Bitter Bitch Read online

  I put Sigge against my shoulder and carry him around the room. He grows quiet and I feel his little body relax. I put on Nina Simone and dance with him and let the tears come. I sob quietly so that Johan and the set designer will not hear. I long for the Maternity Ward, for the red button you could push as soon as you needed help. A push of the button and the friendly midwife women with soothing words and comforting hands would come. I was not alone at the Maternity Ward.

  The next day a scriptwriter with whom Johan has upcoming projects stops by. They lock themselves in the study and hold a meeting. We have been home for four days and I have started to shiver. I walk around in thick socks and a jumper and I turn up the heating. The rooftops outside are silver with November frost and I wonder if I will ever be brave enough to go outside again? What do you do when your child starts screaming and you long to leave home?

  My life has changed completely. My body has gone through a war and is now occupied by a foreign power. The one I saw as my ally has turned out to be a traitor. A betrayer, completely absorbed in other things, other meetings. And I try to understand.

  I stare into Sigge’s eyes and try and get to know my little occupying power. I appease him by using a nipple shield, and I get him to eat a little bit. He falls asleep full, and I take the opportunity to make some sandwiches that I gobble down for lunch, and then I watch TV with Sigge in my arms. I am a bit worried because Johan will be going to a meeting in Skellefteå tomorrow. It is at the provincial theatre where his production will take place in a few months, and I am worried about being alone with Sigge for a whole day. It has only been four days since we came home from the hospital and everything is new and overwhelming. I am worried about the breastfeeding not working. I am worried because I have not slept in six days. I am worried that the incision from the Caesarean is hurting.

  I am worried because I notice that Johan’s thoughts are elsewhere.

  I wake up at six in the morning because one of my breasts is rock hard and it hurts. Breast engorgement. I stumble to the bathroom in the November morning darkness. I have read that you should massage and warm the breast when you get breast engorgement, so I aim the hair dryer at my breast. The noise wakes Johan, and when he comes into the bathroom everything falls apart and I sob, ‘Johan please don’t go! I’m in pain and I don’t want to be alone today!’ Johan looks desperate. ‘But I have to go. The whole theatre company is waiting for me.’ The milk is running, snot is dripping, tears are falling. I am a clump of slime which will soon drip down the drain and I scream in order to overpower the hair dryer, ‘To hell with your stupid theatre!’

  But Johan’s flight leaves at seven, and fifteen minutes later he disappears out through the door. I remain sitting in the bathroom on the toilet with the hair dryer, crying and crying. I finally calm myself down and take two paracetamol and crawl into bed next to Sigge’s warm little body. I wake up two hours later, drenched in sweat, with a fever and my tender, tennis-ball breast. I try and nurse Sigge with my healthy breast and then he gets to lie on a blanket on the kitchen floor while I try to eat some breakfast, I do not dare think about the fact that Johan left. That he walked out the door even though I asked him to stay. I brush against the unthinkable but let it stay there, like a well-hidden ulcer.

  I put the oven on high and sit down in front of it naked in the hope that the heat will help, but it does not. The fever just keeps rising and I am shivering all over. I take more paracetamol and get into bed beneath a mountain of blankets with Sigge and I only get up when I am forced to change his nappy.

  Finally Johan comes home late at night, filled with guilt and worry.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you all day,’ he says, with tears in his eyes.

  It does not help me a damn bit that you have been thinking about us all day, I think to myself. But I do not say anything. I am so exhausted and in so much pain, I do not have the energy to be angry.

  When the breast engorgement has not passed after three days and the thermometer reads 41°C, we rush to the hospital. I am given antibiotics and sent home with some friendly nursing tips. Apparently stopping the breastfeeding is not an option. The next day I already feel much better, almost no temperature. But the thermometer reads 39°C, so it is only the difference between 41°C and 39°C which makes me feel better. The next day the temperature rises and then we are off to the emergency room again. This time I am admitted.

  We get our own room so that Johan and Sigge can stay. My fever is now at 40°C and I am either drenched in sweat or freezing. In the afternoon, two women from the hospital breastfeeding office come down. They want to see if I can nurse Sigge without the nipple shield. I am sitting there in an ugly hospital chair, sweating from the fever and Sigge is crying because he cannot nurse without the nipple shield. One of the women grabs and pulls at my nipple and tries to position it correctly in Sigge’s mouth. It hurts, but my breasts are no longer my own. They just happen to be attached to my body, producing milk. After ten long minutes, where I have tried to get a hysterical Sigge to nurse, while the women stand and watch, I ask if I can stop.

  ‘Well, I suppose we can stop for now,’ one of them says. She has a small gold cross around her neck and small white pearl earrings. I suddenly remember reading somewhere that there are many liberals in health care. They never start a revolution, often believe in God and pray to him instead of striking for better working conditions. Maybe it is the fever or because they are just standing there, staring at me, or maybe it is because I am soaked in sweat, but I suddenly become furious at the nursing lady with the gold cross.

  ‘I’m actually thinking about stopping the breastfeeding since it’s not working. I’ve heard about some pills you can take which stop lactation. Wouldn’t that make the breast engorgement go away?’ I say.

  The nursing ladies become upset.

  ‘Those pills are very dangerous, they can make you psychotic,’ says one of them.

  ‘You shouldn’t give up so easily. You can always count on breastfeeding being difficult for the first few months,’ says the one with the gold cross and the pearl earrings.

  ‘I’m not going to make it through the month and I’ll probably become psychotic anyway from constant pain and fever. Do you get that?!’ I scream.

  The nursing ladies look at each other knowingly and then at me. They probably think I am crazy and hysterical. And I am.

  ‘Well, everything will be fine, you’ll see,’ says the golden cross lady.

  ‘Unfortunately we have to go now but you can contact us again if you need any nursing help.’

  They leave and I cry and sweat and my breasts are leaking milk which Sigge cannot get inside him.

  I put the nipple shield on again and try my best to nurse Sigge. Two days later we are allowed to go home. Johan and I have decided to start supplementing the second-rate breast feeding with formula. It works and our concern about Sigge not getting enough food disappears now that we can see exactly how much he is eating. We go for a walk for the first time with Sigge in the buggy. Johan takes a picture of me when I am standing next to the sea. I am leaning on the buggy and I look tired.

  But it is a difficult time in every sense of the word, and the next day my healthy breast really starts hurting. It is slowly transformed into a hard tennis ball and the temperature returns. The hospital says we have to come in again immediately, and I cry. I do not want to go to the hospital again! I am lying on our bed under several layers of thick blankets, shaking from the fever. Johan is sitting on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better for Sigge’s sake if he and I stay home so that you can rest and get better?’ He strokes my hair.

  It takes a moment before I understand that Johan does not want to come with me to the hospital. I do not want to go there either, but I have to, and the thought of having to be away from Sigge for a whole night fills me with a raging fear. It feels physically impossible. I cannot believe he is serious. He cannot be serious!

  Johan changes his mind and s
ays that of course they can come with me, but he does not want to stay overnight. He and Sigge can come and visit during the day but go home at night. I try to explain that I must have Sigge with me. His warm little body, his small gasping breaths which calm me down. But Johan does not understand what I am thinking and says that if he was sick, he wouldn’t want me and Sigge to stay with him. What kind of an argument is that, since I am the one who is sick and want him and Sigge to stay with me? I am suddenly overwhelmed by hate. I become ice cold.

  ‘Do you understand that I’m never, ever going to be able to forgive you for this?’

  Johan looks dejected and goes and calls a taxi.

  The hospital is full and we are shown to a room with several beds. I look at Johan and hate him because he looks so content.

  ‘You see I can’t stay now?’ he says in a regretful tone. I look at the woman in the white coat next to us. She does not make eye contact with me, instead she is looking down at her pager which she fingers nervously.

  ‘Unfortunately we’re short on single rooms tonight. Your husband and your baby won’t be able to stay here overnight,’ she says quietly.

  Does she suspect my desperation? Does she notice my sweat? Does she know that a high temperature makes you boundless and crazy?

  The tears start coming again. I am getting used to it, the sensation of my red, puffy face which never has time to dry from the tears and the snot. A moan grows inside me, starting in my stomach, and moves up through my throat. I am crying in a way I never have before, loud and guttural. I sound like a wounded animal, it sounds horrid and I know it is embarrassing for those in the normal world to which I no longer belong. I hear the nurse leave the room and Johan tries to sit next to me on the bed. I push him away and I take Sigge and crawl under the covers with him next to me. I stroke his little head, look at his beautiful, sleeping face. My beloved child, the most beautiful little baby, who creates a loving ache of a special kind in my entire chest.

  I do not know how long we lie like this. Johan is sitting quietly in the light pink hospital chair, looking out of the window. There is a painting on the wall above him. A watercolour of a meadow with innocent flowers. There is a sunset in the background which colours everything pink. My sense of humour disappeared a long time ago and I think about how much I hate the colour pink. The ugliest colour, disgusting in all ways and yet so common.

  After a while I notice that Johan is starting to get his things together. He puts on his coat and gets ready to go. He stands next to my bed and tries to look me in the eyes, but I refuse to look at him. Suddenly the door opens and the woman with the white coat comes in. She heads straight for my bed and looks happy.

  ‘We found a room for you!’ she says proudly. ‘So the whole little family can stay!’

  Johan wrinkles his eyebrows but does not let go of the bag he is holding tightly in his hand.

  ‘When you became so upset we felt sorry for you and well, now you can stay,’ she says happily, and looks at Johan. He looks back at her stiffly and then at me.

  ‘But … I really think it’s best for all of us if Sigge and I go home.’

  Now Johan is the one who refuses to look me in the eye. I can see he is ashamed and angry and I can hear him struggling to sound pleasant.

  ‘It’s starting to get late now so you need to sleep Sara, and we’ll come tomorrow and visit.’

  I look at his face, turned away, and realize that I do not have the energy to fight any more. The paracetamol has stopped working and I can feel my temperature rising again. A familiar chill spreads through my body and I start to shake. I do not say anything and I know that my silence makes him nervous.

  ‘OK, well, you do as you please,’ says the woman in the white coat, confused, and she leaves us alone.

  Johan has picked up Sigge and started putting on his snowsuit, and I continue to avoid eye contact with him. Maybe this is what it is like when you start becoming apathetic, I think to myself.

  But when I see Sigge leave the room in the car seat Johan is carrying, I come to life. Something snaps and I become furious and run after them. In my half-psychotic feverish world I see a monster kidnap my child and I have to save him. But the incision makes me double over and I fall in a heap on the floor. I remain lying there, watching the walls of the room sway. I think I have become crazy for real now. I sob and sniffle because my child is lost, I am lost. The woman in the white coat comes in; she must having been waiting outside. She helps me into bed and tucks me in.

  ‘There now,’ she says in a kind voice, while she strokes my hair. But I cannot stop crying.

  ‘I’ve had a baby!’ I sob. ‘And he’s so beautiful. The most beautiful little thing!’

  ‘Of course he is!’ says the kind nurse.

  ‘But I don’t want to die now. I want him close to me!’

  ‘Now now, you’re not going to die. We’ll make sure of that.’

  She sits for a long time and strokes my hair. It calms me down and after a while I stop crying.

  The hospital bed is hard and narrow and I lie awake the whole night, staring at the ceiling. I think horrible thoughts about never seeing Sigge again. He is going to die tonight, of SIDS. The taxi is in an accident. I cannot stop, the images just keep coming, one after the other, each one is worse.

  Over the next five days they try six different kinds of antibiotics which I am given through an IV, but nothing helps. The fever never drops below 39°C.

  I only remember fragments of these days. Johan and Sigge come in the afternoons. Me crying when I get to have Sigge next to me in bed. Me crying when they leave at the end of the after noon. The nights where I cannot sleep. My death-like anxiety when I notice that even the doctors are starting to get worried. No one can say anything, and then there is this fever which is making me crazy. I tell Johan it is just typical that I would die now when I have finally had Sigge. He tries to comfort me but I can tell that he is worried, too.

  Finally I get the anti-breastfeeding pills I have asked for. The milk slowly goes away but my breasts are still hard and sore. They discover that I have contracted a resistant hospital bacteria on top of my mastitis, which is why the antibiotics haven’t been helping. I cannot help thinking that I got it from the nursing ladies when they were pinching at my nipples. We can even laugh about that, Johan and I.

  I am not able to deal with the extent of his betrayal. I put it away and hide it well and it will take ten months before I can even use the word betrayal. During this period I do not tell anyone what I have experienced. Instead I use Johan’s version. I say that Johan and Sigge could not stay at the hospital because it was so difficult for them to be there, that it was better for both Sigge and me if they slept at home.

  After a week I am allowed to come home, and it is a blessing to be free from the fever. Sigge drinks formula from a bottle and Johan and I can share the feeding times. The invasion is over and my love for my bundle of joy can blossom free of illness, fever sweats and leaking breast-milk. I can even catch up on some sleep because we are splitting the night-time feeds. The bottle and the formula are my liberators and I set about conquering life again, ecstatically. Johan, on the other hand, is stressed. While I have been sick he has been forced to postpone all of his meetings and now he has to make up for it.

  I feel an unspoken guilt about Johan not being able to work as planned. Maybe I am imagining it, but the feeling is there and I do not object when he starts working as soon as we have come home. It was only later that I thought how strange it was that we did not take a break then, take some time to recover.

  The days pass and my illness has become something we tremble at together, almost out of pleasure. We laugh so hard we cry when we find out that my old daycare teacher, Cattis, asked a church congregation in our hometown of Västerås to hold an intercession for us. They prayed that the sick mother would be reunited with her newborn baby, that the little family would be able to come home again.

  It is as if all of this is about someone else,
an acquaintance I have heard of but do not know that well. I refuse to know. The anxiety and worry have worn me out. I want to be happy again, I also want to know what it feels like to be a happy new mother. There is not any time for sorrow either, Johan is working and I am alone with Sigge during the day. I rush through the days, making the hours go by as quickly as possible. During this time I get to hear how I am beaming. Oh how I am beaming.

  In the beginning insomnia can have a manic effect, and I am dizzy with insomnia. It feels good, a bit like being drunk. It is only after a while that the insomnia makes you tired and insane. I get really tired when Johan runs off to Skellefteå to start the rehearsals for his production. For ten weeks straight, Johan is gone from Monday to Friday.

  The first week goes really well. On Friday night I am waiting at home with red wine, pizza and lots of longing. We only clash a little when I notice that Johan is absent and tired. He has a hard time talking, just sits there on the sofa, quiet and absorbed in his thoughts about his art. We fall asleep soundly, but then I am woken by Sigge. Johan sleeps on. Like many men he has the fantastic ability to sleep soundly even if the world is coming to an end around him. Or like now, when our baby is whimpering and sleeping fitfully and needs to be carried around for a while in order to fall properly asleep again.