But then, in the midst of a flight of fancy, she must have realized that it would be virtually impossible for her to achieve the dream of a respectable job in the village. When I think about it, Ragna has gone on quite a few times about impenetrable family ties, saying that without exception the more well-to-do women in the village have authority over the cash registers, their daughters have been chosen for the job of café waitress as far back as their confirmation. Seen from this point of view, what other possibilities did Ragna have? She could of course have used her strength at the nursing home, for looking after people, washing and feeding them. Were there alternatives to this type of work? No, not except the home here and with me. And most likely the authorities contribute a krone or two for Ragna’s care of her younger sister.
*
The question of Ragna’s choices, or rather lack of choices, involves answers I am not too happy about. Her life is suddenly visible, like a stage when the curtain is pulled back. Ragna’s story makes for a really uncomfortable drama, and I’m put in an impossible position when the revelation comes. There are of course all the lies she clings to so as to keep a balance between us. That she makes me weak so as to be able to feel strong herself. That she exaggerates her own importance so as to avoid feeling the pathetic, helpless female she actually is. But that I, with my need of care, have become her excuse for not creating a proper life for herself, that I and my sickly body have become her self-imposed fate and mission in life, that’s something quite different. I wring my hands in despair. Yes, that’s the way it is. Ragna and I are probably quite similar, have precisely the same cast of mind. We do not have any other choice but to remain. We are equally frightened and helpless, and cling to each other as a defence against the outside world: she out of anxiety about her inability to interact with other people, all the social niceties, the things she hasn’t learned to master and understand; and I out of fear of losing the remainder of myself at the hands of cynical strangers in an institution.
Oh, poor helpless little Ragna, poor helpless us.
But that’s not all. The truth about Ragna also contains a paradox. Profoundly and fervently she wants to be rid of me, despite the fact that I act as her shield against the world. But she feels no shame about this treachery; no, rather this innermost dark wish has helped to give her a positive image of herself. As she sees it, she is a woman who has heroically sacrificed herself for her sister’s wellbeing for many arduous years.
I can easily imagine Ragna’s refrains — can almost hear her rattling them off: ‘If it weren’t for your illness, I’d have had a man and children and a large house to look after!’ ‘If it weren’t for you, you lazy layabout, I’d have been a successful working woman!’ ‘If it weren’t for your pitifulness, I’d have been popular with other women!’
Oh yes, Ragna has always wanted to be rid of me, perhaps long before I fell ill at the age of four. For don’t I have a clear picture that she reacted to my fever and crying with a strange, satisfied look? Of course, I could be exaggerating, I could be stretching the credible much too far. Even so I am open to — no, I am prepared to state that the wish became stronger when Ragna saw in advance the outcome, what would happen later, when she kept watch and took care of me for our parents: a life devoted to looking after a shabby, sickly sister out in the wilds.
So I can hardly blame her, as a child, for having tried in her own way to prevent what she suspected the future might bring. Yes indeed, that may be how it was. Why, otherwise, didn’t she inform Mum and Dad when my condition suddenly worsened?
For the same reason, perhaps I ought not to judge her, little Ragna, for her cunning and her many outbursts during our childhood. And perhaps I ought not to blame her, child that she was, for all the instances of pure malice. After all, I had ruined her life with my illness.
This is one of the many incidents I ought perhaps to have forgiven:
‘Ragna! Shall we pretend to be fine ladies?’
It’s afternoon and we are alone in the house — I’m seven and Ragna’s twelve.
I go into her room. Ragna peers at me from the bed, where she is sorting things into small boxes. Suddenly she fixes her gaze on the glass beads I’m wearing round my neck.
She gets up and comes over to me. At first I interpret this approach as friendly, but then her hand is at my throat, the necklace, and she rips it off.
‘You’re so horrid. And those are my beads. I’ll never, ever play with anyone as horrid as you!’
And this:
‘Little sister! Come here and I’ll show you something.’
It’s summer, perhaps a year later, and I’m sitting in the kitchen eating, but immediately I totter over to the large stone where Ragna is sitting, full of expectation.
The sun is low, so it’s hard to see what she’s pointing at. I bend forward as best I can, stare down into the heather.
‘Do you see it? That’s what you’re like, precisely like that,’ Ragna says.
And then I see it too. In among thin stalks and small green leaves a small mouse is dragging itself forward by its front paws; it’s straining and straining, both its rear legs are broken and hang helplessly behind its little body.
And this:
It’s spring and I must be nine, perhaps ten. I’m sitting on a chair just outside the front door, while Ragna is drawing patterns on the steps with a piece of chalk.
‘Come and see, girls,’ Dad suddenly shouts from behind the house. ‘I’ve found a nest with two crow’s eggs that are about to hatch! Hurry, before the mother returns!’
We look at each other, equally eager. I get up as quickly as I can, pull the duvet away from my thighs, grab hold of my crutches and put one leg forward. But something happens — I crash after only one step, stumble and fall flat on my face, tripped by Ragna’s left foot. There’s pain in my face, my arms. I look up. Ragna, running, turns round towards me, laughs and sticks out her tongue.
Our chequered relationship, all these different episodes — no, dear Ragna, I can’t forgive everything. But here is a good memory, for there we are, out in the grass on a summer’s day. I’m eight and you’re thirteen, you’re big and I’m small, you’re all-knowing and I’m stupid; it’s dry in the grass and dry in the air — and everything is completely still. We’re sitting on the ground, on a rug, me right at the edge and you next to me. I’m fiddling with a matchbox, you’re pulling up blades of grass and placing them in a small heap. We don’t say much, or think much either, but from our movements and looks we reach an agreement that I am to strike a match and place it in the heap of grass.
The grass quickly catches fire, flames shoot straight up, and we move a little on the rug. But look, the fire starts to spread and crackles in the air. I become afraid and call out for you to do something. You get up and calmly ask me to roll over to the other side. I lie down, do as you say, and soon I’m on the grass, while you pull the rug up and throw it over the flames, which go out with a puff.
I smile and clap my hands, astonished. You are so quick, so sure; you are Ragna, my older sister, and you’re always completely in control. You answer by laughing and tossing your hair proudly — huh, that was nothing. But suddenly you spin round. Wasn’t that a sound coming from the grass, a tiny hiss, a small sigh among the blades? You raise an eyebrow, pretend to be deciding what it can be, to be devising a plan.
‘It’s still burning,’ I say. ‘Not so much, but some flickers here and there.’
‘Something stronger’s called for,’ you shout, and pull off your pants. I stare entranced, amazed at you suddenly standing there with white legs and round buttocks in the middle of the grass, then squatting down, legs wide apart, and letting the flood descend and gush over the grass. There’s a rushing, then a crackling, and look — smoke billows up into your white bottom. I point and shout, you turn round and see the same thing, and roll your eyes affectedly before collapsing in a fit of giggles. There you lie, on the burnt, pee-wet grass, with your bum in the air, and you laugh, you laugh and I laugh, we laugh and laugh. You roll over on your back, and I roll round on to my back, then we hold our stomachs and lie there, laughing for a long time in a way we’d never done before — and haven’t since.