The Unlucky Lottery

Munster looked at the painting. Blue and red in big, wavy shapes: she was using too much water and the paper was buckling. It looked more or less like it did when his little daughter occupied herself with the same pastime. He noticed that the used pages in the pad looked roughly the same.

‘Do you like living here at the Gellner Home?’ he asked.

‘I live in number twelve,’ Irene said. ‘Number twelve.’

Her voice was low and totally without expression. As if she were speaking a language she didn’t understand, it struck him.

‘Number twelve?’

‘Number twelve. The other girl is called Rebecka. I’m also a girl.’

‘Do you often have visitors?’ Munster asked.

‘Liesen and Veronica live in number thirteen,’ said Irene. ‘Liesen and Veronica. Number thirteen. I live in number twelve. Rebecka also lives in number twelve. Twelve.’

Munster swallowed.

‘Do you often have visits from your family? Your mother and father, your brother and sister?’

‘I’m painting,’ said Irene. ‘Only girls live here.’

‘Ruth?’ said Munster. ‘Does she often come here?’

‘I don’t know you.’

‘Do you know who Mauritz is?’

Irene didn’t reply.

‘Mauritz Leverkuhn. Your brother.’

‘I know everybody here,’ said Irene.

‘How long is it since you came here?’ Munster asked.

‘I live in number twelve,’ said Irene.

‘Do you like sitting here, talking to me?’

‘I don’t know you.’

‘Can you tell me what your mother and father are called?’

‘We get up at eight o’clock,’ said Irene. ‘But we can lie in until nine if we want. Rebecka always stays in bed until nine.’

‘What are you called?’ Munster asked.

‘I’m called Irene. Irene’s my name.’

‘Have you any brothers and sisters?’

‘I’m painting,’ said Irene. ‘I do that every day.’

‘Your painting is beautiful,’ said Munster.

‘I paint in red and blue,’ said Irene.

Munster stayed for a while until she finished the picture. She didn’t even look at it, but simply turned to another page in the pad and started again. She never looked up to glance at him, and when he stood up to leave, she seemed unaware of his presence or his going.

Or even that he had ever been there.

‘One of the problems,’ said deBuuijs when Munster returned to her office, ‘is that she is physically well. She might even be happy. She is forty-six years old, and frankly, I can’t see her surviving in society, functioning as a normal citizen. Can you?’

‘I don’t really know…’ said Munster.

Froken deBuuijs eyed him for a few seconds, smiling as usual.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said eventually. ‘Cows and hens and pigs are also happy. Or contented, at least… until we slaughter them. But we demand a little bit more of what is called human life. Don’t we?’

‘Yes,’ said Munster. ‘I suppose we do.’

‘Irene hasn’t always been like this,’ said deBuuijs. ‘Ever since she fell ill she has retired into her own little, familiar world: but further back she didn’t feel secure there either. But in recent years, as long as she’s been here in the Gellner Home, she’s behaved as I assume she did when you spoke to her.’

‘Inside herself?’ said Munster.

‘You could put it like that. Never anywhere distant from her immediate surroundings, in any case. Neither in time nor space. But contented, as I said.’

Munster thought for a moment.

‘Is she on medication?’

DeBuuijs shook her head.

‘Not any more. Or nothing to speak of, in any case.’

‘Any kind of… treatment?’

She smiled again.

‘I thought we’d get round to this eventually,’ she said. ‘We are expected to do something, after all – right? The least we can do is to try to restore some kind of dignity… Yes, of course Irene undergoes therapy – if she didn’t, she would presumably come to a full stop one of these days. As it were.’

Munster waited.

‘We work partly on a traditional basis,’ explained deBuuijs, ‘but we also experiment to some extent. We don’t take any risks, of course, but in Irene’s case it has worked surprisingly well – or at least, that’s what our therapist says.’

‘Really?’ said Munster.

‘We have a sort of conversational therapy every day. In small groups. We do that with all our patients. And then we have a few therapists who come here and work on an individual basis. Various schools of thought and methods – we don’t want to exclude anything. Irene has been meeting a young woman by the name of Clara Vermieten for nearly a year now, and it seems to have gone well.’

‘In what way?’ Munster asked.

‘I don’t really know,’ said Hedda deBuuijs. ‘They’re having a break at the moment because Clara has just had a baby, but she intends to continue the therapy in spring.’

Munster began to wonder if she had something hidden up her sleeve, or if she was just making conversation out of pure politeness.

‘If you would like to partake, I can fix that,’ said deBuuijs after a short pause. ‘Seeing as you have come all this way.’

‘“Partake”?’

‘All the conversations are recorded on tape. I haven’t heard them, but I phoned Clara when I heard that you were coming. She has nothing against your listening to the tapes. Assuming that you don’t abuse them in any way, of course.’

‘Abuse them?’ said Munster. ‘How would I be able to abuse them?’

DeBuuijs shrugged.

‘I might have to switch off certain comments now and then,’ she said. ‘That’s part of my job. Is that okay with you?’

‘Yes,’ said Munster. ‘These things happen.’

DeBuuijs stood up.

‘I think we are on the same wavelength,’ she said. ‘Come with me, I’ll take you to her room. You can sit there for as long as you like. If you’d like a cup of coffee while you’re listening, I’ll bring you one.’

‘Yes, please,’ said Intendent Munster. ‘I could do with one.’

37

‘What do you mean?’ said Jung. ‘How it happened?’

‘It’s an idea that struck me,’ said Moreno. She bit her lip and hesitated for a few seconds. ‘Do you remember that day – a Thursday, I think it was – when Arnold Van Eck reported that his wife had disappeared? We drove