I’ve got to admit, his company motivates me. No sooner does he cross the threshold than I start to crawl out of bed, make him aware of my presence by rattling my crutches a bit more than usual, and I totter back and forth in our corridor under the pretext of needing to train my muscles. The corridor isn’t long, no more than three metres, and I can’t manage many steps, perhaps sixteen a minute. But I can’t deny the party feeling that comes over me when I covertly observe his expression as I painfully slowly and tenaciously pass the kitchen door: he who knows that I know that I irritate him by my mere presence, that I am so cheeky and am doing this quite deliberately, and that he can’t do anything about it, except pretend that I don’t exist. He’s utterly annoyed. I’m maliciously delighted. That really pisses him off.
Is it at all strange that I start cackling as soon as I’m out of his field of vision, very quietly, as if I want to spare him my revealing observations? That pisses him off even more.
Oh, what an intoxicating hotchpotch of unsuccessful intentions and contrived misunderstandings!
*
Winter tightens its grip, holds us captive in a cocoon of freezing darkness and snow. Ragna spends all her time indoors; only Johan opens the front door when he comes to visit or leaves again, and then it’s usually to the village to fetch news, post and food. Nor should I conceal that Johan carries in firewood. He shovels away the snow that builds up in front of the front door. He is strong and healthy, and so one could even argue that I benefit from his strength.
Compared to the open plains right outside our door, the presence of the three of us in the small house is almost claustrophobic. But that does not prevent me from getting up and making my daily trips along the corridor. This exercise, which began as an excuse, has become an important routine. It leaves me feeling wide awake and clear-headed, and confirms my position as a member of the household. Ragna and Johan, who have acquired the habit of buzzing and whispering at the kitchen table, spot me passing the kitchen door morning, afternoon and evening, back and forth, tenaciously and purposefully. As I pass, we nod briefly to each other, and I probably bare my teeth. As soon as I am out of sight, I am not out of mind; I know that the scraping of the crutches saws its way into the cosiness and warmth in there — a constant reminder of my existence. For that reason, I occasionally surprise them on good days with a couple of extra rounds.
No, I’m not so stupid as to be unaware of my hidden reasons for continually and constantly taking out my crutches. The exercise is one thing, but first and foremost the crutches are my sceptres, the power I have to create a little discomfort, to gain a little attention.
I train despite wanting to sleep and dream my time away, despite the cramp that comes after a couple of hours of rest. I massage myself as best I can, I don’t want to ask Ragna when Johan is paying a visit — and that is fairly often. So after the lament of the crutches it is my sobs that accompany the sounds of the house. I don’t ignore the fact that they drown everything being buzzed and whispered — in the pauses between Johan’s lustful moans, it should be noted. I laugh a little and think of the noise we produce as a composition, that our voices rise and fall in a disharmonious musical score.
Yes, of course the exercise increases my strength. I am awake — and in the darkest depths of winter too!
Pain, crap, shit and piss, I shall overcome the little crutches woman at any price!
Prize pain, crap and piss, I the crutches woman shall overcome any little shit!
*
One afternoon, when the sky opens in shades of mauve and the snow appears like pink-shimmering sugar, I lapse into thoughts about the capacity of colours to create a feeling of character, of content, how they create an expectation of taste, an experience. Just as a pink sweet seems to promise to taste sweet, while a green one is almost certain to taste more acidic.
This train of thought causes me to lie there wondering what people can resemble and remind one of, everything from colours to animals and insects. Ragna, for example, I am sure resembles a wasp, for she is one in her entire being. And Johan reminds me of a special breed of dog I’ve seen in a magazine. He sticks out his lower jaw in precisely the same way, hard. And therefore his cheeks, like those of the dog, hang heavy and meaty past the corners of his mouth like jowls.
‘Woof, woof, Johan. Doggie fetch a bone!’ I whisper and laugh quietly to myself, and go on thinking about Ragna and Johan until I start pondering about myself and how I perhaps appear to other people.
‘Ragna,’ I say during morning care in my room on a cold day in early December. I’m sitting on a chair in front of the washstand, my face turned towards the mirror, watching her as she rubs the flannel up and down my back. After my withdrawal that lasted for several weeks she has paid more attention to my hygiene, she scrubs my armpits, lower legs and thighs every other day, in spite of the fact that I can hardly be dirty — it’s more in her mind that I am unclean and grimy. So I find it suitable and quite natural to elaborate on the question I have been dying to ask her.
‘Ragna,’ I say again, ‘what colour am I? Can you tell me that?’
‘Colour? I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ she replies suspiciously, and carries on scrubbing.
‘I mean colour, Ragna, you know, if I’m a yellow person, or if I’m red or green.’
She laughs resignedly. Perhaps it’s too early in the morning for this type of question.
‘You’re a black maggot, pasty and filthy creature that you are.’
‘I don’t mean that sort of colour, Ragna, I mean the colour I have as a person. Am I mauve? For that’s what I feel I am myself.’
She wrings out the flannel with hurried movements.
‘Cut out all that colour talk.’
‘Ragna,’ I go on trying, ‘you’re yellow, for example. Well, for me you are because you’re always on the move, and I don’t know if yellow’s a colour that’s on the move, but it’s the colour I feel you are.’
I straighten my back, try to catch that enclosed look of hers.
‘You’re yellow, Ragna,’ I repeat.
She rolls her eyes, takes hold of my hair and pulls it up so she can wash the back of my neck.
‘What colour am I, Ragna?’
‘Stop rabbiting on about that colour nonsense!’
‘Yes, but I need to know! I know so little about myself — you’ve got Johan. And you meet people when you’re in the village who can give you a feeling of who you are.’
‘Oh, do shut up!’
‘I can make it easy for you. I’ll give you three colours to choose from: red, mauve and blue. I’m one of those — I think I’m mauve, actually. Am I? Tell me, Ragna.’
She gives a start and tugs at my hair so I feel it smart in the roots, but I don’t quit, and turn towards her.
‘Well, I’m mauve, then? Mauve because I am bit of an afternoon sort of person and because I think so much, isn’t that right? Thoughts are mauve, Ragna, I’m sure of that.’
‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ she screeches, holding her ears.
The flannel dangles dripping between her fingers and produces large, angry stains on my shirt.
‘You’re chattering away like a crow!’
‘Yes, but listen to me, Ragna — you’re the only one I can ask!’
She stands there with rolling, half-closed eyes, shaking her head in frustration.
‘You’re not mauve, you’re shit black, and that’s because you plague the shit out of me! Do you hear me? Black! Black as muck! You shithead woman, you!’
Later, after my morning care, while I’m shuffling around my room, back and forth between the window and the mirror, Ragna is tidying the kitchen in a jittery mood. She stuffs glasses and plates ruthlessly into the cupboard. They must all be crammed to breaking point.