but Johan stands at the table, self-assured, his feet well apart, his fists clenched.
I myself am lying in a jumble of crutches, arms and legs. I try to collect my body to orientate myself, to get up, but I’m rattling and clattering away worse than our old birch tree in a storm.
‘She’s frigging dangerous, Ragna. There’s more strength in the little monster than all of us put together,’ Johan says with contrived calm.
He goes over to Ragna, places himself in front of her.
‘I’m not staying here a minute longer than necessary,’ he says harshly. ‘Ragna, I am…’ He pauses, takes a breath to emphasize the force behind what he is about to say: ‘…sick, yes, that’s what I am, sick and tired of your sister, who exploits you and sucks the very life out of you.’
While he stands at the front door, waving to the Finns as a sign that it’s time to adjourn to his cabin, he concludes, ‘And the worst thing of all, Ragna, is that you let yourself be exploited, that you bloody well put up with everything.’
In Home University , Vol. II, ‘Earth, Plants, Animals’, in an empty space on page 76, I write down some sentences that occur to me early the next morning: ‘My sister’s ascavenger that secretly eats straw in bed, the man gives her bones to gnaw on, keeps her on a lead.’
*
‘Ragna! You’ve got to help me!’
I’m out of breath immediately, even a few words take their toll. I’ll just have to face up to the reality of the situation: yesterday’s physical exertions have drained whatever strength I had. I lie huddled up in bed and my voice sounds disembodied, a braying that can only arouse Ragna’s revulsion.
I’m in pain; I’m aching from my lower back right up to my neck. I couldn’t find a comfortable position during the night and when I pinch my leg it’s as if I’m doing so through a thick layer of material, my flesh hardly registers a thing.
Ragna has already been awake for hours and is rushing about noisily doing the housework with hectic intensity. While she washes clothes in the tub that she has placed on the worktop (my panties, she usually threads them on one hand while she rubs soap into the crotch with the other – anyone can see the stains in the white material, which means me, and sometimes Johan, and we have on more than one occasion sat in silence watching) she answers my shout by repeating her own self-defence time and time again.
‘You think we were talking about you, you conceited worm, but we were talking about far more important things!’ she says, while heaving the clothes out of the tub, pouring out the water, fetching the clothes horse.
I don’t answer, haven’t asked what they were talking about either, but when she was inside my room and threw clean clothes on my bed I suggested she was pleased with the plans made during the visit the day before.
‘You little beast, you’ve frightened Johan off,’ she replied harshly. ‘If you’ve any sense, you’ll do well to keep your trap shut.’ She then gave my bed a kick before disappearing out of the door.
After a while she starts talking to herself about something completely different, and from time to time, without my having said a single word, she calls out to me to shut up. Suddenly, she bangs the mop hard against the floor and exclaims, ‘The deliberate misrepresentations in this country – I won’t put up with it!’
She puts the washtub down so hard on the floor that the water splashes out.
‘Soon we won’t even be allowed to use the roads either, we’ll be hunted like stray dogs, the whole lot of us. That was what we were talking about yesterday by the way, for your information. And then you come along, with your noise and commotion, and make trouble!’
Now she’s pushing the long-handled broom around the floor, bashing it into corners and along walls.
‘No, you really must stop all your yelping,’ she says, out of breath, ‘for there are other things to think about
I myself am lying in a jumble of crutches, arms and legs. I try to collect my body to orientate myself, to get up, but I’m rattling and clattering away worse than our old birch tree in a storm.
‘She’s frigging dangerous, Ragna. There’s more strength in the little monster than all of us put together,’ Johan says with contrived calm.
He goes over to Ragna, places himself in front of her.
‘I’m not staying here a minute longer than necessary,’ he says harshly. ‘Ragna, I am…’ He pauses, takes a breath to emphasize the force behind what he is about to say: ‘…sick, yes, that’s what I am, sick and tired of your sister, who exploits you and sucks the very life out of you.’
While he stands at the front door, waving to the Finns as a sign that it’s time to adjourn to his cabin, he concludes, ‘And the worst thing of all, Ragna, is that you let yourself be exploited, that you bloody well put up with everything.’
In Home University , Vol. II, ‘Earth, Plants, Animals’, in an empty space on page 76, I write down some sentences that occur to me early the next morning: ‘My sister’s ascavenger that secretly eats straw in bed, the man gives her bones to gnaw on, keeps her on a lead.’
*
‘Ragna! You’ve got to help me!’
I’m out of breath immediately, even a few words take their toll. I’ll just have to face up to the reality of the situation: yesterday’s physical exertions have drained whatever strength I had. I lie huddled up in bed and my voice sounds disembodied, a braying that can only arouse Ragna’s revulsion.
I’m in pain; I’m aching from my lower back right up to my neck. I couldn’t find a comfortable position during the night and when I pinch my leg it’s as if I’m doing so through a thick layer of material, my flesh hardly registers a thing.
Ragna has already been awake for hours and is rushing about noisily doing the housework with hectic intensity. While she washes clothes in the tub that she has placed on the worktop (my panties, she usually threads them on one hand while she rubs soap into the crotch with the other – anyone can see the stains in the white material, which means me, and sometimes Johan, and we have on more than one occasion sat in silence watching) she answers my shout by repeating her own self-defence time and time again.
‘You think we were talking about you, you conceited worm, but we were talking about far more important things!’ she says, while heaving the clothes out of the tub, pouring out the water, fetching the clothes horse.
I don’t answer, haven’t asked what they were talking about either, but when she was inside my room and threw clean clothes on my bed I suggested she was pleased with the plans made during the visit the day before.
‘You little beast, you’ve frightened Johan off,’ she replied harshly. ‘If you’ve any sense, you’ll do well to keep your trap shut.’ She then gave my bed a kick before disappearing out of the door.
After a while she starts talking to herself about something completely different, and from time to time, without my having said a single word, she calls out to me to shut up. Suddenly, she bangs the mop hard against the floor and exclaims, ‘The deliberate misrepresentations in this country – I won’t put up with it!’
She puts the washtub down so hard on the floor that the water splashes out.
‘Soon we won’t even be allowed to use the roads either, we’ll be hunted like stray dogs, the whole lot of us. That was what we were talking about yesterday by the way, for your information. And then you come along, with your noise and commotion, and make trouble!’
Now she’s pushing the long-handled broom around the floor, bashing it into corners and along walls.
‘No, you really must stop all your yelping,’ she says, out of breath, ‘for there are other things to think about
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