t. The 110-hour candles were the most you could get. And since her mother had sold her car because she didn’t dare drive anymore, it was Monika’s eternal assignment to ferry her to the cemetery and light new candles as soon as the old ones had burnt out.

Twenty-three years ago. He had already been dead longer than he had been alive. And yet he was the one who took up the most room.

Who took up all the room.

There were a couple of cars in the lot but the cemetery seemed to be deserted.

My beloved son

Lars

1965-1982

She never got used to it. His name on a tombstone. His name belonged at the top of the list of results from some sports competition. In some newspaper article about the most promising young hockey players. When she couldn’t impress someone any other way, she could always mention that she was Lasse Lundvall’s little sister. He would have been forty this year, but to her he was still her big brother, two years older, the one his pals looked up to, the one the girls all chased, who was always successful in everything he tried.

His mother’s pride and joy.

She wondered how things would have turned out if their father had stayed and lived with them all those years. If he hadn’t already left the family while Monika was in her mother’s belly, and her mother had been spared all those years of loneliness. Monika had never met him. Sometime during her teenage years she had written him a letter and received a brief, impersonal reply, but their plans to meet had fizzled out. She had wanted him to be more eager, wanted him to be the one to urge them to meet. But he hadn’t done it, and then his pride took over. She certainly didn’t want to make a fuss. And then the years passed and he slipped back out to the periphery.