Shame (15 page)

She looked around.

‘What can I do?’

‘So he sings in the choir?’

‘Yes. First tenor.’

Not a sound was heard from the living room. Not even the slightest murmur.

‘Should I take this in?’

Maj-Britt pointed at the little tray with the sugar bowl and jug. The same pattern as the coffee-pot. They had really made an effort.

‘Fill it with cream first.’

Maj-Britt took cream out of the refrigerator; by the time she had filled the jug, the coffee had finally run through the filter. Her mother stood with the coffee-pot in one hand and with the other she straightened her hair.

‘Shall we go in then?’

Maj-Britt nodded.

Her father was sitting at the table in the living room, wearing his best black suit. The sharp ironed pleats on the white tablecloth stuck up from the tabletop but were held down by the blue-flowered china cups and the plate with eight types of little cakes. Göran stood up when they entered the room.

‘What a feast. I didn’t intend for you to go to all this trouble.’

Her mother smiled.

‘Nonsense, it was no trouble at all. I just put together some things we had in the house. A little coffee?’

Maj-Britt sat quite still. There was something unreal about the whole situation. Göran and Mother and Father in the same room. Two worlds, so utterly different from each other but suddenly in the same field of vision. All the people she loved most gathered in the same place at the same time. And Göran here in her home, where God constantly watched over everything that went on. They were here together. All together. And everything was permitted. They even offered him coffee from the fine china. Wearing their Sunday best.

They all sat with their coffee and the cakes they
had chosen on their side plates. Fleeting smiles were exchanged across the table but nothing was said, nothing important, nothing beyond the polite chit-chat about excellent pastry and well-made coffee. Göran did the best he could, and she felt the seconds ticking away, the situation becoming more and more intolerable. The feeling of standing before an abyss. Enjoying the last seconds in safety before the leap into the unknown.

‘So you met each other in the choir?’

It was her father asking. He stirred his coffee with his spoon and let it drip before he placed it on the saucer.

‘Yes.’

Maj-Britt wanted to say something else but nothing came out.

‘We saw you at the Christmas concert last year, when you sang the solo. You have a beautiful voice, really fine. Was it “O Holy Night” you sang?’

‘Yes it was, and then I sang “Advent” as well, but it’s probably “O Holy Night” that’s best known, I would think.’

Then silence returned. Her father started stirring once again, and the sound seemed somehow comforting. Only the ticking of the wall clock and the rhythmic sound of the spoon in his cup. Nothing to be worried about. Everything was as it should be. They were sitting here together and perhaps they ought to talk a little more but nobody asked any questions and no opportunity for conversation was offered. Göran sought out her eyes. She gave him a swift glance and then looked down at the floor.

She didn’t dare.

Göran set down his cup.

‘There is one thing that Majsan and I would like to tell you.’

The spoon in the cup stopped. Maj-Britt held her breath. She was still standing on the edge but suddenly it gave way even though she had not taken the step voluntarily.

‘Yes?’

Her father let his gaze flit between them, from Göran to Maj-Britt and back again. A curious smile played on his face, as if he had just received an unexpected present. And Maj-Britt understood at once. What they were going to say was so unthinkable that it hadn’t even crossed her father’s mind.

‘I’m thinking of applying to Björkliden Music College and will be moving away from here and I’ve asked Maj-Britt to come with me and she has said yes.’

She had never before experienced in reality what happened next, though she had seen it on TV a few times. The way the picture suddenly froze and everything stopped. She couldn’t even tell whether the ticking from the wall clock could still be heard. Then everything started to move again, but a little more slowly now. As if the paralysis still lingered and had to be softened up before everything could be restored. Her father’s smile was not exactly erased, rather it happened through a gradual change in the expression on his face. His features dissolved and when they finally coalesced again Maj-Britt could read utter despair in his face.

‘But …’

‘And of course we will get married since we intend to live together.’

She could hear the desperation in Göran’s voice. She looked at her mother. She was sitting with her head bowed and her hands clasped in her lap. Her right thumb was rubbing her left hand, swiftly moving back and forth.

Then Maj-Britt met her father’s eyes, and what she saw she would spend the rest of her life trying to forget. She saw sorrow, but something else that was much more familiar. Contempt. Her lies had been revealed and she had betrayed her parents. The ones who had done everything for her, done everything to help her. Now she had turned her back on them and the Congregation by choosing a man outside their circle, and she hadn’t even asked for their approval. She had simply come here and forced them into their fine clothes and delivered her message.

She couldn’t identify the colour of her father’s face.

‘I’d like to speak with Maj-Britt in private.’

Göran didn’t budge from his chair.

‘No. I’m staying here. From now on you will have to regard us as a couple, and what concerns Majsan also concerns me.’

Yes, the clock was indeed ticking. She could hear it now. She was resting in the regular rhythm, tick, tock, tick, tock.

‘I think I still have the right to talk to my own daughter in private!’

‘She is my future wife. From now on we do everything together.’

‘All right, stay if you want. You may as well hear it. It was decided long ago whom Maj-Britt would marry, and you’re not the one, I can assure you of that. His name is Gunnar Gustavsson. A young man
in the Congregation, and both Maj-Britt’s mother and I have great confidence in him. I don’t know what sort of belief you have, but since I have never seen you at any of our meetings I strongly doubt that you are of the same faith as Maj-Britt, and therefore marriage is out of the question.’

Maj-Britt stared at her father. Gunnar Gustavsson? The boy who had sat in his best suit at the pastor’s home and watched her be humiliated? Her father looked at her and his voice dripped with disgust.

‘Don’t look so confused. You know very well that it was arranged long ago. But we and Gunnar have decided to wait until God regards you as ready since you have had such problems with …’

He broke off and his lower lip quivered when he pressed his lips together. Two pink strips with nothing but white around them. Her mother was rocking back and forth and a low moaning was heard. In her lap her fingers were twisting round each other over and over.

‘What sort of problems?’

It was Göran who asked. Only Göran wondered what sort of problems she had had. She was back in the pastor’s dining room. Sitting there naked and bound and maybe it was all her fault. They had done everything to save her but she refused to let herself be saved. And since she wouldn’t obey she had damned herself for all eternity, which was one thing; but she had also dragged them down with her in the fall. Because they had conceived her in sin, and their God wouldn’t have anything to do with her. Because in the end she gave up and was no longer willing to renounce everything to please Him. And now Göran wondered
what sort of problems she had had, and if there was the slightest chance of undoing everything she had done then she must do it now.

‘I asked what sort of problems Majsan has had.’

There was irritation in his voice, and Maj-Britt was astonished at how it was possible for him actually to dare take such a tone here and now and in this house. Everything she had learned and realised in the past year drained out of her. The certainty that the love she and Göran shared was pure and beautiful, that it had made her grow as a human being. The conviction that because it made them so happy it was meant to be and could not be a sin. Not even to their God. Now suddenly nothing felt certain any longer.

‘Why don’t you say something, Maj-Britt? Have you completely lost your voice?’

It was her father speaking to her.

‘Why don’t you tell him about your problems?’

Maj-Britt swallowed. Shame burned in her body.

‘Maj-Britt has had problems with paying attention to her relationship with God, and the fact that you are here can be regarded as one result of that. If someone is pure in soul, those types of perversions cannot intrude, for a true Christian refrains from the damnation of sexuality, and does so with joy and gratitude! We have done everything to help her but now she has obviously let herself be led astray in earnest.’

Göran stared at him. Her father continued. Each syllable was like the crack of a whip.

‘You wondered what sort of problems she has had. Self-abuse, that’s what it’s called!’

Jesus Christ, let me get out of this. Lord forgive me for all I have done. Help me, please, help me!

How could they know?

‘Fornication, Maj-Britt, that’s what you’ve been devoting yourself to. What you’re doing is sinful and is considered apostasy from the true path.’

Göran looked bewildered. As if the words he heard were spoken in a language that was foreign to him. When her father spoke again she flinched from the power in his voice.

‘Maj-Britt, I want you to look me in the eye and answer my question. Is it true as he says that you intend to leave here with him? Is that what you came here to tell us?’

Maj-Britt’s mother broke into tears and rocked back and forth with her face hidden in her hands.

‘You know that Christ died on the cross for our sins. He died for your sake, Maj-Britt, for your sake! And now you do this to Him. You will be eternally damned, shut out forever from God’s kingdom.’

Göran stood up.

‘What kind of nonsense is this?’

Her father stood up, too. Like two fighting cocks they stood face to face, measuring each other across the ironed tablecloth. Saliva sprayed out of her father’s mouth when he answered the blasphemous outburst.

‘You emissary of Satan! The Lord will punish you for this, because you have enticed her into depravity. You will come to regret this, mark my words.’

Göran went over to Maj-Britt’s chair and held out his hand.

‘Come, Majsan, we don’t have to stay and listen to this.’

Maj-Britt couldn’t move. Her leg was still tied to the chair.

‘If you leave now, Maj-Britt, then you won’t be welcome in this house again.’

‘Come on, Majsan!’

‘Do you hear that, Maj-Britt? If you choose to go with this man then you will have to face the consequences. A poisonous root must be severed from the others so as not to spread its infection. If you go now you will renounce your Congregation and your right to God’s mercy, and you are no longer our daughter.’

Göran took her hand.

‘Come now, Majsan, we’re going.’

The clock on the wall struck five times, flinging out the exact time into the room. And just at that moment she did not know that a big red blot was taking shape in the calendar.

Maj-Britt stood up. She let Göran’s hand lead her out to the hall and then, after he helped her on with her jacket, out the door. Not a sound was heard from the living room. Not even the moaning of her mother. Only a withering silence that would never end.

Göran pulled her with him down the garden walk and out through the gate, but there he stopped and took her in his arms. Her arms hung at her sides.

‘They’ll come around. You just have to give them a little time.’

Everything was empty. There was no joy, no relief that the lies were over, no anticipation of the opportunities that awaited. She couldn’t even share Göran’s anger. Only a huge black sorrow at all the ineptitude. Her own and her parents’. At Göran’s, who could not understand what he had caused in there. And at the Lord’s, who had created them all with free will, but
who still damned those who did not do His will. Who was always intent on punishing her.

She had longed so much for them to be able to sleep together a whole night, and now they would finally be able to do it, but everything had been ruined. She wanted Vanja to come, and Göran borrowed his parents’ car and drove over to get her. During the trip he told Vanja in detail about the visit to Maj-Britt’s home, and Vanja was fuming with anger when she came in the door.

‘Damn it, Majsan. Don’t you let them destroy this, too! You’ve got to show them instead.’

Göran made one pot of tea after another, and as the night wore on Maj-Britt listened to Vanja’s increasingly fantastic interpretations of the problem. She even managed to make Maj-Britt laugh a few times. But it was at the end of a long persuasive tirade that she suddenly said the words that truly startled Maj-Britt.

‘You have to dare to let go of the old if you want to make room for the new, don’t you think? Nothing can start to grow if there isn’t

any room.’

Vanja fell silent as if she herself were pondering what she had said.

‘Jesus, that was really good.’

And she asked Göran for a pen and quickly jotted down her words on a piece of paper. She read them silently to herself and then let out a big laugh.

‘Ha! If I ever write that book I’m going to put those words in it.’

Maj-Britt smiled. Vanja and her dreams of being a writer. With her whole heart Maj-Britt wished her all the luck in the world.

Vanja looked at her watch.

‘Just because I came up with such a good point, I have now made up my mind and I take this decision at twenty minutes to four on the fifteenth of June, nineteen hundred and sixty-nine. I’m moving to Stockholm. Then we can move at the same time, Majsan, even if it’s not to the same city, and without me you certainly don’t want to stay here in this hole of a town, do you?’