by Alex Dahl
I go through all my email folders to make sure I can’t possibly have missed a message from her, but there’s nothing. I check on 1881.no that her phone number or address haven’t changed, but they remain the same. I make a mental note to get back in touch with Dr Albert to see whether he has heard from her. I spend fifteen minutes talking to my colleague, Alice, in the communal kitchen, who is also between clients.
‘Sounds like ghosting,’ she says, frowning into her milky tea.
‘I just don’t think she would do that,’ I say.
‘I never did, either. But then it’s often the ones you expect more from who do.’
‘Hmmm. Should I call her next of kin or something?’
‘No. Kristina, it’s not part of your job description. You’re the receptacle, not the detective.’
‘I know, but—’
‘No buts. Okay, back to work, it’s almost three. Drinks later?’
‘Possibly.’
*
‘It happens again and again,’ says Siri Engevik, a middle-aged woman with a deep frown, looking at me from behind thick turquoise glasses. ‘He promises he’ll change, but he never does. He doesn’t even particularly bother to hide the evidence anymore. The other day, a woman called several times when we were having another one of those godawful, silent dinners in an old-fashioned steak restaurant. You know the kind. Unheated plates. Rodeo-style interiors. Laminated menus. Why won’t he take me to sushi? I want to go to one of those fancy Asian places in Tjuvholmen. I bet that’s the kind of place where you go. With your husband.’ She gives me a little wink to let me know she knows very well who my husband is, a tiny triumph.
‘Siri, you were saying that a woman rang repeatedly?’
‘Yes, his phone was on the table. It kept lighting up and vibrating. Knut glanced at it and I could see the name “Amanda” flashing across the table. I asked who Amanda is and he just shrugged and kept chewing. I swear, the way he eats drives me crazy. It’s like he shovels the food into his big wet mouth and sends it around in circles in there. I wanted to walk out. I really did.’
I glance at the time. Twenty past three. Siri Engevik has been coming for around a year and is quite a demanding client; she becomes easily frustrated with the necessary limitations of the therapeutic relationship and can become agitated if I cut her off to say our time’s up, or if I decline to answer a personal question. She frequently finishes her musings with Don’t you think? and though I point out that what I think isn’t necessarily the point, she’ll keep pushing and say – But what do you think? What’s your opinion? You must have an opinion.
‘Why didn’t you?’ I ask, gently.
‘Why didn’t I what?’
‘Walk out. You said you wanted to walk out. And that you feel disrespected by your husband.’
‘Well, yes. How would you feel if your husband sat at the dinner table taking calls from another woman, some old bitch called Amanda. Tell me, Dr Moss, how would that make you feel?’
‘Siri. Let’s focus on how it makes you feel. I sense a lot of anger here.’
‘Well, wouldn’t you be angry?’
‘I think anger would be a very natural response to the situation you’re describing.’
‘It’s pathetic, though. Getting so angry over little things.’
‘Little things?’
‘The way he chews. Amanda. His silence. He never asks me a single question. It’s because he doesn’t care about the answers. He doesn’t care about me. He…’ Siri begins to cry softly and I discreetly push the box of tissues closer to her. She doesn’t take one, but wipes at her tears with the sleeve of her chunky-knit purple mohair sweater.
‘Those things don’t sound like little things to me.’
Siri stares at me, then nods, sending more tears streaming down her face. I feel her pain acutely in this moment, and can’t help but think how much pain there is in most relationships, layer upon layer of it, even in those relations that on the surface seem harmonious and healthy. A slightly insensitive comment. A rebuff in bed. The silences between partners when there’s nothing more to say. Little lies that become big lies.
‘So what do you think I should be feeling right now?’
‘Only you can answer that.’
‘But I don’t know. It can’t be normal to never know how you’re feeling?’
‘Not knowing what you feel is a feeling, too, isn’t it?’
‘Hmm.’ She stares out the window for a while and I follow her gaze, watching the brief, gray day fade into a deep, blue afternoon. ‘Do you think it’s ever okay to stay in a marriage when you’re both unhappy?’
‘I think every marriage is different and that only the two people in it can know what is right for them.’
‘I think I need you to advise me here, Dr Moss. I want to know what the recommended course of action is for this sort of thing.’
‘Siri. You know that isn’t my role. And I don’t think there is a recommended course of action.’
‘We’ve been to couples’ therapy before, and that therapist was quite clear about what the various options were. But you… You won’t ever say.’
‘My role is to be here for you and to help you understand how you feel, not tell you what to do.’
‘We have a house together. A house full of things. A grown-up son. A cabin. An apartment in Antibes. I can’t just walk away, I’m trapped—’
‘Siri. We are going to have to continue next week.’
‘What?’ Siri stares at me with a blank expression, as though I were behind a one-way mirror and she only now realized that I’m here.
‘Our time is up, I’m afraid.’
She takes me in with an expression of mild disdain, then nods absentmindedly. ‘Oh. Right.’ She stands up abruptly, gathering her rose-patterned billowing scarf and padded purple velour jacket and pauses at the door for a moment as though there was one more thing she needed to say. I do sometimes wonder what she gets out of these sessions, she seems so in opposition to the therapy structure and the way I work. I make a mental note to ask her about this next time; maybe we should consider referring her on to a colleague with whom she has more personal chemistry. My Fridays are going to be wide open at this rate, if Leah has ghosted me and Siri were to see someone else.
I stand up and walk over to the window. The gloomy morning has given way to a beautiful afternoon with indigo skies streaked by pink gauzy clouds, and I wish I could sit by the sea, looking out over its calm surface, releasing all the nervous energy I feel pulsating beneath my skin. I have the strange sensation that if I were to slice my skin open, tension would flow out of me in thick, black bursts, like tar.
I think about what Siri said, about feeling trapped in a life you don’t want, no matter how privileged you might be. I can’t imagine a situation in which Eirik and I stayed married merely because we owned property and possessions together, a life in which we’d eat in silence, where we’d stopped caring about each other, or where he’d be courting other women, not even bothering to hide it. I feel a sharp bolt of anger and fear at the thought, followed by gratitude for the things in my life that are good.
I go back to my desk and check my phone and emails. Nothing from Leah, no explanation. It’s the start of another weekend, and she’ll be on my mind until I know what is going on with her. I go into my contacts list and select ‘Leah Iverson’, and click on ‘next of kin’. Listed is her mother, Linda Iverson, with a Swedish number.
Hi Linda,
I was wondering whether you are in touch with Leah. She’s missed a session with me which is unusual for her. I’m concerned for her well-being and wanted to make sure she is okay.
Best wishes, Dr Kristina Moss.
I’ve barely put the phone back down on my desk when it vibrates. It’s Leah’s mother.
She’s fine. I’ve spoken to her. Thanks, L.
I sit down and open my client notes. I select Leah’s file and enter ‘no show’ under today’s date. I scroll back up through my own
notes from the last few weeks to make sure I haven’t overlooked anything of importance, but there’s nothing. I still can’t quite believe she didn’t come today. I feel a pang of sadness at the thought of how unfinished our course of therapy feels. I really believed I could help Leah, and that our bond was strong and transformational, similar to my own bond with Ingvild, when I first came to therapy and found that it had the power to change lives.
Leah is one of those clients I always look forward to seeing, and it’s because she’s eager to grow, she really wants to learn about herself. She believes in trying to become whole. Like you, she’ll say. It seems to me like she believed in this possible wholeness all along, that she trusts in therapy, unlike some clients, who resist every step of the way. They question everything, applying their own limited understanding of amateur psychology based on having read one self-help book to everything I say. Oh, so you are referring to reparenting, they might randomly ask. Or, yeah, this is definitely an ego response to underlying rejection issues. Frankly, it’s annoying.
Leah’s different. She listens as much as she speaks. She feels the spaces between us and seems to understand the unconditional trust I’ve tried to build there.
I shut the computer down and make sure everything in the office is in its right place. I feel a need to get out of here so strong it’s physical, so I blow out the candle on the windowsill, put my winter jacket on, then shut the door behind me.
12
Kristina
I go the same way as I always do on a Friday afternoon, but today my steps feel leaden, and I know deep down I’m going to turn around before I even get halfway up Bogstadveien, which is busy with schoolkids and those taking an early weekend milling in and out of the shops. Still, I proceed to Rosenborggata, where I turn right. I walk all the way up to the white, immaculately kept turn-of-the-century apartment building and slide my finger down the familiar row of buzzers until it settles on the right one. It wouldn’t be so bad to go up. I would be met with nothing but kindness. But it’s the kindness I can’t bear. Something occurs to me, and I check my phone. No new messages. I open Google maps and enter Leah’s address, found and memorized from my client list before I left the office. It’s just seven minutes’ walk away, across Theresesgate and toward Adamstuen. I glance up at the building in front of me one more time. Not today, I say to myself, refusing thoughts of how in this moment the tea will be brewing, the home-made cakes will be meticulously laid out on a tray; they’ll be waiting for the buzzer to sound. I walk away.
I head back down Bogstadveien and past my office, and after less than ten minutes, I find myself standing in front of Leah Iverson’s apartment building on Benneches Gate. Leah lives in a beautiful yellow-and-white art nouveau apartment building, and I stand for a moment on the pavement looking up at the windows, trying to guess which ones are hers. She’s never really spoken to me about her apartment – whenever she speaks about home, she speaks of the apartment where she grew up with her mother, or more recently, her beloved country cabin. She always lights up when she speaks of the peace she feels there, far away from other people and the stresses of city life. I look at the names on the doorbells and find her name at the top. L.K. Iverson it reads, and I rest my finger on it for a moment. Without thinking, I press the buzzer down for a long moment and imagine it ringing shrilly in Leah’s apartment. Will she be angry with me for coming here? Experience tells me she’s more likely to be moved; clients tend to crave feeling important and cared for by the therapist.
Leah has often asked me whether I really care about her, or if I only pretend because I get paid. A lot of clients ask me similar questions and it is one of the more difficult things to address when it comes to therapy – how can they truly trust that I care about their well-being and mental health when we both know I am also there because I am paid? But I care, deeply, about all of my clients. It was something I occasionally worried about during my training, whether I would encounter clients for whom it was impossible to feel empathy and connection. To this day, it’s never happened – every single person I have met throughout my years in therapeutic practice has turned out to be fundamentally worthy of empathy.
I press the doorbell again and imagine Leah rising from the sofa and padding across dark hardwood floors to the door on bare feet. I have a feeling she isn’t here. But what if she is, only she’s hurt herself? Despite Linda’s reassuring text, I can’t shake off the feeling that something serious is going on with Leah. I feel my stomach sink at the random thought of Leah in her home, thinking about ending her own life, perhaps several days ago. How lonely would those last hours have been; how desperate would she have felt? Still, I don’t believe she would take her own life. I press the buzzer again, for longer this time.
Come on, Leah. I care about you. It’s why I’m here.
This is about the truth. Those were some of her last words to me. What could she have meant by this? Over the years Leah sat opposite me every Friday afternoon, I became privy to many of her truths. As we began to explore her inner world and she developed the awareness to make increasing sense of it, we discussed conditioning and how the things we are told about ourselves aren’t necessarily true.
During her marriage to Anton, Leah was conditioned to believe she was worthless and disgusting, that nobody else would ever want her and that she deserved to be punished. It took us years to begin to untangle these beliefs, in part because it became clear that she’d held them even before her marriage, perhaps results of bullying as a young child and her father’s departure. Could this be the misconceived ‘truth’ she was referring to? Or could it be her pregnancy? Or was she referring to some other truth? I’ve wondered, sometimes, whether the truth itself had felt central to Leah’s suffering, that by writing about it so brutally honestly in Nobody, she was left feeling exposed and vulnerable.
‘Hello?’ says a man’s voice, making me jump. I’d been lost in thoughts, momentarily forgetting I’d pressed Leah’s buzzer.
‘Uh, hello,’ I say. ‘Who is this?’ I feel suddenly deeply embarrassed, turning up on Leah’s doorstep when she is probably just cooped up with a new boyfriend, the father of her child. But… Friday. She was hurt. Someone hurt her. There is a long pause.
‘Who’s asking?’
‘My name is Kristina Moss. I’m…’
There is a long pause, and when the man speaks again, his voice is cool.
‘I know who you are.’ The buzzer sounds and I glance down the street as though someone might appear who could tell me what to do, but there is nobody around, so I push open the door and step inside.
13
Leah, two weeks before
I’m not supposed to be here, he says.
No, says Leah. And yet. Here you are.
I can’t stay away from you.
Good.
What is this going to cost us? He whispers, tracing light shapes with his fingertips down her bare chest, across her stomach, its swelling barely noticeable, then further down, and draws her even closer, pressing her face into his broad, warm chest. She looks up, makes him meet her eyes.
It’s okay, her eyes say.
I miss this so much, he says.
I’ve missed this my whole life, she thinks. She’s tired, but doesn’t want to sleep, she wants to be held, to lie here all night just being held, feeling him fill the apartment, the spaces inside her, the night itself. She hadn’t seen this coming, this deep and easy feeling of coming home.
14
Kristina
I step into a vast foyer lit by a huge industrial-style wrought-iron lamp. I hear a door unlock higher up in the building and take the stairs slowly, trying to make sense of my racing thoughts. Am I about to come face to face with Leah? Who is the man, and why did he instantly recognize my name? I assume she has met someone fairly recently, and for some reason, didn’t want to discuss the relationship with me. But wouldn’t Leah have told me? She tells me everything. Or so I thought.
It seems surreal that I am h
ere, climbing the stairs to Leah’s apartment. Her apartment is all the way at the top, and the door has been left ajar. To the side of the door is a small bronze doorbell reading ‘Iverson’, and I imagine her choosing it in a little shop, writing her name down on a scrap of paper, to be engraved.
‘Hello?’ I say, stepping into a narrow hallway. A man emerges from a room to the right. He looks young, almost like a high school student, and is dressed in navy sweatpants and a hooded sweater with a giant red Ralph Lauren Polo logo. He’s a good-looking guy, with dark-blonde hair and light-blue, striking eyes. He looks tired and his clothes are crumpled, as though he was sleeping on a sofa and has just woken up.
‘Hi,’ he says, stepping forward to shake my hand. His grip is firm, and his hand is cool and dry. ‘Anton.’
I can’t help a sharp intake of breath at the shock of coming face to face with Anton here, in Leah’s apartment. Her ex-husband is an abusive man and Leah had to take out several restraining orders against him. I fight the urge to flee from the apartment, but I need to see Leah and make sure she’s okay.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m Kristina Moss.’
‘I know. She talks about you. A lot.’
‘She talks about you a lot, too,’ I say, my voice trembling with anger, but also fear. I have to tread carefully here. Anton slowly raises an eyebrow and scrutinizes me as though committing me to memory. His jaw clenches.