Shame

24

Maj-Britt demanded that Ellinor report every word that was said during the phone conversation with the doctor, and Ellinor did the best she could. Maj-Britt wanted to know every syllable, every nuance, the least little tone of voice with which she had been delivered up. She could hardly feel the pain any longer, all her attention was circling round the forthcoming doctor’s visit. And she was afraid; her fear had reached heights it had never even approached before. Soon the front door would open and a strange person would enter her stronghold, and she herself had participated in inviting that person in. And that put her at a disadvantage that was almost impossible to bear.

‘I just told her the truth, that you had pain in your lower back.’

‘And how did you explain that it was necessary for her to come here?’

‘I said that you would rather not leave your flat.’

‘What else did you say?’

‘I didn’t say much more than that.’

Maj-Britt had a hunch that Ellinor must have said something else but didn’t want to tell her. She must have described her repulsive body, her unwillingness to co-operate and her disagreeable behaviour. Filth had been said about her, and now she had to let the person who had heard those words come here and touch her.

Touch her!

She deeply regretted letting herself be talked into this.

Ellinor claimed that she had a free day and that was why she could stay at the flat so long, but Maj-Britt refused to be invaded once again by Ellinor’s goodwill. There must be a reason. Why would she do all this if there wasn’t some underlying reason?

It was a quarter to eleven; only fifteen minutes to go. Fifteen unbearable minutes before the torture would begin.

Maj-Britt paced up and down the flat, ignoring the pain in her knees. It was a greater torment to sit still.

‘How do you know this doctor?’

Ellinor was sitting cross-legged on the sofa.

‘I don’t, my mother does. They met at a course a few weeks ago.’

Ellinor got up, went over to the window and looked at the façade of the building across the courtyard.

‘Do you remember that I mentioned something about a car crash?’

Maj-Britt was just about to reply but never got that far, because the doorbell rang at that very instant. Two short signals that marked the end of her respite.

Ellinor looked at her, then took the few steps necessary to stand right in front of her.

‘It will be fine, Maj-Britt. I’ll stay here the whole time.’

And then she reached out her hand in an attempt to place it on Maj-Britt’s arm. Maj-Britt managed to defend herself by taking a quick step back. Their eyes met briefly and then Ellinor vanished out to the hall.

Maj-Britt heard the door open. Heard their voices taking turns, but her mind refused to interpret the words, refused to realise that there was no longer any chance of escape. The lump in her throat cut into her flesh and she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to! Didn’t want to be forced to take off her clothes and expose herself to foreign eyes.

Not again.

And then they were suddenly standing in the living-room doorway. Ellinor and the doctor she had called, who in her mercy had taken the trouble to come. Maj-Britt didn’t recognise her at first. But it was the woman she had seen out there in the playground, with the fatherless child. Who with endless patience had tirelessly pushed the girl on the swing. Now she was standing there in Maj-Britt’s living room, smiling and reaching out her hand to her.

‘Hello, Maj-Britt. My name is Monika Lundvall.’

Maj-Britt looked at the hand that was extended towards her. In desperation she tried to swallow the lump in her throat that was cutting into her flesh, but it didn’t work. She could feel the tears welling up and knew that she didn’t want to be here. Not at all.

‘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.