“It’s all his fault,” said Lydia.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “What’s my fault?”
“This,” said Lydia, drawing the knife across her throat. She looked into my eyes as the blood splashed down over her dress and her bare feet. Her mouth was trembling. The knife fell to the floor. One hand groped for support, but she sank down to the floor, coming to rest, balanced on one hip, like a mermaid.
Annika Lorentzon’s smile was troubled. Rainer Milch leaned across the table and poured a glass of mineral water with a hiss of carbon dioxide. His cuff links flashed royal blue and gold.
“I’m sure you understand why we wanted to speak to you as soon as possible,” said Peter Malarstedt, adjusting his tie.
I opened the folder they had handed to me. Identical materials sat before each board member. The contents of the folder stated that Lydia had made a complaint against me. She claimed that I had driven her to attempt suicide by coercing her to confess to things that had not taken place. She accused me of having used her for the purposes of my experiments and implanted false memories in her mind during deep hypnosis, and she said I had persecuted her ruthlessly and cynically in front of the others until she was completely shattered and had suffered severe emotional distress.
I looked up from the papers. “Is this some kind of joke?” I said.
Annika Lorentzon looked away. Svein Holstein’s face was completely expressionless as he said, “She’s your patient, and these are serious accusations.”
“I don’t want to accuse a very disturbed patient of lying,” I said angrily, “but she’s either lying or she’s delusional. It’s impossible to implant memories during hypnosis. I can lead them to a memory, but I can’t create one. I lead them up to doors, but I can’t open those doors on my own.”
Rainer Milch looked at me, his expression grave. “The suspicion alone could destroy all your research, Erik, so I’m sure you realize how critical this is.”
I shook my head irritably. “Under hypnosis, she related events concerning herself and her son that I considered so serious I felt I had no choice but to contact Social Services. The fact that she would react in this way was- ”
Ronny Johansson interrupted me sharply. “But she hasn’t even got any children. It says so here.” He tapped on the folder with a long finger. I snorted and got a strange look from Annika.
“Erik, being arrogant in this situation is not particularly helpful,” she said quietly.
“From the very first day she walked into this hospital, her relationship with her son has been the focus of almost every remark,” I said, with an irritable smile. “And not only in a therapeutic context. Whenever she chats with the others, she- ”
Annika leaned over the table. “Erik,” she said slowly, “she has no son. She’s never had any children.”
“She hasn’t got any children?”
“No.”
The room fell silent.
I watched the bubbles in the mineral water rising to the surface.
“I don’t understand. She still lives in her childhood home.” I attempted to explain as calmly as I could. “All the details matched. I can’t believe- ”
“You can’t believe,” Milch broke in, “but you were wrong.”
“They can’t lie like that under hypnosis.”
“Are you certain she was under hypnosis?”
“I’d stake my reputation on it.”
“In a way, you have, Erik. But it doesn’t matter now. The damage is already done.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, half to myself. “Perhaps she was talking about her own childhood; it’s nothing I’ve come across, but perhaps she was working through a memory of her own.”
“It could be exactly as you say,” Annika interjected. “It could be a number of things. But the fact remains that your patient made a suicide attempt for which she blames you. We suggest you take a leave of absence while we investigate the matter.” She smiled wanly at me. “This will all sort itself out, Erik, I’m sure of it,” she said gently. “But right now you have to step aside until we’ve looked into everything. We simply can’t afford to let the press wallow in this.”
I thought about Charlotte, Marek, Jussi, Sibel, Pierre, and Eva. We’d all worked to establish trust, a rapport. All individual progress had been the hard-won result of the specific chemistry we’d achieved as a group. My abandonment of them would leave them feeling betrayed and let down.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I said.
Annika patted my hand. “It will sort itself out. Lydia Everson is obviously unstable and confused, but the most important thing now is to do things by the book. You will request a leave of absence from your activities involving hypnosis while we conduct an internal investigation into these events. I know you’re a good doctor, Erik. I’m sure you’ll be back with your group in no more than”- she shrugged her shoulders- “six months.”
“Six months?” I leaped to my feet. “I have patients; they rely on me. I can’t just leave them,” I said furiously.
Annika’s gentle smile disappeared like a candle flame being extinguished. Her face closed down and her voice turned brittle. “Your patient has demanded that an immediate ban be placed on your activities. She has also made a complaint against you to the police. These are not trivial matters as far as we are concerned; we have invested in your work, and if it should transpire that your research has not been up to the required standard, we will have to take appropriate measures.”
I didn’t know what to say; I just wanted to laugh at the whole thing. “This is ridiculous,” was all I managed to get out. I turned to leave the room.
“Erik,” Peter Malarstedt called after me, “consider this a good opportunity.”
I stopped. “What?”
“To- ah- reconsider the trajectory of your work.”
I wheeled to face him. “Peter, do you believe all that crap about implanting false memories?”
Annika slammed the palm of her hand down on the table. “Erik, enough. That’s not the important thing. The important thing is to follow the rules. Take a leave of absence from your work with hypnosis, try to regard it as an offer of reconciliation. You can continue with your research, you can work in peace and quiet, but you will not practise hypnosis therapy while we are conducting our investigation.”
“I can’t admit to something that isn’t true.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Well, that’s what it sounds like. If I request a leave of absence, it looks as if I’m making an admission.”
“Tell me you’ll request a leave of absence,” she insisted stiffly.
“This is fucking idiotic,” I said with a laugh, and left the room.
It was late in the afternoon. The sun was sparkling in the puddles after a brief shower, and the smell of the forest- wet earth and rotten roots- rose up from the ground as I ran along the track around the lake, pondering Lydia’s actions. I was certain she had been speaking the truth under hypnosis- but which truth had she actually told me? Presumably she was describing a real concrete memory, but she had placed the memory in the wrong time. During hypnosis it is even more obvious that the past is not past, I reminded myself.
I filled my lungs with the fresh, cold spring air and sprinted the last stretch home through the forest. When I got to our street I saw a big black car parked in front of our drive, with two men leaning against the bonnet, waiting. One of them was checking his reflection in the shiny paintwork as he smoked a cigarette. The other was taking pictures of our house. They hadn’t seen me yet. I slowed down and was just wondering whether to turn around when they spotted me. The man with the cigarette quickly stubbed it out with his foot, while the other immediately turned the camera on me. I was still out of breath as I approached them.
“Erik Maria Bark?” asked the man who had been smoking.
“What do you want?”
“We’re from the press,
“The press?”
“Yes. We’d like to ask you a few questions about one of your patients.” I shook my head and waved a hand. “I can’t discuss my patients.”
“Right.”
