It’s sick, but Dad was a die-hard atheist before he got saved. Years ago I found an old column he’d written for his school newspaper. I think he had just started high school. He truly hated religion, and wrote stuff about how Christianity was a fraud, a security blanket that had torn the world apart, and that baptism should be considered abuse of innocent children. He called pastors black-coats and charlatans.
I’ve wondered sometimes if everything would have turned out differently if Dad had a different career. If he’d been a pencil pusher or middle management or some kind of academic, like normal parents.
To be honest, I think Dad and I are a lot alike. Deep down. I’m also easily consumed by ideas; I can get completely absorbed in something that feels really crucial at the moment. In fifth grade I was the very definition of a Potterhead. I read the books in Swedish and English, watched all the movies at least twenty times, and wrote long fanfics online until my social life just about withered away. A year or two later I went through a period of being addicted to The Smiths and wearing raccoon makeup and spending every waking minute on the Helgon forum for indie kids. There are some autistic traits in our genes. Luckily I decided early on to avoid religion of any kind, unlike Dad.
“Never say never,” he liked to tease. “I didn’t understand that this was my calling either, until I was eighteen.”
“I’d rather scrub toilets,” I responded. “I mean, I would rather become one of those New Age women and go on nudist vacations in Ghana and chew khat.”
“We’ll see.” Dad laughed, just nervous enough.
Like every other eighteen-year-old, I’ve spent hours thinking about the future, about education and various careers. And sure, some jobs are more than just a job. Not like working the register at H&M. You turn on your salesperson smile at five to ten and discard it five minutes after closing. It’s not a big part of my identity. I would absolutely jump ship to KappAhl if they offered a thousand kronor more per month. I could just as easily work the register at a hardware store. Who cares? Cash is the only thing I would miss if I lost my job. Which I’m sure I will.
No, I don’t think Dad knew what he was getting himself into when he became a pastor. Nowadays he works his ass off to fit into this archetype: the perfect preacher, the perfect father, the perfect human. Just like everyone says we young women try to do. Obviously we’re not the only ones.
Clearly it chafes, it hurts, if you don’t really fit into that mold. Until, finally, it starts to crack.
Check it out, Shirine. Not a bad psychoanalysis, right? Five years in the psychology program, top grades in all your classes at high school, was it really worth it?
I am my own best psychologist.
I’ll never understand people who open up like shaken champagne bottles as soon as someone tilts their head and offers a listening ear. People who bare it all on a blog or on social media; people who tattoo words about how awful they feel on their forearms and torture every soul they run into with their pathetic self-analyses.
I have just one friend, one person on earth who knows all about me and understands everything I feel, think, and do. I wish I could talk to her now. I need her. I don’t know what to do without Amina. I don’t know if I can manage. Last night I seriously banged my forehead on the wall and screamed so loud it hurt my ears. The only thing that would be worse is if Amina had to be locked up. One afternoon, as the guards were leading me to the elevator, I thought I saw her. I turned around and shouted her name, but behind the black hair hid a strange face. This cell is making me go crazy.
45
Agnes Thelin almost looked apologetic when she explained I was a suspect. My thoughts were like a whirlwind. A suspect? I sank back in my chair and tried to collect myself.
I was still dazed a little while later, when the attorney marched in and demanded to speak to me in private.
“We’re going to figure this out,” he said, placing his left hand on my shoulder as he squeezed my right hand. “Don’t worry.”
His hand was large and sticky and he looked like a cross between Tony Soprano and Tom Jones. The size of a bear, tan, gold chains around his neck and wrist. A pigeon-blue shirt with the top three buttons undone. The type of man who drives his SUV all the way to his single-family home even though the neighborhood is supposed to be car free. Who has a grill the size of a camper in the backyard and thinks everything was better when he was young, even though he doesn’t feel a day over twenty-three. I’m sure he was high up on the divorced young moms’ fuck lists.