Malena's Miscarriage and Hospitalization

Malena’s miscarriage and hospitalization become a turning point in the conflict among Malena, Pirjo, and Atu. The pregnancy ends amid uncontrollable bleeding, and Malena is taken to Kalmar Hospital. Her loss is not only a medical crisis: it sharpens Pirjo’s fear that Atu may father a child with another woman, while Pirjo’s visit to the hospital turns apparent sympathy into an effort to remove Malena from the academy.

The News and Pirjo’s Reaction

Atu tells Pirjo that Malena miscarried a few hours earlier and that she had bled uncontrollably. He also reproaches Pirjo for not being there when he needed her and says she should have accompanied Malena in the ambulance. His account places Pirjo’s absence alongside the immediate crisis: while Malena required urgent care, Pirjo was away from the academy, and Atu had expected her support.

Pirjo reacts first with disbelief. The news makes her consider whether Atu has impregnated Malena, or whether he might have impregnated Pirjo herself. The possibility does not remain an abstract question for her. She sees the pregnancy as a threat to a future she wants to claim with Atu: her own child should be his successor, and, in her private conception of the academy’s destiny, a new savior. The loss therefore brings relief from one immediate rival possibility, but it also makes Pirjo’s own desire and anxiety newly urgent. She concludes that she can no longer accept sharing Atu while her fertility declines and time seems to be running out.

That response contrasts with the practical emergency Atu describes. Malena’s bleeding has made the situation serious, but Pirjo’s thoughts turn quickly toward succession, possession, and her own chance to bear Atu’s child. When Atu repeats that Malena bled uncontrollably, Pirjo composes herself and tries to appear neutral. Her outward restraint conceals the force of what the news has stirred in her.

Malena in Hospital

Pirjo later appears at the end of Malena’s bed in the gynecological ward on the fourth floor of Kalmar Hospital. Malena looks extremely pale against the nurses’ white coats and the ward’s sterile surroundings. Her condition has improved: the bleeding stopped the previous night, and she expects to be discharged later that day. The immediate danger has subsided, but she is still in hospital after a severe loss, and the visit does not offer uncomplicated comfort.

Pirjo asks how she is and takes her hand. Malena twitches with discomfort and tries to pull away, but Pirjo holds on. The gesture makes the tension physical before Malena names her suspicion: she wants to know why Pirjo has come and whether she has come to gloat. Her distrust is grounded in their antagonism, and Pirjo’s carefully measured expression does little to dispel it.

Pirjo denies that she is pleased and presents herself as genuinely sorry. She lets her head dip, presses her lips together, looks away, and then releases Malena’s hand after a pause. These gestures give her performance the shape of concern, but the narration makes clear that she is managing Malena’s impression of her. Sympathy is not the visit’s real purpose.

The Offer and the Refusal

Pirjo tells Malena that she needs to go as far away as possible once she is discharged. She has already packed Malena’s belongings, leaving the suitcase in the corridor, and produces eight thousand euros from her purse. She presents the money as enough to keep Malena financially secure for a few months. The offer is concrete and substantial, but its condition is unmistakable: Pirjo wants Malena to leave.

Malena pushes the money away. She recognizes the offer as an attempt to get rid of her and refuses to accept that Pirjo can decide her future so easily. She insists that she will return to the center within hours and resume the position she has fought to attain. She also asserts that Atu belongs with her and claims that he told her he wanted nothing to do with Pirjo, whom he treated as a subordinate. That account is Malena’s claim in the confrontation, not an independently established description of Atu’s feelings.

The refusal changes the encounter from a private arrangement into an open contest over belonging and authority. Malena does not let the money purchase her departure, and her stated plan to return puts her directly back in the environment Pirjo is trying to control. Her recovery from the bleeding does not resolve the interpersonal conflict; it gives her the immediate prospect of re-entering it.

Consequences and Significance

The hospital scene shows how the miscarriage reorganizes the women’s struggle without settling it. For Pirjo, Malena’s pregnancy has made her fear that Atu’s attention and the future she imagines may be shared with another woman. She responds by trying to turn Malena’s vulnerability and impending discharge into an opportunity for removal. The money and packed suitcase make that strategy visible, even as Pirjo disguises it with concern.

Malena, meanwhile, refuses the role Pirjo has prepared for her: a patient who accepts assistance and disappears. She rejects the payment, challenges Pirjo’s motives, and declares that she will return to the center. The episode thus binds a bodily crisis to a struggle over place, status, and access to Atu. Malena’s loss is real, but it does not make her compliant; Pirjo’s performance of compassion cannot conceal that her desired outcome is Malena’s departure. The encounter leaves the conflict active at the moment Malena is due to leave hospital.