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  ‘Maj-Britt, stop it! What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘How do you know Vanja?’

  There was silence for a few seconds.

  ‘Vanja who?’

  Maj-Britt shook her head crossly.

  ‘You can do better than that.’

  ‘What do you mean? Vanja who? I don’t know any Vanja.’

  Maj-Britt stood silent. Sooner or later she would have to confess. Otherwise she’d have to stay there in the bathroom.

  ‘Maj-Britt, open this door. What the hell are you up to?’

  ‘Don’t swear.’

  ‘Why not? You’ve locked me in the goddamn bathroom!’

  So far she was only angry. But when she understood that Maj-Britt was serious, an uneasiness would come creeping in. Then she would find out what it felt like. How it was to find yourself in the midst of a piercing, paralysing fear.

  And to be utterly at someone else’s mercy.

  ‘Oh… you mean that Vanja Tyrén?’

  There now.

  ‘Exactly. You’re a clever idiot.’

  ‘I don’t know her, you’re the one who does. Open the door now, Maj-Britt.’

  ‘You’re not getting out of there until you tell me how you know her.’

  The stabbing pain in her lower back almost made her black out. Maj-Britt leaned forward in an attempt to relieve the pain. Sharp as an an icepick, it dug through layer after layer. She was breathing fast through her nose, in and out, in and out, but it refused to relent.

  ‘But I don’t know Vanja Tyrén. How would I know her? She’s in prison.’

  She needed a chair. Maybe it would get a little better if she could only sit down.

  ‘What’s this all about? Did she say we know each other, or what? If she did, she’s lying.’

  The closest chair was in the kitchen, but then she’d have to leave the door, and she couldn’t do that.

  ‘Come on, Maj-Britt, let me out and then we can talk about this, otherwise I’ll call security.’

  Maj-Britt swallowed. It was hard to speak when it hurt so much.

  ‘Go ahead. Can you reach your jacket out in the hall?’

  It was silent on the other side of the door.

  Maj-Britt could feel her eyes filling with tears, and she pressed her hand against the point where the pain had gathered. She needed to empty her bladder. Nothing ever went the way she wanted. Everything was always against her. This wasn’t such a great idea after all. She realised it now, but there was nothing to be done about it. Ellinor was locked in the bathroom and if Maj-Britt didn’t find out now then she never would. The probability that Ellinor would come back after this was nil. Maj-Britt would be left not knowing, and some other repulsive little person would show up with her buckets and contemptuous looks.

  All these choices. Some made so quickly that it was impossible to comprehend that their results could be so crucial. But afterwards they sat there like big red blots. As clearly as road-signs they marked the route through the past. Here’s where you turned off. Here’s where it all began, everything that came afterwards.

  But it never worked to go back the same way. That was the problem. It was a one-way path.

  He stood there with his hoe and the woven basket next to him, trimming the garden path. It didn’t look like it really needed it, but that had never made any difference. It was the joy of doing the task that was the goal. Maj-Britt knew that because they had told her. But she also knew that it was important for the garden to be perfect, and that wasn’t something they needed to say. It was important to be exacting about everything that was visible. Everything that was seen outwardly. You were responsible for the unseen yourself, and there the Lord was the absolute judge.

  Her father stopped hoeing when she opened the gate. She took off her cap and brushed back her hair from her high forehead.

  ‘How did the practice go?’

  She had been to choir practice. In any case that was what they believed. For a year there had often been extra choir practice at the oddest times, but now her double life had become a strain. Continuing to hide the truth began to feel impossible. To keep sneaking around with the love she felt. She was nineteen and had made her decision. For months she had been gathering her courage, with Göran supporting her. Today they would lay all their cards on the table, but until that moment he stood out of sight a short distance away.

  She looked around the garden and then caught sight of her mother. She was down on her hands and knees by the flowerbed outside the kitchen window.

  ‘Father, there’s something I need to discuss with you. You and Mother.’

  Instantly, her father got a worried furrow between his eyebrows. This had never happened before. That she took the initiative for a conversation.

  ‘Nothing’s happened, I hope?’

  ‘Nothing dangerous that you have to worry about, but I have to tell you something. Could we go inside for a bit?’

  Her father looked at the gravel path at his feet. He wasn’t really finished yet, and he hated to interrupt a task before it was completed. She knew that. She also knew that this wasn’t the best situation for the conversation that was to come, but Göran was standing out there on the road and she had promised. Promised to give them finally the opportunity to create a life together. A real life.

  ‘Go on inside. I just have to get someone I want you to meet.’

  Her father looked at once through the gate. She saw it in his eyes. Would have known it even if her eyes had been closed.

  ‘Do you have guests with you now? Because we’re busy…’

  He looked down at his work clothes and ran his hands over them hastily as if that would make them cleaner. And she was already regretting it. Bringing home guests without letting her parents prepare themselves was against the unwritten rules of their home. This had turned out all wrong. She had let herself be talked into something that was bound to fail. Göran had such a hard time understanding how it was. Everything was so different in his own family.

  ‘Inga, Maj-Britt has a guest with her.’

  Her mother stopped weeding the flowerbed at once and stood up.

  ‘A guest? What sort of guest?’

  Maj-Britt smiled and tried to radiate a calm that she didn’t feel.

  ‘If you just go on in we’ll be there in… Is fifteen minutes all right? And you don’t have to make coffee or anything, I just want to introduce…’

  She had intended to say ‘him’ but wanted to wait with that. Things were bad enough already. Her mother didn’t reply. Just brushed off the worst of the dirt from her trouser legs and hurried in through the kitchen door. Her father picked up the basket and hoe to put them back in the shed. It was obvious. He was already annoyed at being interrupted. He looked around when he crossed the lawn to make sure that nothing else was lying outside making a mess.

  ‘You could bring in Mother’s tools over there.’

  It was not merely a suggestion, and she did as he said.

  They stopped on the steps for a minute and held hands. Göran’s hand was damp, which was unusual.

  ‘Everything will be fine. By the way, I promised my mother we’d ask if they’d like to come over for coffee someday so that they can finally meet. Remind me, so I don’t forget to say it.’

  Everything was so easy for Göran. And soon it would be for her too.

  She put her hand on the doorknob and knew that now was the time. It was now or never.

  She had made up her mind.

  No one met them in the hall. They hung up their jackets and heard the water running in the kitchen and then the slapping sound of someone wearing thin-soled shoes approaching. Her mother appeared in the doorway. She was wearing her flowered dress and her black shoes that she only wore on special occasions. And for a moment Maj-Britt thought they might understand what a solemn occasion this was. That they were doing it for her sake.

  Her mother smiled and held out her hand to Göran.

  ‘Welcome.’

  �
��This is my mother, Inga, and this is Göran.’

  They shook hands and her mother’s smile grew wider.

  ‘It’s nice of Maj-Britt to bring one of her friends home, but you really must excuse us for not preparing anything. I had to fix something from what we have.’

  ‘But that’s not necessary. Really.’ Göran smiled back. ‘I just wanted to come by and say hello.’

  ‘Nonsense, of course we have to offer you something. Maj-Britt’s father is waiting in the living room, so you can go on in and I’ll be there in a moment with coffee. Maj-Britt, please help me in the kitchen.’

  Her mother left and for a moment they looked at each other. Squeezed each other’s hands hard and nodded. We’ll get through this. Maj-Britt pointed towards the living room and Göran took a deep breath. Then he silently mouthed the three words that filled her with new courage. She smiled and pointed first to herself and then to him and nodded. Because she really did.

  Her mother was standing with her back to her, pouring boiling water into the coffee filter. They had taken out the fine china and the elegant porcelain coffee-pot with the blue flowers on it. She suddenly had a guilty conscience. She should have warned them that they were having company instead of subjecting them to this. She saw that her mother’s hand was shaking. She seemed suddenly in such a hurry.

  ‘You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.’

  Her mother said nothing, only let a little more water run over the side of the saucepan and mix with the black sludge in the coffee filter. Maj-Britt wanted to go into the living room. She didn’t want to leave him alone in there with her father. They had decided that they would do this together. As they would everything else from now on.

  She looked around.

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘So he sings in the choir?’

  ‘Yes. First tenor.’

  Not a sound was heard from the living room. Not even the slightest murmur.

  ‘Should I take this in?’

  Maj-Britt pointed at the little tray with the sugar bowl and jug. The same pattern as the coffee-pot. They had really made an effort.

  ‘Fill it with cream first.’

  Maj-Britt took cream out of the refrigerator; by the time she had filled the jug, the coffee had finally run through the filter. Her mother stood with the coffee-pot in one hand and with the other she straightened her hair.

  ‘Shall we go in then?’

  Maj-Britt nodded.

  Her father was sitting at the table in the living room, wearing his best black suit. The sharp ironed pleats on the white tablecloth stuck up from the tabletop but were held down by the blue-flowered china cups and the plate with eight types of little cakes. Göran stood up when they entered the room.

  ‘What a feast. I didn’t intend for you to go to all this trouble.’

  Her mother smiled.

  ‘Nonsense, it was no trouble at all. I just put together some things we had in the house. A little coffee?’

  Maj-Britt sat quite still. There was something unreal about the whole situation. Göran and Mother and Father in the same room. Two worlds, so utterly different from each other but suddenly in the same field of vision. All the people she loved most gathered in the same place at the same time. And Göran here in her home, where God constantly watched over everything that went on. They were here together. All together. And everything was permitted. They even offered him coffee from the fine china. Wearing their Sunday best.

  They all sat with their coffee and the cakes they had chosen on their side plates. Fleeting smiles were exchanged across the table but nothing was said, nothing important, nothing beyond the polite chit-chat about excellent pastry and well-made coffee. Göran did the best he could, and she felt the seconds ticking away, the situation becoming more and more intolerable. The feeling of standing before an abyss. Enjoying the last seconds in safety before the leap into the unknown.

  ‘So you met each other in the choir?’

  It was her father asking. He stirred his coffee with his spoon and let it drip before he placed it on the saucer.

  ‘Yes.’

  Maj-Britt wanted to say something else but nothing came out.

  ‘We saw you at the Christmas concert last year, when you sang the solo. You have a beautiful voice, really fine. Was it “O Holy Night” you sang?’

  ‘Yes it was, and then I sang “Advent” as well, but it’s probably “O Holy Night” that’s best known, I would think.’

  Then silence returned. Her father started stirring once again, and the sound seemed somehow comforting. Only the ticking of the wall clock and the rhythmic sound of the spoon in his cup. Nothing to be worried about. Everything was as it should be. They were sitting here together and perhaps they ought to talk a little more but nobody asked any questions and no opportunity for conversation was offered. Göran sought out her eyes. She gave him a swift glance and then looked down at the floor.

  She didn’t dare.

  Göran set down his cup.

  ‘There is one thing that Majsan and I would like to tell you.’

  The spoon in the cup stopped. Maj-Britt held her breath. She was still standing on the edge but suddenly it gave way even though she had not taken the step voluntarily.

  ‘Yes?’

  Her father let his gaze flit between them, from Göran to Maj-Britt and back again. A curious smile played on his face, as if he had just received an unexpected present. And Maj-Britt understood at once. What they were going to say was so unthinkable that it hadn’t even crossed her father’s mind.

  ‘I’m thinking of applying to Björkliden Music College and will be moving away from here and I’ve asked Maj-Britt to come with me and she has said yes.’

  She had never before experienced in reality what happened next, though she had seen it on TV a few times. The way the picture suddenly froze and everything stopped. She couldn’t even tell whether the ticking from the wall clock could still be heard. Then everything started to move again, but a little more slowly now. As if the paralysis still lingered and had to be softened up before everything could be restored. Her father’s smile was not exactly erased, rather it happened through a gradual change in the expression on his face. His features dissolved and when they finally coalesced again Maj-Britt could read utter despair in his face.

  ‘But…’

  ‘And of course we will get married since we intend to live together.’

  She could hear the desperation in Göran’s voice. She looked at her mother. She was sitting with her head bowed and her hands clasped in her lap. Her right thumb was rubbing her left hand, swiftly moving back and forth.

  Then Maj-Britt met her father’s eyes, and what she saw she would spend the rest of her life trying to forget. She saw sorrow, but something else that was much more familiar. Contempt. Her lies had been revealed and she had betrayed her parents. The ones who had done everything for her, done everything to help her. Now she had turned her back on them and the Congregation by choosing a man outside their circle, and she hadn’t even asked for their approval. She had simply come here and forced them into their fine clothes and delivered her message.

  She couldn’t identify the colour of her father’s face.

  ‘I’d like to speak with Maj-Britt in private.’

  Göran didn’t budge from his chair.

  ‘No. I’m staying here. From now on you will have to regard us as a couple, and what concerns Majsan also concerns me.’

  Yes, the clock was indeed ticking. She could hear it now. She was resting in the regular rhythm, tick, tock, tick, tock.

  ‘I think I still have the right to talk to my own daughter in private!’

  ‘She is my future wife. From now on we do everything together.’

  ‘All right, stay if you want. You may as well hear it. It was decided long ago whom Maj-Britt would marry, and you’re not the one, I can assure you of that. His name is Gunnar Gustavsson. A young man in the Congregation, and both Maj-Britt’s mother and I have great confi
dence in him. I don’t know what sort of belief you have, but since I have never seen you at any of our meetings I strongly doubt that you are of the same faith as Maj-Britt, and therefore marriage is out of the question.’

  Maj-Britt stared at her father. Gunnar Gustavsson? The boy who had sat in his best suit at the pastor’s home and watched her be humiliated? Her father looked at her and his voice dripped with disgust.

  ‘Don’t look so confused. You know very well that it was arranged long ago. But we and Gunnar have decided to wait until God regards you as ready since you have had such problems with…’

  He broke off and his lower lip quivered when he pressed his lips together. Two pink strips with nothing but white around them. Her mother was rocking back and forth and a low moaning was heard. In her lap her fingers were twisting round each other over and over.

  ‘What sort of problems?’

  It was Göran who asked. Only Göran wondered what sort of problems she had had. She was back in the pastor’s dining room. Sitting there naked and bound and maybe it was all her fault. They had done everything to save her but she refused to let herself be saved. And since she wouldn’t obey she had damned herself for all eternity, which was one thing; but she had also dragged them down with her in the fall. Because they had conceived her in sin, and their God wouldn’t have anything to do with her. Because in the end she gave up and was no longer willing to renounce everything to please Him. And now Göran wondered what sort of problems she had had, and if there was the slightest chance of undoing everything she had done then she must do it now.

  ‘I asked what sort of problems Majsan has had.’

  There was irritation in his voice, and Maj-Britt was astonished at how it was possible for him actually to dare take such a tone here and now and in this house. Everything she had learned and realised in the past year drained out of her. The certainty that the love she and Göran shared was pure and beautiful, that it had made her grow as a human being. The conviction that because it made them so happy it was meant to be and could not be a sin. Not even to their God. Now suddenly nothing felt certain any longer.