A Sister in My House

by Linda Olsson

  “That sounds absolutely lovely,” she said finally. She gave Pau a warm smile and suddenly she was my beautiful sister again.

  “It’s decided, then! How about Monday?”

  We nodded. And we smiled. But our thoughts we kept to ourselves.

  * * *

  It was a glorious evening with a warm sunset. We decided to take a walk and then have dinner at one of the restaurants in the harbor. It was Friday, so more people were about. Local tourists from Barcelona and Girona who had arrived for the weekend. We walked along the quay and carried on toward Punta des Bou Marí. We walked slowly. After the nice day, people lingered on the beach. A couple was floating closely together, farther out. Two dark heads close together on the mottled surface.

  “I can’t let it go, what you said earlier. That you never think of Mother,” Emma said suddenly.

  “Why? I mean, why should I be thinking of her?”

  “Because she used to think of you, perhaps? I was always compared with you.”

  I snorted. “That must be your imagination, Emma.”

  She stopped abruptly.

  “All my life people have said things like that to me, Maria. I don’t want you to do that. I have not imagined this. I know it. Unlike you, I was there. I have lived my whole life close to Mother. And I was there when she realized she was going to die. I know that she was thinking of you.”

  I slowed down, but I still carried on without looking back.

  “But you may not know what she was thinking?” I said over my shoulder. “What people say they are thinking and what they are actually thinking are often very different matters. Also, we are not able to control our thoughts, even though I wish I could. So you tell me that you know Mother was thinking of me, but neither you nor I know what she was thinking. Nor is it necessarily a given that it is positive to be thinking about another person.”

  Emma didn’t answer, but she had caught up with me.

  “Do you really have no positive memories of Mother?”

  I said nothing.

  “Not even early ones? When you were little, Amanda and you?”

  I stopped in my tracks and looked at her.

  “No, I’m telling you! I keep those memories away from me, because they are painful. Mostly, I remember absence. My hopeless longing for intimacy. For love. Or even a small measure of interest. But Mother lived in a world where there was only room for her. We were just props. Of interest only for as long as she needed us. I’m not sure, we might have filled some purpose initially, Amanda and I. I have seen pictures of us when we were little. Prettily dressed and styled, as if on display. To be admired perhaps. Like dolls or ornaments. Even Father might have been no more than an accessory. Or at least his infinite, unrequited love was. We might have managed to give the impression of a happy family for some time. If so, I have no memories of it. And as you know, Mother’s interest was always fleeting. When you were born, her focus seemed renewed. Everything looked beautiful. There was money then too. But I think I understood how quickly her interest faded. How the arguments started again. And how soon your father began to look at me. Come sit on my bedside to say good night. His disgusting tears and prayers for a little comfort in his loneliness. His wet kisses. It was revolting.”

  I was gasping for air. This was precisely what I had dreaded. And had been determined to avoid at all costs.

  “Before you arrived, we managed, Amanda and I. We were lonely, but we had each other. And we had Father. And for a few years, we had Grandfather. We had summer holidays at his house in Dalarna. There were bright moments. But then darkness descended.”

  “To me, it always seemed bright when I was with Amanda and you.”

  “Now when I think about that time—something I hope I will never have to do again—I can see things I didn’t see then. I can see that you were little and innocent. And I can see that it was as hard for you as it was for Amanda and me. Worse, I think. Lonelier even. I can see that. But it changes nothing. I can’t change how I feel.”

  I felt unable to stop. What gushed out of me seemed like a long speech in my defense. But Emma gave me no response. No comments, no questions. No reaction at all. So I continued.

  “It was as if Mother could never see beyond herself. All of us, we were only there for her sake. And only for as long as she had need of us. It was always about her. Her needs. And her needs were always something other than what she had. She went from one place to another. From one man to another. And along her path we lay strewn, all of us that she no longer needed. You and me. And your father as well as mine. And all the other discarded men. We lay there, all of us. All the love she was unable or unwilling to embrace. I don’t think her restless search ended until she died.”

  We walked in silence for a little while.

  “As long as I had Amanda, I managed anyway. What we had was forever. Nothing could threaten our love. Later . . . Well, later I came to realize that absolutely nothing is forever.”

  Emma stopped and placed her hand on my arm.

  “You said we often don’t know what we think, Maria. Perhaps we are even less aware of our emotions. What influences them. You and I, we can both recall our mother. But what we see is only the surface. From our own respective perspectives. Perhaps we are just as selfish as she was? So preoccupied by our own unsatisfied needs that we are unable to see her as a human being? Neither of us knows her innermost thoughts and feelings. Her dreams and hopes. And, like you said, she might not have understood them herself. Or been able to control them.”

  Emma’s voice was so soft I took a step closer to hear her properly.

  “Mother might have been as unhappy as we were.”

  I stopped.

  “But we were her children, Emma. We needed her. Instead, she seemed to view us as something there to satisfy her needs. Briefly. Until she resumed her search for something else.”

  To my horror, I realized I had started to weep. It took all my strength to try to suppress the sobs that threatened to escape from my chest.

  Emma’s hand stroked my arm lightly.

  “Let’s turn back,” she said.

  We walked back the same way, not talking much. I soon noticed that Emma seemed to struggle to keep up and slowed my pace again. Since I didn’t get much other exercise, I had made a point of walking briskly when I was out. I had nobody else to consider, so my pace was entirely my own. I thought it a bit strange that it felt as if Emma needed to walk more slowly, but since she said nothing about it, I asked nothing.

  It wasn’t until we had eaten and ordered coffee that our conversation turned to Mother again. Emma took an envelope from her handbag and placed it on the table.

  “You made it very clear that you wanted nothing from Mother’s estate. I only took a few small items myself. Neither Anna nor Jakob wanted anything. What remained, I sold or disposed of. It wasn’t worth very much. But this I brought for you.”

  She passed the envelope across.

  “But I told you I wanted nothing.”

  “Do with it what you want. Throw it away unopened if you wish.”

  “It would have been better if you had never made me aware of it.”

  “I brought it because I think you should have it. You may not feel like it now. But you may change your mind. Anyway, I though you should have it.”

  Reluctantly I picked up the envelope and stuck it quickly into my handbag.

  Back home, we walked upstairs to the terrace. It was another clear, starry night, and I didn’t turn on the light. We sat in the deck chairs with blankets over our laps.

  “It would have been easier if Olof had left me for another woman,” Emma said suddenly. “If he had met someone, I mean. Someone he desired. As it is, he just didn’t want me. There is nothing positive in it for either of us.”

  There was a pause and the sound of the sea filled the air, like a consta
nt, soothing breathing.

  “And you? Did you want to continue?” I wasn’t sure what made me ask.

  “I have loved Olof since the first time I saw him, when you brought him home that autumn before Amanda died.”

  “But you were just a little kid then.” I could hear how skeptical, almost scornful, I sounded.

  “Children can love as well as adults. Perhaps more. Deeper and stronger. And more lasting. That’s how it was for me anyway.”

  She tucked the blanket closer until her body was completely covered.

  “It was a miracle.”

  I threw her a questioning glance.

  “At first it was a tragedy, of course. A tragedy in stages. First Amanda’s death. The overriding, unfathomable tragedy. Then you disappeared with Olof. It was like you gradually moved to his family. Initially you were gone a few days. Then weeks. Until I realized that you no longer lived with us. But, then, at least I got to see you occasionally, you and Olof. I knew you were still in town. It was different from knowing you slept in the room next to mine, but it was something. You were there. I could bump into you. The very last bit of hope disappeared when you left Olof and went away. I knew then that I had lost all those I loved. Amanda. You. And Olof. I had no idea how I would survive. It was as if you had taken everything with you. My world became so very silent. The only sound was the arguments. It was as if I had never really heard them before. But now they filled the entire apartment, and I had no means to shut them out.”

  “I heard them all the time. And they were always followed by those visits to my room.”

  “But you had me, Maria. I saw you. Even if it meant nothing to you, I was there.”

  And I did remember how she had often stood beside my bed. Quiet and serious in her crumpled nightgown and with her one-legged teddy bear in her hand. I remembered that I never allowed her to crawl into my bed. How instead I turned to the wall until I could hear her return to her room. I knew now that it was cruel. Because I always knew what she longed for. And I never gave it to her.

  I didn’t want to remember that.

  “So it was a miracle when Olof returned to my life. Such a long time had passed. Several years. He had done his military service and was at university in Uppsala. While I hadn’t been doing much at all. That’s what it felt like. But one day he was back, and it was as if he held open the door to real life. And finally I could come inside. Or outside, rather. I could step out into life. Not exactly participating but surrounded by it, at least. I was happy just to be allowed to exist there.”

  I thought about what it had been like for me. Olof had certainly not represented real life to me. Rather the opposite. He had blocked the path to the life I so desperately wanted. His love and his expectations blocked everything. And it became worse when I moved in with him and his family. I remembered his understanding, kind parents. His welcoming brothers. Everything that surrounded me there was filled with warmth. And I remembered how it began to suffocate me.

  “At first, all I hoped was that he would continue to stay near me. That I would be allowed to see him. Listen to him talk. I don’t think I ever imagined that he would fall in love with me. Because he was still yours, Maria. Even if we hardly ever talked about you, you were there, between us. At least for me. I can see now that I never stopped feeling that. Olof never really became mine. That’s a ridiculous expression, by the way. No person ever belongs to anybody else. But I think you get what I mean. I just wasn’t able to believe that he loved me. Perhaps that’s why his love eroded until there was nothing left? Because I never believed in it?”

  It sounded as if she was genuinely searching for an answer to her own question, but I had nothing to say. The Olof I had once known had nothing in common with the man I later met as Emma’s husband and the father of her children. I was no longer certain what I felt for him. If I had felt anything at all, other than an instinctive need to flee my own home. A search for a safe haven. Maybe that was all it had ever been. And maybe that was why it became intolerable when I realized what was expected of me.

  “I don’t think we are responsible for the love that is offered to us. Grateful, possibly. But not responsible. Love is not fair. You don’t get in proportion to what you give. And you can never make someone love you.”

  “True. But you may still need to learn to appreciate what is given to you. Not just discard it as insufficient. It may be all the love you will get. Perhaps now I’m just scared of living my own life. It may not be grief I feel, but selfish dread.”

  I could hear that she was crying.

  “It is scary to realize that you are alone. But you may rightly question how much of an illusion the security of a relationship really is. Everything can be taken from us at any time. We have to manage to be alone.”

  “I’m afraid of so many things, Maria. Not just for my own sake. I’m afraid of how my children will fare. Anna lives alone in London. I can see that she is doing well professionally. She is a graphic designer with a firm there and you can see her work online. But she has had an eating disorder since she was fourteen. You saw what she looked like at the funeral. It is worse now. It’s been up-and-down through the years. Mostly down lately. She never talks about it, and I can’t ask. Jakob is studying economics in Stockholm. He is doing well, but he seems very lonely. He has always had trouble finding friends, and he fared badly at school. Sometimes I wonder if I have shaped them, if I’ve been a bad role model when it comes to relationships.”

  “I don’t know anything about children. Not much about relationships either. I have no idea how much of an influence parents have. I would like to think that it is not that determining. That we continue to grow as adults and can fill in what is missing from our childhood. But I don’t know. In my best moments, I like to believe that it can be done. That I can choose how I regard myself. How I regard my existence and how I regard the world around me. I feel like I have fought against being limited by my background ever since I was a small child. I didn’t want to become like Mother. I realized that I didn’t want to become a mother either. I never felt confident that I would be up to that enormous task.”

  Emma stood up. Softly she placed her hand on my head. It was a gentle caress, her hand hardly touched. Yet it affected me with unexpected force.

  “Perhaps we are more alike than either of us ever believed,” she said. “Good night, Maria. Dream something beautiful.”

  With that she disappeared inside.

  DAY THREE

  I dreamed about Amanda. But even though I remained absolutely still, with my eyes closed, and tried to hold on to the dream, it faded inexorably. She had been holding me, and I had felt her warm breath on my cheek. But what she had whispered in my ear was lost. I rarely thought about her consciously nowadays. But she was a constant presence, just like my own body. She was part of me. It still happened that I was overwhelmed by grief at the fact that she no longer existed. I could be struck by a longing to hear her voice, smell her scent. To be surprised by her thoughts and ideas. But everything that was Amanda inside me now was just a product of my memories and what I had added later.

  It was early, and the sun was still just a hint in the east. I wrapped the blanket around me and sank down into one of the deck chairs. Dew covered everything, and the town below was completely still and silent.

  I felt left out here too. As is if the place withdrew and no longer included me. Or else it was I who was unable to embrace the place completely. Perhaps I am afraid to abandon myself, not just in relation to other people, but also to places. I can’t remember feeling fully at home anywhere. Sometimes when I read or hear about people’s relationships to places I feel sad that I don’t have such a place or such a relationship.

  I was hopeful when we found the house and began to envisage what it would be like to move here. Now I will never know if I would have settled in if all had gone according to plan. As it is, I have to make do with th
e sense of peace that I can still experience here.

  I thought about Amanda. She was sixteen years old the last time I saw her. But because I carry her with me all the time, I imagine she would have developed more or less like me. A bizarre assumption, really. I do want to think that we were two sides of one and the same individual. But this is not true, of course. Amanda was not like me. Superficially we did look alike. Identical twins are confusingly similar. We would probably have looked more or less alike now too. But Amanda’s life would not have evolved like mine. And mine would probably not have looked like it does. It is impossible to imagine things that never happened.

  I stood up and went downstairs to the kitchen. I realized that I expected Emma to be up before me again, but there were no signs of her, so I assumed she was still asleep. I made coffee and opened the front door. When I am by myself, I seldom use the small patio, but for some reason I now sat down at the round table with my coffee. It surprised me to realize that I was looking forward to Emma’s appearance.

  But she took her time, and eventually I went downstairs to have a shower and dress. The sun had risen when I returned to the kitchen, and it looked like it was going to be another fine day. I considered going down to buy bread, but before I had made a decision, I heard Emma open the bedroom door. She looked tired, as if she had had a sleepless night.

  “Good morning,” she said, and walked slowly toward me. She was barefoot and wearing her white dressing gown. It hung loosely on her thin frame, and her short blonde hair lay smooth over her head. Suddenly I had a vision of a hospital patient. I poured a cup of coffee and held it out to her. She took it and slowly walked outside. I took my cup and followed.

  “It looks like another fine day,” I said, just to say something. Emma didn’t respond.

  “What do you say? Do you feel like a walk to Port Lligat? We could visit Salvador Dalí’s home. I have seen it before, of course, but each time I return I discover something new. I can call and find out if there is room on a guided tour.”