Sacrifice Read online

  They would find her here. That Ellinor would discover her tomorrow and tell the others that she had died lying in her own bed, suffocated by her own fat.

  Shamed forever.

  With one last effort she managed to roll over on her side and then fall to the floor with a hard thud. Her left arm was trapped under her but she didn’t feel the pain, only the relief when air found a narrow passage down to her lungs.

  Saba barked uneasily and wandered back and forth. Saba. Dear Saba. Her faithful friend who was always there when she needed her. But now Saba could do nothing. Maj-Britt would remain lying here until Ellinor came, but at least she wouldn’t be dead.

  The hours passed slowly. Her left arm went to sleep after a while, but she didn’t dare move, didn’t dare risk landing on her back again. Finally she was forced to move. With a minimum of effort she managed to free the blood flow down into her arm. Worse was the pain in the small of her back. The pain that had been throbbing lately; often it hurt so much that she had a hard time moving at all.

  She was lucky. Ellinor came early. The clock by the bed showed only a little past ten when she finally heard the key in the door.

  ‘It’s only me!’

  She didn’t reply; Ellinor would find her soon enough. She heard the food bags being laid on the kitchen table and Ellinor saying hello to Saba, who had left her side when the front door opened.

  ‘Maj-Britt?’

  The next moment she was standing in the bedroom doorway. Maj-Britt could see that she was alarmed.

  ‘Shit, what happened?’

  She squatted down by her side but still hadn’t touched her.

  ‘Jesus, how long have you been lying here like this?’

  Maj-Britt couldn’t speak. The humiliation she felt was so deep that her jaws refused to move. Then she felt Ellinor’s hands on her body and it was so ghastly that she wanted to scream.

  ‘I don’t know if I can manage to get you up. I’ll probably have to call security.’

  ‘No!’

  The threat caused a spurt of adrenaline and Maj-Britt reached her arm up towards the bedstead to try and get a grip.

  ‘We’ll manage by ourselves. Try to shove the pillow in behind my back.’

  Ellinor worked as quickly as she could, and in a moment Maj-Britt was in a half-sitting position. The pain in her lower back made her want to scream, but she gritted her teeth and refused to give up. They kept on going. One pillow after another was forced in and it took them almost half an hour, but they did it. Without the security men and their awful touching. When Maj-Britt sank down in her easy chair, panting, and it was all over, she felt a strange emotion.

  She was grateful.

  To Ellinor.

  She wasn’t required to do that; according to the rules she should have called in security. But Ellinor hadn’t, for her sake and together they had done it.

  The words came from deep inside.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Maj-Britt didn’t look at her when she said it, or the words would have stuck in her throat.

  Not much was said during the next hour. The feeling that they had suddenly become a team, that their common experience had forced Maj-Britt to lower her guard, felt threatening. She was indebted now, and that could easily be exploited if she didn’t stay on alert. This did not mean that they were friends, far from it. She had Saba, after all, and needed no one else.

  She couldn’t face dealing with the bags of food, and she heard Ellinor start to unpack them and open the refrigerator door.

  ‘Wow, what a lot of food is left.’

  ‘I can finish eating it all if that would make you feel better.’

  She bit her tongue, that wasn’t what she meant to say, but the words had come out by themselves. She regretted saying them, but the mere thought that she wanted to take them back disturbed her. She was indebted. In future that would be intolerable.

  Ellinor appeared in the doorway.

  ‘I was just surprised, that’s all. I mean about the food. You aren’t sick or anything, are you?’

  Maj-Britt looked at the letter. That was where it came from. All she had left unread, and the things she had read but had never wanted to see. Not even food soothed her anymore.

  ‘Is there something you want me to buy for next time?’

  ‘Meat.’

  ‘Meat?’

  ‘Just meat. Forget about the rest of it.’

  She was back in her easy chair while Ellinor cleaned around her; Maj-Britt was doing her best to pretend she didn’t exist. She was aware of Ellinor’s worried glances but didn’t care. She knew that she wouldn’t get her wish fulfilled; buying nothing but meat was something that Social Services would never agree to. She had waged a long battle to get any extra rations of food at all, but this would definitely cross the line.

  But meat was the only thing that could deaden the thoughts that had now invaded her again.

  Ellinor was at the front door when she suddenly turned round and came back.

  ‘You know, I think I’ll leave you my mobile number on the nightstand by your phone. If it should happen again, I mean.’

  She disappeared into the bedroom but came right back.

  ‘I’ll see you the day after tomorrow then.’

  She vanished into the hall and when she opened the front door she called back towards the flat, ‘By the way, I put the earplugs you ordered on the kitchen table. See you!’

  Maj-Britt didn’t answer, but to her dismay she felt like crying. A thick lump in her throat made her frown and she hid her face behind her hand until Ellinor had gone.

  Ellinor was puzzling. Maj-Britt could not for the life of her understand the friendliness that never diminished no matter how she behaved. There was every reason to be suspicious, because there must be something that Ellinor was expecting in return. She was like one of those advertising flyers that came through the letter-box, some even printed in type that looked like handwriting, as if it were sent solely to her. Dear Inga Maj-Britt Pettersson. We are pleased to make you this fantastic offer. The better the deal seemed, the more reason to be suspicious. There was always a catch, carefully concealed in the gush of kindly language; the harder it was to discover, the greater reason for caution. Nothing was ever done out of sheer kindness. There was always a profit motive. That’s how the world worked, and everyone did their best to get a piece of it.

  Ellinor was like an advertising flyer.

  There was every reason to mistrust her.

  She took the picker-upper and reached out for the letter. It had been lying like a magnet there on the desk, waiting for her to capitulate. Now she could no longer resist it. Her hands trembled as she unfolded the rest of the letter.

  I’ll never forget the time I questioned your father’s faith. Now I don’t understand how I dared. We had just read in school that Christianity wasn’t the biggest religion in the world, and I remember how surprised I was by that. If there were more people who believed in a different God then maybe they were the ones who were right! Jesus, how angry he was. He explained that those sorts of thoughts would land me in hell, and even though I didn’t believe him, it took a long time to get over his words. It was the first time I experienced God as a threat. He said that everyone who didn’t acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son of God was not welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven, and I wanted so much to ask about all those people who lived before Jesus was born. Whether it wasn’t a little unfair to them, since they hadn’t even had a chance, but I never dared ask. It was enough to have been damned once that day.

  I always thought it was so strange that we human beings were ‘sinful’ and that in church we were supposed to pray to God to forgive us our sins whether we thought we had committed any or not. I remember you tried to make me understand that it wasn’t only sins we committed consciously that counted, but also the original sin we were born with. ‘Through the carnal conception because of our sinful seed.’ I will never forget those words. They were so upsetting that I didn’t reject them
until many years later when I realised that ‘the carnal conception’ was the only way for us to propagate. I decided that God probably wanted us to do it, since He had taken so much trouble creating us.

  When we were growing up, sex was something that boys were ‘unfortunately’ interested in and that we girls understood that sooner or later we would ‘have to learn to tolerate’, but that we absolutely mustn’t ‘give in’. We weren’t supposed to wonder why it got so confusing when we reached our teens and boys were the only thing we thought about and we actually wanted to ‘give in’ a little, of our own free will. I wish that amongst all the warnings and all the scare propaganda they had added a little footnote and explained that it’s quite natural for all people to feel desire and want to reproduce.

  Another strong memory from my childhood was the time we found those magazines in your father’s desk drawer. For the life of me I can’t remember what we were doing in there, but I assume it was my big idea. I was always the one who decided we should do things we weren’t supposed to do. Those magazines were quite tame by today’s standards, but finding them at your house was like discovering the sign of Satan in the church, and you were utterly terrified. You were convinced that someone had broken into your house and put them there, but nothing on earth was going to make you say anything to your parents. Do you remember how we put the magazines on the floor and then hid under the bed? I can still picture your mother’s legs when she came into the room, and her hand when she picked them up. And I especially remember how upset we were afterwards when she just put the magazines back where we found them. Now that I’m an adult I think it says a great deal about how strong our desires actually are, when not even your father with his strong faith had the power to resist them.

  Today the times seem to be quite different, at any rate that’s the impression I’ve got from TV and magazines. Now sexuality has to be so awfully ‘accepted’ that it seems to have been transformed into a commercial leisure activity which requires both a manual and assorted equipment. But from this distance it seems mostly to be a matter of realising yourself and developing your ability to have stronger orgasms, and the fact that there should be a little love thrown in doesn’t seem to be that important. It all seems a bit sad. But what do I know, here in my prison celibacy?

  My, how long this letter has gone on, but I’m so glad that we have made contact again. I knew that it was fate that my letter would reach you!

  Now it’s time for lights out, and tomorrow I have an exam. I’ve been given the perk of ‘studying long distance’ (a strange expression, but in my case you couldn’t think up a more fitting description). I’ve finished 15 modules in theoretical philosophy and have just begun my second year in the history of religion. If only I pass the test tomorrow!

  Give my warmest greetings to the rest of the family!

  All best wishes,

  Your friend Vanja

  Maj-Britt slowly lowered the letter and felt for the first time in more than thirty years a need to pray to God. What Vanja had written was disgusting. May the Lord forgive her for the words she had just been tricked into reading.

  9

  The individual presentations had continued, taking up most of Thursday afternoon. Mattias had set the bar, and the rest of the participants had risen to the challenge. None of them wanted to be relegated to mediocrity by telling a boring story; they hadn’t ended up in positions of authority for nothing. One fascinating account after another passed for review. Monika could only listen half-heartedly. It wasn’t until she finally concluded her account and everyone’s attention shifted to the person who was next that she realised fully how much energy it had taken. Any energy she had left was devoted to keeping herself upright in her chair. So much time had passed since she had confronted that memory; on the occasions when she had been forced to do so, she had merely passed over it quickly and left all the details in merciful shadow.

  Unfamiliar voices followed, one after the other, separated only by the sound of applause. She participated in that as well, clapping her hands when necessary to avoid drawing attention to herself. And the whole time she was aware that he was sitting there. Right next to her sat someone who had the personality she so evidently lacked.

  Someone who always made the right choice. Someone who had that trait so deeply engrained in his character that doubt never arose, not even in the presence of death when terror blinded reason.

  She had turned her head to look at him once, wanting to know whether it was also visible in his face. Wanting to see how a person looked who was everything she had always dreamed of being, the person she could never be because what she had failed to do could never be made right. Her brother was dead forever, and she would always be the one who hadn’t turned off the sauna and hadn’t taken those two extra steps.

  That night had revealed the deficiency in her character, and since then not a day had passed that she didn’t feel it grating inside her. Her choice of profession, all her prestigious belongings, her way of driving herself relentlessly to obtain better results; all were a way of trying to compensate for the defect she carried inside her. To justify the fact that she was alive while he was dead. Through her struggle she had achieved much, but there was one fact she could never change: knowing that in the depths of her soul she was an egotistical and cowardly person. It was something you either were or you weren’t. And after it was proven that that’s what she was, she didn’t deserve love either.

  Even though she was still alive.

  After the meeting she went to her room. The others had moved on to the bar, but she couldn’t face it. Couldn’t face the socialising and the small talk and pretending that everything was fine. She sat on her bed and weighed her mobile phone, still switched off, in her hand. She wanted so badly to hear his voice, but he would be able to tell that something was wrong and she wouldn’t be able to explain. And the experience this afternoon had once again triggered all her doubts. He didn’t know who she really was.

  She was utterly alone; not even Thomas could share her shame.

  The guilt. She had never allowed herself to mourn. Not deeply. Because how could she permit herself to do that? She had missed Lasse so terribly after she was left all alone with their mother. Missed him in a way she hadn’t thought possible. He had always been there, and she had taken for granted that he would always continue to be there. There was nobody who could take his place. But her grief was so abject that it would desecrate his memory. She didn’t have the right. Instead she did everything in her power to make her mother’s loss more tolerable, tried to be happy and helpful, cheer her up as best she could. She envied her mother’s right to indulge and wallow in sorrow without any obligations towards those who were still alive. Her sorrow was noble, genuine, not like Monika’s, which served equally to hide the truth that was impossible to bear.

  The betrayal. Horrified, she had realised that life outside their home would go on as if nothing had happened. Nothing was turned upside down or changed after the unthinkable happened. The same people were on the bus in the morning, the same programmes were on TV, and the neighbour was still adding an extension to his house. Everything continued without the rest of the world caring that he was gone, or even noticing. And her own life went on as well. The memory of him would one day lose its solid contours and fade; the emptiness would remain but the world would be changed so that the empty space he left would be less noticeable. The path he would have taken would grow narrower and narrower and finally vanish in obscurity, transformed into wondering about who he might have become and how his life might have turned out. And she could do nothing to prevent what had happened.

  Nothing.

  Success, admiration, status. Every day of her life she had been ready to trade all she had ever achieved for the opportunity to do it over.

  Because what death demanded was unreasonable. What it demanded was that she should fully understand. And accept the inevitable truth. Never again.

  Never again.

&nb
sp; Never again, ever.

  She ate in her room. Just before dinner she had called Åse and complained of a headache. Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at her door and there stood Åse with a tray full of food.

  ‘I told the guru that you were eating in your room. Hope you feel better soon.’

  She fell asleep the minute she lay down, and slept for almost nine hours. She slipped off into sleep to escape her guilty conscience at not ringing Thomas as she had promised. Don’t ever leave me alone with a silent phone again. I don’t know if I could stand it.

  When she woke up she keyed in his number even though it was really too early.

  ‘Hello?’

  She could hear that he had just woken up.

  ‘It’s me … I’m sorry for not calling you yesterday.’

  He didn’t answer, and his silence scared her. She tried to think up an excuse but had none that was acceptable. And she didn’t want to lie. Not to him. He had every reason in the world to say nothing. She knew far too well how she would feel if he was the one who went away on a course and didn’t call.

  I ask only one thing, and that’s for you to be honest, that you tell me the truth so I’ll understand what’s happening.

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘Forgive me, Thomas. I had a tough day yesterday and afterwards I locked myself in my room; I couldn’t even go to dinner.’

  ‘Good grief. That sounds like a fun course. What was so tough about it?’