Some Kind of Peace: A Novel

by Camilla Grebe

  I had considered bringing up this subject with him earlier. He works at the university, socializes in academic circles, and ought to know more about the inside gossip than Aina or I do.

  Vijay seems baffled. “Sven? Sven Widelius?”

  “Is it true that he was kicked out of the university?”

  “Oh, that old story.” Vijay grins and lights a cigarette. “Sure, he got kicked out. He had an affair with a student, a psychology major. It probably wouldn’t have been any big deal if he wasn’t also her supervisor for her thesis. Besides, there was a rumor going around that the girl wasn’t stable.”

  “Not stable?”

  “Depressed, vulnerable. I don’t know, people say a lot of crap.”

  “What happened?”

  “Someone tattled to the department chair. I don’t know who, I guess no one really knows. There was speculation that it could have been one of the girl’s classmates. The whole thing was hushed up. Sven got severance pay, stopped doing research, and started devoting himself entirely to his private practice. The girl disappeared, I don’t know what happened to her.”

  Vijay stops talking and looks pensive.

  “Although this is something you should already know, Siri. At least in part.”

  “Me? How so?”

  “You were students together, she was in your study group. Anna Svensson.”

  “Anna Svensson?”

  I remember a shy girl who joined our study group at the end of the eighth semester and with whom I tried to strike up a conversation a couple of times, but we never really got to know each other.

  “I didn’t know her, and I don’t remember any gossip about her either. I was busy writing my thesis during those final semesters.”

  “You’re probably right,” Vijay answers. “There wasn’t any gossip back then. What I know I only found out later. And from the faculty, not the students. At any rate, Sven took it really hard. Birgitta was close to leaving him, and his career was in ruins. He had his sights set on a position as professor in clinical psychology. Why are you asking me about this?”

  I don’t know how to answer. I don’t want to suggest that I sometimes have thoughts about Sven and the remote possibility that he might be involved in all this. I realize that this would sound more paranoid than is permissible.

  “He just seems down. I thought maybe he was dissatisfied about something, his marriage or his career or… you know…”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Vijay coughs and changes the subject. “So you’re still working at the practice as usual?”

  “Sure, but less than before. Why?”

  “Have you moved out of your cottage?”

  “Yes, yes. I’ve moved. After that thing with Ziggy… I wasn’t up to staying.” I can tell my voice sounds small and thin, like a child’s.

  “But I’m thinking about moving back as soon as I can.”

  Vijay is silent and cowers in the wind, takes a deep inhale, and flicks away the cigarette butt. Then he shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets and looks at me for a long time before he continues.

  “I don’t think you’ve realized what a risk you’re exposing yourself to. This guy is serious, Siri. He’s dangerous. I don’t think he only wants to harm you, only wants you to suffer. I think he wants to kill you.”

  He falls silent and looks at me again. Slowly and with emphasis he repeats the last sentence.

  “I think he wants to kill you.”

  DECEMBER

  It is evening and the office is empty. I have stayed behind to take care of various administrative tasks that have been piling up. At least this is what I told Aina and Sven. My real plan is to go through Sven’s patient case notes about Peter Carlsson. I know this is unethical, possibly even a violation of confidentiality, but I have to know.

  I sit at the reception desk with the paper copies of the case notes spread out in front of me, like a game of solitaire. Unlike me, Sven seldom records conversations on tape. I don’t really think he has anything against filming his sessions, but I suspect the procedure is a bit too time-consuming and detailed to suit him. Sven is careless and disorganized and doesn’t want to work more than necessary on administrative tasks. On the other hand, he is a brilliant clinician, and I hope that some of this will be reflected in his notes.

  Despite my conviction that I am doing the right thing, I can’t bring myself to start reading. Vijay’s words have frightened me more than I want to admit. Vijay is a level-headed man. There is nothing theatrical or emotional about him. During all the years I have known him, I have never seen him agitated before, until today. I realize that he is right. I have to be more careful. My decision to stay in the house so long suddenly seems incomprehensible. How could I have been so stupid? It’s as if I wanted to avoid acknowledging that I really was being threatened. That I really am being threatened. I take the topmost papers from the pile and start reading.

  The first note contains a few short lines about Peter Carlsson’s change of therapist and the circumstances of that change. Then there are case notes from two additional sessions neatly written out.

  Date: September 17

  Time: 3:00 p.m.

  Patient: Peter Carlsson

  Reason for contact: Patient comes to the practice for an initial assessment interview with the undersigned. For further description of the circumstances around transfer from the patient’s former therapist, Siri Bergman, see the previous note.

  Current: Patient is a thirty-eight-year-old man who comes to the office due to sexual compulsive thoughts with sadistic components. Has never had any previous contact of a psychological/psychiatric nature. He says that he is very bothered by these thoughts and explains that they basically affect all aspects of his everyday life. He experiences them as very frightening, giving rise to strong anxiety. Pat. explains that these thoughts started in his late teens, at the time he was in his first sexual relationship with a woman. Already early in the relationship intrusive thoughts occurred about harming his girlfriend. He tried then to actively dismiss these thoughts but states that this was not particularly effective. Pat. decided to break off the relationship out of fear that he would harm his girlfriend. He has thereafter avoided relationships with women out of fear that the compulsive thoughts would return and eventually lead to his actually harming someone. During the spring, however, pat. met a woman. He says that he is very much in love with her but that he is incapable of approaching her sexually out of fear that he will harm her. He describes their relationship as warm and loving. His girlfriend insists, however, that the couple should also have a sexual relationship. Pat. has told his girlfriend that he has problems with his sexuality and promised to seek help. He has not told her the true nature of his problems. Pat. emphasizes that he is not an aggressive man and that he has never harmed anyone deliberately. He completely denies that these thoughts are pleasurable for him. His wish is now to get help so that these intrusive thoughts go away.

  Background: Pat. grew up in Huddinge in south Stockholm. He grew up in a tight-knit family, the oldest of three siblings. He has two younger sisters. His father worked as an attorney at a government agency and his mother was a housewife. During the latter part of pat.’s upbringing, his mother started working outside the home as a medical secretary. Pat. describes his childhood as ordinary. He thinks that he was a calm, nice boy but that sometimes he had a tendency to worry. According to him, his father was troubled for many years with recurring depression. Otherwise, there is no history of psychiatric problems in the family.

  Social: Patient is currently living alone. He works in a commercial bank. He describes his career as successful. He has a good relationship with his family and states that he is very close to his sisters. He also has several good friends with whom he often spends time.

  Mental status: Good formal and emotional contact. Completely oriented. Pat. appears somewhat depressed. To the direct question, he denies suicidal thoughts but admits that he has felt resigned and meaningless. Pa
t. becomes noticeably upset when describing the contents of his compulsive thoughts.

  Assessment: Thirty-eight-year-old man with sexually tinged compulsive thoughts. There does not seem to be any component of pleasure in these thoughts, and it is most probable that this is a less common form of compulsion syndrome. Additional assessment interviews are necessary, however. The undersigned will inform pat. that additional conversations are required before a decision about treatment can be made. In addition, pat. is informed that medical treatment may be effective with this type of problem.

  Next visit on September 26 at 3:00 p.m.

  • • •

  I stop reading. The report hasn’t given me any new information. If Peter Carlsson’s motive is to manipulate, then it’s not strange that his story doesn’t change when he talks to Sven. And if the thoughts he is seeking treatment for really do exist, then he will obviously tell the same story. There is only one more case note left.

  Date: September 25

  Note: Pat. calls today at undersigned’s office hours. He says he has decided to end the sessions, as he has contacted a psychiatrist for medication that he thinks is a more effective form of treatment for him. Pat. is invited to a conversation with the undersigned to talk this through, but he declines. We hereby conclude our contact.

  So Peter has terminated his therapy with Sven. I wonder what this means. Presumably, nothing at all. Perhaps he simply had enough of Sven. I sit with the notes in my hand and inspect them again to see if I missed any details. I read the first note again: Pat. grew up in Huddinge in south Stockholm.

  • • •

  Suddenly I feel cold inside. A sensation that spreads in my body and makes me put the case record down. I also grew up in Huddinge. But Huddinge is big. This may very well be a coincidence. I check Peter’s year of birth: 1969. The same as my older sister. I glance over at my cell phone lying next to me on the desk. I hesitate before entering my sister’s number. She answers right away.

  “Siri! How nice to hear from you. I heard from Mom and Dad that you might not be coming home for Christmas. Why not? It would be fun. Can’t you come for a day anyway? Is everything okay? Are you feeling okay?”

  Sofia’s questions come at a rapid tempo, like relentless air rifle shots: not lethal but they sting when you get hit by them. In the background, I hear her two children squabbling about who gets to sit in the corner of the couch, and her husband’s gentle voice trying to mediate.

  “I don’t have time to talk about that right now, Sofia, just listen.”

  “But—”

  “Just listen!”

  “Okay, okay.” She sounds offended.

  “Do you remember a Peter Carlsson, from your class, or your grade maybe?”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  “Peter Carlsson. Tall, slim, good-looking guy. Though I don’t know what he looked like back then, of course.”

  “When?”

  “In school. In Huddinge.”

  Sofia is silent, and I guess that she is thinking about it. In the background there’s a thud, followed by a shrill scream and prolonged crying.

  “There was a Peter Carlsson in my class in middle school. He lived really close to us. In a house close to Långsjön. But tall and good-looking… well, I don’t know. He was a little… special. Always fiddling with his keys. He was afraid he’d lose them and counted them over and over every day. A case for you maybe.” She giggles before I hear her roar at the children.

  “Now you shut up. Mommy is having an important conversation.”

  I think for a moment. I can’t remember this Peter, but it sounds like it could be “my” Peter.

  “But his younger sisters,” Sofia continues, “they would have been your age. Petra and Pernilla. Who the hell calls their kids Peter, Petra, and Pernilla?”

  “How can anyone call their kids Sofia, Susanne, and Siri?” I answer.

  I don’t expect an answer to my rhetorical question. Instead, my thoughts are racing. In my mind, I am back in the long, narrow corridors of elementary school. An image develops of a girl with crutches making her way with difficulty through the crowded hallways. Outside each classroom stands a cluster of kids, waiting to be let in. The girl makes an effort not to accidentally bump into anyone. Her gaze is fixed on the end of the corridor. She pretends she does not see or hear the other children. Just continues straight ahead. When she passes the group I am standing in, my best friend, Carolina, sticks out her leg. The girl does not see it and falls against the hard, dirty stone floor. She manages to break her fall with her hands, placing her palms into a puddle of something. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Carolina says falsely. “I really didn’t see you.”

  The others grin. I laugh audibly. With great effort the girl gets up and continues wordlessly on her way.

  Crutch-Petra.

  Petra Carlsson.

  Cars are moving slowly south along Götgatan in the thick snowfall. It is rush hour, and pedestrians are huddling and walking quickly and determinedly toward the subway stairs. The cold and damp are seeping inside my wool coat. I am dressed too lightly, but I haven’t been able to go out to my abandoned cottage to get warmer winter clothes. I still have a hard time accepting that I have been forced to flee my home, even though I feel safer in the little studio apartment on Kungsholmen island.

  I have started working a little more—no new patients, just the old ones. This is for the sake of continuity, I tell myself; the patients’ feeling of continuity, that is. The truth is probably also, at least in part, that I can’t stand sitting alone for days on end in the gloomy little apartment on Hantverkargatan.

  Something strange has happened over time. I have stopped planning farther ahead than a week or two. It feels as if time, my time, slowly but surely is approaching an unavoidable conclusion. I am not going to be able to escape the person who wishes me harm. Living this way, threatened and hunted, has made me feel more resigned than I would have thought possible. I no longer think that I can get away, and I see no opportunity to strike back. I feel stuck, fossilized. Only when I’m with Markus do I feel small, cautious rays of hope.

  I turn off from Götgatan and jog along the tall buildings on Blekingegatan until I arrive at the Pelican. Inside the pub it is soothingly warm and dry. The buzz of the customers rises toward the high ceiling and the air is saturated with the scents of food.

  Markus is waiting for me, leafing through a magazine. For a brief moment, I cannot resist the temptation to watch him from a distance, while he still doesn’t see me. I take in his image. Register how his one hand plays with the snuffbox sitting beside him. How his hair is almost plastered on his temples from the dampness outside. There is something about his posture that makes me sense that he is frustrated. Even though he is busy with the magazine, he reveals his impatience and restlessness by being constantly in motion.

  I walk over to his table and he jumps up to greet me. He envelops me in a long, warm embrace that brings us close again. We drink our beers and talk about this and that for a long time. Giggle. Behave like teenagers. I forgave him long ago for having told Sonja about us. And he has forgiven me for being relentlessly pedantic and exhausting.

  Markus kisses my hands and runs his tongue over my knuckles, as he looks at me with a grin. It’s such an intimate gesture that I feel embarrassed; instinctively I withdraw my hands, wipe them on my blouse as if to brush away invisible crumbs.

  “I have to talk with you.”

  “Start talking.” Markus grins again, taking hold of my damp hand, pulling it to him.

  “It’s about… it’s about a patient.”

  I look around to make sure no one in our vicinity is watching us or showing any interest in what we’re talking about. I am going to violate therapist-client confidentiality. It’s bad enough to tell Markus; everyone in the Pelican doesn’t need to hear. A couple in their fifties sits at the table next to us. Both are wearing name tags and are having an animated discussion in what sounds like Dutch. They seem tota
lly uninterested in us. On the other side, a noisy group of guys seems to be talking about a concert they are on their way to. They don’t appear to take any notice of us either.

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  I have Markus’s full attention. I start slowly, telling him about Peter Carlsson and our three conversations. I tell him about his fears and fantasies about violence, sex, and death. Markus’s expression wavers between curiosity, surprise, and something that resembles suspicion.

  “He sounds totally nuts.”

  “He isn’t necessarily nuts at all.”

  Without being fully aware of it, I find myself defending Peter Carlsson and describe the mechanisms behind obsessive-compulsive disorder. What appears to be crazy often isn’t. On the contrary, individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder are often the last ones who would really harm anyone.

  “If that’s the case, then why are you telling me this?”

  “Because of the car,” I answer quietly. “He drives a Volvo Cross Country. And because his sister was in my class in elementary school.”

  “His sister?”

  “Petra.” I look down at the table. “She was sick. She had a leg injury, after a cancer operation, I think. We… we teased her.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “The girls in my class. My best friend Carolina was the worst, but I wasn’t that much better myself.” I put my head in my hands and try to get rid of all the images that have tormented me since I realized the connection among Peter, his sister, and me.

  Markus sits in silence. He is clearly trying to process and analyze what I have just told him. He needs to assess the weight of my story.

  “Are you afraid of him?”

  Markus’s question is clear and concrete.

  “I’m terrified of him.”

  My admission surprises even me. For the first time I have admitted to myself just how scared I am of this man.