Read Online To Mervas by Elisabeth Rynell - Free Book Online Page A

to the radio. My little sister is asleep in the smaller room, where Mom’s bed is.
    When someone rings the doorbell around eight-thirty, Mom’s eyes get empty and distant. She buttons the lowest button on her muumuu and pulls her hand through her hair.
    â€œPlease, Mom, don’t open the door,” my little brother whispers.
    Mom only looks straight ahead. The doorbell rings again, a longer tone this time.
    â€œTake those things away,” she says absentmindedly, nodding at the tea tray. It’s my task to try to hide things that are easily broken. Fortunately, we no longer have a teapot that we care about. We’ve been brewing our tea in a regular pot on the stove for the past few months, and that’s been fine.
    As I’m running to the kitchen with the tray, the pounding on the front door begins. Soon I’ll hear Daddy’s voice through the mail slot. He usually calls for me, telling me to open the door.
    I hide as much of the china as I can in a small space I’ve discoveredbehind the kitchen drawers. The teacups don’t fit in there, but there’s room for tall glasses and coffee cups. We’ve kept all the plates in the drawer under the stove for some time now.
    My hands tremble violently as I put away the glasses. I have to hurry now; pounding and ringing signals echo through the apartment. I carefully put the lower drawer back on its tracks and with some effort push it back into place. When I hear the squeak of the mail slot opening, I run in to the others again.
    Mom is standing in the middle of the floor. Her chin quivers almost unnoticeably; the rest of her face is taut. Her back is very straight; in some way she seems large where she stands. My sister quietly comes out of the bedroom, where she has taken the twins.
    â€œSoon the neighbors will call the police,” Mom whispers.
    It happened once before. I don’t think Mom had ever been more ashamed. The police officer told her that in the future, we had to handle our family business without disturbing the neighbors. He didn’t want to hear any more complaints about “gypsy behavior” from our building. We ought to be ashamed and behave like everyone else. Mom stood there with her head bent, her face bright red. Dad had quickly disappeared.
    â€œMarta!” he calls, his voice shrill with rage. “Come here immediately!”
    He said my name hard and fast, made it sound like the crack of a whip. That’s why I’ve never liked my own name. It sounds beautiful in English, and in Finnish too. But in regular Swedish it sounds as though someone has slapped you in the face twice; I still think so. Kosti called me Mart. I loved him for that. He came up with it himself too; I didn’t have to ask him.
    Mom gives me a look I’ve seen before. My knees are shaking and my skin stings when I stumble out to his voice in the hallway. I have to be the one who lets him in. Once again, I have to open the door and look intothe terrifying face that is simultaneously rigid and dissolving.
    As soon as I’ve cracked the door open, he forces it wide open and gives me a hard push so I fall backward onto the shoes under the clothing rack. He shuts the door with almost unnatural care; it makes me think of a lizard, some kind of reptile. With no apparent transition, he could always move from rest to immediate attack. He’s already reached Mom. I hear him calling her names, hear the sounds of him beating her, and I don’t want to see it but I have to, I have to. My older sister is in the bedroom with our younger siblings, trying to calm them down. They’re sobbing. Someone has to stay and witness this. If I close my eyes or try to hide, I’m abandoning Mom and then I can’t protect her with my gaze. In some odd way I have to when I wanted to close my eyes, when they closed even though I didn’t want them to, I forced them open with my thumbs. I have to protect Dad with my gaze too,