To Mervas by Elisabeth Rynell Page B

glowing as we talked. Everything we mentioned immediately became warm and alive, a hot fluid metal, which we shaped and melted down and reshaped again.
    â€œYes, and even you have to understand this,” I suddenly heard myself say. “In a place like that you just have to conceive a baby. I mean that’s where you make love to become pregnant!”
    Kosti quickly seemed to sober up. He sighed, and his expression became harsh and edgy.
    â€œDearest Mart, not now. Not again. We decided not to discuss this until after the Orkney Islands. You promised, remember? Right? You promised to wait until I was ready.”
    It happened so fast. The Orkney Islands drifted away from us and disappeared somewhere far out at sea. And there we were, Kosti and I, sitting opposite each other in the sudden calm, interrupted and lost. It was terribly quiet. The ticking of the battery-powered clock could be heard through the whole apartment: ticktock, ticktock.
    I could have done something. For example, I could have gone and fetched the book about the Orkney Islands that we had just bought and said: Okay, let’s forget about that for now, let’s look at this instead. Or I could have spread the big detailed map on the floor for the hundredth time and said: I’m sorry, we should let it go, it just came out of me, I don’t know why. Come here!
    Or I could’ve said that he was right, we had actually decided not to talk about it, we could discuss having children when we returned, and I wouldn’t nag about it anymore.
    But inside my head, a small voice said: You have decided, not the two of us. You want to wait; I don’t. And I sat there silent, caught up in a strange, eerily quiet anger, which slowly spread inside me and filled me with its shadowy gray demons. I sat completely still and allowed thoughts to rise that I couldn’t reverse and didn’t want to have. A cruelty was coming from inside me that I couldn’t defend myself from.
    Kosti didn’t do anything to change the gloomy atmosphere that hadtaken over the room either. An unpleasant smell seemed to have found its way in through the cracks in the windows. The very air between us had changed, but we didn’t know what to do to get rid of it. Kosti also remained silent, as if he were waiting for something. It was as if there were a secret director waiting in the wings, manuscript in hand, anticipating the next line. As if everything had already been entered into the great book of life, already decided. All we had to do was fill in the blanks with our voices.
    I cleared my throat. The words had to come now, before they killed me; I could feel them inside, insisting I let them out. They had to come out into the light and be destroyed like vampires. Perhaps then they’d be gone forever.
    â€œIt’s a pity, really, that we’re not Catholic,” I began, noticing at once that my suppressed anger made my voice vibrate slightly.
    Kosti gave me a stern look.
    â€œIf we were, we wouldn’t even have to discuss the subject of children, we wouldn’t have to. We’d just let the children arrive.”
    â€œCome on, give it up,” I heard Kosti cry out, from somewhere far away, from the other side of the sea.
    But I kept going, I had to get into it, it was an old dry wound that I had to scratch and tear at now, until it bled.
    â€œCatholics are really the only ones who dare to speak the truth,” I said. “They come right out and say that contraceptives are a sin. That it is a crime, a crime to prevent conception! You have to agree with this at least; they come out and say it and even though I don’t think it’s a crime against God, it’s a crime against nature. It’s a crime against mankind, against women, yes, especially women. Oh, I don’t think you understand anything at all, we’ve spoken about this so many times but you’ve never heard the truth, you’ve never gotten to hear