Cabin Fever

by Alex Dahl

  Still no movement on the road, so I fish my phone from my handbag and glance at the screen. There are two missed calls from a number I don’t recognize. And there is a message from Eirik, sent fifteen minutes ago, probably right after I texted him saying I was on my way home.

  I thought you’d be home much later. You said Sunday night? I’m with Lars, we thought we’d catch a movie at six.

  I feel a stab of annoyance. We hardly ever see each other – why is he making plans with his friend on a Sunday night? And if he really thought I’d be home later, why didn’t he cancel with Lars when he received my message saying I was on my way home? I’m not a demanding wife. At least I don’t think I am. I just want to feel prioritized by Eirik, and the truth is, much of the time, I don’t. Especially lately.

  The traffic has started moving again, leaving a wide gap between my car and the one in front, so I put the phone away and nudge the gas. The drive, which usually takes forty minutes, takes over two hours, and by the time I shut the door to the apartment behind me, breathing in its warm, familiar scent, it’s six thirty. It’s actually rather nice that Eirik is out; I’ve got used to having the apartment mostly to myself. I throw my weekend bag and handbag onto the sofa and decide to run a bath. I’ll pour myself a large glass of red and soak for as long as I want, reading my book or maybe an interiors magazine. I turn on the tap and stand for a while in the bathroom, looking myself in the eye. If I were one of my clients, how would I describe the woman in front of me?

  Kristina Moss, thirty-six years old. Married, no kids. A little tired-looking, with harsh blue circles beneath my eyes tonight, thanks to the late night on Friday and last night spent tossing and turning, snatching just a few hours of sleep in the early hours before Birk and Vilja rushed into the room at six like beautiful little hurricanes. My lips are full, my eyes a very dark brown, my chestnut-brown hair is pulled back and fastened in a messy topknot. A long, thin scar runs down my forehead. Strong nose and arched eyebrows from my father. Dimples and straight teeth from my mother, my favorite two things about my face.

  A sound separates itself from the flowing water and I stand still, listening. It is a metallic sound, like two components of machinery clashing together, but then I realize it’s my new ringtone and the sound is exacerbated against the marble surface of the lounge table where I’ve left the phone. I reach it before it stops ringing, noticing that it’s a different number from the previous missed calls I haven’t yet returned.

  ‘Hello?’

  There is no response, though I can hear someone is there, breathing into the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ Still nothing. I stay on the line for a while, listening to the faint, raspy breathing. This kind of thing doesn’t frighten or unsettle me; it has happened quite a few times, and when I’ve looked up the caller ID on 1881.no it is almost always some client or another, struggling late at night or on a weekend, who couldn’t resist calling to just hear the sound of my voice. It comes with the territory, and I never bring the calls up in the subsequent session. They actually make me feel especially empathetic toward a client, and besides, I know the feeling myself, of just needing to hear your therapist’s voice when everything feels impossible and pitch black. Tonight, I wonder if it could be Leah Iverson calling. I stay on the line, sitting on the side of the bathtub and watching bubbles pop on the water’s surface, for four minutes and thirty-nine seconds, until the line goes dead.

  4

  Leah, two weeks before

  In the small hours, when the sky is still dense with darkness, Leah is jolted from fretful dreams by the sound of a door slamming shut somewhere in the building. There’s a doctor on the second floor – he comes and goes at odd hours; it might be him. Or it might be the young girls sharing an apartment on the ground floor – they often come home when others start to wake. There’s a cello player across the landing from Leah’s own flat, a quiet and skinny man in his forties. She doubts it was him; the only sounds she ever hears from that apartment are mournful rising and falling concertos.

  Or… Or it could be Anton. She feels the little hairs on her forearm prickle and stand up at the thought of Anton coming up the stairs and makes herself take several long, deep breaths. He doesn’t know where you live, Leah. She imagines Kristina’s calm, soothing voice speaking the words directly into her ear.

  She turns over in bed, wishes she wasn’t alone, though she usually is. She flicks the radio switch and the buzz of voices fills the bedroom. Two men, discussing the situation in the Crimea. She turns the faux-ancient dial on her brand-new radio until soft music fills the room. Cello, in fact – Bach. She closes her eyes but knows she won’t sleep again, not tonight.

  She’ll be exhausted by lunchtime, and feels her stomach tighten with dread at all the long hours in front of the computer awaiting her, trying to find the words she needs to write. They don’t come anymore, and she almost can’t remember the days when writing was something joyful, when the words seemed to scatter from her fingertips. She’ll return to bed in the late afternoon, reading, checking her phone, listening to music, crying, the loneliness and yearning as insistent as bacteria burrowing into her bones. But then sleep does come, and Leah is lulled by dreams. The vision of bacteria inside her body somehow seeps into her dream, a strange world where she’s carried through narrow maroon canals as if on a boat, before being expelled into cool air through a purple-edged wound.

  5

  Kristina

  All the jokes about Mondays fall flat on me – I’ve always liked Mondays, a fresh start every week. In my line of work, I sometimes feel worn down and jaded by the time Friday rolls around and it takes the weekend to process and clear my head. But I love what I do, and by Monday morning, I can’t wait to get back to my office. I rent a pleasant, airy space at the pedestrian end of Hegdehaugsveien, in what used to be a large turn-of-the-century apartment, together with two other therapists and an osteopath. We call ourselves Homansbyen Terapisenter and share a kitchen and bathroom. We’ve become friendly over the years, sometimes heading to Lorry’s, the pub on the corner, for a drink after work on Thursdays, and quite frequently passing new clients on to one another when someone isn’t quite a match.

  On Monday mornings I’m here alone, sometimes for several hours – my colleagues have a policy of not booking clients early on Mondays. So do I, but I still come in early because I love this time to catch up with myself and prepare for the week ahead. It’s important to me to always be organized; it prevents so much chaos. Eirik makes fun of me for it sometimes, saying it’s almost creepy how one could open any drawer in our house at any time and it would always be immaculately ordered. Where do you keep the loose ends, the mess, the stuff you want to keep hidden? he’ll ask, laughing. I don’t; I go through the mess, and then I get rid of it. I aspire to achieve a mind and a life as transparent as my brightly lit, meticulously ordered closet with neat, instantly recognizable thoughts and feelings sorted like clothes in open shelves.

  I get up but almost immediately sit back down – the feeling of restlessness since the weekend hasn’t quite left me. I make myself focus on the notes on the screen in front of me. I need to jot down a few notes about today’s clients, as well as get in touch with a couple of GPs with regards to clients’ medication – I like to stay informed and updated in the cases where someone might be taking mood-altering medication in addition to psychotherapy.

  I look up Leah’s phone number in my client list, and compare it to the unknown numbers that called me last night. The last one was hers. Where was she when she called? What was she doing in those long minutes she had me on the line? I imagine her in bed, sobbing in the dark, her beautiful face twisted in a grimace of pain, the bruises on her face starting to fade from indigo to pale violet and sickly yellow.

  I open my calendar, which is busier than usual, with two new clients starting and a few extra sessions requested by established clients, but I do have a couple of free slots, one this afternoon and one on Wednesday. I hope Leah will ta
ke one of them. I redial her number, but it goes straight to voicemail without ringing. I try again, with the same result. It’s still early, only just gone 8 a.m. I don’t imagine she gets up early, as an author working from home; I don’t assume she would have anywhere to be this early. I’ll email instead, and she can get in touch when it suits her.

  To: liverson@vimeo.no

  Subject: Sessions

  Hi Leah,

  I wanted to check in with you after Friday; you’ve been on my mind. How are you doing? I know you called me last night; do try again, if you like. I also wanted to let you know that I have a couple of free slots available this week, if you’d like some extra support. I can easily add an extra session or two to your therapy scheme with your GP, so you won’t be billed – let me know.

  All best,

  Kristina

  I press ‘send’ and get up from my desk. I take my delicious Kusmi tea, which I don’t offer to clients, from the cupboard and flick the switch on the kettle. While I wait for the water to boil, I draw the scent of the blend deep into my lungs and watch people milling around on the street two floors down. There’s a long line at Kaffebrenneriet, snaking all the way outside onto the pavement. A jam-packed blue tram inches past, sandwiched by slow-moving cars heading toward Solli Plass. A blonde woman emerges from the café and dashes across the road. She’s wearing wide-leg trousers and impressively high heels, clutching a tall coffee, shielding her bouncy hair from the rain with a document folder.

  I hear a ping from my computer, and instantly my thoughts return to Leah – I hope it’s her, responding straight away. I realize how worried I am for her by the way I feel a dull ache in my stomach at the thought of her. There was something about the look in her eyes. The way she begged.

  The email isn’t from Leah but from a woman called Tess who is looking for a therapist to help her ‘navigate the worst divorce ever’. I make a mental note to respond to her later, saying I have plenty of experience with divorce, and schedule her in for next week. I open a new email draft and write to Leah’s GP, a competent and kindly man called Dr Albert who refers many clients to me and my colleagues for psychotherapy.

  I believe there is reason for concern for Leah Iverson’s well-being, I write. She has made repeat mentions of self-harm and suicidal ideation, and while I haven’t considered her high-risk previously due to her encouraging response to psychotherapy, I feel concerned that may have changed.

  I have emailed Leah this morning to offer extra support, and I will suggest that she also makes an appointment to see you with a view to discussing more intensive support, and/or further intervention.

  *

  The day passes in a blur, with back-to-back clients, and it isn’t until 3 p.m. that I get a chance to check my email again. No response from Leah. The free slot I have is at the end of the day – at 4.30, and I decide to stay until then in case Leah gets in touch and wants to come by. My stomach growls and I realize I haven’t had lunch. There’s nothing but some dried crackers in my cupboard and I’m not in the mood for prepping something in the communal kitchen; someone will inevitably appear for a chat. I am feeling introspective and restless today, and just want to be in my own space. I message Eirik and ask about dinner plans, and though he reads my WhatsApp straight away, the minutes tick by with no response. I am used to this, but suddenly it makes me angry.

  I walk downstairs and out into the misty rain – it’s the kind that doesn’t seem to dissolve into individual droplets, but that envelops you in a moist sheen. I cross the road to Kaffebrenneriet, which is entirely empty now, and place my order, a tall white Americano and a chicken-and-pesto baguette. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I glance at the message.

  What time will you be here? Making butterflied chicken, your favorite! Will Eirik be joining us?

  My mother. My heart sinks. I fish my calendar out of my handbag and realize that I had, in fact, written ‘Dinner with Mum’ on October 26th – today. She gets lonely when my father travels, and he is away this week in Iceland with the geology society he is a founding member of. I vaguely recall speaking to her on the phone last week and making dinner plans, but I completely forgot and don’t feel up for it – my mother can talk anyone’s head off and I’m simply not in the mood. I think about messaging Eirik again but he’s clearly forgotten too so I decide to just go on my own.

  The next hour drags past and I’m irritable and unfocused, so I feel relieved when Leah doesn’t show up, hoping she’ll take the free slot on Wednesday morning instead. At 4.50 on the dot, I leave the office and walk fast alongside the heavily congested road by the royal park to the train station on the other side. Again, I see Leah in my mind, the way she rushed from the session on Friday and outside into the heavy rain. There was something ghostly about how she was swallowed up by the gloomy fog, like she had never existed at all, and I keep my eyes locked to the drenched pavement.

  6

  Kristina

  I open the door without knocking and stand for a long moment in the hallway, drawing in the familiar scent of my childhood home. I run my hand lightly across my father’s battered golf bag and smile at a childhood picture of Camilla and me on the wall. I take my drenched parka off and hang it on the wall hook, letting it drip onto the tiles. I remember sitting on this same floor as a child, struggling to get out of my bulky winter boots, loving the warmth from the underfloor heating after coming back inside from playing in the snow for hours. The house smelled exactly the same then – of laundry, food always prepared from scratch, the distinct, chalky smell of the rock samples in my father’s office, the orange roses my mother favors: home.

  I avoid my gaze in the mirror, the drowned cat look was never a good one, and I need to summon all my energy to get through the evening with my mother when what I want is to just withdraw to the bathtub with a large glass of wine and my own thoughts.

  ‘What are you doing standing there, honey? Oh, gosh, you are absolutely soaked!’ My mother has appeared in the doorway without me noticing and pulls me into a close hug. I’m surprised by how good it feels to be held by her and I stay in her embrace for a little longer than I normally would, noticing that she feels slighter and smaller than I think of her. It’s a special sorrow, that moment when you realize that your parents have grown old.

  ‘Hey, Mum,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, Kristina, you look so…’

  ‘Terrible?’

  ‘No, of course not. Tired and wet. Never terrible, you beautiful, silly girl.’ She ushers me into the open-plan living area that she insisted upon a couple of years ago, knocking through the small, cozy rooms of my childhood and creating a ‘more modern home’. She presses a glass of white wine into my hand and I take a big, grateful sip and sit down in my usual place at the table.

  ‘It’s so good to have you here. I haven’t seen you in so long! How long is it?’ says my mother, placing two heaped plates on the table, chunks of chicken swimming in watery red-onion gravy.

  ‘It’s just a couple of weeks, Mum,’ I say, but grant her a smile. It’s not her fault that I’m worn out. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Busy. It seems like the petition has a good chance of winning, though if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s not to take anything for granted. After we were featured in the newspaper, I was invited to speak about the situation on the radio. That raised awareness, as you can imagine.’

  ‘Yes.’

  My mother has spent the last year relentlessly campaigning against the council’s plan to place a new stretch of the E18 motorway exactly through where my childhood home stands.

  ‘Of course, I now have to do much of the work on my own. After what happened with Elisabeth, Idun just can’t face doing what needs to be done, so I’m doing it all. To be honest, she can barely get out of bed in the morning.’ I nod, but a visceral dread spreads out in the pit of my stomach and I focus on chewing my food slowly, so I can’t be expected to respond. I knew my mother would want to talk about Elisabeth. It’s only natural, c
onsidering, but I’m still reeling from her loss and find it difficult to manage my emotions when her name is dropped into the conversation without warning. ‘I don’t think she’ll ever get over it,’ continues my mother. ‘Such a terrible waste. In spite of everything, she didn’t see it coming.’

  I nod again and look outside to the garden where Elisabeth and I used to play as children. I decide to bring my feelings of guilt and grief over Elisabeth to my own therapy tomorrow, like I already have, over and over, since August.

  Elisabeth’s family have always lived next to my own, in a house the mirror image of my family’s. Our gardens border each other, separated only by a low hedge, which became trampled and mangled over the years as Camilla and I constantly scrambled across it to get to Elisabeth. Because we were friends from before I can remember, I have no recollection of any firsts – the first time we met, the first time we laughed together, our first sleepover. She was just always there. Elisabeth was an only child, which makes her death an even crueler tragedy for her mother and father. As a child, she was jealous of me having an older sister. She used to say that she was the third sister and, well into our teens, she’d introduce me to people as her sister.

  Elisabeth was intense, creative, moody, fiercely intelligent. She’d come up with the games we’d play and all the kids in the neighborhood generally followed her lead. I remember her as always having an audience, whether it was just me or many other kids too. It was always The Elisabeth Show. We loved her. She’d become famous and celebrated when we grew up; this was accepted among us kids as fact. But she didn’t. She died in what should have been her prime, in the most tragic of circumstances.

  ‘I need to get home,’ I say, pushing my half-eaten plate of butterflied chicken aside. The dull ache in my stomach from thinking about Elisabeth is spreading outwards and I just want to go home and get an early night. Eirik is working late, I have the apartment to myself.