He felt the pressure growing, taking over bit by bit.
Four steps forward to the visitor’s chair. Not three or five. Or else he would have to go back to the door and start over. Three and five had to be avoided at all costs.
Without touching the chair’s armrest he sat down and followed Sahlstedt’s hand with his gaze, the way it pulled over a brown folder but then rested on the closed casebook.
Dr Sahlstedt looked at him in silence.
Was it really four steps he had taken? He was no longer sure. Good Lord. Alingsas to Arjeplog 1179 kilometres, Arboga to Arlanda 144, Arvidsjaur to Borlange 787.
‘How are you doing?’
The unexpected question took him by surprise. He knew that the compulsion couldn’t be seen on the surface. After all these years he had developed an exceptional ability to conceal his inner inferno.
As well as the shame over his weakness at not being able to control it.
‘Fine, thank you.’
Silence. If it was true that the doctor facing him actually was interested in the state of his health, then it was obvious that the reply had not satisfied him. There was a grave look in his eyes. An ominous gravity that made it clear that the conversation they were going to have was something more than just a normal report.
Jonas shifted his position in the chair. Don’t touch the armrests.
‘How old are you, Jonas?’
He swallowed. Not five. Not even with a two in front of it.
‘I’ll be twenty-six next year. Why do you ask? I thought we were going to talk about Anna.’
Dr Sahlstedt regarded him and then looked down at the table.
‘It’s not about Anna any longer. It’s about you.’
Borlange to Boden 848, Boras to Bastad 177.
‘What . . . I don’t know what you mean.’
Sahlstedt raised his eyes again.
‘What kind of job did you have? Before all this happened, I mean.’
‘I was a postman.’
He nodded with interest.
‘I see. Do you ever miss your colleagues from work?’
Was he toying with him? Or maybe postmen worked in flocks in the high-class neighbourhood where he imagined Dr Sahlstedt lived.
The doctor in front of him gave a little sigh when he got no answer and opened the brown casebook.
Had he really not brushed against the armrest when he sat down? He was no longer certain. If he had, he would have to touch it again to neutralise the first time he touched it. But what if he hadn’t touched it? Good Lord, he had to neutralise it somehow.
‘You’ve been on sick leave for almost two and a half years now. As long as Anna has been here.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why is that, actually?’
‘What do you think? So I can be here with Anna, of course.’
‘Anna can get along here without you. The staff will take care of her.’
‘You know as well as I do that they don’t have time to work with her as much as necessary.’
Dr Sahlstedt suddenly looked sad; he sat quietly and looked down at his hands. The silence was about to drive Jonas crazy. With all his might he tried to resist the compulsion’s rage which was going berserk inside his body.
The doctor looked up at him again.
‘Necessary for what, Jonas?’
He couldn’t answer. The wash basin was on the wall to his left. He had to go and wash his hands. Had to wash away the touch if he had indeed happened to touch the armrest.
‘As you know, the fever is not going down, and we did a new EKG yesterday. The infection in the aortic valve is not subsiding. At regular intervals it’s releasing small septic embolisms, small particles, one might say, filled with bacteria. These bacteria go straight up to her brain stem, and that’s why she continues to be struck by new blood clots in the brain.’
‘I see.’
‘This is the third clot she has had in two months. And with each new one her level of consciousness drops.’
He had heard things like this before. The doctors always told him the worst so as not to give him false hopes.
‘You have to try and accept that she will never wake up from her coma.’
He could no longer fight it, and he stood up and went over to the wash basin.
Four steps. Not three.
He had to wash his hands.
‘There is nothing more we can do to help her. Deep inside you know that too, don’t you?’
He let the water run over his hands. Closed his eyes and felt the relief when the pressure eased.
‘You have to start to let go now. Try to move on.’
‘She reacted when I massaged her this morning.’
Dr Sahlstedt sighed behind his back.
‘I’m sorry, Jonas. I know how hard you’ve struggled to help her, and we all have. But it could be a matter of weeks or months now, we don’t know. In the worst case she could remain like this for another year.’
In the worst case.
He let the water run. Stood with his back to the man who claimed to be Anna’s doctor. Ignorant idiot. How could he claim to know what was moving inside her? How many times had
‘Why does she react then?’
Dr Sahlstedt sat in silence for a moment.
‘I’ve been trying for a long time to get you to talk with some of our . . . some of my colleagues here at the Karolinska Institute, but . . . now I’ve actually taken the liberty of making an appointment for you. I’m convinced that it could help you get through this. You have your whole life ahead of you, Jonas. I don’t think that Anna would want you to spend it here at the hospital.’
The sudden fury came like a liberator. The compulsion died down and retreated to the side.
He shut off the tap, took two paper towels, and turned around.
‘You just said that she couldn’t feel anything. Then why would she care about that?’
Dr Sahlstedt sat utterly still. A sudden beep from his breast pocket broke the silence.
‘I have to go. We’ll talk more another day. You have an appointment with Yvonne Palmgren tomorrow morning at 8.15.’
He tore off a yellow Post-It note from the pad and held it out to him. Jonas stood motionless.
‘Jonas, it’s for your own good. Maybe it’s time you started thinking a little about yourself.’
Dr Sahlstedt gave up and stuck the note on the desk top before he went out the door. Jonas just stood there. Talk to a psychiatrist! What about? She would try to get into his thoughts, and why should he permit that? He’d been so successful at keeping everyone away from them up till now.
Anna was the only one he had let in.
She was his and he was hers. That’s how it would always be. For two years and five months he had devoted all his time to making her well again. Trying to make everything all right. And now they wanted to get him to accept the fact that it had all been in vain.
Nobody was going to take her away from him.
Nobody.
When he came outside it had started to rain. On the nights he spent at the hospital he always took public transport because the parking fees were so high. They charged round the clock, and he couldn’t afford it any more.
