Bitter Bitch

by Maria Sveland

  The second week is not so good. I get by but I have a sour taste in my mouth the whole time. An irritation slowly grows inside me, taking on such large proportions that it cannot be ignored.

  On Friday night we fight about the fact that I need the weekends, especially the nights, in order to rest. Johan does not think that is a given, because he too is tired after working for an entire week.

  I find this difficult to comprehend, since he gets to sleep uninterrupted five nights a week. Again I have a horrible fore boding, a feeling that I do not really know him, this man with whom I have been living for seven years.

  Everything is surreal and the floor is moving. I do not know how I am going to get him to understand what it means to be alone with a three-month-old baby around the clock. It is something you cannot understand if you have not experienced it. My overwrought state finally takes the upper hand and my screams drown out Johan’s, and he gives in, perhaps because he senses how close I am to the edge? The week end nights are mine, a small possibility of survival to which I cling.

  The days are filled with walks, grocery shopping, long café visits with friends, baby swimming, baby movies, museum visits, clothes shopping. There is lots to do every day, a packed schedule I tend carefully. I am terrified of the quiet, lonely evenings when the thoughts overpower me. Sigge just sleeps in his buggy and when he is awake he is happy. He views the world with curiosity and only cries when he is hungry. My beloved baby, my best friend and my indomitable occupying power.

  At the Child Health Centre I get to fill in a form. The health visitor Monika explains that it is a means of detecting the ones who are not feeling well and offering them some help. The questions are about how I experience the every day. Am I anxious? Is it hard to get out and come up with things to do? I am terrified that she is going to find out how unhappy I am, afraid that something is going to break, permanently. I check all of the boxes indicating that I am feeling great, that I am get ting enough sleep, that I am finding things to do every day, that there really are not any problems in my new life as a mother at all …

  Monika looks surprised at my answers.

  ‘OK … this looks good. Most people find it a bit difficult in the beginning before they establish a routine …’

  I explain that I struggled when I was sick and so compared to that everything is fantastic. Monika is quiet for a long time, maybe she sees through me. She cannot possibly know that my problem is not the lack of things to do, quite the opposite, that I never stop to rest.

  ‘Of course, the nights are a bit difficult,’ I say, in order to sound a bit more convincing.

  ‘Yes, it’s like that for everyone,’ Monika says, and I can see her decide to swallow my over-confidence.

  ‘Try to sleep a bit during the day, when Sigge does,’ she tells me, and I think that I would never be able to or have time, that is how full my days are.

  In the evenings I cry with exhaustion. Sigge lies next to me in bed and looks seriously into my eyes. He looks sad and tired too from all of our running around, the hysterical tempo I maintain each day. I stroke his head and we fall asleep several hours later.

  Johan calls and we do not have anything to say to each other. He is in the middle of rehearsals and is anxious that the actors are not taking him seriously, that it will turn out badly, that he is not good enough. I am quiet and wonder how we will ever connect again.

  Every day I hate him a little bit more. I hate his absence, which makes me feel lonely and abandoned, feelings that take me far, far away to an early childhood of which I have no conscious memory. I am shrinking.

  Early one Saturday morning, when Johan gets up to change Sigge’s nappy, I suddenly hear a thud. There is silence for a few seconds and then I hear a panic filled scream from Sigge. I rush out of bed and see Johan rocking Sigge in his arms.

  ‘He fell from the changing table,’ Johan says, shocked. ‘I only turned away for a second.’ He looks helpless and ashamed but none of this breaks through my iciness.

  ‘Give me Sigge!’ I say coldly.

  ‘I want to comfort him,’ Johan says with tears in his eyes.

  ‘You can’t comfort him. Give me Sigge!’ I say again and take Sigge from him.

  Sigge soon stops crying and I sit with him in my arms and watch him become his usual self again. I sit there and hate and hate. I curse the fact that Johan is always tired in the morning, curse him because he has not been home and noticed that Sigge can roll over now, curse his entire existence.

  We are quiet the whole way to the hospital. We get our own room and a doctor who asks a thousand suspicious questions and makes Johan feel even guiltier. Johan explains that he has been gone a lot and did not know that Sigge had started rolling over. I do not say anything to help him, I just sit there and hate and stare meanly. We stay a few hours for observation and when the doctor leaves the room Johan starts crying. A quiet, tense crying which makes his shoulders shake. For a brief moment I have the impulse to drop everything and just comfort him, cry with him, make up and reach out to him and share our unhappiness, but the knot inside me from the insomnia, the loneliness and the anxiety is too hard. As if all of the longing and abandonment of my childhood, all the disappointment I have ever experienced, wells up and freezes my love for Johan.

  And the dryer which is our life continues to toss us around and around for another eight weeks. I call the family guidance office and make an appointment. The woman I talk to does not understand what I mean at first.

  ‘But why was your husband gone for ten weeks?’

  Once again I sound like Johan, and I explain that he had contracted to do a job. She sounds uncertain when she asks if she has understood me correctly: our son is only three months old. When I reply that that is correct she grows quiet for some time. Maybe she is taking notes, but the faint uncertainty clings to me. I need confirmation that I am allowed to feel the way I do. I keep thinking that there are millions and millions of women who have been far more betrayed by their husbands, left alone with children without the merest excuse.

  The weight of history should not be underrated. I know that a lot of people would snort at my problems. It still makes me doubt my equilibrium. Am I allowed to use a word like betrayal? Johan does not think so. He thinks we were victims of unfortunate circumstances, a difficult situation over which we had no control. But I cannot help thinking that so much could have been different, despite the unfortunate circumstances.

  We have an appointment for Thursday morning. Our friends Patrik and Jens are babysitting and they are going to take Sigge for a walk in his baby carriage in the park outside for an hour. The therapists are a middle-aged pair, a team. Their names are Maggan and Mats, and Johan and I giggle nervously at their professional pleasantry. They have woven art on the wall, a rug representing rugged, staring faces. Maggan tells a long story about the origin of the hanging; it was made by a friend of hers and symbolizes the necessary chaos of life. We listen and nod politely.

  ‘Well,’ says Mats, ‘Sara, why don’t you tell us why you wanted to meet with us?’

  ‘We’ve ended up in a crisis because Johan’s been gone so much and has been working constantly since the birth of our first child. It has been much more difficult than I expected, and I’ve felt abandoned and unloved and I feel like Johan doesn’t understand how difficult it has been.’

  Maggan and Mats nod and look at Johan.

  ‘I also think it’s unfortunate that I was away so much after Sigge was born, but I don’t think I had a choice. It was a job I had signed on for and I had to do it.’

  Maggan and Mats nod again.

  At first we talk carefully and thoughtfully. A calm tennis match begins, as the opponents get a feel for each other, but the tempo slowly changes, encouraged as we are by Maggan and Mats’ silence and understanding nods. Soon we are in the middle of a raging storm, the words rush out and we both have flushed complexions from the emotions bursting forth in the room with the woven rug. Finally we grow quiet and Maggan an
d Mats look at us, expressionless. I wonder if that is something you have to learn as a therapist, not to show how you really feel? Mats runs his palm over his right leg, as if calming it down. Maggan wets her lips and looks at me.

  ‘What I hear when I listen to you is that you constantly come back to the word ‘‘equality’’. It seems to be an important word for both of you, a kind of mantra? She raises her well-plucked eyebrows in order to underline her question.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  ‘Yes,’ says Johan.

  Maggan smiles and looks at Mats who stops running his hand over his trouser leg and smiles back at Maggan. A secret understanding.

  ‘This is something we often hear from couples. You aren’t alone in having problems with this so-called “equality”,’ says Mats. ‘And Maggan and I always say the same thing, that trying to attain equality in a romantic relationship is something you can forget about! You must accept that equality is an impossible goal in any relationship. Achieving equality is impossible!’

  Johan looks at me and I look at Mats and then at Maggan, trying to understand what he has just said. I do not know what to say and before I have time to think of something, Maggan continues.

  ‘Then this about Johan having to work so much, well, that’s the way it has been since the stone age. Men have always had the responsibility of hunting and bringing home the food.’ She grins at both of us.

  I smile back, a smile which is transformed into a hysterical giggle. I do not dare look at Johan because I know we are going to start laughing if we make eye contact. I can see out of the corner of my eye that Johan is struggling to look straight ahead at the woven hanging. He is sitting unnaturally upright and is holding his head still, but his shoulders are shaking uncontrollably with suppressed laughter.

  ‘And women have always been at home in the cave, minding the children while the men are out hunting. So if I give up my career and become a housewife and drop all of these stupid demands for equality, then we won’t argue any more! That’s great! Thanks, you’ve just solved our entire problem. I don’t understand why we did not come up with it ourselves!’ I say, and grin at Maggan and Mats. Surprised, they look at Johan, who is staring at a spot on the floor.

  ‘Look, this isn’t something we’re just saying. Many researchers make this point at seminars,’ Mats says, and does not sound quite so professional now.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse us,’ says Johan. ‘But as we’ve just explained to you, our entire conflict is about how we can live equally. So when you say that there’s no point in striving for equality it’s the same as telling us to give up.’

  ‘What we mean is that equality can take many forms. If Sara is better at cooking, then it’s better if Sara does it. And Johan might be better at changing the tyres on the car?’ Maggan says in a professional tone.

  ‘We don’t have a car,’ says Johan.

  ‘OK. But maybe you’re the one who puts up shelves? What I mean is that it isn’t always possible to split all tasks equally. Some things feel more natural to you, Sara, and others more natural to Johan?’ Maggan says irritably.

  I have stopped smiling and started staring at Maggan with cold eyes.

  ‘And what I mean is that I’ve never experienced a more unnatural situation than being left at home alone with a three-month-old baby for ten weeks. It’s probably the most perverted thing a new mother can experience!’ I say in a shrill tone. ‘How dare you sit here and tell unhappy couples that they shouldn’t struggle for equality?’ I scream at Maggan and Mats, who are staring back at me with furrowed brows.

  I get up and start putting on my coat. Johan does the same and Maggan’s voice sounds surly now.

  ‘I assume you don’t want to make a new appointment then?’

  ‘NO THANK YOU!’ Johan and I say in unison, and leave the room with the woven wall-hanging as quickly as we can. Away, away from Maggan and Mats and the stone age and the cave people. We walk down the steps towards the park where Patrik and Jens are waiting with Sigge in the buggy. Towards the present and the future. Johan takes my hand in his and we look at each other in perfect understanding and we start laughing. It is a good feeling. I kiss Johan’s hand and he stops and pulls me towards him.

  ‘Thanks for being so damned wonderful!’ he says and looks me in the eye.

  ‘Thank you for being so damned wonderful!’ I say and kiss him.

  Our devotion to each other, the laughter which is suddenly there again, keeps us warm for about three days. Then it is Monday and Johan disappears and leaves us alone for yet another week. The emptiness is unbearable. The short moment of closeness we had makes me burn with longing, makes me remember what it felt like before. I had forgotten.

  During the week my insomnia and loneliness transform my longing into a rage which makes me red-eyed. When Johan comes home on Friday night I do not have anything to give him and he is tired and distant. I go to bed early and he stays up late watching football. The silence is almost worse than the fighting, but the worst thing of all is the total lack of humour. The sulky, irritating, stingy humourlessness which comes to rest like pitch-black coal dust and poisons the air we breathe.

  There are evenings when the cold stays away. We look at each other dazed with sleep and are gripped by a strong passion. I kiss Johan’s ear and he holds my head firmly between his hands. We drink too much red wine and make wild passionate love with all our longing. Later, when we are lying on the bed naked, it sometimes happens that we cry.

  We find a new family therapist, a woman who does not talk about cavemen and understands why equality is important in a relationship. She pilots us carefully down winding roads of old grudges and tangled arguments.

  The snow melts and it becomes spring. On our walks we see home owners cleaning their gardens. They burn leaves in small fires and hang rugs out to air. We go home and do some spring cleaning too. We mop the floors so that the whole flat smells good.

  Without noticing it, life suddenly does not feel so miserable any more. The worst of the anger is gone and we do not get frostbitten as often. But deep down inside my chest there is a hard seed of bitterness which will not leave me, which makes me dwell on how bitter I am.

  Yes, I am bitter. I am bitter about the fact that my first months with Sigge were so unhappy and restless. I am bitter because we could not meet each other halfway and help each other when we needed it most. That Johan failed me when I needed him the most. That I failed Johan when he needed me the most.

  I am bitter because I can barely use the word betrayal when I am talking about this. I am bitter because we ended up like all couples who have children, all the ones I have read about, everyone who has told their story and witnessed how the equality disappeared when the babies came. I am bitter about realizing that we are not equals any longer – maybe we were never equals to begin with?

  I am bitter about being bitter, but I do not want to be bitter.

  LILL-BRITTIS IS

  ENJOYING HERSELF NOW

  La Quinta Park is a spa-hotel; perhaps that is why there are more retirees here than at other hotels. All the newcomers have been invited to the bar at five-thirty for a welcome drink. The German guide greets me with a long sentence in German. I nod, give her a big smile and pretend I understand what she is saying. The dining room is filled with new arrivals, contentedly sipping on their free cocktails and watching me as I try to find a glass.

  I take a seat at the back so I can sneak out if need be, but I feel uncomfortable, as if everyone is staring at me. A little while later I realize that it was a mistake to come down here. I need to be alone in order to maintain the feeling of voluntary solitude, rather than partaking in group gatherings and activities. I down my free cocktail in three quick gulps and return to my own balcony. I can sit here in voluntary solitude and enjoy the quiet and the sun setting in the west, behind the mountains.

  The ugly swimming pools are below me, but beyond them is a large, endless sea. An older man and an older woman in a leopard-print swims
uit are swimming around and around in the ugly pools. They are giggling. Now I can see that they are chasing each other. She catches up to him and they kiss, then they swim on.

  They are so beautiful, as though they have just fallen in love. Are we going to be like that when we are older? Or will we be Dissatisfied Husband and Alcoholic Wife? I pour a glass of red wine and say cheers to myself and to the beautiful old couple in the pool.

  ‘Lill-Brittis is enjoying herself,’ I say out loud. It is an expression that comes from my mother Brittis and it has to do with wine and balconies. We were sitting on Mum’s balcony one evening last summer, drinking wine, when she suddenly said, ‘Now Brittis is enjoying herself,’ and took a gulp of wine. She often refers to herself in the third person, as if an emotion only becomes real after she has said it out loud. My beautiful, crazy, beloved, irritating mother, who is starting to look pretty worn out. I can see that now.

  Forty years of Red Prince cigarettes, full-time work at the hospital, three children and a long, unhappy marriage leaves its marks. So as a kind of tribute to Mum, my sister and I have also starting saying it when we take the first sip of wine.

  ‘Lill-Brittis is enjoying herself now!’

  The other thing which often happens when Mum is drinking wine is that she starts talking about her mother, Grandma, who was very kind, ‘Far too kind’, Mum says in a shaky voice. Then I know she is about to cry, because she always does when she talks about Grandma.

  ‘She needed to take care of everyone all the time but never thought about herself. She stood up and ate at the bench while the rest of us sat around the table.’

  I smile a little, because if there is one thing my mother has difficulty with, it is sitting down and relaxing at the dinner table. Sitting down and just being is impossible. Her altruism is always there, a restlessness that causes her to prepare dinner as she is clearing the table after breakfast, running in with the wash, vacuuming the hall and taking two drags on her cigarette, all while standing doubled over in front of the kitchen fan.