From Eva-Lisa’s Monument

The four-year-old meets her own gaze in the mirror, then allows it to wander over the pearl necklaces, the earrings that reach down to her shoulders and the pale green dress with the lace trim. She admires the high heels and the bracelets that jangle when she carefully pulls up the large gloves. The tiara with glass beads that rests on her dark curls is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. She twists and turns so she can see herself properly, taking it all in. At home she often borrows her big sister’s clothes, but this is something really special. She almost doesn’t recognise herself. Or is it rather that she does? The two teenage girls also seem happy with their creation, and call the adults to come and see.

All day, the family has been travelling in the Volvo truck with the new engine that Father invented. They’re visiting his boss, and the big house is something very different to their flat at home in Kristineberg. Two whole storeys for just one family! The teenagers’ room is full of things big girls have, which you can look at and even try out if you’re careful.

The four-year-old has long understood that she’s expected to wear boys’ clothes, and not her sister Birgit’s outgrown blouses and cardigans, which she prefers. She doesn’t remember anyone saying it outright, but it’s the kind of thing you just understand. And when the adults look into the girls’ room now they laugh kindly, but she hears that thing in her father’s voice. That touch of embarrassment.

‘Well now it’s time for all the youngsters to go to bed. Birgit, help your little brother to take all that off!’

The adults leave, and the girls begin doing something else. But the four-year-old stays by the mirror. This is too important to brush aside. She looks herself right in the eyes, absorbing the image. That’s her. Just think! A real girl. Eva-Lisa. She doesn’t say it aloud, but she thinks it. And inside her the name rings as clear as a bell. It takes root in her chest and spreads like a pressure wave, vibrating through her entire body. Eva-Lisa. From now on, that’s her real name. For many years she will keep it to herself, but all the same. She knows it now, with absolute certainty. 

Eva-Lisa walks down the corridor. The PE lesson is finally over, and now there’s only an hour of maths left before she finally gets to go home. Home from the ‘snob school’ as she calls it to herself. She doesn’t like it at all. Partly because the boys and girls are separated, so she always has to be in the boys’ class. But mostly because she hasn’t found a real friend yet, even though they moved there almost a month ago. After Lund the family lived in Hässleholm and Kristianstad, and each time it went the same way. She and Birgit had just got to know their new classmates when their father announced that he had a new job in a new town. At least this is a well-paid job at the state-owned gas company in Stockholm, and it seems like this time it will be for longer. Petrol is in short supply due to the war, so alternative methods have had to be found to keep the country’s transport running. With a producer gas unit, everything from trucks to motorbikes can be run on wood or charcoal. Father’s important task is to make them safer and more effective. His new, higher salary has made them better off, and Mother and Father have said several times that they’re very lucky to live in such a nice place as Lidingö. But despite that Eva-Lisa isn’t happy, particularly not at school. It’s like there are lots of secret rules for how you’re supposed to behave. Like she’s supposed to want to play with the boys. Or to choose woodwork instead of needlework. She thanks her lucky stars that she retained her Stockholm accent and never let the rolling r of the Skåne dialect embed itself in her tongue.

In PE they’d played football and as usual she’d been picked to play in goal. The boys had joked that ‘at least fatty fills up the goal a bit’, and Eva-Lisa hadn’t said a word. Exactly as she always does, she pretended she hadn’t heard. With time she’s got better at shutting out the voices. Almost as if there’s a button she switches on so she doesn’t hear. As she walks past a group of girls in Year 8 she thinks that she still doesn’t want to be with the boys. She doesn’t want to be with anyone. This is a shitty snob school. It feels good to think the forbidden words. Bloody, bloody, piss pants school. Damn pissy snob school. She’s just passed the girls when she hears someone say, quietly but audibly, ‘Hello Piggy.’ They giggle. Eva-Lisa stops. She knows it’s the nickname some of the boys in her class have given her – and now it’s clearly spread. Her tongue feels sticky. She clenches her fists. Fucking school. She turns to the group. It’s just her and them in the corridor now.

‘Fatty!’ shrills one of the girls.

Her heart is thudding. Fucking shitheads, she thinks. And then she takes a deep breath.

‘FUCKING!’ Eva-Lisa shouts.

The word comes out at full volume and bounces off the walls, filling the corridor. But then it falls silent. The word “shitheads” doesn’t follow it. Panic rises in her chest. It’s like a nightmare, when you have to shout something but you just can’t make a sound. Her throat is dry and her cheeks hot. Someone sniggers. And now she feels it: if she opens her mouth she’s going to start crying. And that absolutely mustn’t happen. So she holds her breath, turns and sprints along the corridor to the stairwell. Through the door, down the stairs, down to the cellar. Right at the bottom, by the cellar door, there’s a little space where almost nobody goes. She’s been there before. She curls up into a ball. The crying begins as one long wail, but soon turns into sobs. The tears run over her mouth and chin, dripping onto the stone floor. Her breaths become uneven and she has to cough away mucus that’s gone down the wrong way. She sits there in silence for a while, squeezing out the last of the tears and snorting back the snot. She dries her face with her shirt sleeve. Now she hears the bell ringing. For the first time ever she’s going to skip a lesson. Shitheads, shitheads, shitheads. 

What’s going on? Mr Ström almost looks like he’s about to start crying, even though he’s smiling as he stands outside the school building with the headmaster and another teacher. The last lesson of the day is about to begin, but several pupils are just standing in the school playground.

‘Everyone go to the steps at the end!’ he shouts, pointing to where they should go.

Eva-Lisa soon finds Kerstin in the sea of children gathered at the bottom of the steps where the headmaster and a few teachers have now assembled. They wait for the final pupils. And then the headmaster waves them all to silence.

‘Colleagues and children! We have just been informed that the Germans have capitulated. The war is finally over. There is peace in Europe!’

The children cheer and the teachers clap. A few of the older pupils are so excited that they begin to sing the royal anthem. The teachers try to silence them, but when the pupils hear that they have the rest of the day off they can’t be stopped. It’s too good to be true. What with the peace, the approaching summer and the sudden freedom, the children rush out of the playground, and on the way home Eva-Lisa and Kerstin happily greet everyone they meet. All the adults also seem to be exhilarated by the news. They return the greetings and joke with the children strolling home in the May sunshine.