Shame

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