Shame

week.’
    She dreamed about it sometimes. Sometimes she was awake when she imagined it. A high fence, completely white with a black, wrought-iron gate. A locked gate that would only open when she gave permission.
    ‘Who are you going to meet?’
    ‘Nobody you know.’
    ‘I see.’
    She closed her eyes for a second when she climbed into the driver’s seat. She hadn’t yet said anything about the course she had to go to next week, and now it was too late, now that her mother was already in a bad mood. No candles would be lit on the grave unless her mother took the bus out there, and this was no sort of news to give her when she was already in a bad mood.
    Monika put on the indicator and drove off. Her mother sat with her face turned away, looking out the side window.
    Monika gave her a quick glance.
    ‘I’m giving a lecture at the library on the twenty-third, about the welfare fund we have at the clinic. You’re welcome to come if you like, I can give you a ride.’
    A brief silence, as she possibly considered …
    Imagine if she, just once …
    Just one time.
    ‘Oh, I don’t know.’
    Just once.
    They sat in silence for the rest of the ride. Monika slowed down and stopped with the engine running in front of the driveway. Her mother opened the door and got out.
    ‘And I bought chicken for dinner.’
    Monika watched her back disappear through the front door. She leaned her head back against the neck rest and tried to see Thomas’s face before her. Thank God he existed, that he was the one she had found. His sincere eyes, that looked at her with an expression that she had never seen before. His hands, which were the only things that ever made her come close to anything that might resemble calm. He had no idea how important he was to her, and why would he? She had never really used the right words.
    The truth was that he had become essential.
    But the mere thought of how important she had allowed him to become filled her with utter terror.

2
    I t was pure coincidence that she noticed it, and that was actually thanks to Saba. The post basket on the door underneath the letter-box had been screwed on by one of those people from home care; why they had bothered to take the time and effort was completely beyond her. She realised of course that it was so that she would be able to reach her mail, but since she never got any it was a sheer waste of taxpayers’ money. Especially the way they were scrimping on everything these days. Occasionally a notice would arrive from the bank or somewhere, but since it wasn’t so urgent for her to read that type of correspondence, it didn’t justify the expense. Nor was she interested in any daily newspaper; there was enough misery on the TV news in the evenings. She would rather save her disability pension for something else. For something she could eat.
    But now there was a letter lying there.
    A letter in a white envelope with handwriting on the front.
    Saba had sat down by the door with her tongue hanging out and looked at the white intruder; maybe it had an odour that was only apparent to her superior senses.
    Her glasses were on the table in the living room, and she wondered whether it was worth sitting down in the easy chair. With all the weight she had put on in recent years it had become so hard to get out of it that she avoided sitting down unnecessarily, especially if she knew that time was limited.
    ‘Do you want to go out for a bit before I sit down?’
    Saba turned her head to look at her but showed no great desire. Maj-Britt moved the easy chair closer to the balcony door and made sure the picker-upper was within reach. That way she would be able to open the door without getting up. They had fixed things so that Saba could go out by herself for a while on the lawn. The home help had helped her unscrew one of the bars in the balcony railing, and she lived on the ground floor. But soon they would have to unscrew another one to make the opening bigger.

    With a grimace she sank into the easy chair. Whenever her knees had to bear her entire weight for a few seconds they always gave in. Soon she would have to get herself a new easy chair, a higher model. The sofa was already impossible to use. The last time she sat on it they had to send for reinforcements from Security to get her up. Two hefty young men.
    They had taken hold of her, and she was forced to submit.
    She didn’t intend to allow that kind of humiliation again. It was disgusting when anyone touched her