Afterwards, I sneaked over to the mirror unseen, alone. My eyes had become so big and my head even bigger. My nature was confirmed: I was a stranger in this family and on this earth. While I suddenly realized as much, Ragna appeared out of nowhere and stood beside me. We stared at each other for a long time, from either side of the mirror, I closer, she further back. Nothing was said, but both of us saw what our reflections had to tell.
Was it the day after? No, it was several days later, and it was planned in advance — that was the only way I could avoid suspicion.
She screamed when she woke up, or rather when she picked up her brush that morning and passed it through her hair. Was it possible? During the night, the hours on her pillow, her hair had become snarled in an impenetrable ball, and it was impossible to do anything with this great clump, this thick, unruly haystack of hair all stuck together, entangled in an alarming fashion.
‘God help me,’ Mum sighed as she tried carefully to tease the hairs away from each other.
Ragna screamed and held her forehead with both hands, stared terror-stricken at Mum. Oh, the fear inside her — I could see it from the doorway, where Dad and I were standing.
‘Oh, Ragna,’ Mum said resignedly. ‘I can’t do anything with your hair. How could you be so stupid as to leave your chewing gum on your pillow?’
Ragna protested. She had placed well-chewed lumps of chewing gum, of the sour-tasting type she used to buy when she was in the village, on a sheet of paper on the chest of drawers, she always did that, so they were ready for the following day, still with just a little bit of taste left, and slightly hard before they turned soft and pliable between her teeth. How could they have ended up in her hair?
‘You must have slept with your chewing gum in your mouth,’ Mum said. ‘You must stop doing that, it can be dangerous.’
Ragna is bewildered, for she has admittedly lain there chewing away at a large, good piece for too long, until the house is silent and she has almost fallen asleep, but she has definitely always taken it out. Could she have forgotten?
I stood for a while in the doorway, our eyes happened to meet for a moment, but then I tottered back to my bed as usual; pathetic and not responsible for what happened later that day: Ragna under the scissors, great lengths of her hair being chopped off, just beneath her ears, while she sobbed painfully and for a long time.
*
The self-torture continues. I am counting fears and torments. I arrive at number four: Ragna’s marriage to Johan. The shame I called down on Ragna on her wedding day. The plans for my removal. The empty letter to the nursing home. In addition, there are my pains and helpless dependence. That makes a total of six. Six torments and fears. I don’t know if that is a lot, but it is more than I manage to bear. My eyes feel as if they could burst, there’s hammering inside my skull, my skin cracks and splits, soon the poison will explode and cover the world with darkness.
No, give me a bag, a sack, no, give me an ocean I can vomit in so I can tie all this misery up in some way or other.
After thinking all this, I have to cry for a bit, cry for everything I am and all I cannot see because of my afflictions — the greatest wonders of the earth. And what have I failed to discover in the way of beauty inside myself?
Why don’t I just do the simplest thing — cut off this connection to life, a quick stab to the heart with a knife? What more can I actually hope to achieve, apart from Ragna’s anger, endless days with a little food in my mouth and humiliating visits to the toilet?
But the will to live clings to the hope that something will happen, something might improve. What’s more, I am a leisurely sort of person, I prefer to lie in bed dozing than to decompose completely in the earth, completely silent and devoid of thought.
*
‘You spewed out lots of lava yesterday evening!’
Feet planted well apart, Johan’s standing in front of my bed, thumbs thrust into the waistband of his trousers. Behind him stands Ragna, wringing her hands, her mouth is askew and twisted out of shape; it’s difficult to judge if she is holding back a smirk or rage.
‘Was it yesterday? I thought it was longer ago than that,’ I say, and heave myself up into a sitting position to try and gain some clarity regarding the sudden visit.
‘A ball of fire, that’s what you were — and do you know what I propose to do about it?’
‘No. Cool it down, perhaps?’ I say, and scratch my head.
‘This sister of yours is not at all stupid, Ragna, which is a good thing. It means she’s capable of learning a lesson.’
Ragna chuckles, then stares and simultaneously doesn’t stare at me. There’s distance about her, a restlessness I don’t like the look of.
‘Fetch the scooter outfit, Ragna!’ Johan shouts, glaring at me imperiously.
Ragna dashes off into the corridor and returns with one of her old outfits, stiff with oil spills, fish blood and coffee stains. She stops by my bed and holds it up in front of me.
‘Now you just do exactly what we say!’
‘Good grief, Ragna, have you gone stark staring mad?’
‘You’re going to wear this!’
‘What are you two on about? What am I going to do in that outfit?’
‘You’re going to leave this place!’ Johan shouts.
‘Are you crazy?’
‘You’re on your way to the nursing home!’
Ragna and Johan glance quickly at each other, clearly happy with the way things are going.
‘Oh, God! Ragna!’ I try to catch her eye, wake her up from this madness, but she looks away and sticks close to Johan.
Johan pulls aside my duvet and throws it into the corner. The green dress has slid up and lies twined round my stomach, while my tights have slid down, revealing a cluster of hairs peeping out round the edge of my pants.
I place my hand over my crotch, keep a hold on myself in the hope of preventing the attempt to dress me that is already in progress.
‘Cooperate, damn it,’ Johan says, pulling me closer to the edge of the bed.
‘I refuse. Do you hear? I refuse!’
‘Refuse? What the hell can you refuse, you old bag?’
Ragna is standing at the end of the bed, pulling the legs of the outfit up over my calves while Johan holds me down. I try to reason with them, tense my body against the bed, but my legs and torso and arms are pushed, shoved and screwed into the outfit, to my cries and shrieks of desperation.
‘I won’t! I won’t!’
‘Refuse as much as you like, it won’t do you any good,’ Johan says between clenched teeth.
‘Just shut up, Johan. This is something between Ragna and me!’
Johan straightens up. I’m packaged, my body lies inside the scooter outfit.
‘Just in case you haven’t understood, I’m the one who decides things here now.’
For a moment they stand perfectly still, exhausted and out of breath after the packaging process, but then they nod to each other, bend down over me, get hold of one end each — Johan under my arms, Ragna with my feet. I try to twist and turn to free myself, but have precious little strength in my body, except for the rage that is now growing in my chest, a violent anger that I howl out into the room, right in Johan’s ear as it turns out, for he gives a start and swears, yells at me to shut up, otherwise he’ll hurl me to the floor. I’ve no wish to collide with hard floorboards, no matter how upholstered I am, my back and legs will end up looser than ever. So I reduce my howling to a low whimper, topped by a few subdued yowls and groans.
Once in the kitchen, they lay me down on the floor. Ragna sits astride my stomach, her legs firmly round my waist, after which she grabs my wrists and presses them down to the floor, while Johan puts on his sweater and his scooter outfit.