Shame

the sofa.
    ‘I don’t, my mother does. They met at a course a few weeks ago.’
    Ellinor got up, went over to the window and looked at the façade of the building across the courtyard.
    ‘Do you remember that I mentioned something about a car crash?’
    Maj-Britt was just about to reply but never got that far, because the doorbell rang at that very instant. Two short signals that marked the end of her respite.
    Ellinor looked at her, then took the few steps necessary to stand right in front of her.
    ‘It will be fine, Maj-Britt. I’ll stay here the whole time.’
    And then she reached out her hand in an attempt to place it on Maj-Britt’s arm. Maj-Britt managed to defend herself by taking a quick step back. Their eyes met briefly and then Ellinor vanished out to the hall.
    Maj-Britt heard the door open. Heard their voices taking turns, but her mind refused to interpret the words, refused to realise that there was no longer any chance of escape. The lump in her throat cut into her flesh and she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to! Didn’t want to be forced to take off her clothes and expose herself to foreign eyes.
    Not again.
    And then they were suddenly standing in the living-room doorway. Ellinor and the doctor she had called, who in her mercy had taken the trouble to come. Maj-Britt didn’t recognise her at first. But it was the woman she had seen out there in the playground, with the fatherless child. Who with endless patience had tirelessly pushed the girl on the swing. Now she was standing there in Maj-Britt’s living room, smiling and reaching out her hand to her.
    ‘Hello, Maj-Britt. My name is Monika Lundvall.’
    Maj-Britt looked at the hand that was extended towards her. In desperation she tried to swallow the lump in her throat that was cutting into her flesh, but it didn’t work. She could feel the tears welling up and knew that she didn’t want to be here. Not at all.
    ‘Maj-Britt?’
    Someone was saying her name. There was no possibility of escape. She was surrounded in her own home.
    ‘Maj-Britt. You two can go into the bedroom if you like, and I’ll wait out here.’
    It was Ellinor. Maj-Britt saw her walk over to the bedroom door and call Saba to her.
    Maj-Britt forced herself to walk towards the bedroom. She felt that the doctor was on her heels and she heard the door closing behind them. Now it was only the two of them in the room. She and the person who quite soon would force herself on her. She no longer remembered why she had voluntarily gone along with this. What could she possibly have wished to achieve?
    ‘Would you begin by showing me where the pain is?’
    Maj-Britt turned her back and did as she was told. The tears were running down her cheeks but she didn’t dare wipe them off out of fear of being exposed. The next moment the hands were on her. Her body stiffened and she squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to retreat back into the darkness but in there she was only more conscious of them. The way they groped and squeezed the spot she had pointed out. Imagine that she just stood there and let it happen. She was waiting for the terrible part. To be asked to take off her clothes.
    ‘Is this where it hurts?’
    Maj-Britt nodded quickly.
    ‘Have you had any other symptoms?’
    She couldn’t answer.
    ‘I’m thinking of fever, weight loss. You haven’t seen any blood in your urine, have you?’
    And that was when she first realised what she had got herself into. In her stupidity she had thought that if she went along with the examination, then everything would go back to normal. She would put a stop to Ellinor’s eternal nagging and maybe even get some medicine prescribed, but she hadn’t thought any further than that. She had been so afraid of the examination itself that she hadn’t even considered what the results might be. Now she realised that the doctor, behind her back, suspected the reason for her pain, and she was suddenly unsure that she wanted to know. Because what could it lead to but more outrages?
    She had let herself be duped.
    The hands went away.
    ‘I need to feel your back better. You only need to pull up your dress.’
    Maj-Britt couldn’t move. She felt the hands return and fumble along her sides. When her dress was pulled up, the disgust she felt was so strong that she wanted to throw up. The fingers groped over her skin and in between her rolls of fat, pressing and squeezing and finally she could no longer hold back. Her body convulsed. She felt