Read Online The Looking-Glass Sisters by Gøhril Gabrielsen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gøhril Gabrielsen
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I’m falling and falling in the dream, but wake up at the moment my body smacks against the floor. The pain of the collision overwhelms me. Yet the surprise is worse:to find my old nightdress way up my stomach, my pubic region dismally bared and naked, the helplessness, the gaze towards the books and the dust under the bed, the whole situation confirming the fact that I have gone down, down and under.
I’m unable to get up from the floor. I haven’t had the strength for several years to get up from the floor unaided.
‘Ragna! Ragna!’
She comes padding from a hiding place in the house, is suddenly standing in the room staring at me with black eyes, open-mouthed. Her jaws are working, her arms shaking; she radiates a deep urge to tie me up, to lash her prey tightly.
Clack, clack.
She is standing directly over me. Her mouth is dribbling, her black eyes glitter hungrily towards the flesh that I scarcely can move.
‘Yes,’ she whistles.
‘Can you help me up? I was dreaming and fell on the floor.’
‘Yes,’ she sighs huskily, gripping me by the arm, dragging me closer to the bed, heaving in an attempt to pull me up.
‘No, no, not like that, Ragna. Be more careful!’
She moans and supports herself, presses her fists in under my arms, strains, and with a sudden heave she throws my upper body towards the mattress. I grab hold of the foam rubber with all I’ve got in the way of hands and nails, while she, with a hard grasp round my feet, flings the rest of my body up.
I lie there in a twisted, impossible position, right on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to get hold of my bottom and push me over. I whimper, cling to the bedclothes, turnmy head towards her as a sign that I am waiting for her to continue, the final lift.
Ragna stands in the middle of the floor, grinning with her mouth open. I must look a bit surprised, for now she starts to sneer and laugh, throwing her upper body forward in small jerks, holding her stomach. Her laughter does not surprise me, nor the sound of it. To anyone uninitiated, it will sound like hearty trilling. I who know her hear traces of malicious pleasure.
‘Well, help me!’
The small jerks become faster; the laughter courses through her chest, builds up soundlessly before, in a final surge, it eventually bubbles over.
‘Come on. Help me, then!’ I cry out through the quacking din of her vocal cords.
She stops at once, puts a hand to her throat, then sneers some more. Her eyes blink and gleam, and she turns and crawls laughing out of the room, back to her hiding place.
*
I spend all my time in bed, counting neither the hours nor the days, but registering that darkness is in the process of taking over the day, the winds are increasing, the cold is seeping into the room. It must be getting on for mid-October, the time just before it starts to snow, white and pure. I feel a yearning for purity; my eyes want to rest in the white outside the window. I smell after weeks without being washed.
Ragna and I avoid each other. I call her for only the most necessary tasks. She’s hardly at home at present; assoon as she has an excuse, she’s over at Johan’s. They’re probably working together on everything that has to be managed before the winter – from the smell and the spots of blood on her clothes I know that the autumn slaughtering is under way, with freezing, hanging up to dry, smoking and mincing.
Johan hasn’t shown himself since our last altercation, but Ragna is obviously back in favour – it’s not only her clothes that have spots of red on them when she comes back from his place.
*
I reign as queen in my room, in spite of the dust and the dirt. I have the silence, my pen and books, and, not least, I own the hours when Ragna is away. Sometimes I listen to a programme on the radio, but generally speaking I listen and talk to myself. And that is not poor entertainment.
In this steady, calm trickle I find it easy to forget, forgive, explain away,
I’m falling and falling in the dream, but wake up at the moment my body smacks against the floor. The pain of the collision overwhelms me. Yet the surprise is worse:to find my old nightdress way up my stomach, my pubic region dismally bared and naked, the helplessness, the gaze towards the books and the dust under the bed, the whole situation confirming the fact that I have gone down, down and under.
I’m unable to get up from the floor. I haven’t had the strength for several years to get up from the floor unaided.
‘Ragna! Ragna!’
She comes padding from a hiding place in the house, is suddenly standing in the room staring at me with black eyes, open-mouthed. Her jaws are working, her arms shaking; she radiates a deep urge to tie me up, to lash her prey tightly.
Clack, clack.
She is standing directly over me. Her mouth is dribbling, her black eyes glitter hungrily towards the flesh that I scarcely can move.
‘Yes,’ she whistles.
‘Can you help me up? I was dreaming and fell on the floor.’
‘Yes,’ she sighs huskily, gripping me by the arm, dragging me closer to the bed, heaving in an attempt to pull me up.
‘No, no, not like that, Ragna. Be more careful!’
She moans and supports herself, presses her fists in under my arms, strains, and with a sudden heave she throws my upper body towards the mattress. I grab hold of the foam rubber with all I’ve got in the way of hands and nails, while she, with a hard grasp round my feet, flings the rest of my body up.
I lie there in a twisted, impossible position, right on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to get hold of my bottom and push me over. I whimper, cling to the bedclothes, turnmy head towards her as a sign that I am waiting for her to continue, the final lift.
Ragna stands in the middle of the floor, grinning with her mouth open. I must look a bit surprised, for now she starts to sneer and laugh, throwing her upper body forward in small jerks, holding her stomach. Her laughter does not surprise me, nor the sound of it. To anyone uninitiated, it will sound like hearty trilling. I who know her hear traces of malicious pleasure.
‘Well, help me!’
The small jerks become faster; the laughter courses through her chest, builds up soundlessly before, in a final surge, it eventually bubbles over.
‘Come on. Help me, then!’ I cry out through the quacking din of her vocal cords.
She stops at once, puts a hand to her throat, then sneers some more. Her eyes blink and gleam, and she turns and crawls laughing out of the room, back to her hiding place.
*
I spend all my time in bed, counting neither the hours nor the days, but registering that darkness is in the process of taking over the day, the winds are increasing, the cold is seeping into the room. It must be getting on for mid-October, the time just before it starts to snow, white and pure. I feel a yearning for purity; my eyes want to rest in the white outside the window. I smell after weeks without being washed.
Ragna and I avoid each other. I call her for only the most necessary tasks. She’s hardly at home at present; assoon as she has an excuse, she’s over at Johan’s. They’re probably working together on everything that has to be managed before the winter – from the smell and the spots of blood on her clothes I know that the autumn slaughtering is under way, with freezing, hanging up to dry, smoking and mincing.
Johan hasn’t shown himself since our last altercation, but Ragna is obviously back in favour – it’s not only her clothes that have spots of red on them when she comes back from his place.
*
I reign as queen in my room, in spite of the dust and the dirt. I have the silence, my pen and books, and, not least, I own the hours when Ragna is away. Sometimes I listen to a programme on the radio, but generally speaking I listen and talk to myself. And that is not poor entertainment.
In this steady, calm trickle I find it easy to forget, forgive, explain away,
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