25.5.2009


2






2

    They sat in the living room and watched the kids ice-skating out on Tjörn Pond. Violet had served light refreshments, and nothing disturbed them.

    The family court's request had a bracing effect on Edith, although the occasion was not exactly uplifting. After they had eaten and chatted a while, Violet turned to the Edith's previous visit. She smiled: "I knew that something was on your mind."

    "Yes, right. I just didn't have the courage to to mention it, so I just didn't."

    "Am I such a shrew?" said Violet and smiled warmly at her sister.

    "No, but so much has happened. You aren't my little sister anymore, and I'm not any longer..." she hesitated, "...what I was. Now we're grown women and, it seems to me, somewhat far apart, and that's not strange."

    Violet listened to her sister. She saw no reason to interrupt her. She looked at her sister and followed how she gained control of herself, little by little.

    "I have been so closed. I thought I could work my way out of this. To a certain extent, I succeeded. Then I decided this summer to tell Cecil about everything, how I was sexually abused as a child."

    "Did you?"

    "Yes."

    She found it difficult to continue: "He took it badly?very badly."

    She had started to cry and had to dry her eyes. She was flushed and did not feel well. Then, she continued: "He took it badly. I still don't understand it. He said that if he had known, he never would have married me."

    Her sobbing made it impossible for her to go on; she dried her eyes and face with a handkerchief crumpled between her hands: "Forgive me for being such a sorry creature."

    "Then what happened?"

    "It's all right now; he loves me." Now she smiled and seemed to calm down a bit: "I still don't understand how he could have said this."

    "People react differently to a shock. You should have seen John when this came up about Steina. It wasn't until then that I had the guts to tell him what had happened to me when I was ten. This was a shock for him. I thought he was going to commit murder."

    Edith dried her eyes: "Tell me, Violet, what do you make of this reaction that he wouldn't have married me if he'd known before?"

    Violet thought for a moment: "I have gone to see a psychic healer named Brandur Brandsson. He knows something about this. He often refers to the Bible. He speaks of the body as a temple for the soul. If we show disrespect for this temple, our body, or if someone barges into the temple in dirty shoes, it can harm us, our soul that lives in the temple. I did not understand everything that Brandur Brandsson told me, but I

understood this. When I think about this, I understand John's reaction when he learned that this temple that he loves so much is shown disrespect. I think Cecil was thinking along the same lines.

    Edith listened to Violet: "I think that's right." She glanced at Violet: "But we certainly can't continue this chat endlessly. What do you want me to do?"

    "You intend to come?"

    "Yes, of course I'll come."

    "We have already conducted the interrogation, and now from you we want to hear how he treated you."

    "I'll show up."

    "Then, when all the testimony is finished, the family court will decide the punishment."

    "You will decide whether you want to continue to the end or leave before we get to that point."

    "I think I will want to continue. I haven't seen this man since I moved away from home."

    Violet looked at her sister and saw anticipation in her gaze: "Do you hate him?"

"I don't know if it's hate; I think actually that it's more akin to contempt, perhaps a mixture of contempt and pity."