Artan looked at me and I could see that he was disappointed. He didn’t say anything, but I could see in his shoulders that he was measuring a distance between us. There had always been a distance, but it had grown larger. He was sitting on a chair in my room and he had a book, and I lay there looking at the flower on the ceiling, which unfurled so slowly that you couldn’t see it. I was ashamed because he was sitting there and because I didn’t do anything. Would he sit there and watch me just lying there? It felt as if I were nothing and as if he had to watch over this nothing. I was ashamed that this was a part of his life. That I took up his time. I felt like I had to say something to him and I tried to find the right words and finally I said, ‘I don’t want this.’
‘No,’ said Artan. ‘I know. You never should have cut yourself, Anna.’
Could Artan understand? No. No one could understand.
‘No,’ I said.
Artan continued to read his book and he tapped his feet, irritated, but he couldn’t say anything to me. Not now. I had let him down, his tapping feet tried to say, you didn’t just let yourself down, you let me down too. I believed in you, Anna, he said with his feet. We were on the right track, but we aren’t anymore. I realized that an aide should never expect anything of a patient, never invest anything of himself in the person he cares for, and maybe Artan had done that, without realizing it himself.
I sank through the layers, just let it happen, because it was too painful to be awake. I met the ferryman, who invited me aboard, but I kept going to the stag girl who was sitting on a bench and crying, and on to the shining day, where the light was so bright that it was impossible to see. I felt my way with my hand and went into the light, onto the street with the house with the family, who were all sitting inside eating food. I entered the house without anyone noticing me and I went into my room, where the map was, and I thought, now that I’ve seen it I’ll remember it for always. I turned to the nightstand with the letters and they were there and the sight of them caused me to back out of the room and disappear from the house and go through the light back to my body where my pelvis lay anchored in the bed.
*
The new medicine made my tongue stiff and if I hadn’t been able to talk before, it was impossible now. I slurred out the words yes, thanks, no to the staff’s questions about whether I wanted to shower, whether I wanted another sandwich. My hand had healed and there was just a red mark there now, and it itched. My body was rigid; it had frozen stiff from the inside out and I felt like an iced-over lake, with room only for my lungs pulling the air in and out and for the fist which was my heart, which kept on beating deep inside the frozenness.
I was banned from having visitors. I thought about Urban. About whether he might be relieved. I didn’t know what it cost him to visit me. Maybe he was glad to be spared it. I understood. I wouldn’t have wanted to visit myself. Maybe it was just as well that I was left here, because I would never get away. That’s what I thought now. Death seemed distant. As if it didn’t belong to me anymore, as if it weren’t a possibility. I saw it only in my dreams, and I approached it. It was the ferryman, and the singing mist, or the gravel pit that was waiting to fall. The dog with the red eyes. I always recognized it, no matter what it looked like, but I never got close enough.
I wondered about my will. My will to live? Did it exist anywhere? What could a life look like? What would happen to me? Would I be pushed out to the table where they played games? Would I get to start taking walks again? Artan didn’t say anything about that. He didn’t say anything, he just helped me with what was most necessary. I sat on the window ledge during the day, fantasizing, with him or someone else in the room. Somehow I had grown used to always having someone there, even when I went to the toilet, even if the shame was always there. To always having a witness to this refusal, this non-life that had been going on for a long time, I don’t know how long.
I stroked the plastic window with my hand. I saw the spring out there, and the dandelions finding their way up out of the snow. I felt inside what the ground smelled like: wet, warm snow and the ground underneath. I thought of the river breaking loose and making room for itself, of lined rubber boots that itched, and I understood, of course, that these thoughts belonged to life. Should I tell Bengt about the river?
Should I tell Artan?
Artan was reading peacefully in his chair. It looked like he was concentrating. I wondered what book he was reading. Could I ask him that?
‘Artan,’ I said with my tongue in the way, so I sounded like an old man. ‘I want to go outside.’
Artan looked up from his book. He looked at me, as though he were trying to figure out who I was. What I wanted. That voice I had.
‘That won’t be easy,’ was all he said, and he kept reading his book, as if he were refusing me access, as if the path into him was closed. I knocked and knocked at that door. I saw myself doing it. I almost hit him, but he just sat there in my room, like a statue, I thought, and I didn’t try using my voice again because the daytime medication was coming on the cart and Sonja was the one bringing it. The one with the skinny arms, so you could clearly see the bones underneath. She nodded at Artan and then looked at me.
‘Come down from the window,’ she said. ‘Sit on the bed; I’m going to draw blood.’
I did as she said, helping by lifting my arm so she could tie the band around it. She patted me on the inside of my elbow and smiled encouragingly.
‘Nice veins. Not everyone is so easy to stick.’
It was as if she were complimenting me because my blood stood out so clearly in my veins, and I watched as she stuck me with the needle, how it moved in under my skin. She changed tube after tube. She wiggled them up and down and placed them in a little stand she had on the cart. Then she gave me the medicine and I swallowed it with water and opened my mouth wide to show that I hadn’t hidden any pills in there.
‘Thank you, Anna,’ Sonja said, and she went away again after she’d nodded at Artan again.
The door closed behind her and the room waited out the sound and then settled back to normal again. It was half dusk by now, and surely he couldn’t read in that light, I thought.
‘You won’t have to have the extra guard tomorrow,’ Artan said suddenly. His voice filled the whole room, coming to rest all the way up at the ceiling and falling back down.
‘Good,’ I said, and after this conversation it was like we were drained of all our strength and I realized that it took effort to sit so motionlessly on a chair, even if he did have the book.
Artan took another breath and forced it out: ‘I’m going soon, and then Rodney will come, okay?’
‘Okay,’ I said.
There was nothing wrong with Rodney. He was one of the ones who would bring extra sandwiches before night fell. We sat in the dark for a long time, and I knew that Artan was only pretending to read. Had he been pretending all along? There had been some talk that I would be allowed to read the family’s letter, but it wasn’t time yet, but maybe soon? I wanted Urban to be with me, or at least Artan. Maybe I couldn’t read anymore. The new stiffness in me pulled me in two. It was as if I had two sides that were pulling away from each other. I walked poorly, seeming to sway this way and that toward the breakfast table. Maybe the stiffness would pull apart the words that were written on the paper, like they did when I spoke. I hadn’t read anything since I came here, or written anything either.
Rodney knocked on the door and stuck his head in, and Artan stood up, relieved. It was clear they liked each other, because they shook hands and smiled at each other so their teeth gleamed in the darkness.
‘How are things here, then?’ Rodney asked.
‘Nice and quiet,’ said Artan, and then, ‘Are you coming to the party?’
‘Yes,’ said Rodney, laughing. ‘Hell yes. Anything could happen.’
Artan laughed too.
‘See you there, then,�
� said Artan, and he left the room without saying goodbye.
‘Do you want it this dark, or can I turn on a light?’ Rodney asked, and when I didn’t say anything he turned on the overhead light.
‘Do you want to borrow a magazine?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
‘Do you just want to sit there?’
I got my voice ready, tried to sneak past my tongue, and said, ‘I can’t talk.’
‘Poor you, Anna,’ Rodney said, and why did he say that, because his words brought tears and they ran and ran down my cheeks. The tears that had lain there, frozen solid and secure, now they were surging out of the deep like an army, and I cried and my nose ran as I sat there hating myself for these tears. The tears kicked their way out. They were impossible to stop. They made their way past the stiffness as if it were nothing, and out into the light where I sat with Rodney, who was beside me now. He seemed to embrace all of me, although he was only holding my shoulder.
‘It’s good,’ said Rodney. ‘It’s good that you’re crying.’
I walked straight out of the room with Rodney behind me; I started running down the hall up to the door of the common room, which was open, and then I turned around and ran back, but there was no place to run for real. I felt my muscles tightening around the movement and helping me on, step by step, as if they had just been waiting for this chance to stretch out, but I was caught by Rodney, who was holding me tight from behind and I cried and cried, screaming and crying until I fell to my knees and vomited. It was as if I were vomiting out my entire being there on the floor; the tremors came through my body and pulled back like waves. It was like they would never end, but finally the waves stopped coming and Rodney helped me to the bathroom, where I rinsed my mouth and my face with cold water; I got my shirt and pants wet, but I didn’t care, and with Rodney’s help I made it back to my bed. He laid me down carefully as if I were a small child being put to bed, and his hand was cool on my forehead. He sat down on the chair right next to the head of the bed and for some reason I happened to think about Sara who was always sitting in the common room with the TV and the others. About how she never got to go home, but I couldn’t explain why I was thinking about her right then. I was glad that Rodney was sitting there. I was scared. It was as if something was showing itself to me, as if something had been decided, but I didn’t know what.
Meaning. Meaning. I woke up with the words aching in my chest. I opened my eyes and looked around at the room I hated. The clothes on the floor; the dust, sharply outlined by the light, which I had done all I could to keep out. I closed my eyes again. My thoughts were moving through it like sluggish snakes: don’t want to. Not this. Never again. I curled into a foetal position and rocked myself to keep the thoughts at bay. What would I do? I had to get the day to turn to night. Unconsciousness was the only thing I looked forward to. Sleep was liberation. For some reason, my dreams were bright.
Sleep had inscribed my face during the night. Red grooves of hopelessness that would disappear imperceptibly during the day. Everything was stiff and frozen solid inside me. To get to die. To get to die, echoed through me. And at the same time, this hunger. Why? Oh, how I hated myself and what I had become without noticing. Day by day, week by week, I had created this monster that was myself.
If only I could fall asleep again. I pressed my face into my pillow, pulled the blanket over myself, and wondered when the medicine would come. It was a blessing to follow my breath in and out as I walked through the tunnel that always burned with light at the edges. Oh, that light, was the last thing I thought before I fell asleep again.
When I woke once more, it was evening and Urban was in the room. Urban’s goal of never despising anyone got on my nerves, while at the same time it amazed me, and I knew that he had a sort of knowledge that I myself completely lacked. My own gaze was merciless and cruel, while Urban looked at me with no judgment. Urban didn’t judge anyone. He was at ease in himself. His perspective and ability to measure time was intact. When had I lost that ability?
I had memories. Of course I had those. I remembered the sea. I remembered the sky. The sky and the sea. I remembered my father.
Wait. I remembered the gifts I had received as a child.
Get up! Get up! Urban ought to shake me, hit me with those hands he had. Instead he gave me grapes and chocolate as I lay there. The way you’d feed a dog. But the day had gone by unnoticed. That made me calm. The pressure on my chest eased. I scooted up until I was sitting. I looked at the door that closed me in. That kept the world out. The wood had grown worn with time and it was dotted with ingrained grime. The walls propped one another up. Kept the room in place. Apparently unaware of me. The sound from the ward bothered me. My hearing was so sensitive that I could hear the TV from the common room, could hear them talking to each other, could hear when someone threw dice. I was crying again. Why couldn’t I die? Why wouldn’t jumping from the window lead to liberation?
Eternity. Isn’t that word terrifying? To get to die. To get to die. To go from life to the great, silent room where death was. To feel the last beat of my heart. I was denied this liberation. Why?
Because I was Athena.
There was a rush through the pipes in the room. I listened to the sound, heard someone flushing a toilet. Urban was still sitting by the bed, but soon he would leave and I would once again be on my own. I avoided the word ‘alone’ because I knew it could bring tears. Instead I concentrated on the sound of the pipes. I closed my eyes and imagined that it was my own brain, being washed clean. All the winding paths I had soiled with my incompetence. I was cold, and I put on a big knitted sweater, which was on the floor next to the bed. If only they would bring the medicine. I had used up my sleep during the day. I knew inside me that it would be a sleepless night, and I shuddered. What would I do with all that time? All the hours inexorably following one another? I took one of the chocolate bars, opened it, and ate it. I couldn’t stop eating once I’d started. I took bite after bite. I hardly chewed; I just swallowed and felt the sharp corners tear at my throat. I swallowed it down with the water that was in the plastic carafe on the nightstand, and something grew quiet. My anxiety?
It had been a long time since I had wanted to understand things. How one thing led to another. There were a number of questions I was avoiding. Ones I had to avoid. I closed my eyes again to keep them out. Sometimes they would throw themselves over me with a strength I couldn’t defend myself against with anything other than the medicine, but for the most part, they hibernated inside me and that’s the way I liked it.
I tried to preserve this stillness. I reflected that now is now and there isn’t anything else. There was a voice inside me that stubbornly told me that this wouldn’t work any longer. It wouldn’t work.
‘They’re going to let you start taking walks again,’ said Urban. ‘I’ve talked to Bengt and Artan, and they think it’s a good idea too.’
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do anything, not even listen to Urban talking, so I turned away from him and looked at the textured wallpaper.
‘We all agree that you have to get up and about more. You’ll have to force yourself at first, but it will get easier. I know you don’t understand that now, but it will get better and you will too.
‘I’d like to read you the letter from the family, may I?’ At the word ‘family,’ the tears came again. Family, alone, father; those were the words I avoided and now he was there with his hands, ripping and tearing at me. He kept a steady grip on my longing, and he didn’t understand that this wouldn’t work.
‘No, Urban,’ I said to the wall. ‘Go away now.’ When he didn’t get up, everything turned black inside me and I flew at him and held his head in my hands and screamed, ‘Go now. Go.’
But Urban was stronger; he took my arms and loosened my grip.
‘Don’t think you can scare me. Don’t ever think that. Lie down. I know it by heart.’
<
br /> He started speaking, his voice ringing out into the room, so loud as if to drown out my thoughts.
‘Dearest Anna! We think about you every day, about how you’re there and we’re here and about how we want so much for you to come back to us. We love you, you see. We love you as if you were one of us. You are one of us and you have been since the first day we came and got you. You mustn’t be afraid or in despair. You just have to stay where you are and with every day you will get better, and when you’re ready you will come home to us. Your room is waiting for you. We’re cleaning it and keeping it nice. Putting flowers on your nightstand. We miss you all the time. Maybe you don’t believe it now, but there is a life for you here with us. We love you. Sven, Birgitta, Ulf, and Urban.’
We love you.
We love you; it went around in my head and mixed with my thoughts. Was I still going to be allowed to go back there? Was there a way back?
The Helios Disaster Page 9