Punished

45. Else-Maj

ELSE-MAJ

1986

Miessemánnu. Calving month. May. When everything began all over again, the reindeer herders’ fresh start, full of new hope for a good year to come. The snow stubbornly remained, although it lay in patches and mostly only on the north side of houses and roads. But it wasn’t an ordinary year. Else-Maj didn’t want to think about the chatter and concern that Chernobyl had brought. She didn’t want to be aware of words like “becquerel” and what they might mean for reindeer herding. How far north had the winds carried the radioactivity? They wouldn’t know until the reindeer were slaughtered.

She had gotten out her bicycle and taken a long, easy ride between villages. It was the first warm day, and she rolled up the sleeves of her jacket to feel the sun. Just like the children, when the gravel roads in the village thawed, she was quick to hop on her bike. She’d asked her boys to stay off the county highway, but they had to get to their friends’ places and it wasn’t yet possible to take shortcuts across meadows and ditches. There was no point in chiding Ella—she would do whatever was most dangerous. She simply laughed at her brothers when she passed them. Else-Maj already dreaded the day that laughter would disappear from the house.

She had hardly broken a sweat when she came to the final straightaway that led to the cemetery. It wasn’t very pretty this time of year, with its gray trees and last year’s grass. There was always the risk of a late-season snowfall, but not today. The gravel in the parking lot outside the cemetery crunched under her tires as she pulled up alongside the stone wall. She didn’t bother to lock the bike, just took the potted yellow marigolds from her basket. No point in planting them yet. But each year, as soon as the snow melted, she brought flowers to the cemetery, and sometimes the frost didn’t get them.

Sara’s grave was on the right side of the wide gravel path in the center of the cemetery, a few rows in. It was a family plot and her parents’ names were already engraved, but the blank stone plates were waiting for the dates. She had been furious with her parents about that. As if Enná especially couldn’t wait to lie beside Sara in eternal rest. And she had certainly taken note of the fact that there was no room for her own name on the stone. It wasn’t until she was much older that she realized Enná expected Else-Maj would one day have a family of her own to be buried with. But Sara—she’d been waiting for more than thirty years for her parents to join her.

Else-Maj murmured, talking to her unna oabbá as if to a child. Sara hadn’t grown any older, and this was where she sat in the murmur of the birch leaves, listening for her stuora oabbá. Else-Maj wanted to speak to her in a manner she would understand.

She put down a piece of Styrofoam to protect her knees as she cleared away yellow grass and arranged the pots next to the stone. A car pulled into the lot and Else-Maj peered over the wall, but it wasn’t anyone she recognized. She ducked down in the hope she wouldn’t be spotted, but she was relieved it was a stranger rather than someone who might come over and chat. Not that it happened often, talking about a dead child; even though Sara had died so long ago, most people preferred not to bring it up. They nodded from a distance and went about their own business.

Else-Maj wanted her private moment with Sara. She pulled her hood a little higher to hide her face. The iron gate creaked and she heard slow footsteps on the gravel, as though the other visitor were shuffling their feet. The shuffling came closer and Else-Maj bent down again to turn the pots, trying to appear busy.

“I’m not here to check on my site, because this isn’t where I’ll be buried. But my siessá is. You remember Inger, don’t you?” It was Anna, right there next to her, blocking out the sun. Else-Maj twisted her upper body to look at her; there was nothing else she could do.

“She’s over there, Inger-siessá,” Anna said, pointing to the other side of the path.

Else-Maj didn’t get up, and anyway, wasn’t it symbolic for her to kneel there in her shame?

“You never came to visit,” Anna said mildly.

What was she supposed to say to that? Else-Maj simply shook her head.

“I talked to Gustu, and he said you were here. But maybe you don’t want to talk to me now, either.”

Anna pulled her red coat tighter against the chilly wind. Else-Maj had goose bumps too, and she rolled down her sleeves, mostly just for something to do.

“Little Sara,” Anna said. “Unna Sara.”

Her shins were going numb; she had to stand up. Else-Maj was a head shorter, but Anna, who had always been plump, was thin as a reed. She couldn’t weigh much more than Else-Maj now. Her hair fluttered in short, thin wisps and hardly hid her scalp. She noticed Else-Maj’s gaze.

“Yes, they gave me chemotherapy after all, I should have said no, of course, but it’s hard not to hold on to hope.”

“I’m going to get the watering can,” Else-Maj said. She had watered the pots yesterday, so there really wasn’t a need, but she couldn’t stay there. And now Sara was sitting in the birches, listening. Was she going to have to hear this? Else-Maj had no idea what was going to be said, but she suspected Anna was trying to muster an apology. Suddenly she felt like an abandoned child again. She picked up the watering can and carried it back to the grave with the flimsy strength of an eleven-year-old.

Back then, a long time ago, she’d asked Enná to take her to A ? evuopmi to look for Anna, but they never did, and anyway, rumor had it that Anna had already moved again. Else-Maj also tried to call when she was home from the nomad school, Hulda’s breathing in her ear as she waited for an answer. But no one picked up; it was as if Anna had been swallowed by the earth.

Now she was about to learn why she had been left all on her own. Was that so? There stood Anna, body invaded, making it hard—though not impossible—to be angry with her. Eleven-year-old Else-Maj wouldn’t have held back. She probably would have cried at first, but then she would have made Anna understand that it was completely unforgiveable, the way she had disappeared.

Else-Maj walked past Anna as though she wasn’t there. She nearly began murmuring to Sara again but caught herself and let the gentle stream of water flow over the grave.

“Can we sit down?” Anna asked, clearly winded.

The eleven-year-old screamed, stomped her feet, struck her knuckles bloody on the stacked stones that had surrounded the dead for all these years. The grown-up Else-Maj looked around for a bench where Sara wouldn’t listen. It was silly, because of course Oabbá would tag along just as she always had. Sara was with her every day, and yet she came here to talk to her. Wasn’t that strange? But this was the only place where Else-Maj could get the words out. Sure, she could sigh and utter monosyllabic responses while hanging laundry in the summer, mosquitoes and Sara circling her. And yes, the occasional “geah?a oabbá” slipped out when she wanted her sister to see Ella running just as fast as Else-Maj herself had in the schoolyard. Look at that! She’s got it.

“What do you say about that bench over by the cross?” Anna asked.

A large wooden cross had been erected on the other side of the cemetery, next to the hill where the dead, in past years, were kept cool while waiting for the ground to thaw enough for burial. Else-Maj didn’t like that hill, but her eyes had often rested on the cross after a talk with Sara.

Anna walked laboriously along the gravel path and Else-Maj knew she should offer an arm, but it was impossible.

They sat down and Else-Maj perched at the very end of the bench.

“Well, I suppose I don’t know how to say this,” Anna began. “But I want to explain what happened.”

The sun warmed her face and now Sara was on the bench as well, between Else-Maj and Anna. She was surely dangling her legs and waiting in anticipation. Else-Maj’s feet didn’t reach the ground either.

“All right, I suppose I had better just tell it like it was, the unvarnished truth. About a week after you all went home for Christmas, I was called in to see Housemother. At first she was quite mild, saying I had done my best with your sister. But I couldn’t hold my tongue and I said Sara should have been sent home immediately, that maybe then she would have survived.”

Else-Maj held her breath and her lungs shriveled as the rock of grief began to pulsate.

“And then she did an about-face and told me I was not to threaten her. But I wasn’t. Well, I suppose I wanted her to feel guilty, wanted her to confess that she was in the wrong for once. And do you know, it was as if I couldn’t bring myself to cower any longer. The worst had already happened, so how could it get any worse?”

Anna had to catch her breath for a moment, and she rubbed her forehead.

“Maybe it was stupid of me, but I had to do it. And I couldn’t keep quiet about Jon-Ante either, I said he should have been taken to a doctor, that his finger was ruined for the rest of his life. That’s when she became vicious, saying I had bandaged his finger wrong and it was all my fault. I raised my voice, stood up for myself, and then she hit me.”

Else-Maj looked at Anna. Sara must be doing the same. Maybe Sara had placed a reassuring hand on Anna’s leg. Else-Maj couldn’t reach, and she wouldn’t have done it even if she could.

“She slapped me hard, over the ear. I was shocked, stunned. And that wasn’t the worst of it.” Anna cleared her throat. “This isn’t easy to say, I want you to know.”

Then don’t say it! Else-Maj’s eleven-year-old self was back, and she wanted to stand up and bolt. Take Sara by the hand and run away.

“She said I was a nasty woman, not a real woman at all. That since I was twenty-two years old without a husband, I must be an invert, that I had my eye on women, which meant I was probably after little girls too.”

Else-Maj clutched the bench and shifted forward to put steady ground beneath her feet.

“She said I had taken Anne-Risten to Inger-siessá’s house to do terrible things to her. And then she said”—Anna was trembling now—“that she had even caught me with a naked girl.”

Else-Maj gasped. “What are you talking about?”

Anna wrung her hands. “Do you remember the time you had an accident and I helped you in the shower and made sure you got some dry clothes? Housemother saw us.”

Else-Maj stood up, crossed her arms over her chest, and stared out at the forest. Sara stayed on the bench.

“I protested, of course, and told her to ask Teacher Bertil, he could tell her you’d had an accident. She said she had already spoken with him, that he had confirmed what had happened but said you were away from the classroom for an unusually long time, and who knew what I had done to you while no one was watching.”

“He didn’t say that, did he?”

“No, I don’t believe he did.”

“But I could have told the truth, said she was lying.”

Anna zipped her coat and tucked her hands inside the sleeves. “It had been a few years since that happened, and I’m sure no one would have believed a little girl, especially not one of the Lapp children. They would say I had intimidated you into lying. All I knew was that I had to leave. She could destroy my life. What if that story had gotten out around the village?”

“So she never said anything to anyone? She didn’t report you?”

“No, she was only bluffing, but it was enough to scare me into leaving the school. You should have seen her eyes as she stared at me and said, ‘I think you realize, Anna, that you must vacate this position or I will have no choice but to pursue this further.’?” Anna rubbed her palms together. “Can you imagine? How wicked to lie about something like that, and then make it seem like she was doing me a favor by letting me go.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Else-Maj swayed side to side as she’d always done back when she had babies on her hip. “Did you tell anyone?”

“Yes, Inger-siessá.” They both glanced at the grave down by the pine trees. “But what could she do? She cried with me. We decided not to tell Enná and Isá. Inger arranged for me to work for a family in A ? evuopmi, and that didn’t raise any suspicions. There was no talk. But for a long time I lived in fear that Rita Olsson had spread that rumor, so I chose to move farther away. I was too scared to get in touch with you, too, because what if she had said something and it gave the old gossips fuel for their fire to see us together?”

“This is insane.”

“I was so young. I was scared and entirely at the mercy of that woman. Suddenly she was in control of my life.”

Anna could no longer hold back her tears, but her sobs were silent. Sara looked at Else-Maj, surely full of reproach. But Else-Maj’s arms hung slack and she took on a matter-of-fact tone. “You were scared, just like we all were, powerless and under constant watch. Vulnerable.”

“I truly didn’t want to leave you. Especially not after Sara died.”

But you did! the eleven-year-old shouted. Sara covered her ears.

“Housemother got even worse after you left.”

Salt in the wound. But why should only Anna get to unburden herself? Although Else-Maj didn’t want to say any more. It was already too much; the world went silent and she had to sit down again.

Neither of them said anything. Anna wiped her cheeks and stared out at the gravestones. Else-Maj wanted to lean against Sara.

“ándagassii,” Anna murmured.

There it was. An apology. But how could she accept it? How could she ease Anna’s conscience when her inner child was screaming herself into exhaustion? But this was juvenile. After all, knowing Anna hadn’t had any choice, she ought to forgive her.

“You don’t have to say anything. It’s enough for me that you know. Maybe someday you can forgive me.”

A car pulled into the parking lot, a blue Saab. Two older women entered the cemetery, darting casual glances their way.

Anna sat up straight with a new kind of focus in her eyes. “I saw you at church in Láttevárri last year and noticed that you left before the meeting had really begun. That is, I wasn’t going to church myself but I had given my cousin a ride. When I picked her up that night, I saw Rita Olsson. Do you know, I nearly threw up, nothing like that had ever happened before. And then I thought maybe that was why you left. Was it?”

Else-Maj was reminded of her own physical reaction. Afterward she’d wondered if she’d been mistaken, but soon the rumors confirmed that Rita Olsson had been at the Laestadian meeting. Else-Maj stayed away from the village chatter, hadn’t participated in the speculation about that woman’s life. But she assumed, bitterly, that as soon as the rumors reached Astrid in the shop she must have spread lies about Else-Maj’s distress, reported that she had fled the meeting. Should she be honest with Anna about it now?

“Yes, I saw her and I left.”

“I have thought about getting revenge, I want you to know. And now that I’m dying anyway it wouldn’t be taking much of a risk. Who would throw me in jail?”

“Don’t joke around about that.”

“I’m not joking,” she said, but she was smiling. “Wouldn’t you like to punish her?”

It was hard to interpret the tiny smirk Anna wore, and Else-Maj elected not to say anything.

“I can’t believe you became a Christian,” Anna said. “How can you believe in God after everything that happened?”

This question surprised her; it verged on aggressive. “It wasn’t God’s fault.”

“I just don’t understand people who say things happen for some greater purpose.”

For a moment, she was the Anna of Else-Maj’s childhood again, and Else-Maj relented. This was how she wanted to remember her, an Anna who could give her the strength to get through yet another day with just a few words. And now she was saying what Else-Maj had always believed, that Sara’s death had no purpose—certainly not God’s.

“I agree,” Else-Maj said. “There is no greater purpose when children die.”

At last they had found mutual understanding, but no hands would reach out.

“When you disappeared, the only comfort I had left was God,” Else-Maj said.

“I’m sure it’s a blessing to have that sort of security. I suppose I should say I’ve also tried to find what you have, but it never worked. And when I saw Rita Olsson in church, I thought that if God can forgive people like her, then he can’t be my God.”

Else-Maj brought her hand to her chest and massaged her ribs, feeling the rock that clung there. No, that was too much to grapple with, and she couldn’t handle such doubt.

“If she’s going through the pearly gates, she damn well ought to suffer on her way there,” Anna said.

“That’s not your responsibility.”

She scoffed. “Maybe I just want to make it happen. How come she’s gotten off scot-free for all these years, after what she did? She should have been reported to the police. I could have been a witness. She should have gone to prison.” Anna trailed off and shook her head. “I didn’t do enough.”

Else-Maj didn’t need to say anything to increase Anna’s burden. She placed a hand over the eleven-year-old’s mouth. Did this change anything? No, that was the whole problem. What was the point of forgiving what couldn’t be undone? She looked at Anna, who had stood up and was walking back and forth on the gravel with tottering steps.

“My legs get uncomfortable and tingly if I sit for too long.”

Else-Maj relented once more, entertaining the thought of what might have become of her had Anna stayed. But she couldn’t let her get close now, couldn’t allow an embrace given her slack arms; it would only make them both unhappy.

“Will you come to my funeral?” Anna’s eyes were tired, and she had stopped to rub her thighs.

“Yes, I will.”

“You’re too short to be a pallbearer. I’m sure you’re plenty strong, but it would tip too much.”

Else-Maj didn’t like Anna’s rapid shifts in tone; she couldn’t keep up and definitely wasn’t going to laugh.

“I got married to the love of my life, in Norway. Then he died. We never had any children. I suppose it’s just as well.”

“No, you should have had children. I’m sorry to hear it never came to pass.” Else-Maj felt Sara nudging her shoulder, and she went on. “You would have been a good enná. You were so good with us. A comfort, you really were.” This was the closest to forgiveness she could get, and it didn’t sting to have said it. The eleven-year-old didn’t need her muzzle, and Sara flew up into the birches.

“You were like my own, Else-Maj. I did have a child. It was you.” Anna extended an arm; it was visibly thin under her jacket. “Will you help me to the car?”

Her heart pounded wildly, but Else-Maj gently slipped her arm under Anna’s. She was close enough to catch her scent. It wasn’t quite the same. Anna’s warmth came through the fabric and she felt her arm, bony and sharp. They walked slowly, side by side, and paused at Inger’s grave, where Anna whispered that they would soon meet again.