slightly, but nothing more. Are they coming in? What’s happening? she thought briefly, and then fell back into a silent torpor until a couple of hours later when she awoke with a pain as sharp as a knife stabbing into her face.
She had no idea what time it was; she had no idea if they were out there; and she screamed as she’d never screamed before in that barren room. Her whole face felt as if it had split in two. The pain in her tooth felt like a jackhammer pounding in her mouth, and there was nothing she could do to fight it. Oh God, was this the punishment for taking her life into her own hands? She’d neglected looking after herself for only five days, and now this torment. Cautiously she stuck her finger inside her mouth and felt the abscess around the back molar. That tooth had always been a weak point, providing a steady income for her dentist. A bad spot, which her homemade toothpick had tried to keep clean every day. She carefully pressed on the abscess and felt the pain explode through bone and marrow. She doubled over, opened her mouth wide, and gasped frantically for air. A short time ago her body had succumbed to lethargy, but now it had awakened to this torturous agony. She felt like an animal that would have to chew off its own paw to slip out of a trap. If pain was a defense against death, then she was more alive now than ever before.
“Ohhh!” she sobbed. It hurt so much. She reached for her toothpick and slowly held it up to her mouth. Cautiously she tried to find out whether something stuck in her gums had caused the infection, but as soon as the tip touched the abscess, her tooth once more exploded in agony.
You have to puncture it, Merete. Come on, she told herself, weeping, and jabbed at it again. The little that was left in her stomach threatened to come up. She had to puncture the abscess, but she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t do it.
Instead she crawled over to the airlock door to see what they’d put in the bucket that day. Maybe there was something that might offer some relief. Or perhaps a little drop of water on the abscess would make it stop throbbing so badly.
She looked down at the bucket and saw temptations she’d never dared dream of before. Two bananas, an apple, a piece of chocolate. It was totally absurd. They were trying to bait her hunger. Force her to eat, and now she couldn’t. Couldn’t and wouldn’t.
She grimaced at the next stabs of pain that nearly knocked her over. Then she took out all the pieces of fruit and placed them on the floor, thrust her hand in the bucket and grabbed the water bottle. She stuck her finger in the water and held it up to the abscess, but the icy-cold water didn’t have the expected effect. There was the pain and there was the water, and they had absolutely nothing to do with each other. The water couldn’t even assuage her thirst.
So she moved away, curled up in a fetal position underneath the mirrored panes, and prayed a silent prayer for God’s forgiveness. At some point her body would give up; she knew that. She would have to live her last days in pain.
Eventually it, too, would give up.
The voices came to her as if she were in a trance. They were calling her name. Entreating her to answer them. She opened her eyes and noticed at once that the abscess had stopped throbbing, and that her limp body was still lying next to the toilet bucket beneath the mirrored panes. She stared up at the ceiling, noticing that one of the fluorescent tubes had started to flicker faintly in the fixture high above her. She’d heard voices, hadn’t she? Were they real?
Then a clear voice that she’d never heard before spoke: “That’s right, she took out the fruit.”
It’s real, she thought, but she was too weak to be startled.
It was a man’s voice. Not a young man, but not an old man either.
She immediately raised her head, but not so much that they’d be able to see her from outside.
“I can see the fruit from where I’m standing,” said a woman’s voice. “It’s over there on the floor.” It was the same woman who had spoken to Merete once a year; the voice was unmistakable. Apparently the people outside had been calling to her and had then forgotten to shut off the intercom.
“She’s crawled over between the windows. I’m sure of it,” the woman went on.
“Do you think she’s dead? It’s been a week, you know,” said the man’s voice. It sounded so natural, but it wasn’t. This was her they were talking about.
“It would be just like her to do something like that, the little slut.”
“Should we equalize the pressure and go in and have a look?”
“What were you planning to do with her then? All of the cells in her body have acclimated to five atmospheres of pressure. It would take weeks to decompress her body. If we open the door now, she’ll not only get the bends, she’ll explode on the spot. You’ve seen her feces and how it expands. And her urine, how it bubbles and boils. Keep in mind that she’s been living in a pressure chamber for three and a half years now.”
“Can’t we just pump up the pressure again after we find out whether she’s still alive?”
The woman outside didn’t answer, but it was clear that under no circumstances was that going to happen.
Merete’s breathing became more and more labored. The voices belonged to devils. They’d flay her and sew her back together for an eternity, if they could. She was in the inner circle of hell. The place where the torments never ceased.
Come on in, you bastards, she thought, cautiously pulling the flashlight closer as the whining in her ears got louder. She was going to plant it in the eye of the first person who came near her. Blind the vile creature who dared to set foot in her holy chamber. It was the one thing she’d manage to do before she died.
“We’re not doing anything until Lasse gets back. Do you hear me?” said the woman in a tone of voice that demanded obedience.
“But that’ll take forever. She’ll be dead long before then,” replied the man. “What the hell should we do? Lasse is going to be furious.”
Then came a silence that was nauseating and oppressive, as if the walls of the room were about to contract and leave her there, like a louse squeezed between two fingernails.
She clutched the flashlight even tighter in her hand and waited. All of a sudden the pain was back with a wallop. She opened her eyes wide and drew air deep into her lungs to release the pain in a reflexive scream, but no sound came out. Then she got herself under control. The feeling of nausea remained, and the sensation that she was about to throw up made her regurgitate, but she didn’t say a word. She merely tilted her head back and let the tears flow down her face and over her parched lips.
I can hear them, but they mustn’t hear me, she chanted soundlessly over and over. She clutched her throat, fanned her hand over the bulge in her cheek, and rocked back and forth, clenching and unclenching her free hand ceaselessly. Every nerve fiber in her body was aware of the excruciating pain.
And then the scream came. It had a life of its own. Her body demanded it. A deep, hollow scream that went on and on and on.
“She’s there. Do you hear that? I knew it.” There was a clicking sound from a switch. “Come out so we can see you,” said the revolting female voice. Only then did they discover that something was wrong.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “The switch is stuck.”
Then the woman started tapping on the intercom switch, but it did no good.
“Have you been lying there eavesdropping on what we were saying, you little bitch?” She sounded like an animal. Her voice was raw, honed with years of cruelty and callousness.
“Lasse will fix it when he gets here,” said the man outside. “He’ll fix it. It really doesn’t matter.”
Now it felt as if her jaw would split in two. Merete didn’t want to react, but she had no choice. She had to stand up. Anything to distract the hammering sense of panic in her body. She propped herself up on her knees, noticing how weak she was, then pushed off and managed to sit back on her heels, feeling the fire ignite again inside her mouth. She set one knee on the floor and managed to stand halfway up.
“Good Lord, look at you, girl,” said the ghastly voice outside, and then it began to laugh. The laughter struck Merete like a hailstorm of scalpels. “You have a toothache,” said the laughing voice. “Ye gods, the filthy slut has a toothache. Look at her.”
Merete turned abruptly to face the mirrored panes. The mere act of moving her lips felt worse than death. “I’ll get my revenge one day,” she whispered, pressing her face close to the pane. “I’ll get my revenge. Just wait.”
