‘Postman wanted for the Stockholm district.’
At first the words seemed much too implausible, but again and again his eyes came back to them, and after he had read them eight times they were finally transformed into a possibility.
He knew that he couldn’t keep living at home. The only way to make her start to live again was for him to disappear. He was watching over her, but she didn’t want him there.
He looked out over the garden. The once well-tended perennials in the flower beds lay withered on the ground, helplessly tangled up with weeds.
He was the one who was the weed.
On page 16 everything fell into place. He was meant to have one paper left over on precisely this day, something had seen to it that he would be the one who was forced to read it. For once the compulsion had been on his side.
‘1 room w/o kitchen, Sthlm, for rent to reliable person – moving abroad.’
He sat for a long time on the steps that morning. Later he made the two phonecalls, and four days later he took the train down to Stockholm to go to the job interview. He was back the same evening; she didn’t even notice he was gone. The following weeks were one long waiting period, but he knew that it was all pre-ordained. When the positive news arrived that he had got the job and the room, he took them both as a matter of course. Proud that he had dared.
He hesitated for a long time outside the closed bedroom door that evening before he finally knocked. She never told him to come in. At last he pressed down the door handle anyway and opened the door a crack. She was lying there reading. The blue shade was pulled down and the bed lamp was lit. She pulled the covers up to her chin as if she wanted to hide. As if an intruder had entered her room. The single mattress on the double bed frame that was twice the width was a reproach. She slept next to an empty space that always reminded her with the most blatant clarity of the degradation and betrayal they had caused her.
‘I’m moving to Stockholm.’
She didn’t reply, just turned off the bed lamp and turned over on her side with her back to him.
He stood there for a while, incapable of saying anything more. Then he backed out and closed the door.
The last thing he saw was a glimpse of her flowered robe.
Yvonne Palmgren arrived at one minute to two. Greeted him curtly and then went to sit down in the chair by the window again. She wasn’t smiling this time. She examined him with a gaze so intense that he regretted agreeing to the first conversation. He took hold of Anna’s hand. Here he was safe.
‘I’ve made a few calls this morning.’
‘All right.’
One of the four neon-coloured pens in her breast pocket was missing.
Three! Oh no!
He wondered whether she knew. Whether with her solid psychological training and penetrating gaze she could see straight in to his well-concealed hell. The three pens were a sign, a way to weaken him, a declaration of war from her side to prove her superiority.
He squeezed Anna’s hand harder.
She opened the plastic folder. Read a few words and looked at him again.
‘I want to talk about the accident itself.’
The sudden feeling of encroaching danger.
‘I know that you stated that you have no recollection of the accident, but I want us to try to piece together your memories. I have the police report here.’
The woman in the chair regarded their intertwined fingers.
‘I understand that this seems like a lot of trouble. Perhaps you would rather we talked about it somewhere else? We can go to my office if you like.’
‘No.’
She sat in silence for a bit. Her eyes penetrating.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘I see that’s what it says on this paper, but the truth is that you’ve chosen not to remember. The brain functions to protect us from traumatic experiences, it chooses to repress things that are too painful to remember. That doesn’t mean that you don’t remember: everything is still inside. Sooner or later it will come to the surface and you will have to deal with it, no matter how painful it might be. And that’s precisely what I want to help you do. Help you remember so that you can move on. It’s a difficult and painful job you have ahead of you, but it is absolutely crucial. You will most likely feel angry during our conversation, but that’s all right, as long as you let your anger out. I want you to direct it to me for the time being.’
Not in here! Never before had it ventured out when Anna was present and protecting him.
‘Do you understand what I mean, Jonas? I’m here to help you, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Anna is dying and you must accept that. And you must accept that it’s not your fault, that you did the best you could. No one can ask any more of a person.’
Kalmar to Karesuando 1664, Karlskrona to Karlstad 460.
‘All I know is what I read in the police report, and of course the hospital protocol when she was admitted. That she was struck by anischemic brain damage due to lack of oxygen. What’s the last thing you remember?’
Landskrona to Ljungby 142. Help me, Anna. Stop it!
‘You had gone down to Arstaviken to eat lunch. Can you remember what day that was?’
‘No.’
‘Try to remember what it looked like. The trees, did you meet anyone, did it smell a certain way?’
‘I don’t remember. How many times do I have to tell you that?’
‘You went out on the pier at the Arstadal Boat Club.’
He had to put an end to this conversation. Had to get this woman out of the room.
Her voice droned on without mercy.
‘Anna decided to go for a swim even though it was late September. Can you recall if you tried to stop her?’
She was blocking Anna’s defence.
‘You stood and waited on the pier. Can you recall how far out she swam before you realised she was in danger?’
Anna’s head under water. Trelleborg to Mora. Damn. Not three. Eskilstuna to Rattvik 222.
The three neon pens on her large bosom were like a screeching reproach. The relentless voice that filled up every space inside him but mercilessly kept grinding away without noticing that he was about to explode.
‘When she disappeared you swam out to try and help her. Another man came by and saw what was happening. He swam out to try and help the two of you, do you remember his name?’
‘I don’t remember!’
‘His name was Bertil. Bertil Andersson. The man who helped you. The two of you managed to get her to the beach and Bertil Andersson ran to the boat club to ring for an ambulance. Try, Jonas, try to remember how it felt.’
He straightened up. He couldn’t take any more.
‘Don’t you hear what I’m fucking saying, woman? I don’t remember!’
She didn’t take her eyes off him. Just sat calmly in her chair, watching him.
He found her in the attic. She had the flowered robe on and it was the evening before he was going to move away. His bags were already packed and waiting in the hallway. The ceiling was low and she hadn’t needed a chair, only the low plastic stool that he had used as a child to reach the washbasin.
‘How does it feel now?’
Her words drove him over the edge.
‘Get out of here! Get out and leave us in peace!’
She remained sitting there. Didn’t move from the spot, but kept on boring through him with her evil eyes. Calm and collected, firmly resolved to crush him.
‘Why do you think you get so angry?’
Something burst inside him. He turned his head and looked at Anna.
