Bitter Bitch

by Maria Sveland

  ‘No,’ she said uncertainly, with a sour expression. Of course I realized it was not very kind of me to ask, but I was forced to defend Mum against all those evil looks.

  (Later in the evening I got mine when I heard that old bag had been left by her husband and was in remission after battling cancer … shame on you Sara!)

  My cousins, and aunt Ulla and aunt Kristine and I were the only ones who yelled ‘Bravo!’ when Mum sang. And then we took turns, defying all of the ill will, and belted out our joy.

  I passionately sang Ebba Grön’s ‘800 Degrees, You can count on me, you can count on me’. I jumped up and down like a punk rocker in Ulla’s tiny living room. Mum was doubled over on the floor laughing her shrill, loud laugh. She was laughing at me. It was a big moment in my life. Then we realized that almost the entire party had moved out on to Ulla’s balcony in order to avoid hearing us, but we had gone crazy and just continued singing and howling.

  ‘All Shook Up’, ‘Let’s Go to the Hop’, ‘I Will Survive’, ‘Good Vibrations’.

  At eleven o’clock the last of the religious ones had gone home, there was tons of sparkling wine left and we continued late into the night, singing for each other, drunk on our own greatness.

  There in the living room, when I saw my mother dancing crazily, singing to Elvis, I was filled with an endless pride.

  My brave, cocky, happy mother who does not give a damn about all of those damn, cruel people.

  No, I definitely have not been stripped of everything.

  I SAY GOODBYE (1993)

  It is my last year at home, and in August after school has finished I am moving to Stockholm. Mum and Dad are not talking to each other, except when Dad is drunk and then he just yells. My room is at the other end of the house so I do not hear the words, just the commotion.

  Most nights I stay at Jens’s or Micke’s or with one of my other boyfriends who has their own flat. It is calm and quiet there and I can come and go as I please. In their beds I get to lie close, close by, enclosed in their embraces.

  Sometimes I bike home to eat and get clean clothes. Mum is desperate; every time I return she asks me to sleep at home.

  ‘I don’t want you to be gone so much!’ she says, holding on to my leather jacket.

  Harshly, I bend back her dry eczema hands that refuse to let go, rush to my bike and yell ‘Bye!’ as I bike off into the night.

  I cannot put up with all of the yelling and all of the silence; with Dad who is disappearing all of the time, going away, coming home at strange hours, or in the middle of the night. Or with Mum trying to maintain some form of normality, but she cries just a little too often, in the middle of the day, or in the evening when I am about to leave.

  I bike away, away, and every night I am happy and beautiful and drunk at Doctor Z’s. All of my boyfriends and the other night owls who gladly stay up until the place closes at three o’clock are there.

  One night I come home and find Mum and Dad’s bed empty. It has been several days since I stayed at home and I walk around our empty house, searching. I look in on my sleeping little brother and little sister. But there is no Dad and no Mum. It starts to give me the creeps and I realize I am shaking as I open various doors, afraid of what I will find. There are no boundaries any more; I know that anything is possible.

  I finally find Mum sleeping on a camp bed in the little sewing room she has set up for herself. I am relieved to see her there, sleeping, unharmed.

  ‘Mum!’ I say and shake her. ‘Wake up! I’m home now!’

  She sits up with a jerk and looks at me with frightened eyes.

  ‘OK, good,’ she says after a few seconds.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know!’ she answers, irritated.

  ‘Good night then!’ I say and I go to my room and change into my pyjamas.

  When I lock the door to my room it suddenly hits me. I did not ask her why she was sleeping on the camp bed and not in their bed. I pull the covers over my face. I did not ask, because I do not want to know.

  I dream that I am swimming in a deep pool. Suddenly I see my little brother lying on the bottom. I try to swim down to him but it is too deep and I can only make it about ten feet. I reach out with my arms for all I am worth but I cannot reach him and I keep having to surface for air.

  The pool is filled with other swimmers and I cry and scream for them to help me. Some of them try, but the pool is too deep for them too, and I see my little brother becoming more and more lifeless down there.

  I try again and this time I see that the bottom is covered with drowned children. The whole pool is a mass grave and I give up and swim towards the edge, crying. I try not to look down, but I am still filled with disgust at having to swim over the children’s bodies.

  More and more often I wake up in the morning to discover that my pillow is soaked with sweat and tears.

  I hate secondary school and the only reason I go is my friends, Ylva, Cissi, Annie and Sanna. We do all of the group projects together at Hallström’s Café where you get free refills and we drink coffee until we get the shakes. Poisoned with caffeine, we hold long, lengthy discussions about Cuba and Castro and the class system.

  The teachers smell my clothes which always stink from the smoke and the bar, maybe they sense my underprivileged background? Maybe they suspect my dysfunctional family? They have started to use a condescending, tired tone when they speak to me and not the expectant one they had in the beginning when I arrived from middle school with such good grades.

  One evening as I am wobbling home from Doctor Z’s I meet a boy from school. He is doing sciences and we do not know each other, but I know that his name is Oskar and that he lives in a charming suburb right outside the city. Just as I pass him on the footpath he hisses ‘Damned communist whore!’ But I am drunk and I just wobble on, laughing.

  The next day I see the students who are doing the two year vocational course, sitting smoking in one corner of the school playground. They have the lowest status at the school and everyone despises them for their laziness and misfortune. I see Oskar walk by with his friends, with their slick-backed hair and expensive jackets. They say something to the smokers and laugh crudely, and I suddenly realize that Oskar and his friends are looking at me. These days I belong with the misfits. In their eyes I am a loser and I start to suspect they are right.

  All of us gather in the school choir room. Oskar and his middle-class friends, the skippers from the social track who do not want to miss the opportunity to miss class and then people like me and my friends. We are standing somewhere to the left of centre: the culturally interested communist whores. We are a motley crew singing as loudly as we can in order to reduce the disorder. It is almost the festival of St Lucia and we are singing about stars shining over the baby Jesus. It is a tradition. Another tradition at our secondary school with its one-hundred-year-old roots is that the star boys clown about just enough so that it is hilarious but not so much that it gets out of control. The boys from sciences are always the star boys, the boys from the social track are the elves and they do not participate in the fun. Instead they get to stand off to the side, smiling stupidly, just like us, St Lucia’s attendants.

  The science boys usually change the words to ‘Staffan Was a Stable Boy’ so that the meaning is different and some of them wear funny hats instead of the usual white star-boy hats. It is funny and entertaining and the entire auditorium, filled with teachers and students, laughs at them. Every year it is the same, and during my last year of secondary school it is Oskar and his friends who are getting ready. We hear them discussing the text, hear them laughing at their own jokes.

  We stand there next to them, stupid and obedient, practising silly songs about stupid Jesus, and getting more and more annoyed. Until one day it becomes unbearable. We are sitting, getting the coffee shakes at Hallström’s and Ylva is complaining about how pathetic she feels. She is beautiful with long, dark hair and it is obvious that she is going to be the schoo
l’s Lucia since she sings beautifully too. But today everything is horribly depressing.

  Maybe it is because Oskar and his star boys were singing their version of ‘Staffan Was a Stable Boy’ during rehearsal, which they had renamed ‘Steffo’s Stupid Gang’, in their proud voices and the entire choir was laughing. Then it was our turn to sing ‘A Star is Shining’ and suddenly everything became so obvious and boring.

  All of us suffer as we drink even more coffee. We are particularly sympathetic towards Ylva, who is the one standing at the very front, representing this shit. And how did it happen anyway, Annie asks, that the cool gorgeous girls got turned into Christian girls?

  ‘We who were once proud communist whores …’ I say, and Cissi goes and gets the coffee pot and fills our cups again.

  Sanna has been sitting quietly but now she starts waving her hands with excitement.

  ‘I know!’ she says. ‘Let’s get all of the attendants and we’ll stage a Lucia coup!’

  And that is why in an empty classroom one dark Lucia morning, Lucia and her attendants are making themselves look pregnant, stuffing pillows under their shapeless white nightgowns and tying their glittery sashes so that their stomachs are round and very obvious. We help each other put on make-up, bright red lipstick and smeared, green eye shadow. Whore make-up.

  At seven-thirty we slowly walk into the packed auditorium and sing as beautifully as we can. I look for a reaction amongst the faces in the auditorium, but everyone stares blankly. No one is smiling and no one is laughing. Then it is time for the star boys’ solo. Oskar and his friends take three steps forward and start singing their ‘Steffo’s Stupid Gang’. The lyrics are about them wanting to drink beer rather than eat porridge, sleep in rather than go to the Lucia procession and more than anything else, have their own attendant to hug. We thank them so much. The audience, teachers and students, break into hysterical laughter. Aren’t they easily amused. Then it is our turn. Ylva takes a step forward and twenty very pregnant attendants start singing ‘aaaoooomm … aaooommm’.

  We have borrowed the melody from ‘The Moose are Demonstrating’ and sing:

  The attendants are demonstrating

  The attendants have had enough

  The attendants want to have some fun

  Here in their own procession

  Aaaooommm …

  Aaoooommmm

  Ylva takes out a megaphone and yells out into the auditorium: ‘My attendants demand a more exciting Lucia procession!’

  And the whole time we hum a steady:

  Aaooommm

  Aaaooommm

  Aaooommm

  Aaaooommm

  Then it becomes quiet. Ylva takes a step back and we wait, for something. And it is still quiet, until the music teacher hits the beginning note for the Lucia song with difficulty and again we’re forced to sing that damned beautiful song in our soprano voices. All while slowly walking out between the rows of eyes which are still staring at us, blankly.

  Dreams filled with the sound of wings

  Prophecy above us

  Santa Lucia

  Santa Lucia

  We stand in the empty classroom we use as a dressing room and Ylva tears off her crown of candles, the wax dripping on her long hair. A large map of the world is hanging on the wall and someone put a used snuff patch on the map to mark New York.

  ‘Damned silly boring idiots!’ she hisses. Sanna rubs her shoulders and Cissi orders us to hurry up for Christ’s sake!

  Then we walk quietly as a group through the sleet in our shitty little town, to Anne’s house. There, in the basement, we get out our rum and coke. It is nine-thirty in the morning, and we pass the bottle around as we each take three quick gulps. Around and around until we can no longer stand and then we lie down, entangled in a pile on the floor. We play The Clash, ‘Know Your Rights’ on the stereo so loudly that it pounds and occupies our heads. Everything is pounding and I have time to think this is beautiful before I doze off, completely safe.

  The spring is cold and I would die were it not for my friends. I would die if I could not get the closeness which awaits me in the beds of my boyfriends. It is warm and calm there, and I make love to all of them, one after another.

  I am biking home from school one day when my tyre suddenly blows. I jump off and start to walk and I am about to turn on my Walkman when I see Dad come by on a shiny new silver bike. We catch sight of each other and stare in surprise; I have not been home for a week.

  ‘I’ve got a flat tyre,’ I tell him curtly, because I do not know what else to say. Talking to him in calm, everyday circumstances like this feels strange.

  ‘I see,’ he says while chewing his gum, which he thinks will hide the alcohol on his breath.

  ‘Have you bought a new bike?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, I have. Eighteen speeds. It wasn’t cheap but I thought a new bike would be a good idea,’ he says, and I think about Mum’s old rusty one speed, which she has had for more than fifteen years now. The one she took us to daycare on during all the years that Dad had the car. On cold, early winter mornings she would wrap us in blankets and push the bike through the slush, Kajsa on the parcel rack and me on the handlebars; it was cosy sitting there like that, wrapped in a blanket, heavy with morning tiredness. A red, second-hand bike which she loads down with shopping bags and still creaks around on.

  ‘Did you buy it today?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes and I’ve been to the tanning salon for the first time in my life,’ he says and laughs, a bit embarrassed.

  Something in me breaks and after a moment I realize that it is contempt. I despise him so much and I cannot help it, it flows through my entire body. In front of me I see him lying on the tanning bed sweating like a pig with a small grin on his face, while Mum is biking on her old, ugly red bike, rushing to pick up my brother from after-school-club and do the shopping. She is probably at home now preparing dinner.

  The contempt quickly flows through my veins. For all his angry outbursts that scare me, because he grabs my little brother too hard when he is yelling at him. Because he makes my little brother cry, told my little sister she was ugly when she got braces. Because he voted for the rightwing New Democracy party and for all of the racist things he has ever said about Muslims and Africans and because he is tormenting the life out of all of us with his infernal existence.

  Maybe he senses my disdain, because he suddenly jumps up on his bike and says, ‘Goodbye, see you at home.’

  I watch him disappear and wonder what it means, why didn’t he walk home with me? Something aches inside; maybe it is hatred’s hangover?

  At home all of us except Dad eat spaghetti with meat sauce. He is in the garage messing around with something. No one ever knows where he is or what he is doing, just that he comes and goes as he pleases at strange hours of the day. When we have finished eating I go out to the garage. I really want to stop hating him and I am ashamed of the deep hatred I felt earlier in the day. Dad is sorting out his tools, hanging them up in the right place and throwing away old junk, stuff that is broken.

  ‘Hi Dad!’ I say.

  ‘Hi!’ he says and looks at me in surprise.

  ‘Do you want some help?’ I ask, pointing at the pile of junk that needs to be thrown out.

  ‘No,’ he says and stops sorting. ‘Sara … There’s something I need to tell you …’

  ‘OK, what is it?’ I ask and prepare myself for the worst. It has been a long, long time since I have seen him this calm and serious. Maybe he is going to reveal that he has got cancer, which would explain his mysterious outbursts, his absence, his depression.

  ‘Well, unfortunately your mother and I have decided to get a divorce …’

  He looks at me expectantly, as if he is preparing himself for a strong reaction, an objection. I think about all the times I have yelled at them and said I wished they would get a divorce. Maybe he has never taken it seriously? Maybe he really thought it was best to keep things together ‘for the sake of the children’?

/>   ‘Good,’ I say, ‘you should have done it a long time ago.’

  Dad looks at me in silence and bites his lip. His expression becomes hard and distant.

  I try and explain. ‘You haven’t been happy as long as I can remember. I just do not understand why you didn’t get divorced earlier.’

  ‘OK. But now you know,’ he says, as he turns his back to me and starts sorting his tools again.

  I call Krille and ask him to come and get me in his car. We go to his place and he strokes my hair while I cry. He holds me until I fall asleep.

  At school I get in an argument with my Swedish teacher. He is bald and has fancy corduroy trousers and he cannot hide how wonderfully different he thinks he is.

  I have just discovered that our literature book does not mention any women writers other than Selma Lagerlöf. We are reading about the Modernists and I want to know why Virginia Woolf is not mentioned anywhere in the whole book, which is quite thick.

  ‘The authors of this book,’ he says in an irritated voice and with an angry expression, ‘have selected writers who have had the most impact on literature.’

  I know how impossible I am being, how detrimental this will be to my marks and my relationship with my classmates who already think I am difficult, but I cannot stop.

  ‘I would like to know more about Virginia Woolf,’ I say. ‘She’s been important for me.’

  It is true. I had just read Orlando and was fascinated by the language and Orlando’s travels through time and gender. The class sighs and my teacher sighs and says that he can make some copies of a few pages about Virginia if it is really that important to me.

  ‘But when it comes to Modernism, Proust and Joyce are much more important!’ he says, and I hate him and I start hating more and more people.

  By the time my final year comes to an end I have horrible marks but I am still happy, through and through. I am filled with a feeling of freedom which I have been waiting and hungering for my entire life. I am drunk on sparkling wine from early morning until late in the night. All my relatives, old friends, neighbours and all of my old and new boyfriends come.