I parked the buggy by theirs, lifted Vanja out, sat down on a little ledge with her on my lap, removed her jacket and shoes and lowered her gently to the floor. Reckoned she could crawl around a bit as well. But she didn’t want to, she couldn’t remember being here before, so she wanted to stick with me and stretched her arms out. I lifted her back onto my lap. She sat watching the other children with interest.
An attractive young woman holding a guitar walked across the floor. She must have been about twenty-five; she had long blonde hair, a coat reaching down to her knees, high black boots and she stopped in front of me.
‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Haven’t seen you here before. Are you coming to the Rhythm Time class?’
‘Yes,’ I said, looking up at her. She really was attractive.
‘Have you signed up?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you have to?’
‘Yes, you do. And I’m afraid it’s full today.’
Good news.
‘What a shame,’ I said, getting up.
‘As you didn’t know,’ she said. ‘I suppose we can squeeze you in. Just this once. You can sign up afterwards for the next time.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
Her smile was so attractive. Then she opened the door and went in. I leaned forward and watched her putting her guitar case on the floor, removing her coat and scarf and hanging them over a chair at the back of the room. She had a light fresh spring-like presence.
I had a hunch where this was going, and I should have got up and left. But I wasn’t there for my sake, I was there for Vanja and Linda. So I stayed put. Vanja was eight months old and absolutely bewitched by anything that resembled a performance. And now she was attending one.
More women with buggies came, in dribs and drabs, and soon the room was filled with the sounds of chatting, coughing, laughing, clothes rustling and rummaging through bags. Most seemed to come in twos or threes. For a long time I seemed to be the only person on my own. But just before two a couple more men arrived. From their body language I could see they didn’t know each other. One of them, a small guy with a big head, wearing glasses, nodded to me. I could have kicked him. What did he think: that we belonged to the same club? Then it was off with the overalls, the hat and the shoes, out with the feeding bottle and rattle, down on the floor with the child.
The mothers had long since gone into the room where Rhythm Time was due to take place. I waited until last, but at a minute to, I got up and went in with Vanja on my arm. Cushions had been strewn across the floor for us to sit on, while the young woman leading the session sat on a chair in front of us. With the guitar on her lap she scanned the audience smiling. She was wearing a beige cashmere jumper. Her breasts were well formed, her waist was narrow, her legs, one crossed over the other and swinging, were long and still clad in black boots.
I sat down on my cushion. I put Vanja on my lap. She stared with big eyes at the woman with the guitar, who was now saying a few words of welcome.
‘We’ve got some new faces here today,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you’d like to introduce yourselves?’
‘Monica,’ said one.
‘Kristina,’ said another.
‘Lul,’ said a third.
Lul? What sort of bloody name was that?
The room went quiet. The attractive young woman looked at me and sent me a smile of encouragement.
‘Karl Ove,’ I said sombrely.
‘Then let’s start with our welcome song,’ she said, and struck the first chord, which resounded as she was explaining that parents should say the name of their child when she nodded to them, and then everyone should sing the child’s name.
She strummed the same chord, and everyone began to sing. The idea behind the song was that everyone should say ‘Hi’ to their friend and wave a hand. Parents of the children too small to understand took their wrists and waved their hands, which I did too, but when the second verse started I no longer had any excuse for sitting there in silence and had to start singing. My own deep voice sounded like an affliction in the choir of high-pitched women’s voices. Twelve times we sang ‘Hi’ to our friend before all the children had been named and we could move on. The next song was about parts of the body, which, of course, the children should touch when they were mentioned. Forehead, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, stomach, knee, foot. Forehead, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, stomach, knee, foot. Then we were handed some rattle-like instruments which we were supposed to shake as we sang a new song. I wasn’t embarrassed, it wasn’t embarrassing sitting there, it was humiliating and degrading. Everything was gentle and friendly and nice, all the movements were tiny, and I sat huddled on a cushion droning along with the mothers and children, a song, to cap it all, led by a woman I would have liked to bed. But sitting there I was rendered completely harmless, without dignity, impotent, there was no difference between me and her, except that she was more attractive, and the levelling, whereby I had forfeited everything that was me, even my size, and that voluntarily, filled me with rage.