33. Anne-Risten
ANNE-RISTEN
1985
The gynecologist was an older man with a graying beard and kind eyes. He had opened her vagina with a cold instrument and inspected her cervix, had said that it looked normal. Now he was inserting a finger, which he met with a palm on her belly. He pressed gently to the right and then the left, and Anne-Risten stared at the ceiling. She held her breath until he reminded her to breathe. No man had ever put any fingers inside her. Roger wasn’t like that, he was simple, always lying on top of her, never doing it any other way.
The gynecologist removed his finger and inserted a new object, and she screwed her eyes shut. When he spoke, she had to look. He held up a little spatula with her discharge on it and she felt revulsion.
“I’ll go give this a closer look in the microscope. We want to rule out a yeast infection.”
She felt sick, wanted to take her legs down from this degrading position, but didn’t dare.
The ache in her belly had gotten worse and she felt a growing pressure in her privates. She’d had no choice but to spread her legs in this cold examination room. Something she hadn’t done in years. Not since the time a gynecologist needed to make sure she wouldn’t bleed out. After she killed her baby.
I T HAD STARTED AT Gun-Britt’s, but not on one of those weekday mornings with the children all around them. No, it happened one evening during a fermented herring party as the pungent smell of canned surstromming became overwhelming even though they had the balcony door open. Anne-Risten, Gun-Britt, Eva-Lena, and Gunilla were wearing cardigans and jackets to keep from freezing. September was really too late for surstromming, but when their husbands headed out to hunt moose, Gun-Britt said it was an opportunity they couldn’t waste. Roger had taken Niklas and Cecilia to his parents’ house in the village, grumbling as he did every year that since he no longer worked at the mine he didn’t get weeks off in a row and couldn’t spend as much time hunting as he’d like.
Anne-Risten tugged at her sweater, trying to cover her private parts; don’t start crying here in the stirrups . But she gave in and let the memories take over.
“T HAT WAS DELICIOUS, GIRLS .” Gun-Britt pulled the coffeepot off the burner and dumped in the grounds. Quite a lot, too; she was never stingy and always made her coffee strong.
They’d had beer with the meal and Anne-Risten had asked for a near beer, muttering some excuse about a headache. But as usual, cigarettes were harder to resist and she lit not just one but two in a row, smoking each down to the filter.
“Did you hear what happened with that kid in number two?” said Gun-Britt. She cocked a hip as she leaned against the stove, letting the fan suck up some of the smoke.
“Resource room,” said Eva-Lena. “A teacher found ten stolen bottles of glue in his bag one day. Obviously he’s sniffing it.”
Gun-Britt clucked and shook her head.
“Well, it’s no wonder with those parents of his,” Eva-Lena went on. “They party every weekend, such a racket, some of the neighbors said. And when someone joiked for an hour straight, they called the police.”
Anne-Risten drew up her shoulders and hunched over, making herself a protective shell and puffing on her life-giving cigarette.
“Yes, those Lapps sure do drink.” Gun-Britt looked concerned, but Anne-Risten saw the flash of distaste in her pale eyes.
For once she wanted to stand up and shout that it wasn’t true. She was so tired of hearing them talk about the Lapps. If it wasn’t the kid in number 2, it was some rude nurse at the clinic, and if it wasn’t that, it was some drunk who scared their children outside Kupolen when they were shopping.
Was this really how she was going to spend her days? Smoking and drinking coffee until she got stomach cramps, forced to listen to nasty talk about her own people? Sometimes she wondered if the women were testing her, if they knew she was Sámi and were messing with her on purpose. They had figured out she was a coward, and maybe they assumed she wouldn’t dare contradict them. She was talkative, but she always avoided conflict. They were playing a game, and it hurt her. Anne-Risten began to clear the table, picking up plates and silverware.
“Oh, Anne, let it be,” said Gun-Britt. “I’m just going to leave it all there and enjoy my alone time this weekend. No dishwashing until Sunday, right before they come home.”
Anne-Risten had already turned on the faucet to rinse away bits of surstromming and potato. Everyone knew that potato would stick stubbornly to the plates if it wasn’t rinsed off, and the fish smell had to go. She scrubbed with dish soap. Gun-Britt wasn’t very domestic and wouldn’t have cleaned up if her family was home either.
Anne-Risten was just about to rinse the last plate when she felt a stab of pain. It was a hollow sensation, like a burning pustule low in her belly, just above her pubic bone. That was all. At first. But then it started in earnest. She drew a sharp breath, loud enough that the others turned her way. The heat flooding her genitals made her wobble, and she turned off the water, then staggered to the bathroom, which was so tiny that one person could hardly turn around in it. She didn’t wipe the seat first, even though she knew the children usually left splashes of urine that dried and crunched under your thighs. Any other time, she would have been preoccupied by the bathroom germs; she routinely wiped toilet seats before use. At home she kept green pine soap on hand for this purpose, but at Gun-Britt’s it had to be bar soap on moistened toilet paper. She also scrubbed the brown faucet handles and never opened a bathroom door without a scrap of toilet paper in hand for protection. But now she sat down and grabbed on to the sink even as she felt the hot blood flowing out of her. She peered down between her pale thighs and saw the water turn red. She wiped with a shaky hand, smelling iron. Was one of those clumps the child who would now never be born? If she looked down into the toilet, would she see its little body? Was there a body yet? Now the burning pustule was back in her belly, spitting and searing away what would have been her third child.
God’s punishment.
She filled her already ruined panties with toilet paper and stood, pulled up her jeans, and fastened a little rubber band through the loop and over the button. Her jeans gaped over her protruding belly and she tugged Roger’s green forest sweater down over it. Something warm was still flowing out of her, but she would suffocate in this tiny space. She looked at her eyes in the mirror; the anguish there cut right through the glass. She unlocked the door and put on her jacket in the front hall.
“I have to go home,” she croaked in the direction of the kitchen, without looking in.
Gun-Britt rushed over. “What now? We’re about to have ice cream with cloudberries.”
“I got my period.” Anne-Risten tugged at the zipper, which kept getting stuck.
“But there are pads in the medicine cabinet.” Gun-Britt had opened the bathroom door, and Anne-Risten thought she saw her recoil; she must have caught the odor of dead fetus. There was a clatter as she opened the mirror that hid the cabinet, then waved a package of Konsum’s blue-and-white sanitary napkins.
“I feel really awful,” said Anne-Risten, sticking her feet into her black clogs with the worn left sole.
Gun-Britt couldn’t think of anything more to say, and Anne-Risten closed the door behind her. She would never make it home before blood soaked through her jeans. When she reached the courtyard, she walked with her legs pressed close together, trying to keep inside what wanted out. She didn’t turn around but just knew Gun-Britt, Gunilla, and Eva-Lena were standing at the window. They sure had something to talk about now. She cut across the playground, the sand that had escaped from the sandbox crunching under her wooden soles, and she turned her left ankle. A jolt of pain ran through her and tears welled in her eyes. She reached the courtyard of number 6 and walked stiff-legged up the stairs. Got the door unlocked and slammed it behind her so hard it echoed in the stairwell. She staggered into a bathroom just as tiny as Gun-Britt’s and closed her eyes as she pulled down jeans and panties. The blood was still flowing.
God’s punishment for wishing her child away.
“It’s not punishment,” she muttered to herself, eyes still closed. “I got what I wanted.”
She was such a lunatic, sitting there talking to herself. She was going to end up in the loony bin in Pite. But it would be just as well if they locked her up. Now she was sobbing loudly. Could she die of blood loss? Why wasn’t it stopping? She didn’t dare call Roger, he would surely say it was her fault, that she had killed the baby with her smoking. And it was her fault! She had killed a baby with her thoughts. She had wished the fetus gone. There had to be consequences for such a thing. The sucking, burning pain attacked her womb again and she bent double as tears dripped onto the pale blue terry rug. Niklas always tripped over its white edge when he got up at night. And yet she didn’t switch it out, because she thought that if Gun-Britt ever came to visit, she would definitely ask where she’d gotten it. But Gun-Britt had never been to her home. None of the women had. Even though she’d said they were welcome to gather at her place some morning. To think that they weren’t even curious to see her furniture and wallpaper. She herself had studied every detail of Gun-Britt’s home, and had even bought identical curtains for her own kitchen. She had imagined Gun-Britt would walk in and comment that they had the same taste.
Slowly the pain faded. It was healthy to let blood now and then, the elders liked to say; it could only help, she’d heard. So she gritted her teeth and imagined that this blood had to come out for her own sake. She wiped again, and this time the paper was white. She flushed without checking the bowl and left the bathroom.
No way would God only take the baby. Surely there were worse things to come. She wandered aimlessly around the apartment, naked from the waist down, but the big sweater shielded her privates from the neighbors’ gazes. She went back to the half bath and picked up the bloody bundle of garments, then went to the next room and tossed them in the bathtub. She turned the faucet on full force. Back to the kitchen, not a crumb on the floor, no dishes left out—it was spotless. Gun-Britt ought to come over and see how a real woman kept house. She ought to see how Anne-Risten pressed the sheets in the basement laundry room of 6D. She pressed most items, while Gun-Britt hardly even ironed and sometimes left the breakfast mugs sitting around until lunch.
She got a new pair of panties from the bedroom wardrobe and went back to the bathroom for a pad.
It was probably a girl. That was her gut feeling. Cecilia had been thrilled about becoming a big sister. Now the children would have to be told the baby had died. Why had Roger told them? How could she explain to Cecilia that her little sister had trickled out of her? Would she hate her mother for being unable to protect a baby? And what if she knew that Anne-Risten had wished away something Cecilia had wanted so much?
First came the hollow pull in her chest, then the dizziness. She grabbed the windowsill. A number of doctors over the years had dismissed her theories about brain tumors or heart defects. They said it was all in her head. Just like they’d said back at nomad school. No one had believed her then either.
Now her legs felt weightless; panic rushed in. She was breathing too fast.
“Enná!” she whimpered.
Roger thought he had a normal wife. He didn’t know anything about demons. The wave swelled inside her and it felt possible that she might follow the baby, leave behind the two to whom she had given life.
She sank to the floor and rested her cheek on the cold surface. Now Roger would see what she was. The thought was clear and her body grew quiet.
After a while she was able to stand; her legs had regained feeling and the swaying floor had stilled. But the blood was rushing out of her again.
When she reached the bathroom she avoided the mirror, just tossed her panties away and climbed into the bathtub, where the cold water was still pouring from the tap; it would soon overflow. She shivered and stood with water up to her knees, washing her thighs and between her legs. She used her big toe to dislodge the stopper, letting the bloody water swirl down the drain. Her jeans were plastered to the bottom of the tub. She dried off with her towel, changed her pad, and put on her panties. She stood there for a moment with her hand on the rise of her belly. The sucking pustule had done its job; her belly was already flattening.
Should she go to the clinic? Call an ambulance, maybe? It was flowing out of her again, perhaps not as heavily, but she was still bleeding.
She staggered to the kitchen, pulled out the stepstool, and reached for the highest shelf in the cabinet above the sink, digging under the fancy embroidered tablecloth she intended to bring out if Gun-Britt ever came by. There was the pack of cigarettes and a lighter. A moment of relief. Then she would call the emergency room.
T HE DOOR OPENED AND the gynecologist returned with his gentle smile. “Nope, it’s not a yeast infection.”
Anne-Risten lifted one leg, wanting to get down. He placed a hand on her knee.
“I’d just like to feel your belly again.” He pressed very deep and she gave a little cry. “When was your last period?”
“Three weeks ago, maybe.”
“I think it might be a cyst.” He looked at her attentively. “No, there’s no reason to worry, relax. It’s common at your age, and I think it will go away on its own. If it’s a chocolate cyst, you might experience some heavy bleeding, but it’s not dangerous.”
“Could it…” Her voice cracked. “Could it be a tumor?”
He brought his lower lip up to his mustache and shook his head. “Don’t think like that. For now we’ll wait and see, and if you’re still having trouble after your next period we can refer you for further testing.”
He was by the sink now, washing his hands, saying she was all done. Her legs trembled as she hurried behind the curtain.
When she lost the baby, the gynecologist was a woman, unsympathetic and rough with her hands. She had confirmed the miscarriage and made sure the bleeding stopped before Anne-Risten could die too. The doctor had declared that there was no danger of that anyway, that miscarriages meant a lot of bleeding and there was no reason to seek treatment; most women did just fine at home, on their own. Anne-Risten had wanted to ask why her body had expelled the baby, but she already knew the answer. Besides, the gynecologist probably would have made a snap judgment, decided she knew what kind of woman Anne-Risten was; she would have smelled the surstromming and cigarette smoke, assumed she’d been drinking too.
The pad had chafed at her private parts as she walked home from the hospital. What was she going to tell Roger? That was all she could think. Over and over again.