More Bitter Than Death: A Novel Part 3

Another deep sigh. She lowers her head and clasps her hands around her knee. In a quiet, solemn way that makes me think of a nun or something. And suddenly she looks more sad than angry and there's something in her facial expression, something in the deep furrow between her eyebrows, in the sharp lines around her mouth, that makes me think that she is older than she first seemed. There is something resigned and maybe a little cynical about her revelation.

"I don't get it, I don't get it, I don't get it," Malin wails. "How could I be so d.a.m.n stupid? I went to his place, the home of this guy I'd never met, alone, drunk. What the h.e.l.l was I thinking anyway? Then, when I got there-he lives down in those apartment buildings by the beach, out by the sports field-I had such a strange feeling when he opened the door. He gave me this . . . this really weird look and kind of smiled, but not in a nice way. I had this feeling that he was laughing at me for some reason, like you would laugh at someone who had done something clumsy, you know, spilled a gla.s.s on the tablecloth or . . . Whatever, I could have turned around and left then. It's not like he jumped on me right there by the front door, but I felt so dumb, so I went in anyway. So incredibly stupid."

The room is completely quiet. Everyone is looking at Malin, sitting there hunched over in her chair. Her muscular arms are wrapped around herself, as if she were cold or looking for comfort from her own body.

"Okay, maybe the way I was dressed wasn't that great either," she says. "It was a very, uh . . . short skirt . . . I know, I know, people always say that doesn't matter. Obviously that didn't have anything to do with it. Obviously that shouldn't have had anything to do with it. But sometimes I wonder . . . If I'd have been sober. If I'd have been dressed differently . . . like in something that was just totally uns.e.xy. If I'd gone there after a run, really needing a shower, ugly, with really bad breath. Would that have mattered? Did I contribute in some way to what he did? Even though, obviously, it's not supposed to matter what you wear."

Malin sighs again deeply, with her arms still wrapped around her body as if she were wearing a straitjacket.

"Anyway. We talked for a while in his kitchen. Drank a little more beer. And . . . well, then we made out a little, and I was totally into that. But then suddenly something happened, it was like he changed, got rough. Or maybe I changed, because suddenly I felt like I didn't want to do anything else, and I told him so. I told him to stop, that I didn't want to. I said it a bunch of times. I may have screamed. I don't really remember. But he just pushed me down on the kitchen floor and held me there with one arm on my neck while he shoved his fingers into me. And I . . . I just lay there because I couldn't move. I could hardly breathe. He was so incredibly strong. I mean, I'm strong, but he was . . . And it was like he was furious at me, like he suddenly hated me, like he wanted to kill me. I can't understand where all that rage came from, what I said or did that made him get so extremely p.i.s.sed off. I've been thinking about it, I mean, since it happened, about why he got so mad. And then there's that whole powerless thing. I'm so used to being a strong person, but I just lay there, totally powerless. Looking under his refrigerator, noticing that there was a ton of dust under there, thinking that he must not have cleaned under there in ages. Dust and little bits of old cheese and food wrappers. Why do I remember that? Why would anyone ever think about something like that when-"

Suddenly Malin stops talking. She sits there quietly with her hands clenched around her knee.

"And then he did it."

"Malin," I say, "sometimes it can be a relief to describe the actual crime in a little more detail. It often feels really uncomfortable, but in the long run it can help you move beyond the rape."

Malin nods mutely. She doesn't look like she thinks it's a good idea.

I explain, "If you don't want to say anything else about it today, we can come back to it some other time. You don't need to feel like there's any kind of pressure."

"No, I want to," Malin continued. "Talk about it, I mean. The fact that he . . . raped me there, on the floor in the kitchen. He was shouting the whole time too, 'wh.o.r.e' and 'c.u.n.t,' stuff like that. And that's when it clicked for me, that this was serious, that this was for real. For a while I thought it was just kind of a joke, a prank that was just coming off wrong, maybe. But then . . . even though I got that it was for real, it didn't feel like I was actually there. It was like he was. .h.i.tting someone else, someone else's body. It felt like I was sitting there at that little kitchen table looking down at us lying on the floor, thinking, 'This doesn't look good. I wonder if she's going to get away.' Like I was some stupid sportscaster. I came to the conclusion that he was strong and fast, and I was . . . drunk and stupid. The odds weren't very good, you know? Then-I don't know if this was the a.s.sault or something else, some defensive mechanism maybe-but I just got totally pa.s.sive. Like he could do whatever he wanted with me. And he did."

Malin's voice has dropped to a faint, scratchy whisper. Her eyes remain trained on the linoleum floor in front of her.

"He raped me several times, v.a.g.i.n.ally, a.n.a.lly, hitting me in between rounds, not as much as in the beginning. It was like . . . he was running out of energy. He slapped my face a little now and then, kicked me a little, pulled my hair. But in general he kind of lost interest more and more as time went by. I just lay there in . . . my blood and . . . my own urine and . . . and . . ."

"How long did all this take?" Aina asks in a surprisingly steady voice.

"How long?" Malin seems taken aback by the question. "How long? At least a few hours anyway."

"A few hours? That's crazy," Kattis says, upset.

"What happened? Did you manage to get away?" Sirkka asks cautiously.

"He fell asleep. That s.h.i.+thead fell asleep. Can you believe it?" Malin says. "He fell asleep right there on the kitchen floor and all, and I could just walk away. So I did the normal thing, went home and showered and scrubbed and showered. I tried to get him off my body, out of my body. I reported him to the police four weeks later. By then, obviously, there was no physical evidence left, no visible injuries either, but the police said they had a good case. He had evidently molested some girl six months earlier and the police found . . . what's it called? Rohypnol at his place. They said that was why he was so aggressive, kept at it for so long. Rohypnol combined with alcohol apparently has that effect.

"But I wonder," Malin continues. "I wonder if some people don't just have it in them to do something like that to someone, to another living being. Doesn't that just mean you're a monster to begin with? I don't think it had anything to do with drugs. I think he was . . . evil. And then, at the trial, there was a ton of mumbo jumbo about how he had been molested by some kid a few years older than him in Hagsatra in the early nineties, as if it were contagious, as if that were some excuse. Like that would matter to me. They said that's why he liked rough s.e.x. That's what he said, you know, that we'd had s.e.x before, and that it had been rough and that I'd liked it, had been into it, had wanted it. Then they used our text messages to prove that we'd had a relations.h.i.+p. And true, there were a few messages where I'd written things that were sort of suggestive, but . . . Anyway, you'll never believe what happened next. His buddies from Gustavsberg gave him an alibi for that night. They said they'd all been at the movies right when the rape occurred and that, anyway, they knew we were having some kind of relations.h.i.+p, that we were 'f.u.c.k buddies,' as they say. How could anyone do something like that? How could anyone lie about something like that, protect such a . . . monster? They totally let him off. I see him around town all the time. A few months later we ran into each other at the liquor store downtown. He waved and smiled, like we knew each other, more or less."

Malin pauses briefly and then adds, "I wish I'd killed him, to stop it from happening, or that he'd killed me."

"Why do you say that?" Sofie asks, again very softly.

"Because he messed something up inside me, like, in my soul. He took something, something that no one should ever be allowed to take. He . . ." Malin's voice fades away.

"What did he take from you, do you think?" Sirkka asks, leaning over so that her frizzy red hair glows like a fiery halo in the light from the overhead fixture.

"He took . . ." Malin stops and sniffles, wipes away snot with the back of her hand, and slowly shakes her head. "He took away the child in me. I mean, the child that I was. He took all my trust, all my self-confidence. He took away who I was. And he took away the person I want to be."

Sirkka sighs deeply. She looks like someone slapped her, both shocked and p.i.s.sed off at the same time. Timidly and without saying anything, she holds her thin, wrinkly hand out to Malin, touches her hesitantly on the knee.

"Oh, my dear child, I take back what I said before about how I wished I could trade places with you young girls."

We sit in silence for a long while, no one saying anything. Outside the darkness has settled over Sodermalm, in the heart of Stockholm, indifferent to what has just played out in my office.

Markus's body is on top of mine, hot, hard.

Is it the wrong body?

Stefan.

And yet it still feels so right, as if I'd found my way home in some way, as if this warm body will heal all my wounds.

Heal me.

We argued about it this very afternoon. Markus's voice like sandpaper, trying to strip away all my armor, get me to open up, the uncomfortable feeling of being a fruit that someone is trying to peel, to inspect the insides of, to devour.

"You never let me in. You . . . let me be with you, next to you, but you do your own thing. It's as if I weren't here, as if I were dead, like him, your ex."

"Markus, honey . . . ," I say, my voice feeble, pleading.

"Everything is on your terms," he complains.

I don't respond. I know he's right. I know that he knows that I know.

"You and your process . . . ," he sneers.

My process.

I have tried to explain as gently as possible how Stefan, even though he's dead, is still strangely present in my life, how I don't know if I can commit to someone else, because it's not about what I want.

Or is it?

I could tell by looking at him that that hurt, and I can appreciate that. I don't want him the way he wants me. He wants the whole package: ring on the finger, white picket fence, snot-nosed kids, parent-teacher conferences at the daycare, mortgage, soccer practice, barbecuing with the neighbors.

I don't know what I want. My life is like water, reflecting my surroundings, but without any color or flavor of its own. It slips away if you try to catch it.

And yet, he is a grown man. He's making his own bed.

Well, just leave already if this isn't working for you!

I haven't promised him anything. I'm not the one sending text message after text message, night after night. I'm not the one emailing heated declarations of love. I was just . . . here when he arrived. Every time he arrived. I just let him in.

Open arms. Hungry mouth.

I've been clear. He made his bed.

And yet.

His sweaty forehead on my chest. His breath against the nape of my neck, night after night. Those arms, still a little tan from the summer, that hold me close.

How I never want to let him go. I'd better be prepared to pay for this.

Weak.

I think we're both being weak.

Although in different ways.

Afterward.

Markus lying behind me on the bed, breathing deeply, his finger drawing small circles on my back.

Why do guys do that? Maybe he's writing something.

"You're mine."

I slowly move away, to the other side of the crowded bed.

Carefully.

Afraid that it will be interpreted as a loaded gesture, which it isn't. I just need to feel the empty s.p.a.ce around my body for a while, the absence of his sweaty skin and all his concern, consideration, and expectations.

Outside the rain picks up, grows into a deafening drumming on the roof. Leafless, scraggly branches sc.r.a.pe against the windows in the wind.

I've tried to explain things to him, explain my need for integrity, both physical and mental, how even the thought of traditional couplehood with its visits to the in-laws and eating dinner together gives me goose b.u.mps. I could see that he was trying hard to understand but couldn't. He was looking at me like I was some exotic item on a menu that he really wanted to try but that, truth be told, he didn't like.

"Hey, you." Markus murmurs and then crawls over and snuggles up against me, his damp body molding itself into a perfect copy of mine. Snuggling himself up against my skinny back. He wraps his arms around me, owning me with his arms.

"Hmm . . . ," I mumble.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

Why always these meaningless questions? Am I okay? With what? With our having s.e.x? With him holding me so hard it feels like we belong together, you know, for real? With that feeling not lasting long?

"Hmm, it was great," I murmur.

"I care about you," he says, and then his mouth kisses the back of my neck, gently, sated now.

"I care about you too," I say. And it's not a lie. Because I do care about him, a lot. I just can't handle this suffocating togetherness between the two of us all the time.

"Thanks," he mumbles, and yawns.

And yet again I wonder: Thanks for what? For letting you be close to me? For letting you come inside me? Thanks because I haven't asked you to leave yet?

Outside there's the thunder of the waves as they break against the rocks, rhythmic, like his pulse.

I have to try.

For the hundredth time I promise myself that I will try to be the normal woman he wants, that he deserves.

That I wish I were.

Patrik holds his big, red hand out. Despite the darkness in the office, I can see what he's holding. Two small white pills, each no bigger than the fingernail on your pinky, are sitting on his palm.

I wasn't actually supposed to see Mia and Patrik again until next week, but Patrik called and requested an extra session.

Something had happened.

"I want an answer," he says, something dark in his eyes, pus.h.i.+ng his horn-rimmed gla.s.ses up with his free hand. "Are you addicted, or what? My girl, the mother of my children, a drug addict. Is that it, Mia? You know, I could picture you doing a lot of things, but this . . . What the h.e.l.l were you thinking? Were you, like, 'Well, life is no fun now and the kids are a pain in the a.s.s, so I'm just going to drug myself instead. Things are just fine here on the couch. I'm sure the kids can handle things on their own'?"

Mia looks down at the floor, her face as devoid of emotion as a blank page. Her hands, with chipped dark-purple nail polish, rest calmly between her strong thighs. Today too, she's wearing a man's sweater. It makes her already ample body look even bigger, in an unflattering way.

"Wait a minute," I interrupt Patrik. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Patrik sighs deeply, scratches his bleached, lightly tousled hair, and straightens his long legs. His jeans are so tight that he does this with difficulty. They extend almost all the way to my feet and I instinctively pull my own legs back under my armchair. Don't get too close to the patient.

"When I came home yesterday around five, Mia was lying on the couch, sleeping, totally unresponsive. The TV was on, and little Gunnel, oh my G.o.d . . . Gunnel had taken some frozen hamburger meat out of the freezer-she can open the freezer now-and she, she was gnawing on it. Do you even get what I'm saying? Mia was . . . high . . . and my hungry daughter was gnawing on a block of frozen hamburger meat. She was kind of . . . her face was all messy with blood around her mouth. It was so unbelievably gross, like the worst horror movie. I mean, I don't even eat meat. And Lennart . . . Lennart was asleep on the bathroom floor. He'd taken off his own diaper again, so there was dried p.o.o.p on the floor. And Mia, the mother of my children, is lying there sleeping in the middle of all this, high as a kite."

Mia is still sitting unnaturally still in her chair, but I can see fine droplets of sweat beading up on her forehead and starting to trickle down at her temples, and an almost invisible twitch at the corner of her mouth reveals how tense she is. Patrik looks at her in disgust.

"You should be ashamed of yourself." He spits the words out as if they taste bad.

"Okay, Patrik, why do you think Mia was . . . under the influence of something?"

Patrik gives me a skeptical look, as if he seriously doubts my intelligence, and toys with the snuff tin that's resting on his knee.

"I found them, the pills, I mean. They were in the kitchen, Serax, a whole pack. You know what that is, right? Benzos, the worst of the illegal drugs. I know exactly what this is about. I've seen this before. I'm not planning on letting this affect my family."

Patrik turns to Mia and suddenly gets up, stands there facing me and her, menacing, like a giant monolith in a field.