Strange Bird (2013)

by Anna Jansson

  What worried Jonathan most at the moment was the thirty-year-old coach at the soccer camp, Jenny Eklund, and the two ten-year-old boys who became ill last evening and were both taken to the old sanitarium in Follingbo with fever and flu symptoms. The woman had two small children at home age two and three and her husband Mats was in a complete state of dissolution. He had reportedly already filed a complaint with Social Services and intended to contact the TV investigative reporters if he was not given complete assurances that his wife would come home alive.

  Jonathan had listened patiently and borne the brunt of the man’s anger and terror, and gradually it came out that they had quarreled and Jenny had not forgiven him and he was still in shock after finding a dead man by an outhouse in Varsande—all this in an incoherent flood. Probably he was not sober. Jonathan let him talk without really having any opinions of substance. Then it simply ebbed out and something that resembled mutual understanding appeared when Mats Eklund realized that Jonathan Eriksson was an ordinary human being who was only following the directives he had been given by his superiors. It was a relief to end the conversation and return to the patients.

  The boy, whose name was Emil, was so like Malte. Same coloring and body structure, and his smile was almost identical. Jonathan had seen him early in the morning. A tough little guy. Yes, there was another one too whose name was Zebastian, but there was something special about Emil. He had a liberating sense of humor and great trust. The symptoms were mild so far, fever and aching joints. The parents of the two boys had been informed and demanded to see their children immediately. Maria Wern had been informed of the reason for the transfer and was very shaken, said the nurse. It had fallen on Jonathan to take the follow-up conversation. She should be here any time now. Jonathan took a quick shower and changed his shirt. Then he had to find a time to talk with Nurse Agneta in peace and quiet. She was single with three small children; her husband had been killed in a traffic accident. Since finding out she was infected she had been in a state of shock, unable to be present in her work on the telephone information line. That was not surprising.

  “How are you holding up, Agneta? I can see you’re having a difficult time. Do you want to talk about it?” He didn’t have much time, but he had to take a couple of minutes.

  “But Jonathan, didn’t you see the results from the virus lab? Check the resistance determination! Tamiflu is ineffective! Check this—resistant.” Agneta’s eyes were big and black and suddenly she started crying behind the mask. He placed his arm around her and pulled her into an embrace and at the same moment the phone rang. It was Disease Control Officer Asa Gahnstrom.

  “I presume that you just received the same information as me and keeping the lid on it is what counts, of course. If it gets out that we don’t have any effective medicine to offer we will have a nightmare situation none of us can imagine.”

  “Don’t we already have one now? Yes, I’ve suspected for a while that the medicine didn’t help. It hasn’t halted the course of any of the patients I’ve treated except possibly the taxi driver. Sooner or later this is going to leak out and then we will have used up our trust with the general public. I think we should tell the truth.”

  “My decision is that we keep quiet. If you have even an ounce of imagination perhaps you can visualize the panic such news would trigger and the consequences it would have. There is hope, however. Several pharmaceutical manufacturers are far advanced in product development where antiviral agents are concerned. We are in the process of investigating whether there are other medicines that may have effect. Until then we have to try to hold out.”

  Jonathan looked at Agneta, who was standing beside him and heard the whole conversation. “Can you bear to work at all?” he asked.

  “There’s no one else. People are afraid to come in. Moa, Per, and Karin have taken medical leave. They don’t want to be infected. Mental insufficiency it said on Karin’s certificate. She told her doctor she couldn’t bear to see more death and illness; it was too stressful and she needed to rest. Moa doesn’t even have a certificate. Her husband has forbidden her to come here. He supports her. But I don’t have that option.”

  “What are you saying? No one’s coming to relieve you?”

  “No, they refuse to come in.”

  On the other side of the Plexiglas walls that had been hastily set up in the lobby as a corridor sat Maria Wern, Emil’s mother. Jonathan vaguely recognized the voice when he heard her speaking with the nurse on the phone they used to communicate, to avoid breathing the same air.

  “Is there another doctor besides Jonathan Eriksson I can speak with? I had a bad experience with him before. Can’t I choose a different doctor? I don’t have confidence in him anymore.” He saw her pleading face on the other side of the glass. What a horribly poor basis for a difficult conversation. It struck him that she must have been the one who called when he thought it was Nina. Damn it! Why couldn’t life be fair and simple, if only for a little while so you could catch your breath?

  Jonathan picked up the receiver and introduced himself. “I have to apologize and I hope you can accept that. I am truly sorry that it was you I happened to snap at on the phone last night. I thought it was someone else.”

  “Your wife?” she asked pointedly, and he could sense the shadow of a smile. “Cozy way to say goodnight.”

  “Yes, my wife.” There was no chance of evasive action. No time to find an acceptable white lie. “We were having a little, hmm, controversy.”

  “Then I’m glad I avoided getting in the line of fire when it’s a big controversy. How is Emil doing now?”

  “As you know, he’s infected. He’s carrying the virus, but he is being treated with a medicine that is effective against virus so we hope the virus will only manifest as a mild flu.” While he spoke he rubbed his nose through the mask and lowered his eyes.

  “Tamiflu,” he added. The doctor spoke so slowly and pedagogically that her skin was crawling. She wanted to hurry him up a little; her irritation was only barely below the surface. It was not that easy to change attitude toward him, even if he had apologized.

  “Yes, right now he has a slight fever and sore throat. When I saw him a while ago he was playing solitaire on the computer. What did you want to speak with me about when you called yesterday evening?” Jonathan felt himself blushing. This was still terribly awkward. He could not even remember for sure what he had said; presumably he swore at her.

  “I was listening to Asa Gahnstrom yesterday evening and I got a feeling that she wasn’t telling the whole truth. What I wanted to ask is: Is there enough Tamiflu for everyone who gets sick? How bad is it really? How do I know that he’ll get medicine and how do I know that it’s doing any good? I mean, if the medicine has an effect? Why does every news report talk about how many people have died? It seems to be almost half. Answer me. What help do you have to offer my child? I have the right to know that!” She held his gaze and there was no opportunity for evasion.

  “Can this stay between us?” he said, awaiting her answer before he continued. “We just received the resistance determination for Tamiflu and it doesn’t work on this strain of bird flu. But there is a slight hope. There are medications under development and perhaps one of them can be released faster than they thought, and in the best case it will have an effect. We are working every minute to produce a medicine in time. Right now there is no way to prevent it other than isolation and basic hygienic procedures. That’s how bad it is. But it’s still better than no care at all.”

  Jonathan realized that he had breached the confidentiality of his discussions with the disease control officer, but this was a situation when conscience and integrity demanded plain speaking. Maria Wern said nothing for a long time and he shuddered at how she would respond. She looked at him and felt, despite her worry, a creeping sympathy. He had revealed himself and allowed her a glimpse behind the curtain.

  “So how bad is Emil? I want to know the truth.”

  “He has extremely mi
ld symptoms. I can’t imagine anything other than that he will recover.” Jonathan closed his eyes as he said this and hoped it was true. It seemed moderate at the moment, but the dreaded pneumonia or other complications could not be foreseen.

  “Now I want to see Emil.” Maria got up and Jonathan showed the door to the sluice she would go through.

  “Put on the protective clothing according to the instructions that are on the placard on the wall, breathing protection and protective goggles. If anything is unclear you can reach Nurse Agneta by phone. When you’re ready, we’ll go. I know it feels a little silly to talk through the mask, but you must not under any circumstances take it off, not even when you are hugging your son. That is an absolute condition. Otherwise you’ll have to stay here.”

  “I’d be happy to stay here if I didn’t have a little girl at home too. I had hoped that Emil’s dad would come here with me, but he’s afraid of hospitals. Anyways, you’d only have trouble with him, so perhaps it’s just as well that he only speaks with Emil on the phone.”

  “So he’s at home with Emil’s little sister?”

  Maria shook her head and had to adjust the mask. “It’s not that simple. We’re not living together anymore. But we cooperate for the good of the children. It’s not exactly uncomplicated, but if you do your part and a little more it works out.”

  “Sometimes I think it’s stranger that people manage to stay together year in and year out than that they separate,” said Jonathan. “When we’re inside the next sluice you have to put on another protective coat. You’re going to look like an extraterrestrial, but the boy is starting to get used to it now.”

  “Are you divorced, too? Excuse me; perhaps that was an intrusive question. But the relationship between doctor and patient feels extremely unequal; it’s not often it seems appropriate to ask a doctor how he’s doing.”

  “I’m married and between you and me, it’s pure hell.”

  “And you have no one to talk with, right?”

  Jonathan tried to interpret her facial expression but it was impossible to see whether she was smiling at him under the mask.

  “I guess that’s the way it is. Now let’s go in.”

  Chapter 16

  Asa Gahnstrom kicked her high-heeled shoes off with a snap, making them fly through the air and hit the wall. An incident at lunch had upset her badly, and since then she was having a hard time concentrating on her work.

  She had been looking at the paintings in the Rainbow Cafe’s gallery window to help her settle down after the humiliating television interview that morning. She’d lingered a little while longer to take a few deep breaths and think about something other than the approaching catastrophe, when a man came right up to her and stood so close that she could not ignore him. He looked threatening. She could not remember having met him before. He must have recognized her from the TV broadcasts the past few days.

  “My wife, Jenny. You’ve moved her to Follingbo. What the hell are you up to? People are dying like flies. I’m going to contact Social Services. They say that high-level managers are psychopaths without normal emotions, and I believe it. How cynical can you be when it concerns saving money for the municipality? You’re playing with human lives. I can pay for real medicine, damn it, as long as she survives, as long as we all survive! I’ve already paid for it; do you know how much tax I pay every month? Do you know that? It’s us taxpayers who’ve hired you and you should be fired, damn it! If my wife dies”—he put his clenched fist under Asa’s chin and applied pressure—“I’ll kill you.”

  She did not have the energy to defend herself. Choking back tears she staggered off. For her entire adult life she had balanced on high heels without difficulty, but on the cobblestone streets of Visby this proved to be hazardous. Outside the narrow little building in Hastbacken called the Flatiron, her heel got caught between two stones and she fell to her knees. It still hurt terribly and with pain the tears had come. Days of suppressed tears facing impossible demands to manage her job washed over her like a deluge, and once they started it was impossible to stop the flow. An older woman stopped and stroked her hair. “My dear girl, how did this happen?” And Asa wept with her face pressed against a flowery skirt dress and then went with her into the Flatiron and had a cup of coffee. Once inside she felt silly and confused when she was going to tell about her sorrows and reeled off a half-truth about back problems.

  “Well now, it must be something more than that?” The older woman had a serious yet friendly smile and her chicory-blue eyes looked right through the facade, saw Asa as the little girl she was right at that moment.

  “It’s a bit more than that,” Asa admitted. “I’m not good enough.”

  Then the woman laughed, a warm and friendly laugh. “That doesn’t matter, my dear, no one is. You have to try to forgive yourself for not being perfect. No one’s perfect. That’s the big secret. We only pretend. I decided to stop worrying about it when I turned fifty. Still working on that. When do you intend to start? If you start now perhaps you’ll be free as a bird when you reach my age. Would you like a tissue?” She dug in her handbag and took out a package with a wrinkled plastic casing.

  Then strangely enough, Asa felt better, even if her problems were the same as before lunch. There was frightfully acute shortage of medicine, primarily for bird flu, but also regular antibiotics, Furix, Bricanyl, cortisone, and Theophylline. But not only that. All the passengers who had taken a taxi with Petter Cederroth on Saturday night, except her colleague Reine Hammar, were infected with bird flu—and one of them was missing. Just when you might assume that the epidemic was under control a leak had been exposed. An unknown blonde woman who shared a taxi with Reine Hammar. It had to be assumed that she too was infected until the opposite was proven. The conversation with Reine Hammar had degenerated into a real argument and it ended with Asa threatening to contact Mrs. Hammar for more information if he didn’t want to cooperate. But then his recollection got clearer and an address suddenly percolated up in his memory. With the help of the police a name and telephone number had been produced, but no Malin Berg had answered despite repeated attempts. According to her employer, the owner of a restaurant at the edge of town, Malin had called in sick on Sunday. Not unusual. It wasn’t the first Monday she had not come to work. A demanding personal life, you had to assume, he said ironically.

  With the approval of the prosecutor there was now a warrant to enter the apartment to see if the woman was there. But what doctor would voluntarily go in? Asa Gahnstrom had expected that healthcare personnel who heard the call for reinforcements on the island would volunteer, but no one had reported, not a single one, despite repeated announcements on both radio and TV about the desperate need for assistance. One of those asked had referred to the previous SARS epidemic, where two anesthesiologists were infected from intubation of patients despite maximum protective equipment. The unions were brought in and the safety representatives, and negotiations would be initiated in the coming week. Can you force someone to risk their health, and perhaps their life? For the moment there was no one she could ask about that and the emergency group at the infectious disease clinic in Linkoping had been contacted after discussions with the general director for Disease Control. They should be on site at Jungmansgatan now and a report from them could be expected at any moment. Asa Gahnstrom hoped that the woman would be in shape to account for who she had seen since Saturday evening. The entire infection prevention plan hinged on that now.

  Asa thanked a thoughtful nurse for the cup of coffee she had set on the desk along with a small plate with a cheese sandwich and a few biscuits. The lovely sea view from the windows of the infectious disease department was blocked by the scaffolding climbing up the facade of the dialysis department, leaving the office in constant shadow. A narrow strip of Strandgardet, where the Medieval Week tournament would soon be held, could be glimpsed if you stood by the window. But Asa Gahnstrom did not get up; her entire focus was directed at the phone that should be ringing at any m
oment. A lack of sleep made her eyes sting and her whole body was on edge.

  There was a vague hope. There was an antiviral medicine, Tamivir, which clearly had been pirated by a foreign company before it was ready for market. There would be an uproar if it came out that the healthcare administration was buying pirated medications, but necessity knows no law where saving lives is concerned. They were still awaiting an answer to the request to release the pirated medication for use on Gotland. For the time being, four medical secretaries were assigned to see what could be fished out of the Internet trade if there was no other option. May they never need to make use of that service.

  Asa Gahnstrom answered the phone at the first ring. It was Tomas Hartman from the police. None of the neighbors on Jungmansgatan had seen Malin Berg outside her door since Saturday evening. Someone had heard her showering on Sunday afternoon, but it had been silent since. Asa thanked him and awaited further information from the emergency group. She kept thinking about Jenny Eklund—the man on Adelsgatan had screamed that she had two little boys at home. Nurse Agneta had three children who would have no parents if … Asa got no further in her train of thought before the report came from Jungmansgatan.