Pirjo's plan to remove Shirley and Valentina

Pirjo Abanshamash Dumuzi’s plan to remove Shirley and Valentina takes shape as the prospect of a police investigation threatens the carefully maintained appearance of the center. Shirley’s identification of Wanda Phinn’s belt makes her, in Pirjo’s eyes, a danger to be managed; Valentina, too, must be gone before the police arrive. The plan exposes the gap between the center’s language of purity and Pirjo’s willingness to protect it by removing people who might unsettle that image.

The Belt and the New Threat

Shirley points out that Jeanette’s missing belt was black, whereas the one under discussion is two-tone. Its distinctive scratch, brand and stretched hole help convince her that it belonged to Wanda. The belt shifts the conversation from an unexplained object to a possible link with Wanda, and Shirley turns to Pirjo, suddenly lost, asking whether she understands.

Pirjo’s response is already a calculation. The feelings stirring in her diaphragm are not about how the belt came to be at the center; she is thinking about how to solve the problem Shirley represents and, if it cannot be resolved, how to get rid of a person she regards as a threat to her life. The movement from Shirley’s question to Pirjo’s private assessment makes the discovery a turning point: Shirley’s suspicion is no longer merely uncomfortable to Pirjo but something she means to contain.

A Calculation Under Police Pressure

Pirjo later considers the prospect of the Danish police finding the people at the center. She believes their arrival is inevitable and that the academy must offer nothing that could make them doubt its public account: that the center’s work springs from purity of soul and ethical thinking, and that its managers—Pirjo, Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi and their closest helpers—have always acted in the people’s best interests. The claim that none of them could ever have been behind anyone coming to harm stands in stark tension with Pirjo’s own readiness to make Shirley disappear from the scene.

That fear leads to a firm conclusion: neither Shirley nor Valentina can be there when the police come, whatever the cost. Pirjo does not regard Valentina as a serious obstacle; she thinks she can send her abroad on a mission. Shirley is harder to displace because she is making friends at the center and holding fast to her theories and mistrust. Her growing connections and persistence give her a presence Pirjo cannot dismiss as easily.

The Child and the Limits of the Plan

Pirjo’s resolve is bound up with her pregnancy. After comforting Valentina, she leaves the office, braces herself against the table with clenched fists, and lays her hands on her womb, promising the unborn child that she will protect both it and its father. Her protective tenderness does not soften the decision that Shirley and Valentina must be absent; instead, it accompanies a determination to secure the family and the center at any cost.

The plan remains differentiated rather than fully specified in these passages. Pirjo imagines sending Valentina abroad, while Shirley’s mistrust and friendships make her more difficult to remove. The evidence establishes Pirjo’s intention and her assessment of the two women, not the completion or outcome of either plan.