* Vera is taking down laundry at an attic when an unknown male barges in and rapes her. Later she gives birth to a son.

The Half Brother (2001) by Lars Saabye Christensen. Section: The Women. Chapters: The Drying loft, The Dove. Excerpts from an eBook.

Vera stretches up to the clothesline to take the final piece, her own blue dress, which she hasn’t yet had the chance to wear, and at that moment, as she unfastens one of the wooden pegs and holds up the garment with her other hand so that it won’t fall onto the dusty floor, she hears footsteps behind her. Slowly they come closer, and for a moment Vera imagines it’s Rakel who’s come back. -- But then she realizes it’s not her mother, nor is it Rakel, for these steps have another rhythm, another weight, the floorboards give in the wake of their passing, and the dove on the corner suddenly stops cooing. These are the steps of war that keep going, and before Vera can turn around someone has gripped her and held her tightly, and a dry hand has been pressed over her face and she cannot even scream. She senses the harsh stench of unwashed skin, the raw stink of a strange man’s mouth, a tongue that rasps her neck. She tries to bite, her teeth sink into the rough skin, but he doesn’t let go of his hold. She can’t breathe. He lifts her and she kicks for all she’s worth; one of her shoes falls off and he forces her down onto her knees and pushes her forward. She notice that the dress is hanging at an angle on the line by the one clothespin and she tears it down with her in her fall. He takes his hand away from her mouth and she can breathe, yet now that she’s able to scream she doesn’t all the same. She sees his hands tearing up her skirt, and it’s only this that she sees of him – his hands – one of them missing a finger, and she plunges her nails into his hand, but even then he doesn’t make a sound. Nine fingers, that’s all he is. He forces her face to the floor and her cheek is chafed by the rough planks. The light is distorted now and the clothes basket has toppled over; the dove is preening itself. She feels the man’s hands around her hips, nine fingers that scrape against her skin, and he tears her open, he pulls her apart. She doesn’t hear him; she shoves the dress into her mouth, chews the thin material over and over, and the sun in the loft window shifts with a shudder. He presses himself through her and in the same moment the church bells begin ringing, all the church bells in town ring out at the same time. And the dove suddenly takes off from the corner under the coal shaft and flaps wildly about them; she can feel the wings brushing against her, and now it’s all too late. She still isn’t twenty, and in the end it’s he who screams.

Afterward everything is quiet. He lets her go. She could get up, but remains lying nonetheless. He puts his hand on her neck. It smells of urine and vomit. Then he runs. She can feel it, a soundless drumming against her face, her cheek. He crept up on her, and now he’s running away through the long attic corridors in Church Road, on may 8, 1945. The dove sits on the window frame. And Vera, our mother, just lies there like that, her cheek against the floor, her dress in her mouth and her hand full of blood, as a beam of sunlight slowly passes over her.

--That’s how she finds her own daughter. Vera is squatting beside the clothes basket. In her lap she’s holding the newly washed dress, and she strokes it, over and over again, humming softly to herself all the time. -- Vera turns slowly toward her mother and smiles. Her lips and whole face are twisted, her left cheek is all swollen. She has a cut on her temple, under her hair. But it’s her eyes that are worst. They are huge and clear, and they focus on nothing and nowhere.-- “Little Vera,” she whispers. “Has someone been bad to you?” But Vera makes no reply, she only turns away.