by Alex Dahl
Let’s move on, so much ground to cover. Another thing that impressed me about you was your obvious ability to maintain, and thrive in, a long-term partnership. As you know, this isn’t an ability we share. It feels as though whatever I do and whomever I do it with, I leave nothing but pain and destruction in my wake. Take Emil, for example, that guy I dated last year; you might remember him. A good man, and someone who was endlessly patient with all my whims and insecurities and issues. I dropped him over and over, until he was so bruised by me that he’d lost all sense of himself. Still, he’d come back for more. Like a dog.
I guess it was just me replicating the behavior I’d learned from Anton, and even earlier, from my father, hooked on the emotional rollercoaster ride of loving men who have nothing to give you except rejection and abandonment.
I lied to you about Anton. I lied to the whole world about Anton, didn’t I? We hurt each other; it went both ways, that’s the truth. Before I came to therapy, it was me who hurt him. But last Friday, before our session, it was Anton who hit me. It was him who did it. He punched me in the face and that was actually the first time he ever physically laid hands on me. By doing it, he actually turned my lies to truth.
And because of my book, I got trapped in a web of lies about what happened between us. Much of that book was made up; it was partially fiction, after all, but everyone thought it was a precise account of our relationship and hailed me as a domestic abuse survivor, when the truth was a lot more nuanced and rather more boring.
So I let everyone believe that I left Anton in the end, that he attacked me and left me in fear of my life. I adopted the persona of the brave but downtrodden abuse victim because I just couldn’t bear the truth that sat beneath the surface of my skin like a never-ending itch, impossible to escape. It’s what I told you, even. I realized that I had to leave to survive, I’d say, smug as fuck. I lied because I was too ashamed to tell the truth, even to you. In the book I preached about self-love and the need to protect the flame burning inside myself when I had no fucking concept of either of those things. I still don’t. But they sounded good, and they were what people wanted to hear.
Who would want to read a story about a cold marriage from which the main protagonist actually doesn’t want to leave, where she deep down welcomes constant rejection and cruel ridicule because they are the only things that confirm what she believes to be true about herself? People want happy endings, stories of strong women who overcome abuse and build shiny, wholesome lives.
But it was Anton who left me and I’d suppose you would say that it triggered that underlying wound of my father leaving me. It unleashed a wild, primal grief. He’d been indifferent and cold toward me throughout our marriage, occasionally throwing me an intoxicating little bone of affection. I was obsessed with really winning him over and mistook my hurt over the fact that he had one foot out the door for excitement. I bent over backward trying to make him stay, compromising myself more and more; I couldn’t bear another man walking out on me. I begged him to stay, but he didn’t even react, just looked the other way. I would have preferred being hit to his indifference. I’d never known shame like that. Or anger. I can still see his look of surprise when I slammed my fist into his face, breaking his nose. I clawed at his skin and pummeled him and pushed him down the stairs. Then I threw myself down them, too, breaking my collarbone and giving myself severe concussion. I told everyone I got a restraining order against him, so nobody would suspect that the actual story was rather different.
Nobody believed Anton’s version of events, especially after the book came out. We didn’t speak for years. But I’d go by his apartment sometimes at night and watch the shadows of his flickering television from across the street. I’d lie in bed and dream of him holding me, making love to me, hurting me even. I just wanted to be held, Kristina.
Then I got what I wanted. He came back last year. Because I’d lied about Anton being physically abusive, I couldn’t exactly tell you that I was seeing him again. I was in therapy then, of course, and I just couldn’t find a way to tell you. I’m still not quite sure why I lied to you about this, but I had fallen in love with the victim role and wanted you to feel sorry for me. And I guess it was hard to admit that I was so pathetic. I couldn’t tell you that the more therapy I had and the more I began to grasp the underlying patterns that led to my behavior, the more I lost interest in Anton. A man suddenly committed to staying was unfamiliar and uninteresting to someone as messed up as me. I began to seek thrills elsewhere. I began to sleep with men who were willing to act into the never-ending cycle of hurting me and leaving me – it’s what I know.
And now, it’s all over. So much is lost. I’m afraid of myself.
But for you, it’s different. You don’t court drama and pain and rejection and abandonment. You have a solid marriage. And you’ve held onto it. Without drama, and with what appears to be an above-average level of happiness. Just look at all those interviews your impressive husband gives. He never fails to mention you. It’s like he thinks he’s married to a saint. His rock, he calls you. His inspiration. I’d be lost without her, he said recently. Me too, I thought, scrutinizing the photograph of the two of you – a classic Norwegian shot of an outdoorsy couple climbing some mountain or other, beaming at each other, a broody and barren valley rolling away behind you.
It must be nice to be loved like that.
Someday, your husband will be prime minister if he has his way. And it seems to me that this guy mostly has his way. You’ll be propelled to the forefront of our society then; the intriguing other half of Norway’s leader. The media and the public will be interested in you – you’re rather different from those who have gone before you. Much younger, with a fresh look and a rock-solid education, a respectable career and a winning, unassuming way of being. You have made yourself so inoffensive, so inconspicuous. You’ve built a life so ordinary, but so beautiful.
They’ll find out about your past, of course. It’s not like it’s a secret anyway – a simple Google search will give it away. It’s a long time ago now, but your past will without doubt be brought back out into the light when your husband ascends to the very top of the political hierarchy. Perhaps you’ll give a tell-all interview to avoid any rumors and to elicit even more sympathy. People will cry for you. You will cry for yourself, too, like I already know you do. At night. Right now, probably. Sometimes when you’re driving. On Friday evenings, walking back home, your eyes locked hard on the blur of pavement, not noticing your surroundings, or me, twenty yards behind you.
You’ll realize by now that I’ve done quite a bit of homework. Learned to talk your talk. According to betterhealth.com, dissociation is, ‘a mental process of disconnecting from one’s thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity. The dissociative disorders that need professional treatment include dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, depersonalization disorder and dissociative identity disorder.’
I want you to understand that you were the victim. To really understand it. I believe that you blame yourself. That’s where the anger comes from. And the control issues. Did you think I didn’t notice them? The way you arrange the tea bags is a dead giveaway. The way the photographs were hung at your house, I just know you obsessed about the distance between them. The calculations in your diary move me to think that you’re trying to work out the mathematical probability of what happened to Trine Rickards.
I’ve wondered whether you really can’t remember, or if you have become so good at control that you don’t allow your mind to be whole? Either way, it must be lonely. Especially now that Elisabeth is dead. It must be so hard to not know why she died. I imagine you believe she committed suicide because of the endless cycle of addiction. That she just couldn’t stand it anymore. Except that wasn’t why. I tried to tell you. I tried to talk to you about it. I wanted to be there for you. Haven’t you always said to me that the truth is never ugly, unlike lies, and that we will live better if we live by it? She committed suicide because of y
ou. Elisabeth died to protect you. She loved you so much because you’re worth that much love. But before she died, she told me what she’d been carrying for so long. And I need you to know, because otherwise it will keep hurting you in myriad ways – you need to know and then you can be free. This freedom is my parting gift to you.
56
Kristina
I take a break here. I’m sick of Leah Iverson playing some fucking cat-and-mouse game with me. My mind is spinning and I don’t know what to think or feel about anything anymore. In spite of everything, I feel sorry for her; it’s terrible to think of her sitting here in this cabin, losing her baby and clearly having some very dark thoughts and, by all accounts, a serious mental breakdown that resulted in the delusions that make up Supernova, only for Anton to return to kill her. I know he did, and either he made her write that note or she wrote it before he got to her. I glance out the window at the black night. Could it be that he’ll come here again? He could turn up here tonight, and might try to cover up what he’s done to really make sure it looks like suicide.
I shiver violently and my pulse is so high I keep bringing my hand to my throat to feel it. I feel strangely light-headed. A part of me wants to try to get to the kitchen nook and drink the bottle of wine in the fridge. I’m desperate to numb my mind but I equally know I need to stay sharp to get out of here alive.
I reread the last few sentences over and over again. I almost want to laugh. She committed suicide because of you. Elisabeth died trying to protect you.
For a moment there, I was getting worried about where she was going with all this. Now, it’s merely laughable. Oh, Leah, how could you have got it so wrong?
57
Elisabeth, July
She loves many things about being here and this surprises her every day because she hadn’t anticipated relaxing into her surroundings or feeling at home. She can’t recall summer ever being more beautiful than here – the vast neon-green lawns rolling down toward the steely water of Drøbaksundet, which in turn leads to the inner Oslofjord. So close to the capital, but light-years away. The incredible orange and pink roses growing on scraggly bushes alongside the path leading to the beach. The emerald forests climbing the hills behind Villa Vinternatt, unmistakably stern and Nordic, nothing at all like the dense, humid jungles that haunt her.
In the afternoons, after lunch, she likes to sit out in the garden, sketching, even when it is chilly like today. Just basic charcoal sketches on plain notepaper, depictions that don’t need to carry any meaning at all. She especially likes to capture the elegant line of a bird wing caught in flight, or held close to a little bony body, or touching its tips against the surface of the sea. Today, she is drawing a small sparrow perched on a bird feeder hanging from one of Villa Vinternatt’s enormous oak trees. It twitches its wings, draws them close around a fat, fluffy belly, stares at her with its black pinprick eyes. She spends a long time on the texture of the feathers; it’s hard to capture their lightness and near-translucency in contrast to the sturdier, coarse feathers underneath.
When she moves her gaze from the bird to the path running from the terrace at the back of the house through the garden toward the beach, she notices that a woman is walking to her. There is something familiar about her, and Elisabeth narrows her eyes trying to place her. One of the new members of the rehabilitation team? The woman stops in front of Elisabeth and she turns the drawing over: she’s self-conscious about her work until it has matured. The bird scrambles up into the upper branches of the tree.
‘Elisabeth?’ asks the woman. Elisabeth nods, still unable to place her. She doesn’t think they’ve met before, but the woman reminds her of someone. She is tall, though not as tall as Elisabeth, and has thick chestnut-brown hair streaked through with lighter strands piled on top of her head in a deliberately messy bun. Her skin is a beautiful, smooth, sun-kissed brown, and she has wide-set hazel eyes with flecks of green. Elisabeth realizes that it is Kristina the woman reminds her of – it’s in the way she carries herself, and in the style of clothing – quietly expensive and classic; Hogan shoes and Gucci belt, Mulberry Del Rey bag, the uniform most of her friends seemed to adopt in high school. Elisabeth herself likes to dress less conformist – like a crazy bohemian artist witch, Kristina sometimes jokes. But that’s what I am, Elisabeth would respond.
‘Yeah?’
‘My name is Ella Victor. We met briefly the other day. At the vernissage.’
She remembers, then. Of course. The journalist; they’d spoken for a while and she feels stupid now for not remembering, but all the years of drug use have taken their toll on her brain.
‘Ah. Yes. I do remember.’
‘I wanted to stop by and speak with you again, if that’s okay. I really loved your work. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. Such emotive pieces.’
‘Thank you.’
Ella sits down on the bench next to Elisabeth and for a long moment they sit in a comfortable silence.
‘What were you drawing earlier?’
‘A bird.’
‘Could I see it?’ Elisabeth looks over at Ella and there is something about the warmth in her eyes and her kind smile that makes her trust her. She nods and flips the notebook over to reveal the unfinished sketch of the bird.
She glances down at it and sees it as if for the first time; it’s really good. ‘Wow,’ says Ella. ‘I was wondering how I could support you.’
‘Well, you could buy a picture from the vernissage, I guess. If you wanted. They are for sale. You’d have to ask at reception.’
‘Sure. I’d love that. Seems like a good cause to support; I love what they are doing here.’
‘So… who are you?’
‘I’m sorry, Elisabeth. I should have explained. I work freelance at the moment, and I’m thinking about writing a non-fiction book. About art therapy and trauma.’
‘Oh.’
‘When I saw your work, I wondered if you might be interested in contributing to the project.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m thinking of choosing ten or so promising artists who have experience with trauma and who incorporate it into their art as part of their healing process.’
‘Oh.’ Elisabeth feels her cheeks redden, she always feels numb and speechless when asked about her past or her artistic process. ‘I don’t know… I don’t think…’
‘You could be anonymous if you wanted.’
‘Umm.’
‘It would be my goal for the book itself to be cathartic for the participants.’
‘I’m not sure I’d fit that description. About, uh, trauma and using it for healing…’
‘Oh. Okay. Well, of course no pressure whatsoever.’ She’s going to get up and politely bid this woman goodbye, but maybe because she seems so gentle and trustworthy, or maybe it is because she reminds her of her best friend, Elisabeth surprises herself by speaking of the things she never speaks of anymore.
‘I paint a lot of blood,’ she whispers. ‘The way it is such a symbol of death and destruction, but really it is the very essence of life. The other day… I painted actual blood into one of the paintings. One of the ones in the vernissage. Watching it merge and darken with the paint and become part of a thing of beauty – it made me feel good. Like everything ugly could become beautiful someday.’ When she stops speaking, she’s surprised and also moved to see a sheen of tears in Ella’s eyes.
‘That’s the picture I want to buy,’ she says.
*
Later, in the night, she sits on the windowsill and looks out at the shimmering, moonlit sea. She considers painting, or maybe finishing the bird sketch, until she gets tired enough to hope for sleep. She’d felt light after speaking with Ella, and it took her by surprise. It had felt good to speak to someone not paid to care for her, someone who knows nothing about her history, other than that she is obviously a recovering heroin addict.
Though Elisabeth has spent years in therapy and various rehabilitation programs, it is different spea
king to a friend, and most of her friends have dropped away by now. Many have died of overdoses, a few have managed to stay clean and understandably have to cut out everyone from that old, dark life of using and abusing, and then there’s Kristina. Where Kristina comes across as so infuriatingly perfect and calm and centered, Ella seemed a little rougher around the edges, a little more real. Still, Elisabeth misses Kristina and cherishes her monthly overnight stay away from Villa Vinternatt at Kristina and Eirik’s house.
It’s just hard, sometimes, to be around Kristina. The two of them started life side by side with very similar family backgrounds, and they went through the same school system and moved in the same circle of friends. They went through the same traumatic experience in Venezuela. And yet Elisabeth spiraled downwards, all the way to rock bottom, and stayed there. Kristina found a way back up, and though Elisabeth is happy for her, and impressed with the success she’s made of her life, she can’t help but feel a little bitter and jealous. Kristina Moss, the mind doctor who was saved by the dysfunction of her own mind. If she could remember what really happened in Carúpano, she’d be on her fucking knees. Elisabeth remembers, and keeping it secret is like bleeding slowly to death from an invisible wound.
58
Supernova
Everything that has happened is because I love you and wanted to be like you and wanted to keep feeling what being near you made me feel. It doesn’t excuse what I’ve done. I’ve done bad things.
The image in my mind when I think of you and the way you live is this: a charmed, honed life, nothing left to chance. An inner life picked to pieces and analyzed inside out. Back to the house analogy – I want to take it even further. If you were a house, you’d be a sleek modern one with symmetrical lines and huge floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at an equally unblemished landscape. The house would have carefully arranged sections of expensive furniture – glass tables, flattering mirrors under warm lighting, soft leather chaise longues, never-sat-on white sofas. Other than that it would be empty. But under the house, where its foundations should sit on impermeable rock, is a vast, black space. The house sits precariously on a couple of wobbly stones, and far below the world you pretend to live in is another world. A dark one.