Elisabeth Rynell - To Mervas

He pulls at her clothes and finally gets her garter belt to slide up until it sits like a belt around her belly while her blouse is inside out, covering her face and head. The words are still streaming out of her mouth, she’s half-crying and her voice is shrill and we hear her repeat:

“Don’t let the children see. . don’t let the children see. . don’t let the children see. .”

She struggles and fights back in a way we’ve never seen her do when Dad has hit her. But this is different. He’s never undressed her before, and now he also begins to whip her with the carpet beater, on her legs, wherever he can reach.

“Now shut up and be still, or I’ll tie you up the way you bind a sow,” he pants between the blows.

Then he forces her onto her stomach and I hear her sob and cry while the carpet beater hits her buttocks and thighs.

My youngest sister, who was only about one at this time, comes crying from the bedroom. She totters over to my sister and curls up next to her. This makes Dad pause for a moment.

“Turn off the ceiling light,” he orders. “Turn off all the lights!”

We do as he says. At once, the small apartment is filled with darkness and suddenly everyone’s breathing can be heard. Our shallow, terrified breathing, my little sister’s sobs, Mom’s soundless tears, and above all and over everything else, Dad’s panting, growing deeper. He has stopped beating her and in the dimness he and Mom look like one body there on the couch.

“What is Daddy doing now?” one of my brothers asks when the sounds and movements from the couch turn increasingly strange.

“Hush, hush,” I tell him, and my sister gets him to stay quiet. After this, the five of us sit motionless in the dark, letting everything happen. I join my hands as in prayer, but they’re cramping and I can’t pray; my heart feels paralyzed and I’m afraid of everything I don’t understand. Let it end, is all I can think. Let it end.

Dad groans. He groans again, louder. Then everything grows silent. Completely silent. It’s as if everything that’s alive has suddenly escaped from the apartment, as if nothing were left but the darkness and the occasional sounds from outside; a car starting, a door slamming, the sound of steps against asphalt.

Eventually, we hear Dad getting up and straightening his clothes. His white underwear glints like the sliver of a moon through the darkness. He clears his throat.

“You can turn the lights back on,” he says in a calm and steady voice. “The husband has fulfilled his duty. The degenerate sow got what she deserved.”

The room turns blindingly bright. Mom tries to pull her top back down with one hand, while the other gropes around her as if she’s searching for something. My older sister rushes toward the muumuu that has ended up on the floor, but Dad grabs her wrist and stops her from giving it to Mom.

“Behold your mother,” he says, and gestures dramatically at her where she sits half-naked on the couch.

After this, he forces us to get in line and go up to him one after the other and kiss him good night on the lips and say:

“Good night, Father dear.”

Right before he leaves us, he slams his heels together and bursts out:

“Order has been established.”

But Mom’s gaze moves straight through the walls. It rises from her beaten, black and blue swollen face and the room explodes.

One day when I went to the hospital to see the boy a few weeks after his operation, the nurse at the reception desk cheerfully told me that Grandfather was there to visit.

I just stared at her.

“Grandfather,” I said incredulously, as if I didn’t know what the word meant, as if it were as complicated to figure out as who somebody’s “partner” or “sister-in-law” was.

“You’re saying my father’s in there?” I asked.

The nurse laughed.

“Yes, I suppose so. From your looks, it’s obvious you’re related. Gosh, I didn’t do anything wrong now, did I?”

I said nothing, only shook my head a little and took a few steps out of her sight. At first, I felt empty inside, as if I’d lost my moorings and were drifting. Then my feelings swelled up inside me, hatred and anger mixed with an incomprehensible joy, and I was mortified. Would my dad be sitting in there with the boy? Was that even possible? I hadn’t been in touch with my father for ages. He had, however, been meticulously faithful in sending Christmas and birthday greetings every year, but I’d rarely responded to his little messages, particularly not when he’d been careless enough to write things like “Daddy’s own girl” or “my own favorite” on them. Those words made me feel things that would prevent me from sending Christmas greetings to him for years to come.

I walked slowly down the corridor. Underneath my coat I felt cold, as if I’d caught a fever, and my heart was pounding in my ears. It felt impossible that I could walk into the room and he’d be there, with the boy. What right does he have, I thought angrily, what right does he have to burst in here? Over and over I asked myself: What right does he have? With each step I repeated the question, probably because I was actually quite confused and because so many other words and voices were crowding inside me, complicated words, dangerous voices. By asking myself this question, I could keep the other voices at bay.

I paused when I reached the boy’s room. The walls facing the corridor were made of glass, and even though they were covered by drapes, you could look into the rooms through the openings between them. I stood still for a moment, barely breathing, and then I leaned forward a little and peeked through an opening right where the boy’s room began. I had to close my eyes quickly, because Dad was sitting in there, it really was him, and the sight of his familiar figure burned me like fire. I opened my eyes and took another look. Yes, he was sitting there; I saw him from the side and he was an old man, I could see he had some white hair on his head and he was thinner, more bent, as if he had shrunk. “You have to look,” something inside me said when I wanted to close my eyes again. At once, my whole past fell upon me; the memory moved like a hard gust through my entire nervous system. And I looked.

He was seated next to the bed, leaning forward, holding the boy’s hand. As far as I could see, his eyes were closed, while the boy was lying still in his crib with his eyes wide open, gazing at his grandfather’s face. I stood breathless outside the pane of glass and watched them, waiting for a motion, for something to happen. But nothing changed, nothing happened in there. Dad kept his eyes closed and held the boy’s hand and they were both completely still. It was like a tableau vivant, and I couldn’t help myself, I felt calm; it was a beautiful and strange image. It was also quite incomprehensible. Why had Dad traveled here, and who had told him about the boy? It couldn’t be my older sister; since Mom had died, she hadn’t spoken to Dad once. It really made no difference who’d told him; what I couldn’t understand was that he’d ventured to visit my boy. That he’d traveled here to visit a child who was neither healthy nor normal.

I couldn’t make myself enter the room. It wasn’t only the unpleasantness or fear of meeting him. I also didn’t want to interrupt the picture, to upset it, because there was something peaceful about it, something beautiful. It affected me somehow, like a miracle-making icon. My father’s slightly lifted face expressed a simple tenderness that I’d never seen before. I sensed more than I could see that he felt a deep concentration; something in his face flowed through his arm to his fingers, which clasped the boy’s small hand. The boy seemed focused too; his gaze exuded a pure and direct presence steadily directed at my father.