The Looking-Glass Sisters (16 page)

Every morning starts like this: Ragna puts the coffee on. As soon as it’s ready, Johan comes to the kitchen table and they drink cup after cup together while they natter away and laugh. And after having drunk a whole pot, they boil another one that they also immediately drink. Along with these cups of pitch-black gritty coffee they eat large slices of bread that Ragna has baked. Or rather, Ragna prods a few crumbs into her mouth, while Johan wolfs down whatever is going from her full plate. After that they sometimes go back to bed, and when they get up an hour later, it’s more coffee and perhaps some card games and patience. This is the basic structure of their everyday life, everything else is a variation, but the variations also have a familiar and predictable pattern: a motorbike ride somewhere or other, shopping trips to the village (when Ragna is with him, these always include a visit to a café), or surprises, such as a fishing trip to one of the lakes not far from home. When they come back, it’s time for coffee again. Maybe they will also listen to the radio; that can lead to a discussion and even an argument. But after a spot of reconciliatory activity, in either the bedroom or the bathroom, everything’s fine again. Sometimes they can spend the entire morning in bed, and they can stay in the bathroom for hours. But those are the rare exceptions.

Of course they take a certain amount of time mending things, clearing up and doing housework. At regular intervals Ragna does the washing, while Johan chops wood.
Ragna bakes and irons, while Johan fixes the vehicles and repairs things round the house. Just before he’s finished, he will step into the kitchen and rub his hands, then give an affected shiver.

‘Ah, a little coffee wouldn’t be a bad idea, I think,’ he might say, and so he will take a well-earned coffee break.

Naturally, Johan and Ragna’s chores are seasonal. Now it’s spring and there’s little to be done. In autumn they will trawl the moors for cloudberries, will fish and hunt and smoke and mince, and then sell most of what they have gathered to other people and various outlets. But if I have understood their marital conspiracy right, they take plenty of breaks and have lots of cosy times together, completely oblivious of my presence and my unsatisfied needs.

‘Ragna!’ I call out one afternoon, my voice perhaps unnecessarily sharp, but it’s because I feel up to things and much better. ‘Ragna!’ I call out again. ‘Have you remembered what I asked you about?’

Everything goes quiet in the kitchen.

‘What’s that, then?’ comes the piercing reply after a while.

‘Books,’ I say sternly, my voice out of control. ‘Why didn’t you bring any home last time?’

I can hear them moving around uneasily in there.

‘Books?’

‘Yes, books. At the library. It’s ages since you were last there.’

‘What a bloody fusspot,’ Johan says quietly, as if to himself.

‘It’s really too bad.’

‘You’ve been ill,’ is Ragna’s immediate reply. ‘You ought to be glad you’ve recovered as well has you have!’

‘Yes, all right. But now I’m much better. And I need something to read.’

‘Books! Books! I’ve spent every single moment of my free time on you. And all you can do is complain that I don’t fetch books for you?’

Ragna bangs a glass down hard on the table. I hear her get up and rattle the cups around in the sink.

‘All you think about is Johan and yourself.’

‘Don’t you bring Johan into this. He’s got more than enough to lug around on his trips to the village. It’s not exactly nothing, all you put away. And on top of that you want him to carry books for you!’

‘Don’t be stupid, Ragna. You know what I mean.’

‘What you mean is just rubbish. And let me tell you one thing.’ Ragna bangs her hand down on the draining board by the sink: the cups clatter, there’s rattling in the cupboards. ‘Not a book is going to enter this house until you’re more grateful for all the things I do for you!’

Ragna lets out a pretend sob. She even snuffles.

‘The bloody harridan,’ Johan says under his breath, then gets up and walks over to comfort her.

Johan is sitting in my chair. And it’s my place at the kitchen table he takes all day long. He’s taken over my time in the toilet, and steals much of the attention and care I otherwise had from Ragna.

Johan has got things as he wants them. I have been banished to my bedroom, thrown out and reduced to a gaping hole that has to be fed and emptied, while my head’s hunger, my need to read and write, is ignored and ridiculed.

I’m shaking, my jaws are in the process of crushing each other in anger the likes of which I have never felt before. Of course I can move out, become a piece of furniture at a nursing home. But! And at this
but!
I feel my jaws press together even harder: I would never have had the idea of leaving this house, my own particular spot in the world, if Johan hadn’t moved in, if he and Ragna hadn’t teamed up and doubled my troubles in this home.

I reach for my crutches. No, despite the revelation out on the ice I don’t want to leave one bit, not yet at any rate, and not before I have tried to turn the situation around. I count my lucky stars that Ragna has realized my decision, otherwise Johan would never get the punishment he deserves.

Isn’t it my cup he still lifts to that huge mouth of his? My plate his greedy fingers eat from?

There are various jobs that need to be done. But the project is of such a nature that I keep it to myself, I don’t say a single word about it in
Home University
, don’t formulate it for my inner gaze or ear, except as a magic spell, a hoarse incantation: tish, vish, vush, vish vanish…

All previous plans are put on hold, now there are other priorities: up out of bed, from my withered, will-less sickbed – that’s of the utmost urgency. But it’s not training I trust
my luck to, the crutches’ complaint across the floor, no, it’s the collecting of paraphernalia, of small crucial items that will help me attain my goal.

Slowly, slowly I raise myself from my pillows, lift the duvet, and slowly, slowly I get out of bed. I am panting, sweating, feel dizzy from all the blood hammering away in my chest, but eventually I am standing upright on the rug.

My thighs, hips and stomach are a quivering landslide since my bones can hardly bear their own weight. I reel, and have to hold on to the side of the bed; the floor resembles an undertow beneath my feet.

Right, then. That’s the state of play, that’s how things are right now, and this is how it has been many times, it’s just a question of getting a good grip on the crutches, gritting my teeth.

‘Damn it, straight into the jaws of hell!’

Johan makes a quick-tempered move at the sudden sight of me in the kitchen doorway. The shock is probably due to the fact that after several months I am once more standing upright in my own house. My hair has probably tangled itself into great big knots and the state of my nightdress and the way my body smells have been affected by my long stay in bed, even though my sister has been attentive in caring for me.

Ragna gawps at me, absent-mindedly puts down a jar of preserves.

‘Are you crazy?’

‘No, I’m much better, and I want to be up for a bit!’

‘Dear sister, you’re still not well. Go back to your room and at least let me help you change into some better clothes!’

‘There’s no need. I’ll just sit here for a bit – it’s so long since I’ve been in the kitchen.’

I push Ragna aside as she rushes towards me and totter slowly, moaning, over to her empty chair, right opposite Johan. The chair receives me with a loud grating noise; the chair legs scrap across the floor. It really does hurt to sit on a chair, my hips don’t like the unaccustomed position. But I am convinced that this is what is necessary, in addition to the various things that have to be collected in order for me to carry out my assignment.

I can’t help laughing to myself. Both of them are clearly confused. Ragna places a cup of tea in front of me. I spend a long time putting in the sugar, stirring, and letting my hand shake affectedly.

I am the centre of attention, but I pretend not to notice, drink the tea slowly, study my nails at length, give a long yawn with my mouth wide open; a belch even emerges from the depths of my throat. Ragna has started to clear up in the larder again, Johan is laying out cards on the table. Then suddenly he stands up and walks into the corridor, starts to rummage around with his outdoor clothes.

‘Ragna! Shall we go for a ride?’

She turns and looks at me uncertainly. I stir my tea absent-mindedly, take a sip from the cup, stare out into space.

She is silent for a short while. Then she says loudly and abruptly, ‘Coming right away, Johan!’

Good. Couldn’t be better. The couple have once more been reminded of my existence. For the time being, their married life will continue in the presence of my unmistakable physical existence.

Collecting all the things I need proves easier than I had anticipated. As soon as they are out of the door, I check the kitchen table on Johan’s side, my former place, and, yes, there I find three thick, black hairs that must be his. I place them in a matchbox, grab a glass and totter slowly but surely back to my own room.

I put the hairs in the glass, place it on the chest of drawers, and if I’m quick – relatively speaking, in my condition – I can manage to get hold of some more. My heart is hammering, I’m in motion, I cackle and pant in turns, it’s a matter of time, of life, yes, a particular one.

In Johan and Ragna’s room it’s obvious where Johan sleeps. I’ve worked it out from the sounds already, but the clothes also make it clear: Ragna’s shiny red nightdress sticks out from under the pillow on her side. As best I can, I bend over Johan’s sheet, supported on a crutch, running a nail over the sheet, lifting it slightly, to collect the bits and pieces from his body in a small heap. I sneeze, my nose blocks up: it must be flakes of skin and dust swirling around in the air. But there, right beside his pillow, I discover what I am searching for, the curled, short form, the hardness: a hair from Johan’s private parts.

There’s no need to try and explain away what I am up to. Something has to be done and this is my means of doing it. But, to be honest, I don’t like it. In horror I witness myself tie a knot in the hairs, then place them in the glass together with a sheet of paper on which I have written Johan’s full name and the most horrible sentences I have ever concocted. And with loathing I see myself place a lit match to the piece of paper and the shameful contents and watch them flare up, and even laugh out loud when everything has turned into ashes.

Tish, vish, vush, vish vanish… tish, vish, vush, vish vanish… The moans, the booming in the voice; with amazement I hear the sound and the words come, I am lost, entranced by my deeds, I do it automatically, my reason gawping from the sidelines.

And I go on. I don’t want to stop. The hate in me brings the glass out from its place of concealment behind the bedside lamp, gets me to spit three times into the ashes; soon it will be morning.

Why all these qualms, these questions of right and wrong, when I know that every day from now on, nine days in a row, I will continue my ritual with incantations and sorcery, and finally pour the filth where it belongs – down our communal toilet?

No, spare me lifted fingers and sensible talk. The sorcery has already produced results: after only one day I have a feeling of control, the sense that my curse can affect developments in the house. Furthermore, the ritual has a soothing effect on my sudden need for companionship – I
do not feel the urge to share a table with the married couple more than absolutely necessary.

As soon as I get a chance, I lie happily fantasizing about what will soon happen. What will happen to Johan is also not insignificant. The various phases of the transformation can take place gradually or quite swiftly, but that doesn’t mean all that much – it’s the result that counts. I have no doubt that some of my wishes might be a bit excessive for a single carcass, that it is not possible for all of them to be fulfilled, but on the other hand I enjoy thinking about them, so much so that I lie under the duvet shaking with held-in laughter at the images they conjure up.

In one of the fantasies I see the pair of them in Ragna’s bedroom, where Johan is lying pale and half-dead in the bed.

‘I can’t understand it,’ he’ll say. ‘What’s happening, Ragna? Look at this!’

And he’ll loosen his belt and pull down his trousers, quickly, so as not to lose her interest.

‘Just look,’ he’ll say again, and jiggle his hand inside his pants.

He’ll stare wide-eyed at her, with a glazed look, trying as best he can to ensure her sympathy before he shows her his wretched state.

‘Well?’ Ragna will ask, with a touch of impatience in her voice. ‘Let’s see, then.’

Johan will slowly pull his pants down over the back of his hand, slowly reveal what he is holding between thumb and index finger.

Ragna will raise an eyebrow.

‘Yes,’ he’ll interrupt, his voice in falsetto, before she has time to say anything. ‘It’s unbelievable.’

Ragna will lean forward, wide-eyed and shocked.

‘Can’t you see it?’ he’ll ask nervously.

‘Yes, of course I can,’ Ragna will reply, full of astonishment.

‘Doesn’t it look like your sister? Can you see it? It’s bloody well got her face!’

Ragna will feel faint. What a horrible transformation, what a fate for the poor man. I, with my peering face, will grin at him and her, remind them of my existence, in all their moments of pleasure.

If I know Ragna, she will quickly work out the consequence of what has happened. She will slowly straighten up, perhaps purse her lips and glance disapprovingly at the deformed manhood, but will then without any mercy decide that Johan must move back to his own house and that henceforth he cannot be used for anything other than hard physical labour.