Shame

34

Maj-Britt sat on a chair just inside the front door. It stood a bit ajar and through the crack she had watched some of her neighbours pass by in the morning hours, hurrying down the stairs and out into the world she had left behind so many years ago. She inhaled the air that streamed in from out there and did her best to try to get used to it.

Ellinor had gone out and bought her a pair of outdoor shoes that were already on her feet, but Ellinor couldn’t find a jacket to fit her. It would have to be specially ordered, they said, and Maj-Britt couldn’t wait that long. What she had to do had to be done as soon as possible, before her courage failed her again.

Ellinor had kept on trying to persuade her but had finally been forced to give up. She recognised the futility of trying to convince someone who had put all her desires behind her, to undergo a series of complicated operations simply to hold onto a life that had actually ended long ago.

Maj-Britt hadn’t said a word about her plans. Ellinor was totally in the dark about the negotiations that had taken place with God. Or the fact that Maj-Britt was in the process of making up for her sins so that she could be forgiven. And then dare to die.

Monika hadn’t wanted to understand. Maj-Britt was unsure of how she had reacted. But it didn’t make much difference. Whatever Monika decided to do, it would mean that Maj-Britt had performed a good deed. Either she would save Monika from hell by making her stop lying, or, if Monika chose to pay the money instead, it would be thanks to Maj-Britt that Save the Children would be able to help a great number of children to live a more tolerable life.

A little restitution.

Of course it wouldn’t be enough, but God had indicated that it would mitigate somewhat the devastating judgement that awaited her.

But she was not forgiven.

She had one more thing to do. Because it wasn’t only Monika who had lied.

That’s why she was sitting by her front door and peeking out through the crack, trying to convince herself. So that she could approach with tiny ant steps the enormous thing she was about to do.

Those letters she had written.

In order for her to dare to leave this life, all the lies had to be taken back, and she needed to see Vanja with her own eyes to make sure, to be certain that she received her forgiveness. And then she would know. The question kept swirling round inside her: how had Vanja known about the tumour that was growing in her body when she didn’t even know about it herself?

She had considered writing a letter in any case, despite the fact that Vanja had said that she did not intend to tell her anything either by letter or telephone. And if she was only half as stubborn as she had been as a girl, it would be fruitless even to try.

Maj-Britt had to conquer herself. Then Monika Lundvall’s confession to the widow or a receipt for the money to Save the Children would be the only thing missing. When she had received proof she wouldn’t drag out her dying for as long as six months. She would see to it that things went far more quickly.

It was Ellinor who had arranged everything. For the first time Maj-Britt had picked up her telephone and used the mobile number that Ellinor had left on her nightstand. And Ellinor had been enthusiastic. She borrowed a car large enough and rang to find out about visiting routines. She told Maj-Britt that the woman she had talked to sounded almost glad about her enquiry, replying that yes, of course, Vanja Tyrén was allowed to have visitors, even unguarded, and that she would book one of the visiting rooms.

In the meantime Maj-Britt had been fully occupied trying to prepare herself. For two days she had tried to comprehend what she was about to do, and the fact that she actually intended to do it voluntarily. And she wouldn’t even be able to blame Ellinor if things went wrong.

It was an unreal moment when they stood ready inside her front door. Almost as if she were dreaming. Saba stood a bit further down the hall and watched them go out the front door, but she didn’t even try to follow because that door was not an exit for her. For her it was a strange opening through which people appeared at intervals and then went up in smoke again. But now her mistress was on the other side, and it obviously made her nervous. Saba came all the way to the threshold and stood there whining, so Ellinor crouched down and petted her on the back.

‘We’ll come back soon, you’ll see. This evening she’ll be back again.’

And with every cell in her enormous body Maj-Britt wished that it were already evening and that she could go back inside.

The city had changed. So much had happened since the last time she saw it. New buildings had shot up from green zones and familiar neighbourhoods, transforming her home town into a foreign place. And it had also grown. The entire residential section had spread out over the forest-clad hills to the south, extending the city limits by several kilometres. She hadn’t left the town in over thirty years and yet it was totally unfamiliar to her. Her eyes desperately tried to take in all the new impressions, but eventually she gave up and shut her eyes for a while to find some respite. Thoughts of Vanja were constantly on her mind. How she would react. Whether she was angry at her. But all the visual impressions helped her for the moment to dispel the worst of her nervousness.

She dozed for a while. She didn’t know how long they had been driving when she woke up as the engine was turned off. They were in a car park. She cast a hasty glance at the nearby compound, taking in the white buildings within a high fence, but couldn’t absorb anymore. She had tried to prepare herself as best she could for the attention that she knew her appearance would attract, but now that the time had arrived her discomfort got the better of her. Once again her courage deserted her. The mere thought of having to display herself to Vanja was enough. Having to expose her gigantic failure. Her throat hurt and tears welled up, and was unable to hide them although she felt that Ellinor was watching. The terror she felt at getting out of the car and having to reveal herself to strange people was just as strong as what she felt when she had done her thumb-verses and He had handed down His judgement. Her whole body was trembling.

‘There’s no danger, Maj-Britt.’

Ellinor’s voice was calm and comforting.

‘It will be a while yet before we have to go in, so we’ll just sit out here in the meantime. Then I’ll go in with you and see that everything is in order before I leave you two alone.’

And she felt Ellinor take her hand, and she let it happen. She gripped Ellinor’s slender hand and squeezed it hard. With all her heart she wished that a tiny insignificant bit of the self-confidence that Ellinor possessed could be transferred to her. Ellinor, who never gave up. Who, in her stubbornness and against all odds, had succeeded in stepping in to convince her, to prove to her, that there was something called goodwill. And didn’t ask for anything in return.

‘It’s time now, Maj-Britt. Visiting hour is starting now.’

She turned her head and was met by Ellinor’s smile. And to her astonishment she saw that the girl’s eyes were full of tears.

Maj-Britt’s new shoes were walking on wet tarmac. The tips shot out under the folds of her dress at regular intervals but she couldn’t look at anything else. The lower edge of a door that opened, a threshold, a black doormat, yellowish-brown linoleum. Ellinor talking to someone. The rattle of keys. A man’s black shoes beneath dark-blue trousers in front of her and more of the yellowish-brown floor. Some locked doors along the walls at the edge of her field of vision.

Not once did she raise her eyes but she could still feel all the eyes following her.

The man’s shoes stopped and a door was opened.

‘Vanja will be right down. You can go inside and wait.’

Another threshold and she managed to conquer this one too. They had apparently arrived. The man’s black shoes vanished out the door and bit by bit she raised her eyes to make sure that they were alone.

Ellinor had stopped just inside the doorway.

‘Are you okay?’

Maj-Britt nodded. She had made it here and tried to take strength from the triumph. But the ordeal had cost her; her legs wouldn’t hold up any longer, and she went over to a table with four chairs that looked sturdy enough to bear her weight. She pulled out one of them and sat down.

‘Then I’ll wait outside.’

Maj-Britt nodded again.

Ellinor took a step over the threshold but stopped there and turned round.

‘You know, Maj-Britt, I’m so terribly glad you’re doing this.’

And then she was alone. A small room with venetian blinds pulled down, a simple sofa group, the table she was sitting at and some pictures on the walls. The sounds continued to flow in from the corridor. A telephone rang, a door closed. And soon Vanja would come. Vanja, whom she hadn’t seen in thirty-four years. Who she thought had abandoned her and to whom she herself had now lied. She heard footsteps coming down the corridor and her fingers tightened their grip on the table edge. And then she was standing in the doorway. Maj-Britt saw how she involuntarily gasped. She remembered the wedding photograph, Vanja as bridesmaid, and realised how mistaken she had been. In the doorway stood an ageing woman. Her dark hair transformed to silver and a fine network of wrinkles on the face she had once known so well. The concept of time suddenly personified. In a single blow made so palpable that all those things taken for granted that were constantly happening now demanded their tribute, those things that had constantly etched their rings, year by year, whether they were used or not.

But it was Vanja’s eyes that almost took her breath away. She remembered the Vanja she had known, always with a gleam in the corner of her eye and a little mocking smile on her lips. The woman she saw before her bore an infinite sorrow in her gaze, as if her eyes had been forced to see more than they could stand. And yet she smiled, and in an instant the Vanja she had once known shone through in that unfamiliar face.

She gave no sign that revealed what she was thinking when she saw Maj-Britt.

Not a sign.

The guard stood in the doorway and Vanja looked around the room.

‘Hey Bosse, can’t we pull up the blinds a little? I can hardly see my way around in here.’

The guard smiled and put his hand on the door handle.

‘I’m sorry, Vanja, they have to stay like that.’

He closed the door behind him, but Maj-Britt never heard him lock it. It didn’t seem that he did. Vanja went over to the window and tried to adjust the blinds but it didn’t work. They stayed put. She gave up and looked around again. Went over to a picture and leaned forward, looking a little more closely. A view of a forest-covered landscape.

Then she turned round and swept her gaze over the room.

‘Imagine, I’ve wondered for all these years what these visiting rooms look like.’

Maj-Britt sat in silence. For all these years. Vanja had sat and wondered for sixteen years.

Vanja came over to the table and pulled out the chair across from her, looking almost shy as she sat down. Maj-Britt was in a daze. In such a daze that her nervousness was gone. It was only Vanja who was sitting there. Hidden somewhere in that strange body was the Vanja she had once known. There was nothing to be afraid of.

They sat looking at each other for a long time. Completely silent, as if they were searching each other’s faces for familiar details. Seconds and then minutes ticked by in inactivity and Maj-Britt’s trepidation receded entirely. For the first time in ages she felt utterly calm. The refuge that she had experienced in her youth that always surrounded Vanja was intact; it was possible to relax here, to stop defending herself. And she thought about Ellinor again: how she had struggled, finally reaching her.

It was Vanja who broke the silence.

‘Imagine if anyone had told us back then that we’d be sitting here today. In a visiting room at Vireberg.’

Maj-Britt lowered her eyes. Everything that had poured out of her now made room for something else. The realisation that so much time had been wasted. And that now it was all too late.

‘Have you been to a doctor yet?’

As if Vanja could hear what she was thinking.

Maj-Britt nodded.

‘When are you going to have the operation?’

Maj-Britt hesitated. She didn’t intend to lie anymore. But she couldn’t tell her the truth either.

‘How did you know?’

Vanja smiled a little.

‘I was smart, wasn’t I? Making you come here even though I had already told you about it. Because I did in my very first letter. What a person won’t do to get to see what the visiting rooms look like.’

The same old Vanja, no doubt about that. But Maj-Britt didn’t understand what she meant. She tried to recall what she had said in that letter, but Vanja hadn’t said anything, had she? Maj-Britt definitely would have remembered.

‘What do you mean, you already told me?’

Vanja’s smile grew bigger. Again her old Vanja flashed by. The Vanja who shared so many of her memories.

‘I wrote that I’d dreamt about you, didn’t I?’

Maj-Britt stared at her.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m just telling you what happened. That I dreamt it. Naturally I wasn’t dead certain, but I didn’t feel like taking a chance.’

Maj-Britt heard herself snort but she hadn’t really meant to. The explanation came so unexpectedly and was so improbable that she couldn’t take it seriously.

‘You expect me to believe that?’

Vanja shrugged her shoulders and suddenly was her old self. Something in the expression on her face. The more Maj-Britt looked at her the more she recognised her. Time had merely passed and worn out the casing a bit.

‘Believe whatever you like, but that’s how it was. If you have some better explanation that you’d rather believe, then be my guest.’

Maj-Britt was suddenly angry. She had come all this way, conquering her fears several times over to come here, and now had to listen to this. Then she suddenly remembered that she had also come to ask forgiveness, but she no longer felt like it. Not when Vanja was sitting there making fun of her.

There was a long silence. Vanja clearly didn’t intend either to take back what she had said or to offer any further explanation, and Maj-Britt didn’t feel like asking more questions. That might be taken as an acceptance of what she had just heard, and she didn’t really intend to play along. She really didn’t. She had been so sure that the explanation would be satisfactory in some way, though what exactly she was hoping for she didn’t actually know. The whole thing had been so confusing, so totally incomprehensible. But this was worse than the confusion; she didn’t want any part of this. Especially because not even in her wildest imagination could she have come up with any better explanation.

‘I know how it feels, I was so scared myself at first. But then when I got used to it I realised that it’s actually quite amazing. That something like that can exist that we didn’t know anything about.’

Maj-Britt didn’t really feel that way. On the contrary, it frightened her. If Vanja was right, there could be a whole bunch of things she knew nothing about. But Vanja didn’t seem to be bothered by it. She sat there quite calmly.

And then she continued the conversation, as if what they had just said was nothing out of the ordinary.

‘I’ve been offered a pardon by the government. In a year I’ll be released.’

Maj-Britt was grateful that the conversation had turned to something concrete.

‘Congratulations.’

Now it was Vanja’s turn to snort. It didn’t sound nasty, just a sign of how she felt.

‘It wasn’t me that sent in the application; it was someone on the staff.’

‘But that’s great, don’t you think?’

Vanja sat in silence for a moment.

‘Do you remember what you did sixteen years ago?’

Maj-Britt thought about it. 1989. She had probably been sitting in her easy chair. Or maybe on the sofa, because she was still able to do that back then.

‘Since then I’ve been locked up in here. But actually I only exchanged one prison for another, and I can assure you that at first this was sheer paradise in comparison. Except for all the thoughts that flowed in when it was no longer just a matter of getting through the day without making him angry. Or whatever it was that he felt.’

Vanja looked down at her hands resting on the table.

‘A prison sentence is actually the same thing as a fine, it’s just that you pay with time instead. And the big difference is that you can always get more money.’

Maj-Britt chose to remain silent.

‘It’s impossible to survive in here if you don’t learn to look at time differently than you did before. You have to try and convince yourself that it really doesn’t exist. If you’re locked up here you have to transport yourself to another place to survive.’

She tapped her index finger against her silvery head.

‘In here. At eight o’clock every evening they lock the door and after that you’re alone with your thoughts. And I promise you, some of them you would do anything to avoid. The first year it made me terrified, I thought I’d go crazy. But later, when I couldn’t fight against it any longer and just surrendered…’

She left the sentence unfinished and Maj-Britt waited impatiently for the rest. Vanja sat silently, staring out into space, and seemed to have finished talking. But Maj-Britt wanted to hear more.

‘What happened then?’

Vanja looked at her as if she had forgotten she was there but was glad to see her.

‘Then you realise that you can hear quite a bit if you only dare to listen.’

Maj-Britt swallowed. She wanted to talk about something else now.

‘What are you going to do when you get out?’

Vanja shrugged. Then she turned her head and sat looking at the picture she had examined earlier. The forest-covered landscape.

‘You know, there’s only one thing I think I’ve longed for out there. Know what it is?’

Maj-Britt shook her head.

‘To ride a bike, on a gravel path, through the woods. Preferably in a strong headwind.’

She looked at Maj-Britt again. Smiled, almost with embarrassment. As if her longing would seem ridiculous.

‘It might be hard for those of you on the outside to understand how someone can long so much for something like that. Because you can do it every day if you want.’

Maj-Britt looked down at the tabletop. She felt herself blushing and didn’t want Vanja to see it. Her own truth was a reproach in this context. Sixteen years Vanja had paid. Maj-Britt herself had thrown away thirty-two of her own free will. She hadn’t been near a gravel path. Or a forest. And if the wind was blowing a little she would close the balcony door. She had voluntarily entered her prison and thrown away the key, and, as if that wasn’t enough, she had let her body become the final shackle.

‘No government can grant me a pardon.’

Maj-Britt was hauled out of her thoughts by the sorrow she heard in Vanja’s voice.

‘What do you mean?’

But Vanja didn’t answer. Just sat there looking at the picture. Maj-Britt suddenly felt that she wanted to offer solace, reassurance, for once be the person who was there for Vanja instead of the other way round. She searched urgently for the right words.

‘But what happened wasn’t your fault.’

Vanja gave a deep sigh and ran her fingers through her hair.

‘If you knew how tempting it’s been for all these years to hide behind the argument that none of what happened was my fault. To blame everything on Örjan and what he did.’

Maj-Britt grew more excited.

‘But it was his fault!’

‘What he did was horrid, unforgivable. But he wasn’t the one who…’

Vanja broke off and closed her eyes.

‘Imagine, after all these years I still can’t say it. Not without my whole body hurting.’

‘But he was the one who drove you to it, he was the one who made you do it. He made you believe that there was no other way out. You wrote to me yourself and explained it all in the letter.’

‘But we’re talking about years. All those years when I stayed and let it happen. It began long before we had children. I even wrote an article about it once, saying that you should leave after the first time you’re struck.’

She sat in silence for a moment.

‘I don’t know whether anyone can understand how ashamed I was that I let it happen.’

Vanja passed her hand across her face. Maj-Britt wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.

‘Do you know what my biggest mistake was?’

Maj-Britt slowly shook her head.

‘That instead of finally leaving I chose to see myself as a victim. That was when I let him win, it was like going over to his side and telling him he was right to behave the way he did, because all a victim does is give in, she can’t do anything about her situation. I simply couldn’t break the pattern that I had been used to from the beginning in my own family.’

Maj-Britt thought about Vanja’s home. She had experienced it as a refuge from God’s stern countenance, a place where there was always a blessed commotion. Everyone knew that Vanja’s father got drunk sometimes, but most often he was happy and never scared her. It was mostly his stupid jokes that could be so tedious. You never saw much of Vanja’s mother. She was usually behind the closed bedroom door, and they used to tiptoe past it so they wouldn’t bother her.

‘Pappa never hit me but he hit Mamma, and that was almost the same thing.’

Vanja looked at the picture again, and there was another pause before she went on.

‘We never knew who would be coming home when the front door opened. Whether it was Pappa or that other man who looked just like him but who was a stranger to us. All he had to do was open his mouth and say a single word and we could tell.’

Maj-Britt hadn’t known. Vanja had never hinted with a single word what went on at her house.

‘You mustn’t forget that Örjan grew up the same way I did, with a father who lashed out and a mother who took it. So now I always ask myself where everything actually has its origin. It’s a bit easier then, a bit easier to understand why people do things that can never be forgiven.’

It was quiet in the room. The sun had reached the windows and was filtering in through the narrow gaps between the slats in the blinds. Maj-Britt looked at the striped pattern on the opposite wall. Then she took a deep breath so she would dare to ask the question that she felt she had to ask.

‘Are you afraid to die?’

‘No.’

Vanja hadn’t even hesitated.

‘Are you?’

Maj-Britt lowered her eyes and looked at her hands in her lap. Then she slowly nodded.

‘This is how I usually look at it. Why should it be any scarier to die than to be unborn? Because actually it’s the same thing, only our bodies don’t exist here on earth. Dying is nothing but returning to what we were before.’

Maj-Britt could feel the tears coming. She wanted so much to find consolation in Vanja’s words, but she couldn’t. She somehow had to reciprocate, that was her only chance. And all at once she remembered what she had come here to do. So that she wouldn’t let any hesitation overpower her, she started telling the story. She didn’t gloss over anything and she didn’t leave anything out. She put the entire sad truth into words. How it had been. What she had done.

Vanja sat quietly listening. She let Maj-Britt spill out her whole confession without interrupting. There was only one thing Maj-Britt didn’t confess, and that was the plan she intended to carry out. The debt she had to pay off.

In order to dare.

Vanja sat lost in thought when Maj-Britt finished. The sun had retreated and the stripes from the blinds on the wall had faded away. Maj-Britt could feel her heart pounding. With each minute that passed, Vanja’s silence became more ominous. Maj-Britt was so afraid of what she would say, how she would react. Whether Vanja would condemn her too and not accept her excuses. It wasn’t merely the lies. Now that Maj-Britt understood Vanja’s loss, the life she herself had chosen seemed a sheer insult. To her consternation she realised that she carried even more guilt.

‘You know, Majsan, I don’t think you ever understood how important you were for me over all those years, how much it meant to me that I had you.’

Maj-Britt was stopped cold in the midst of taking a breath. The abrupt change threw her off balance.

‘I was so sad when you stopped writing without telling me where you had gone. At first I thought maybe I had done something to make you angry, but for the life of me I couldn’t imagine what it might have been. I wrote a letter to your parents and asked them where you were living, but I never got an answer. And then time passed and… well, everything turned out the way it did.’

What Vanja said was so amazing that Maj-Britt could find no words. How could she have been important to Vanja? It had been just the opposite. Vanja had been the strong one, the one who was needed. Maj-Britt had been the needy one. That’s how it had always been.

Vanja smiled at her.

‘But I never stopped thinking about you. That’s no doubt why the dream felt so strong.’

Again they sat quietly for a moment, looking at each other. So much time and yet so little had changed, not really.

‘Can’t you and I do something together when I get out?’

Maj-Britt gave a start at her words but Vanja continued.

‘You’re the only person I know out there.’

The question was so unexpected and the thought so disorientating that she had a hard time taking it in. Vanja’s words implied so much more, punching big holes in Maj-Britt’s solidly anchored image of the way everything was and would continue to be. To think that Vanja wanted to have anything to do with her at all, almost needed her, and of her own accord wondered whether they might do something together when that day came and it was possible.

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.