Shame

with it. Not that too. She tried to drive it into all the whiteness, but the boundaries were no longer there. Everything that had been kept outside at a safe distance had returned and taken shape in a sharp cone of light, and it left Maj-Britt with a sadness that was too much to bear. So a little blood in her urine didn’t matter much. Everything was still intolerable.

    Vanja was right. The images in her memory had neither been invented nor distorted, and her black words on white paper had forced all of Maj-Britt’s emotional memories to return. She was back in the midst of the terror. She had partially sensed it when it was actually happening, but she couldn’t fully understand it.
    Because you don’t do that to your child.
    Not if you love her.
    That would have been easier to forget.

    She stood by the balcony door and looked out across the lawn. A woman she had never seen before was pushing a child on a swing. She recognised the child. It was the girl who used to be there with her father and sometimes also with her mother, who always seemed in some sort of pain. She wondered if that was the family Ellinor had told her about, the family with the father who had died in a car crash a little while ago. She looked towards the window where she had seen the mother standing, but it was empty.

    A week had passed since everything that no longer existed had suddenly reappeared. She knew that it had happened because of Vanja. And because of Ellinor. For seven days Maj-Britt had tried giving her the silent treatment. She had come and gone but Maj-Britt hadn’t said a word. She had done her chores but Maj-Britt had pretended she didn’t exist. But she needed to know. The questions were growing stronger with each day that passed, and now she couldn’t stand living in uncertainty any longer. The terror was still strong enough, and the threat she felt from both of them was more than she could handle. How did they know each other? Why had they suddenly decided on a concerted attack? She needed to know what their plan was so that she would have a chance to defend herself. But what was it she was supposed to defend? The only thing they had achieved by forcing Maj-Britt to remember was to rob her of all incentive.
    To defend something.
    But she had to find out what that something was.
    She heard the key in the door and then Ellinor’s greeting as she hung up her jacket. Saba appeared in the bedroom doorway and went to meet her. Maj-Britt heard them greeting each other and then the sound of Saba’s paws on the parquet floor when the dog went back in and lay down. Maj-Britt stood there by the window and pretended not to notice that Ellinor looked at her on her way to the kitchen. She heard her put down the shopping on the kitchen table, and at that moment she made up her mind. This time she wasn’t going to get away. Maj-Britt went out in the hall, felt Ellinor’s jacket to make sure that her phone was in one of the pockets. She mustn’t have it on her. Because now Maj-Britt was going to find out everything that was going on.
    She stood there and waited. Ellinor came out of the kitchen with a bucket in her hand and stopped when she saw her.
    ‘Hi.’
    Maj-Britt didn’t reply.
    ‘How are things?’
    Ellinor waited a few seconds before she sighed and answered herself.
    ‘Fine, thanks, how are things with you?’
    She had adopted this annoying habit during the past week. Creating her own conversations instead of putting up with Maj-Britt’s silence. And it was astonishing how many words that skinny girl’s body could contain. Not to mention the answers she supplied on Maj-Britt’s behalf. Astonishing was the word. She walked around in her deceitfulness with no shame in her body. But now there would be an end to that.
    Ellinor opened the bathroom door and disappeared from view. Maj-Britt heard the bucket being filled with water. It was only three steps. Three steps and then Maj-Britt slammed the door.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    Maj-Britt leaned her whole weight against the door and watched the door handle being pressed down. But the door couldn’t be budged. At least not by such a tiny creature as Ellinor, when a mountain was standing on the other side and holding it shut.
    ‘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