Читать книгу Integrity - Anna Borgeryd - Страница 13

6

Vera was surprised at how quickly she got back into the old routines. Morning meetings, care schedules, feeding, personal hygiene and the all-important ‘List’, which, if not properly filled out, could mean unnecessary enemas for the elderly residents. ‘Well, Ulrik hasn’t pooped for a week now.’ If it wasn’t written on the ‘List’, it made no difference what poor Ulrik tried to say about what he had actually produced.

Vera understood the importance of structure, rules and sticking to schedules. But rationalizing to the point where it felt like the people you were supposed to be helping were unhappy, that was where she drew the line. It was partly for that reason that she had quit her job at Solbacka the last time.

But it was mostly because something else had tempted her. She smiled at the happy memory of her life with Adam during their college years. Life was simple and full of meaning; they were on their way. His journey: first medical school and then training to become a surgeon. Hers: four years to become a nurse anesthetist.

They went home together in the late afternoons. They usually slipped into the supermarket to buy something for dinner, unabashedly discussing surgical alternatives in the fruit department. An endless number of solutions had been debated at the stove in their small, well-designed two-room apartment. They used to go to the movies, spend time with friends and go to church once in a while.

It was Adam who had first suggested that they go abroad after graduation – to help take care of people and contribute to the church’s mission by using their medical training to do volunteer work. His faith had always been stronger than hers, but Gunilla belonged to the same evangelical church, and she had made sure that her daughter attended revivals and bible study like the church’s other teenagers.

But the truth was that everyone involved had quickly realized that Vera wasn’t an ordinary child of the congregation. Her questions had stopped being harmlessly cute, like they had been in Sunday school, when she asked about something she thought was obviously wrong: ‘Why does it say that Abraham gave birth to Isaac? Everybody knows that mummies give birth to babies!’

When she got older she asked questions about morality. How could God become so angry at Pharaoh that he hardened his heart? When Pharaoh refused to let Moses and the Jews leave, why did God bring down plagues on all Egyptians? Isn’t it more like a human sin to be so vengeful, to want to punish an entire people?

And if you went to heaven if you were a good-hearted heathen who had never heard of Jesus – but not if you had heard of him, but hadn’t become Christian – didn’t you expose people to risks if you went out evangelizing? ‘I mean,’ Vera had asked, ‘if a stranger came along, someone who also took people from our country and enslaved them, how likely is it that we would want to believe in their God? What if the good heathens would have gone to heaven if only we had left them alone? What would Jesus have said about that?’

Someone in the congregation had eventually talked to Gunilla, who, ashamed of her daughter’s deviant behavior, took her out of bible school. When Gunilla got home she yelled at Sven-Erik because she blamed his Social Democratic atheism for Vera’s embarrassing defect – the endless questioning! It had always been important to Gunilla to fit in with her childhood congregation. She was anxious that no-one should ever whisper anything negative about her or her family.

Quitting bible study didn’t bother Vera. She genuinely wanted her questions answered, but she had pretty quickly figured out that the standard answer to the most interesting ones was: ‘If we had answers to all our questions, then we would be like God, and of course it is only God who is God.’ Why then did God give me a brain that wonders about all these things? thought Vera, but she kept her mouth shut.

Since childhood, Vera had been most interested in the practical question of how you can live a good life, and the best answer she had come upon was the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That was something in the bible that rang true for her.

So the idea of doing volunteer relief work stuck with Vera and, over the years, grew into a decision. Obviously she would go with Adam and help where they were most needed. Every day, every page she read and practical exercise she completed was meaningful because it helped her develop the skills that would heal, ease and prevent illness somewhere out in the world. She had been proud of herself, and even prouder of Adam, who, thanks to a combination of skillful hands, mental acuity and perseverance, had developed into a surgeon with God-given talent. His incisions and stitches were so precise that the scars from his operations were barely visible on his patients’ skin.

The workday was over and Vera had only one errand left to do before going home. She walked through the hallways of the nursing home, no longer noticing how the fluorescent light reflected off the apricot-painted wallpaper, the practical and protective wall molding wisely placed at wheelchair level, the horrible silk flowers and the solitary, scrawny yucca plant. Filled with the memory of what had been a self-evident ‘we’, of Adam and her, she knocked on the door to Solveig Marklund’s room.

Solveig opened the door, saw Vera’s introspective, slightly sad smile, and asked kindly, ‘So how is Vera doing today?’

Vera looked at her favorite patient. Solveig was sitting in her wheelchair. She had been forced to move to Solbacka when her husband Gustav had died two years earlier, because she had been deemed too physically weak to take care of herself. But there was nothing wrong with her mind, and the walls in her little two-room suite were covered with photographs, paintings, colorful bits of fabric, buttons, ribbons and unusual souvenirs that testified to an unusually creative life.

‘I’m fine,’ said Vera, but realized instantly that Solveig’s gentle observation of her would reveal a more truthful answer. ‘Well, my knee isn’t better yet,’ she quickly added, pointing at her thin left leg, still stuck in a slightly bent position.

‘But you can manage working here?’

‘Yes, a few evenings and weekends. And this is important!’ said Vera, and from her backpack she pulled out a little fruit, bread and cheese and a tin of crackers that she had bought for Solveig.

Solveig smiled gratefully and maneuvered her wheelchair back into the room to get her wallet.

But, as always, Vera refused. ‘We can take care of that later; it’s just so nice to talk to you. I know that you’re an evening snacker, and I don’t want you to starve because of Solbacka’s schedules. And you sleep so much better if you aren’t hungry.’

Solveig rolled herself back towards the door, smiled with her lovely, wrinkled face and took Vera’s hands in her own soft, liver-spotted ones. ‘Thank you, you kind person.’

Kind person, thought Vera as she carefully hobbled toward the bus stop. It’s kind people who make life bearable. Like that guy who called and offered her his dorm room, at least for a year, just when she had started to realize that she couldn’t live much longer under the same roof as her mother. In spite of everything, she could actually afford a room in a dormitory!

He said his name was Kalle, and he sounded confident, if a little shy. At first Vera was convinced that he had made some kind of mistake, but then he said that Cecilia Åström had mentioned her. Cissi, she’s also a kind person, Vera thought. Sometimes you’re lucky in the people you meet.

It was a friendly dormitory. She had felt the good atmosphere as soon as Kalle opened the door. He had looked just like she expected: broad and furry like a teddy bear. A young English guy named Matt had immediately turned up and introduced himself. There was some kind of little brother charm in his friendliness as he stood there peering out from under his hair in a much-too-big cardigan.

She had been surprised to discover that Peter Stavenius – that young, unimpressive lecturer from the summer course who had spent most of his time hitting on one of the students – lived in the room next to hers. But there was probably nothing really wrong with him either. What were you supposed to do if you happened to meet ‘the one’ in a strange setting? They seemed like they were a good match, he and Sandra – two blond, pretty-people types. ‘Ken and Barbie,’ the other students in the class had called them when they snuck away, thinking they were unobserved, and cuddled during the breaks. In Peter’s defense, it wasn’t easy to be compared to Cissi, who was a real superstar teacher.

On her way home to Ålidhem, Vera thought about how differently she looked at the world now. It was the same town, the same student neighborhood and the same university. But it wasn’t the same Vera. And not the same Adam… she almost added. But the pain caused by that line of thinking hit her full in the stomach and the analogy ended abruptly in a fuzzy haze. She remembered the trauma psychologist’s choice of words. Here was a ‘destructive spiral’ that her psyche blocked entirely.

The semester began and the city started crawling with students. Life in the dorm was congenial, and Thursday evenings were especially enjoyable. Those who felt like it got together to cook dinner and, for the third Thursday in a row, Vera and Matt joined in. Lotten, who was studying gastronomy, showed them little tricks with the confident authority of someone who knows what she’s doing. Lotten came from the far south of Sweden, and it struck Vera that the tall, fair-skinned woman reminded her of Camilla in many ways.

Matt was another story altogether, a young guy from Sheffield with loose body language and overgrown brown hair that was constantly dishevelled. He had begun his second year at the School of Design down near the river. Matt had spent a few summers in Sweden when he was a child and had studied Swedish the previous year. He already spoke it incredibly well, thought Vera, glancing over at his distinctive profile. His forehead stuck out almost as far as his nose, giving him a rough, caveman-like appearance that contrasted with his mild personality. It was mainly the small Swedish words that gave him trouble. Vera smiled inwardly at today’s incident as she stood slicing onions for the paella. Lotten had shown her how to first make a horizontal cut and then to slice the onion half in a fan shape before chopping it. That way, the thin pieces stayed attached to the root until vertical slices made straight across the onion detached them in small bits.

‘So how did the first years’ initiation go?’ asked Lotten, raising her light eyebrows without lifting her eyes from the neatly lined-up ingredients – a fresh raw chicken, rice, tomatoes, tarragon, bayleaf… Lotten’s fiancé Noel ran a trendy Spanish restaurant in Dublin, and tonight they were cooking the specialty of the house: Nueva Casa’s famous paella. She poured oil into her large, heavy-bottomed pan, which she kept in her room when she wasn’t using it, along with her cherished knives.

‘Fine. It was fun.’ Matt’s job was to peel the shrimp at the sink, and he carried out the task with almost meditative concentration.

Vera had bought dessert from the chocolate aficionados at the Fruit Corner, and on her way back to the bus she happened to run into the Industrial Design department’s initiation rite. The Matt she had seen there was completely different from the ordinary one. ‘He was dressed as a police officer, and the first-years were in striped clothes like prisoners wear. They were supposed to carry people cross the street…’

‘Oh, right,’ said Lotten, with the soft diphthongs characteristic of the Skåne dialect. ‘Was it Toby’s uniform?’ Toby, one of the more reserved dorm residents, was studying to become a police officer. He was in his last year of studies, and he went home to Skellefteå as often as he could.

‘Yeah.’ Matt continued to focus on the work his hands were doing.

‘An old woman aged about 75 came along, pushing her husband in a wheelchair…’ Vera began to giggle. ‘So imagine a couple of two-meter tall… well… giants lifting the woman up and carrying her away. And you know what she says?’

Smiling, Lotten looked up from the saffron just as the oil began spreading a delicious scent through the kitchen. She tilted the pan skillfully, stirred and added finely minced garlic. Matt glanced at Vera from the sink and prompted, in unison with her, ‘It’s OK, Theodore, it’s just that time of year!’

Vera laughed so hard that tears ran down her cheeks, and she felt the tension that she had been living with for months recede into the background. Lotten and Matt smiled at her. She put down the knife, pushed the chopped onions towards the stove, took off her glasses and dried her eyes with her right arm.

‘But I managed to scare old Theodore anyway,’ said Matt glumly.

‘Yeah, hahaha…!’ Now Vera was laughing so hard she was doubled over. ‘Sorry Matt, I don’t mean to, but…’

‘I was only trying to say, “Sorry, sir, let me push you”,’ said Matt, turning towards them. ‘So I said: jag •• •• ••• på dig.” His messy hair and innocently twinkling eyes made him look like an angel-faced boxer in an apron. Vera’s laughing had now infected Lotten.

‘I know, I know! The poor guy looked completely terrified.’ Teary-eyed, Vera patted herself like she was looking for something in her pockets. ‘He went like this, looking for his nitroglycerin, so I had to get involved.’

Lotten’s pale skin was beetroot-red from laughing. ‘Wha… what did you do?’ she stuttered.

‘I said uh…’ Vera got her breathing under control and steadied her voice. ‘It’s okay! He just has a little trouble remembering which words to emphasize. He means skjuter • •.’ And I wheeled him to the other side of the street.’

Matt mumbled from the sink: ‘Skjuter • •, •• •• ••• på, skjuter • •.’ He looked up and shook his head glumly. ‘Swedish! How are you supposed to remember what means “I’m going to shoot you,” and what means “I’m going to push you???’”

Peter and Sandra came into the kitchen. She was carrying the latest Louis Vuitton bag in a tight grip.

‘Sounds like a party in here!’ Peter smiled inquisitively at the laughing, rosy-cheeked cooks. ‘I’m not sure if you’ve met before; this is Sandra,’ he continued. ‘Eh…’

‘Peter’s girlfriend,’ said Sandra and offered Vera her manicured hand.

‘Yeah… Hi, Sandra.’ Vera dried her hands on a kitchen towel and took her hand. ‘Yeah, we were on the same summer course.’

Sandra looked blank. A long, embarrassing silence.

‘And I recognize your voice, of course,’ continued Vera thoughtlessly. Realizing what she had said, Vera reddened and hoped that no-one would ask why.

Peter looked around enthusiastically. ‘Boy does it smell good in here! What’s for dinner?’

‘La Paella Suprema,’ said Matt, not without some pride.

‘La Paella Nueva Casa!’ smiled Lotten.

‘Is it okay if Sandra eats with us too?’ Peter looked around hopefully.

‘Yeah, there should be enough for her too,’ said Lotten. ‘Peter’s girls don’t usually eat much,’ she whispered to Vera. ‘But you know the rules,’ she said sternly to Peter.

‘No, what?’

‘No Great Escapes here!’ Lotten looked meaningfully at Peter. That was the name of Peter’s family’s company, and Vera wondered if Peter got it. She went over to where Matt was standing by the sink and pointed at the note over the Your mother doesn’t live here sign: ‘Do the dishes or DIE!’

‘I prefer not to do dishes,’ said Sandra and looked worriedly at her fake nails.

‘Okay, no problem; Toby and I can do it,’ said Peter. ‘He’s usually late too. Mmmm, it smells fantastic!’