More Bitter Than Death

by Camilla Grebe

  “But what?”

  “But I wonder if you know what love is,” he says.

  I squirm. I don’t like this discussion, but for Markus’s sake I indulge it. “What do you mean? I don’t know what love is?”

  “I mean, if you really loved me, like I love you, then you wouldn’t do this to me. You wouldn’t take my child away from me and . . .”

  “Enough already. I’m not taking any child. It’s every bit as much yours as it is mine. I just want to live by myself. Like I do now, like we do now. That’s all.”

  I watch Markus, twisting the fringes of the throw blanket so fiercely that his fingers go white. When he speaks his voice is hushed. “You wouldn’t do this to me if you loved me. The way I love—”

  “No? Well then, maybe I don’t. Maybe I love you in my own way. Can’t I do that? Why is your way the right way? And why can’t everything be the way it usually is? Why can’t we just continue to—”

  “To what? Live in limbo? Be a couple and be single at the same time? Live together and apart? Be everything at the same time, which means we’re . . . nothing. We have to make a decision, Siri. Not making a decision is also a kind of decision.”

  “I see,” I say. “Well then—”

  “Well then, what?” Markus says.

  “Well then, I’ve decided.”

  Even before the outburst comes, I see it bubbling in him, see the clenched jaws, the redness spreading over his light skin, how he stands up, stiffly, with control.

  “You are completely nuts! I hate you. I wish we’d never met. You’ve messed up my life. Do you get that? Do you get that?”

  His words are like a blow to my solar plexus, they take my breath away, make me feel sick. I turn away from him, toward the sea, which rests quietly and infinitely undemanding before my feet, welcoming me, filling me with some kind of peace.

  “You are completely . . . empty. Do you have any feelings at all?” he roars into my ear.

  I curl up into a ball, like a little child trying to avoid a beating, but no blows come. Instead, out of the corner of my eye, I see him hurl the plaid blanket out over the dark surface of the water. It flutters in the faint breeze, coming to rest on the surface of the water, where it bobs for a bit before it sinks.

  Excerpt from the Student Health Records, Älvängen Elementary and Middle School

  Instructor Morgan Söderberg continues to have difficulties in class 5B with the boy he brought up at the last meeting. The boy is still missing a lot of school, and when he comes, he usually hangs out by himself. When the teacher asks him to do something, he behaves aggressively and is hard to control. It is difficult to assess the boy’s academic progress, because he is absent so often. He has difficulties with reading and writing. Last week he was in a fight with two other boys. One of the other boys suffered such a severe facial injury that he had to go to the hospital. The parents were contacted and they said that the other boys had been harassing their son for a long time, and that the fight started because the other boys pulled their son’s pants and underwear off in front of some of the girls in the class, which the two other boys completely deny. The parents want the school to do something about the harassment. None of the teachers at the school have observed any harassment, describing the boy as a lone wolf instead, but we still have decided to call the harassment team in to investigate what actually happened. We are also advising the parents to get in touch with Pediatric Psychiatric Services about their son.

  Siv Hallin, school counselor

  Darkness surrounds the building.

  The windows are shiny, black.

  All that’s visible are the reflections from the room we’re in. The view is distorted, but I see the chairs around the oval conference table, the silhouettes of the people sitting around it. Silence prevails in the room. There’s no small talk, no laughter. It’s as if the whole room is holding its breath, waiting, biding its time. I close my eyes and try to summon the energy to start the work of guiding the group through yet another session. I hear Aina clear her throat and turn to look at her.

  Aina says, “I realize that what happened last week may have brought up some issues for you guys. It’s awful to have the violence come so close. I think it was great that we got together for dinner at the Pelican to talk a little. Hillevi, such a shame you couldn’t join us.”

  Aina is calm and collected. In her big knit sweater and worn jeans she looks like a little schoolgirl wearing her dad’s clothes, but she speaks with an obvious authority, and the tension in the room seems to subside almost immediately. I am so grateful to her, for her confidence and self-possession, her ability to take charge of a situation.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you, Aina, but I’ve been thinking, and I just have to say one thing.” Kattis’s cheeks have taken on a pale-pink hue and she is gesturing emphatically. “I don’t actually understand this. Henrik killed that . . . her, Susanne, but the police aren’t doing anything. Why don’t they arrest him, throw him in jail? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Kattis’s voice recedes, becomes a whisper.

  “How do you know the police aren’t doing anything?” Malin asks, watching Kattis attentively.

  “How do I know? Well, for one thing, I can read. It’s pretty obvious that the police haven’t caught anyone yet. It would have been in the papers if they had.” Kattis waves an issue of Metro that she’s brought along. “Besides, I saw Henrik in downtown Gustavsberg yesterday. He was buying frozen meatballs at the grocery store like any random guy. I don’t understand how it can be like this.” Kattis looks around dejectedly, seeking support or maybe just sympathy. Her eyes seek out mine and I try to convey a sense of understanding, which isn’t hard. After all, I feel indignant about this as well.

  “Maybe she got what she deserved,” Malin mumbles. And for a moment the room remains silent and still as we try to process what she’s just said.

  Kattis and Malin’s eyes meet and for a brief second there is a glimpse of something from the past in Kattis’s eyes: doubt, surprise, maybe even repugnance. Sirkka looks dumbstruck, her mouth hanging open as if she were just about to say something, but no words come out.

  “What did you say?” Aina whispers, and for the first time ever in a professional situation she seems to have lost her composure, Aina, who is always so in control, who always has answers to every question, who instinctively knows how any difficult situation should be handled.

  “Sorry, it was nothing,” Malin mumbles.

  No one speaks.

  “It was nothing, I said,” Malin urges. “I didn’t mean it like that. It was just a dumb comment. Can we forget it now?” She crosses her arms defensively.

  Aina gives me a questioning look and again I feel that powerlessness. I don’t know how to handle the situation.

  “I know you’re right, that the police are working on it, but it just feels so awful, and I’m so scared . . . ,” Kattis begins, shaking her head, and Hillevi, who is sitting next to her, leans over to her.

  “It’ll work out. You’ll see, it’ll work out,” Hillevi says. She smiles gently at Kattis before glancing over at Malin.

  I sense something dark and mysterious in her eyes. But her gentle voice sounds so calm, so certain, that I feel like I actually believe her. Maybe everything can work out. Maybe everything will be fine. Maybe Malin’s comment was just some sort of misunderstanding; maybe Henrik will be thrown in jail today; maybe we’ll all be safe, strong, and happy again.

  Maybe that is actually possible.

  Kattis sighs and looks up at the ceiling, her eyes rimmed in red.

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll arrest him soon,” Sirkka says, her voice gravelly, hesitant. “It wouldn’t be right otherwise. It just wouldn’t be right.” She sighs deeply and glances down at her hands, rubs her crooked fingers together.

  “I read in the paper that that woman, Susanne, was so badly beaten up that she almost couldn’t be identified. How could someone do that? And her daughter, I mean, she saw everythi
ng,” Sofie says, looking at us, looking for explanations that can’t be given. I wish I could say something wise, that I could play the role of the comforting adult. I know that Sofie is technically an adult, but it is so hard to see her as anything other than a child. She is huddled in her chair and all I want to do is take her in my lap, protect her, promise that she will be okay.

  “I think it’s disgusting too, but I don’t get how you can all be so sure Henrik did it.” Malin looks around and appears irritated. “Sure, he seems like the most likely candidate, but . . . I mean, we don’t know. I just mean that things aren’t always what they look like.”

  “But what’s so hard to understand?” Kattis turns toward Malin. Kattis looks calm, but her tone is stern and I sense her rage as she continues, “That goddamn bastard almost killed me. He’s capable of anything. Sometimes things are just what they look like. He was her boyfriend, he’s abusive, she dies. How complicated can it be?”

  “I just mean that we shouldn’t judge someone without knowing all the facts, shouldn’t judge someone untried. I didn’t mean to question what he did to you. I’m sorry if it seemed like that,” Malin says, holding up her hands to fend this off, obviously trying to temper the brewing conflict.

  “Regardless of who did it, it’s terrible and it makes me afraid, afraid that something similar could happen to me or one of you. But the important thing right now is that we’re here . . . that we’re trying to do something about our own lives,” Hillevi says, smiling at the others in the group, and it occurs to me that she’s taken on the role of group mother. The one who will calm things down and mediate conflicts, making sure everyone is okay. It makes me wonder who’s going to take care of her.

  When does Hillevi get to be mothered?

  Aina rejoins the conversation. “I think Hillevi has expressed what we’re all feeling right now: fear. And I think she makes an important point. We can’t change what happened, but we can influence our own lives. And that is one of the main reasons we’re meeting here. To help each other find the tools to leave our abusers, to let go of the self-doubt and the powerlessness and contempt, to give each other the strength to move forward.”

  Aina lights up as she speaks. Her hair shines in the lamplight and her eyes sparkle. I’m surprised. Aina is not the one who usually gives pep talks, but her exuberance seems authentic. Apparently there are things I still don’t know about her, after all these years. As if she senses me watching her, she looks at me and smiles.

  Aina continues, “A little later, Siri is going to tell us about the various resources available to women who have suffered from abuse. But first I’m wondering if anyone has any reflections from last week, beyond what we’ve already discussed?”

  Aina scans the circle. Everyone is quiet, but suddenly Sofie raises her hand. The gesture is both childish and touching, exposing her youth and vulnerability.

  “Go ahead, Sofie,” Aina says, and smiles encouragingly. Sofie lowers her trembling hand. Her face is milk white but her cheeks have now taken on a feverish red. Beads of sweat glisten on her forehead like tiny gems in a tiara.

  “Well, it’s like . . . that stuff we talked about last week. What Hillevi said, about her son. I want to say something to Hillevi.”

  Hillevi looks at Sofie, seems to internalize her anxiety and fear, and nods slowly. “I would really like to hear what you have to say, Sofie. Please, tell me.” The pediatrician and mother of three is leaning forward, listening attentively to the teenage girl, and it strikes me that in here everyone is equal. It doesn’t matter what your status is out in the real world, what job you do, how much education you have, where your house is. In here what’s important is what we have in common, what ties us together, not what separates us.

  “Well, what you were saying about your son and your husband, how he hit your little boy . . .” Sofie doesn’t dare look Hillevi in the eyes, stares down intently at the dog-eared notebook in front of her. “That’s how it was for me. I mean, my stepfather hit me. He’s always hit me. For as long as I can remember.”

  Hillevi nods again and Aina mutters something encouraging. Sofie sniffles and continues.

  “My mom and he were always so in love. They are so in love. That’s how I grew up, kind of, with this image of my mom and my stepfather as two . . . characters in a fairy tale. Mom always talked about how she and Anders met, at a café in town. How he came up to Mom at her table where she was reading with me in the baby carriage and he started talking to her, how they fell in love. Right away, boom, love at first sight. They moved in together right away. They’re the kind of people who just can’t stop touching each other, still, even though they’ve been together for, like, seventeen years.”

  “Well, but then why are you here? If everything is so damn peachy?” Malin asks, her voice snide, bitchy. I jump, startled. Before I have a chance to do anything, Aina has turned to Malin. Aina raises her eyebrows in reproach and Malin immediately turns away, softly mumbling an apology to Sofie. For a moment I wonder what’s actually going on with Malin. I think I’m going to have to talk to her after the session, try to understand why she’s acting this way.

  “That’s exactly what I’m trying to explain,” Sofie says, irritated at having been interrupted. “Anyway, Anders is a really angry person. But he never gets mad at my mom. She’s like his angel. Like he would never touch her, or something. It’s like he gets angry at me instead. I don’t know how old I was the first time he hit me. In a way it feels like he’s always hit me. For a long time I thought all fathers hit their kids, that that’s just how it was. It wasn’t until school, when they talked about it being illegal to hit children, that I realized it wasn’t normal. He didn’t used to hit that hard. It was more like he boxed my ears or gave me a little slap if I was late or hadn’t cleaned up or hadn’t finished my homework. Mom used to say to him, ‘Oh, Anders, leave Sofie alone,’ but she never did anything, didn’t try to stop him or anything. She just let it happen, let it continue. She always had explanations for why he hit me. ‘Anders is having a hard time right now, he’s having trouble at work,’ ‘Anders is tired,’ ‘Anders is having back pain.’ There was always a good explanation. My mom always took his side. It was them against me, you know? It felt like I was just some random kid who’d wandered in and disrupted their perfect life. My own mother thought her boyfriend was . . . more important than me.”

  “Oh, honey.” Sirkka rubs her knees and shakes her head so that her thin red hair leaves her skinny shoulders for a moment. “Didn’t you know that that was . . . wrong? It’s unnatural to do that to a child.”

  “Is it?” Sofie asks, looking at Sirkka. “Maybe the abuse is natural.”

  “What do you mean?” Sirkka looks genuinely confused.

  “I mean . . . I usually think it’s like with the lion,” Sofie says, her voice cracking.

  “The lion?” Aina asks.

  “Yeah, you know, when a male lion meets a new lioness, he always kills her young, because they belong to another male. I think that’s probably pretty common. I’m not his, so he rejects me, you know? It’s . . . nature.”

  The room is quiet. Sofie looks down at the linoleum floor without saying anything, but I think I hear a faint sniffle.

  “So, Sofie, then what happened?” Aina asks gently.

  “Well . . . Anders started drinking more and more. He always drank a little; Mom and Anders have always had a lot of parties and stuff. But then it got worse. And the more he drank, the madder he got. And I was always the one who did something wrong. He started hitting me, for real.”

  Sofie gets quiet. Her eyes are glassy and her face is tense. She’s clearly in pain. Her story touches the whole group. Abuse in all its forms is wrong, but hitting a child contradicts our most basic instincts. I can see Sirkka discreetly drying her tears, Malin slowly clenching and opening her hands as if she wants to give Sofie’s stepdad a go herself.

  And Hillevi, Hillevi doesn’t take her eyes off Sofie. Hillevi is serious, pale. She nods very sl
owly as if she is having some sort of realization.

  Sofie continues, “I came home too late one Saturday night, and he hit me so hard I fell down the stairs and broke my arm. He would get mad when I spent time with Viktor, my boyfriend. He said Viktor was a loser and that I should go out with someone better, not some suburban slacker. But the worst thing wasn’t that he beat me, or that I broke my arm, or that he called me a whore. The worst thing was that my mom always sided with him. She always forgave him. She always thought there was a good explanation for why he did what he did. To be perfectly honest I couldn’t care less that he beat me. But the fact that my own mother didn’t stand up for me . . .”

  Sofie stops and addresses Hillevi directly.

  “Anyway, that’s why you have to leave him. For your kids’ sake. They have to know that you’re their mother, that you’re on their side, that it’s not right to hit. There, that’s it. That’s all I wanted to say.”

  Hillevi reaches out to Sofie. The older woman’s cheeks are pale, almost white. Her eyes full of tears. She just brushes Sofie’s hand.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Sofie. I hear what you’re saying and I promise I will never turn my back on my children.”

  A knock on the door interrupts the spellbound room. Elin opens the door a crack and peeks in.

  “Oh! Hello there,” she says. She looks confused, and Aina and I exchange a quick glance. Aina rolls her eyes and I have to bite the inside of my cheek. Elin is extremely nice, but she has no common sense at all. She should know that we’re busy, that we’re in the middle of a session, and that this time is sacred.

  There is no excuse for interrupting us. Or almost none.

  She’s standing there hesitating in the doorway and doesn’t seem to know what to do. Her black hair is artistically arranged atop her head today and her face is made up in the palest white and blackest black, as usual.