Free The Looking-Glass Sisters by Gøhril Gabrielsen Page A

ages with the images of herself in different roles, would have amused herself thinking about the curious looks people would give her, the long conversations that would take place among people in the village when she was finally in her position: Who is she, this new girl, this Ragna, who grabs everyone’s attention with her efficiency and her clear-eyed look?
    But then, in the midst of a flight of fancy, she must have realized that it would be virtually impossible for her to achieve the dream of a respectable job in the village. When I think about it, Ragna has gone on quite a few times about impenetrable family ties, saying that without exception the more well-to-do women in the village have authority over the cash registers, their daughters have been chosen for the job of café waitress as far back as their confirmation. Seen from this point of view, what other possibilities did Ragna have? She could of course have used her strength at the nursing home, for looking after people, washing and feeding them. Were there alternatives to this type of work? No, not except the home here and with me. And most likely the authorities contribute a krone or two for Ragna’s care of her younger sister.
    *
    The question of Ragna’s choices, or rather lack of choices, involves answers I am not too happy about. Her life is suddenly visible, like a stage when the curtain is pulled back. Ragna’s story makes for a really uncomfortable drama,and I’m put in an impossible position when the revelation comes. There are of course all the lies she clings to so as to keep a balance between us. That she makes me weak so as to be able to feel strong herself. That she exaggerates her own importance so as to avoid feeling the pathetic, helpless female she actually is. But that I, with my need of care, have become her excuse for not creating a proper life for herself, that I and my sickly body have become her self-imposed fate and mission in life, that’s something quite different. I wring my hands in despair. Yes, that’s the way it is. Ragna and I are probably quite similar, have precisely the same cast of mind. We do not have any other choice but to remain. We are equally frightened and helpless, and cling to each other as a defence against the outside world: she out of anxiety about her inability to interact with other people, all the social niceties, the things she hasn’t learned to master and understand; and I out of fear of losing the remainder of myself at the hands of cynical strangers in an institution.
    Oh, poor helpless little Ragna, poor helpless us.
     
    But that’s not all. The truth about Ragna also contains a paradox. Profoundly and fervently she wants to be rid of me, despite the fact that I act as her shield against the world. But she feels no shame about this treachery; no, rather this innermost dark wish has helped to give her a positive image of herself. As she sees it, she is a woman who has heroically sacrificed herself for her sister’s wellbeing for many arduous years.
    I can easily imagine Ragna’s refrains – can almost hear her rattling them off: ‘If it weren’t for your illness, I’d havehad a man and children and a large house to look after!’ ‘If it weren’t for you, you lazy layabout, I’d have been a successful working woman!’ ‘If it weren’t for your pitifulness, I’d have been popular with other women!’
    Oh yes, Ragna has always wanted to be rid of me, perhaps long before I fell ill at the age of four. For don’t I have a clear picture that she reacted to my fever and crying with a strange, satisfied look? Of course, I could be exaggerating, I could be stretching the credible much too far. Even so I am open to – no, I am prepared to state that the wish became stronger when Ragna saw in advance the outcome, what would happen later, when she kept watch and took care of me for our parents: a life devoted to looking after a shabby, sickly sister out in the wilds.
    So I can hardly blame her, as