Sacrifice Page 11

  The pastor’s wife went over to the china cabinet and pulled out the drawer beneath the centre door. With her back to Maj-Britt she rummaged around and there were sounds of small things being moved about. Then she turned round with a spool of thread in her hand. A wooden spool with pure white thread on it.

  ‘Now take off your skirt and underwear.’

  Maj-Britt didn’t understand at first what she had said. For a fleeting moment there was still only the smell of freshly baked buns and hopeful trust. But then the terror came sneaking over her. Her clothes didn’t need mending. What was the pastor’s wife going to use the thread for? Maj-Britt inspected her skirt, looking for a seam that had split, but she couldn’t find any.

  ‘Just do as I say and then sit back down on the chair.’

  Her voice was kind and friendly. It didn’t match her words, and Maj-Britt didn’t understand what she meant even though she understood what she said. Then the pastor’s wife raised her arm above her head and pulled out an arm’s length of thread. On the way down she glanced at her watch.

  ‘You’ll have to hurry so I have time to finish setting the table.’

  Maj-Britt couldn’t move. Take off her clothes, here in the pastor’s dining room? She didn’t understand, but she could see that the pastor’s wife was beginning to get impatient and she didn’t want to make her angry. With trembling hands she did as she was told and sat back down on the chair. The shame burned like fire. With her hands in her lap she tried to hide her secret place. Her clothes lay in a heap next to the chair, and it was hard to resist the urge to pick them up and run away.

  The pastor’s wife came over and knelt down by her side. Then she took the thin thread and tied it tight to her right leg; right below her knee she tied it with a simple knot before she tied the other end to the chair leg.

  ‘We’re doing this for your own good, Maj-Britt, so you will understand the seriousness of what you did.’

  She took the pile of clothes and stood up.

  ‘It’s out of love for you that your parents and all of us in the Congregation are trying to help you find your way back to the true path.’

  Maj-Britt was shaking. Her body was trembling with humiliation and fear. He had duped her, He had not forgiven her, only lulled her into false hope, biding His time.

  ‘Out of love, Maj-Britt, even though it might not seem so now, but when you grow up you’ll understand. We only want to teach you how you should have felt when you exposed yourself to that boy. And how you will feel for eternity if you don’t change your behaviour.’

  She folded up the clothes in a neat pile and went out to the kitchen. Maj-Britt sat utterly still. She was terrified that the thread would break if she moved.

  Time passed. Totally white time, without seconds or minutes. Only moments that moved forward and grew more and more meaningless. There above the table hung a large crystal chandelier. The prisms blinked and shimmered. And the table was so beautifully set. Delicate white cups and two platters filled with the loveliest cinnamon buns. And it was good that she was tied to the chair, because otherwise she might have eaten all of them before the guests even arrived. But they seemed to be doing so now. She heard the doorbell and voices murmuring but not what was said, but it was surely none of her business. The draught from the front door made the prisms in the crystal chandelier glitter like gemstones. Imagine being able to sit and gaze at such a fantastic creation. And now all the guests were coming into the room, in pairs or one by one they sat down at the table; the Gustavssons and the Wedins, and there came Ingvar who led the choir. And the Gustavssons had their Gunnar with them, look how big he had grown. They were all wearing such fine clothes, suits and dresses, as if they were going to church on Sunday. Even Gunnar had a suit on, although he was only fourteen. It was dark blue and he was wearing a tie and looking so grown-up. And then Mamma and Pappa. It was so nice to see them because it had been quite a while, but they didn’t have time for her now and she understood that. The pastor had begun to talk about things that had to do with the Congregation, and now the buns were passed around and coffee poured into the cups. But her mother looked so sad. Several times she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and Maj-Britt would have liked to go over and comfort her, tell her that everything was all right, but she stayed in her chair and she knew that was what she had to do. They had done this for her sake, even though they were pretending she didn’t exist. Only Gunnar stole a glance at her from time to time.

  And suddenly everyone was leaving. They all got up and went out together to the hall and then all the voices stopped. Only a quiet murmuring which she had become accustomed to hearing from the pastor and his wife, and then time became divided into seconds again.

  She was sitting on a chair in the pastor’s dining room with no clothes on the lower part of her body, and now she understood how she should have felt.

  And she had learned that she would never again do what she had done.

  The next day she was allowed to go back home. They let her take the spool of thread as a reminder. It was put on the shelf in the kitchen so that she would never forget.

  15

  Some things were not meant to be kept by anyone. The sole purpose of some things was merely to pass by and remind certain people of what they would never be able to have. To make sure that they didn’t neglect their hopeless longing, or simply forget about it. Or maybe even learn to live with it and feel a sense of contentment. No, when people didn’t want to acknowledge their need it was time to remind them, give them a little taste, refresh their memory a bit.

  Thomas had been that sort of person.

  A reminder who had stopped by to tell her how life could have been. If she hadn’t been someone who lived at the expense of others.

  Someone who had squandered her right to life.

  Everything was shattered. The dizzying feeling of hope had run out, dissolved in the limitless hopelessness that replaced it.

  She was sitting on a chair by the living-room window. Her lovely living room where no price tag had hindered her, everything hand-picked, exquisite and meticulously arranged. A source of pride for the one who lived there and a challenge to those who came to visit.

  Offering comparisons.

  Making them want to have these things, too.

  All her fine, expensive things.

  All the lamps in the flat were turned off. A cold glow from outside painted a wide path on the parquet floor but stopped halfway up the bookshelf on the opposite wall. Just above the shelf with the glass sculpture, the sculpture that many of her fellow doctors also owned. Not quite identical but almost, which showed that they had both the means and the taste.

  She had turned off the sound on her mobile phone. He called several times but she didn’t answer. She just sat by the window in the living room, which was growing less and less important as the hours went by.

  It had been easy to fill up the rest of her time. TV, gym, late nights at work. As a single person she was used to organising her time precisely, avoiding gaps when everything would come to a standstill and the worrying could take over. It was tough enough just to be alive. And when it got to be too much it was always possible to find consolation in a new jumper, an expensive bottle of wine, a pair of new shoes, or something to make her home even more perfect. And she could afford it.

  All she was missing was a life.

  And no fortune in the world could fix what had now been shattered.

  The contours of the path of light at her feet grew vaguer and finally dissolved as dawn broke. A new day was approaching for her and for everyone else who was still here. But not for Mattias. And for Pernilla and their daughter the hopeless journey towards an acceptance of life’s injustices and its unfathomable purpose was now starting.

  The first day.

  She closed her eyes.

  For the first time in her life she wished she had some religious belief. Merely a tiny handle to hold on to; she would gladly exchange every object in the room for the abili
ty, for a single second, to possess even a scrap of faith. A feeling that there was some meaning, some higher cause that she didn’t understand, a divine plan to rely on. But there was none. Life had once and for all proven its total absurdity; no amount of effort had any effect at all. There was nothing she could believe in. No consolation to be had.

  Her world was built on science. Everything she had learned, made use of, trusted in, had all been precisely weighed and measured and confirmed. She accepted only exact and rigorously worked experimental results whose validity could be proven. That was where security could be found. And here, in the perfect home. Things that could be seen and evaluated. That was how everything acquired worth. But now it no longer sufficed, not now that everything was toppling and shrieking for a purpose. It would be enough to have a sense of a tiny, tiny ‘maybe’ – the slightest hint, if only to enable her to set aside all logic and feel reassured.

  The telephone rang. The usual four rings before the answering machine started.

  ‘It’s me again. I just wanted to say that I … I don’t really know if I can handle things being this way … I would be extremely grateful if you’d call me and explain what’s happening, so I know. Surely that’s not asking too much … or is it?’

  She felt nothing when she heard his voice. He was calling from another life that no longer had anything to do with her. She had no right to it now. And she had no obligation to him; it was to others that she was indebted.

  The telephone stood on the windowsill. She picked up the receiver and dialled his number, those familiar digits, for the last time and he answered immediately.

  ‘Thomas.’

  ‘This is Monika Lundvall. You left a message on my answering machine and asked for an explanation, so I just wanted to say that I don’t want us to see each other anymore. Okay? Bye.’

  She went out to the kitchen and poured water in the coffee-maker, pressed the button and stood there. It was twenty to seven. Somewhere not far away a little one-year-old would be waking up, and she no longer had a father. She went into her office, found the phone book and looked up his name. There was only one Mattias Andersson, but at least he was there. In the next issue he would be deleted. She wrote down the address and stored the number in her mobile. She went back to the kitchen. Steam was hissing out of the coffee-maker and she looked at the green button that showed the coffee was ready. She ignored it. Instead she went out to the hall and put on her coat.

  It was a U-shaped block of flats, four storeys tall. On the lawn in the middle there was a little fenced playground with a bench, some swings and a sandbox. The door with their number on it was on the left. She stopped for a moment and took in the atmosphere, searching for signs that indicated someone in the building had recently been struck by a tragedy. A sound made her turn her head. On the ground floor of the right wing a balcony door opened, and the fattest dog she had ever seen stuck its head out through an opening in the railing. It looked at her for a moment before it lost interest and contemplated the steps to the lawn.

  Monika began walking towards the outside door she knew led to the Anderssons’ stairwell. With each step she was conscious that she was walking in his footsteps, that it was his path she was taking. She put her hand on the black plastic doorknob. She closed her eyes and left her hand there. It was a strange thing about doorknobs. She never thought about them, but when she returned many years later to buildings she had lived in before, her hands always remembered the feel of the doorknob. They never forgot. Hands had their own ability to store memories and knowledge. This doorknob had been his. His hands had borne the memory of its shape, confidently pulling open the door each time he came home, and he had had no inkling on Thursday when he left that he would never do it again.

  She opened the door and entered the stairwell. On the left wall, behind glass, was a list of the names of the residents, in white plastic capital letters on blue felt. The Anderssons’ flat was on the third floor. Slowly, she started up the stairs. She let her hand glide up the banister and wondered if he also used to do that. The morning sounds seeped out of the doors she passed, muffled voices, someone running water. Further upstairs a door opened and was locked with a rattling bunch of keys. They met on the stairs between the second and third floors. An elderly man wearing a coat and carrying a briefcase said a polite ‘hello’. Monika smiled and returned the greeting. Then he was gone and she took the stairs up to the third floor. There were three doors. The Anderssons lived behind the middle one. That’s where they were.

  A child’s drawing was taped over the letter-box. Monika bent closer. Incomprehensible lines and curlicues drawn every which way with a green felt pen. Red arrows came out of the curlicues, and at the other end of them someone who could write had interpreted the artist’s work: ‘Daniella, Mamma Pernilla, Pappa Mattias.’

  She moved her hand close to the door handle, letting it hover above without touching, wanting merely to experience the feeling of being really close. At the same moment Daniella started to cry inside, and she quickly pulled her hand back. The sound of another door being opened somewhere in the stairwell made her hurry back down the stairs and out to her car.

  But now she knew where they were.

  He was waiting outside her flat when she came home. Sitting in the deep window seat on the landing. She saw him before she took the last steps up the stairs, and her feet slowed down but didn’t stop entirely. She walked straight past him and up to her door.

  ‘I thought I made myself clear on the phone. I don’t have anything else to say.’

  She had her back to him, and her fingers were searching for the right key. He didn’t reply, but she felt his gaze on the back of her neck. She unlocked the door and turned round.

  ‘What do you want?’

  He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes and stubble on his chin. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms.

  ‘I just wanted to see you say it.’

  Monika shifted impatiently from one foot to the other.

  ‘Okay. I don’t want us to see each other anymore.’

  ‘You don’t have any intention of telling me what happened?’

  ‘Not a thing. I just realised that the two of us don’t fit together. It was a mistake from the beginning.’

  She took a step in towards her flat and started to close the door.

  ‘Did you meet someone else?’

  She stopped in the midst of her motion, thought for a second and realised that that was precisely what she had done.

  ‘Yes.’

  The noise he made sounded like a snort. Instinctively she had a need to defend herself; if a person snorted she had earned his contempt.

  ‘I’ve met someone who really needs me.’

  ‘And I suppose I don’t, in your opinion.’

  ‘Maybe you do, but not as much as he does.’

  She shut the door and cut him out of her life. And she knew that every word she had said was true. She had met someone else; Thomas didn’t have to know that he was now dead. Mattias’s weighty responsibility lived on, and it was her duty to take over now. That was the least she could do. It was impossible to undo things, so the only thing left was to try and set right as much as she could. By allowing herself a relationship with Thomas she had attempted to grab for herself the happiness to which she had no right. What had happened to Mattias was the final rebuke. The only thing left to do was subordinate herself. Her sacrifice was nothing compared to the devastation she had wrought.

  She went into the bathroom and washed her hands. She heard the street door slam behind him out in the stairwell, and not until she saw her face in the mirror did she realise she was weeping.

  Her fingers punched in the speed-dial number for the head of the clinic. For the first time in the eleven years she had worked there she called in sick. Since she didn’t want to infect any of the others, they should probably count on her being off for the rest of the week. Then she went into the living room and let her index finger
glide along the spines of the books. On the third shelf she found what she was looking for; she pulled out the book then, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the table, went to lie down on the sofa, and turned to the first page of The History of Sweden.

  16

  She was standing in front of the mirror in her room, twisting and turning and trying to see how she looked from the back as well, but to see that view she had to contort her body in the most awkward way. The way she looked there in the mirror wouldn’t be how she looked at all when she was facing straight ahead. And it was important how she looked from the back, because that was the direction he usually saw her from. But not today. Today it was going to be special.

  She had been allowed to borrow Vanja’s new blouse. Vanja, the only one who knew, the only one she had dared tell. It was so strange with Vanja. They had been friends for years but she really didn’t understand why, they were such an improbable pair. Vanja was so brave; she didn’t hesitate a second to say what she thought and she would stand up for her views in any situation. Maj-Britt knew that she had a tough time at home. Her father was a notorious figure in the community; everyone knew about him, and especially about his alcohol problem. But Vanja didn’t let herself be dragged down by the gossip. If she so much as caught an inkling of any condescension she would strike back like lightning. She punched like a verbal boxer. And Maj-Britt would stand beside her and admire her, wishing that she could speak so frankly, and that, above all, she also dared stand up for her own point of view.