I’m so upset when I leave. I don’t feel we’ve talked about what’s important. About the pain. The voices kept interrupting me and I was so terribly nervous. Wanted to show my best side. Wanted to convince the doctor that I needed help to survive. I’m not under the influence, just frightened. And now I’ve fallen to bits.
When I come out of the room and realise that the doctor will do nothing more than humiliate me, reprimand me and tell lies about me being high, I try to kick in the lift door. Several people rush over and take a firm hold of me. They escort me down in the lift and show me to the door. I stagger out onto the street. Where should I go now? I decide to go down to Lake Mälaren and drown myself. Freeze to death. I can jump off the bridge into the icy water. That’s what I’m going to do. First fall through the air, then hit the thin ice and break through. First cold, cold, then warm, warm and then death.
I’m never going to be a proper adult anyway. I’ve always known that. I want to be a child and grow up again. No crying, no growing. I can’t carry on from here. I’m raging with the doctor. I want revenge. I am disappointed with life. I won’t stand on the railings and hesitate. I walk with determination. Now, you bastards. I feel almost triumphant. I don’t need to hope any more.
Then I hear someone calling me. ‘Eli, Eli!’ I don’t stop. No one is going to stop me from dying. No one at all. It’s Lolo, she runs up beside me. ‘I suddenly felt so worried about you,’ she says. ‘I’m going to die,’ I say. ‘I’m going to drown myself. There’s no help to be had.’ Then the tears come. ‘I’m here,’ Lolo says. ‘I’ll never leave you.’ ‘You will,’ I sniff. ‘I can’t,’ Lolo says, ‘and you’re not going to die.’ She gives me a long, hard hug. ‘You are the most precious thing I have.’ I want to say ‘you too’, but she’s holding me so tight that I can’t get the words out.
No one has such wonderful cheeks to hug as Lolo. She is cool and soft. She’s wearing her yellow beret. She fixes the collar of my jacket that’s all twisted and inside out, and says: ‘You’re going to write.’ I’ve written all my life, I think. ‘You’ve got much more to give. You’ve got much more to get. I promise. We’ll go home and make lasagne and then you can show me some of your new work.’ She takes a step back. I don’t move. Lasagne or dying in the water? We usually eat pasta with fried cabbage or carrots and garlic.
What finally persuades me to let Lolo put her arm round my shoulders and lead me away, is that I desperately want to read my latest piece to her. Once again I’m like the fox cub. I’ve been run over, but Lolo has stuffed my innards back in. A mince lasagne might even be nice.
We create a tiny writing space for me in the minimal room that Lolo and I share. I start to do a paper round again. I write full time. Feel my way into the language. Have found a form for my wonderment and a language in which to wonder. You can learn something from yourself. I don’t write in the way that I thought I would write. I write in the way that I think when I write. I am inspired by the sentence before. Images and rhythms just flow. I say the sentences out loud. Over and over again. It’s like sucking on sweeties. I find my own pattern. Feel like I’m sewing the text together with a thick red thread. It’s a young person’s journey into the world, dreams and life. A young person who has just opened their eyes. Someone who doesn’t know how things normally are. She moves through story after story and tries to the best of her abilities to understand what is around her. The question is not who am I. The question is who are the others.
One of my pieces is published in a magazine. Then Bonniers, the publishing house, ring and ask if I have any more, and I do. ‘But they’re in Norwegian.’ ‘Could you translate them into Swedish yourself, do you think?’ I answer as I always do when I don’t know. I say yes. My friends from the writing course tell me that publishers don’t usually contact you. Normally you submit something, have it returned, then submit again and have it returned.
Tim and Sonja from the writing course help me to translate. They learn Norwegian and I learn Swedish. I start to speak Swedish as well. Feel like I did when I was little and stood in front of the mirror speaking English. Perhaps I should stay in this country. Then I would blend in and not always be a foreigner, someone who’s here on a visit. I’ll be able to go shopping without the shop assistant saying akkurat and guleböj.
One day when I’m out walking in the woods, the title pops into my head. I say it out loud. It just came to me. The writing goes on all the time without me knowing. Buzzing through my body until it suddenly gives me a sentence. The book is going to be called There Are Limits to What I Don’t Understand. Could be the title for my entire life.
I contact the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, RFSU, about my confused sexual identity. They tell me to come in for a chat. Then they tell me I have too many underlying problems for them to help. I’ll have to try elsewhere.
After trying for several years to get state-subsidised therapy, I start going to see a psychologist privately, who somewhat hesitantly takes me on. It costs five hundred and ten kronor a time, which is roughly what I have left once I’ve paid all my bills. I’m full of hope. Can she save me? Can she show me something about myself that will make things easier for me?
She wears sweaters with pictures of cats on them, the tails (surely they’re not real) hanging down from the stomach. I think they’re expensive designer clothes. They frighten me, but I’m not sure why. She looks frumpy, with round cheeks and small eyes. Old-fashioned haircut and old-fashioned ladies’ shoes with a heel. I decide that she’s from Romanian aristocracy and that she speaks French at home. If she ever goes home. I always think of her sitting in her fine armchair, day and night. She is nowhere else to be found when I’m not here. When I have money myself, I’ll start to buy my clothes in designer shops. Find my own style using brands from London and Japan, and Swedish designers. I’ll get my own tailor. But that’s not now. For now, it’s more a case of charity shops and skips.
I find it hard to talk. I like her, but we come from different worlds. I think that every sentence I utter tells her there’s something wrong with me. And I don’t think there is. I’m proud of being Eli. I’m not like the psychologist, that’s for certain.
Sometimes I have a beer in a pub nearby beforehand. Or a whisky. I’m not used to talking about my parents. Don’t want to show them in a bad light. Say that everything is fine, that everything has always been fine and that I don’t understand where the anxiety comes from. I say I only see the difficulties. Why do I do that? I don’t say anything about the voices. One day she says: ‘Tell me, do you think of your father as sacred?’ That sticks. The only true answer is yes. No one is allowed to say anything bad about him or Mum.
I tell her nonchalantly that I found a suitcase in the skip outside her door. That there were lots of people at the bus stop who watched me rummaging around in the skip. The case is red and old-fashioned, just the kind I like. She can’t understand how I dared to look through the rubbish when so many people were watching. I don’t understand that that could be a problem. She thinks that I have funny, big shoes that are not at all feminine. I’m ahead of fashion, but can’t expect her to understand that. I think she’s got sad, fat feet that are squeezed into high-heeled red patent shoes. I think that she’s trying to make me more feminine. I’m not just a woman and I wish that she could accept and appreciate that. Maybe she’s trying to be a feminine role model. But she’s too peculiar for that. Or I am. She’s reliable and has authority, just not enough for both of us.
But I relish the fact that she cares. Feel strongly that she wants to help me. But can she? Over time I learn to talk more. I think I learn things in secret. She shows me that I have holes inside. Difficulties that have to be fixed. She says that I’m like a worn blanket and we’re trying to patch up the holes. The question is whether there’s enough material between the holes to do this. If there’s any material left to pull the thread through. Sometimes both she and I doubt it. She suggests that I should consider admitting myself to hosp
ital for a while. I don’t understand at all. That’s not the point. I’m nearly better again.
I want to talk about my writing instead. How well it’s going. I tell her how I work and edit and rewrite. ‘You rewrite?’ she asks. ‘Of course. I work every day. I sand and polish and listen and rewrite.’ She doesn’t seem to understand what being a writer means. I realise how poorly we communicate when I give her a card for Christmas. It’s a picture I found in the paper and I feel that it says a lot about who I am, in a humorous way. A young man, it’s Erik, it’s me. He’s smiling in the mirror. Perfectly combed hair and white teeth. He’s standing there putting a tie round the stiff collar of his nice white shirt. The text reads: ‘Anyone could see that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But I wasn’t anyone.’
The psychologist doesn’t laugh. Simply takes the card and says thank you. She just doesn’t understand me, I think to myself. Or does she, in fact? The next time I try to tease out a laugh, I tell her about the time I had to get home quickly after my appointment. As I have to pay for the therapy myself, I can’t afford to take the bus or underground, so I walk through the city. When I got home I discovered that I had one of the hooks from her designer coat stand sticking up from the collar of my jacket. How could I have walked all that way without discovering that it was in my jacket? I couldn’t take it back and I couldn’t keep it at home, so I gave it to my friend Lisen. ‘You’ll have to look after this. It’s a symbol,’ I said. And every time I’ve been there since, I’ve seen that the hook is missing. So finally I’ve decided to confess. I’m so full of laughter that I can scarcely get the words out. She listens as usual without the hint of a smile and does not ask to have it back. I’m disappointed. I have a piece of her hidden away with a friend. Her big warm body, her untrendy haircut and her cautious smile.
*
One day when I get there too early, I can’t sit still and wait. I pace back and forth in the waiting room. There are magazines there. They irritate me. After all, I can hardly read. Three colourful vases stand in a row on one of the shelves. Suddenly I’ve grabbed one of them and thrown it to the floor. I sit in the middle of all the pieces of glass and pick one up. I start to cut my face. The blood runs down my throat and onto my clothes, my hands are bloody. The skin on my face is so thin.
The psychologist comes out to call me in. She gets her colleague and together they manage to force open my hand and take out the piece of glass. They get paper towels and wipe the blood from my face, neck and hands. They cover as much as possible with plasters.
Then I go into the psychologist’s room and have nothing to say. The next time I go to see her, I deeply regret what I’ve done. I offer my sincerest apologies and ask if I can continue my treatment. I can.
My first radio play is going to be broadcast on the radio. I’ve already been commissioned to write another. I started writing it at the folk high school with support from the media teacher. He’s the one who sent it in to the radio.
I’m woken up by the director the day after it’s been broadcast. ‘Have you read the papers?’ I don’t read the papers. ‘They’ve written about you and your play. The captions are “crystal clear enigmas” and “magical signals”.’
I didn’t know you could get in the papers for writing. Thought it was only when you were involved in politics and sport. This encourages me even more to finish the book. I get a lot of help with the spelling and Swedish. The former students from the writing course have started a forum where we read each other’s manuscripts and give constructive criticism. Then I sit down and do a rewrite.
I talk to the typewriter. Say the words out loud and taste them: she is beautiful, much like me, but on her it’s more visible. Time is like thought, thick, you could almost rest your arm on it, like on a shelf. We’re not old enough yet to not believe that someone sees us. In the depth of the moment, I tie a small knot.
I get a job as an assistant for a blind boy. What is it in me that compels me to say yes? Total denial. A total blackout. I could do with an assistant myself.
He’s studying at a further education college. We sit towards the front of the classroom. It’s an English lesson. I can’t spell a single word in English. It’s mostly conversation. Difficult words are written up on the blackboard. The whole point is that I write them down in the blind boy’s book, but the only thing is, I can’t see what’s written on the board. I pretend to write something. He pops his vocabulary book in his bag, happy in the belief that we’ll see each other again in two days.
When I get home, I tell Lolo. She understands the situation and takes over the job.
I get a new job, as a carer, and start as an hourly paid temp. Sometimes at night, sometimes during the day. I like helping, cleaning, tidying, dusting and hovering. Washing grumpy old men in intimate places is worse. Changing shitbags on people’s stomachs is not much fun either. One day, an old lady grabs hold of my breasts and squeezes them. ‘Look after these two when you’re on holiday in Norway,’ she says. Lots of old ladies only seem to have one thing on their mind: swearwords and genitalia. They call those of us who work for them cunts and whores. Have they carried these words around with them all their lives and never been able to say them? So now they’ve let go, the words flood out in great streams.
Others have stories to tell, are funny, grateful and happy. Many of them have lost it slightly in a rather charming, but sad way. I sit with a woman at the kitchen table and every time she looks out of the window, she says in surprise: ‘But that’s my view.’
One day I find a woman dead in her bed. I try for quite some time to wake her before I realise that she’s dead. Then the room turns cold. It’s death. I run back and alert the boss. Later, a hearse pulls up slowly outside the house. That’s that. The end for her. And after that, I’m scared every time I ring the bell and no one answers.
One weekend when I’m working night shifts at a home, Sussi suggests that we do one night each instead of doing two together. I go to work and do the medicine round. Everything is fine. We use the small bedroom in the staff flat as the smoking room. I hear someone knocking on the window. There’s a man outside who I know is a drug addict and the grandchild of someone who lives here. She’s his mother’s mother, the only one in the family he can stay with. I open the window. He asks for Lilian. ‘She’s not at work,’ I say. Then he brandishes two forks at me in a threatening manner. I quickly shut the window and leave the room. As I close the door, I hear the glass in the window breaking and the man stumbling into the room. I rush back and lock the door. Stand on the outside and hear him moving around. He tries the door handle, I see it going up and down.
‘Close your eyes,’ Espen says. ‘Go and lie down,’ Emil says. ‘Sleep, sleep, don’t be here,’ Espen says. ‘Fight back,’ Erik says. ‘No,’ says Espen. ‘Think about something else,’ Emil says. I take some cushions and go and lie down on the floor in the day room, which is also the office. I think so intensely about disappearing, I fall asleep immediately, with a little help from the boys.
I’m still asleep when the day staff come at a quarter past seven. There is glass and chaos everywhere in the smoking room. Anything that wasn’t attached has been stolen, lamps, cushions, ash trays and books. ‘What did the police say?’ The police. ‘I didn’t speak to the police.’ ‘Why didn’t you call the police? After all, you were responsible for over thirty pensioners, safes and medicine.’ ‘I just didn’t think,’ I whimper. And I really didn’t. All I thought about was pretending it hadn’t happened. ‘Where is Sussi?’ We both get the sack. Since then, I haven’t had a normal job.
The telephone screams through the night. The rings mean danger. It’s my sister Hild. ‘Mum didn’t dare call you because you’re so sensitive,’ she says. ‘But something’s happened. Dad’s had a brain haemorrhage and is in a coma.’ The thought that races through my head is: I can do this. No matter what, I can do this. Dad, I won’t go to pieces.
I wake Lolo and cry. ‘I think he’s going to die,’ I sob. Wh
en I get to Oslo, I’m met by Kristin, my best friend in Norway. I’m wearing the blue boiler suit that I got from Dad. ‘It’s too big,’ I say to Kristin. I stuff my hands in the pockets and wave the legs around to demonstrate, then I start to cry. We go straight to the hospital. The rest of the family were there, but have just gone home again, so I’m alone with Dad. He’s lying there with all these tubes and equipment. Kristin waits outside. I talk to one of the doctors. He says that they haven’t managed to stem the haemorrhaging yet, so there’s only a slim change that he’ll survive. Kristin and I go to Hild’s, and I cry the whole way, and after we get there, Hild hugs me. ‘Why are you crying?’ ‘For Dad,’ I sob. ‘Stop crying,’ Hild says. ‘The rest of us aren’t crying. It is what it is. There’s nothing you can do.’
But you can cry. Someone has to cry in this family and it’s always been me. So I carry on.
I go to the eye hospital. There’s not much to be done with my poor vision. I can only get about 15 per cent normal vision wearing glasses. But they do give me aids. I’m one of the first people I know to get a computer, with an enormous screen that I would never have been able to afford. I get opera glasses and magnifying glasses and encouragement. And most important of all – an audio book player. The whole of world literature is now open to me and I will forever rank the audio book above the wheel, in terms of human invention.
‘What do you want to do?’ ‘I’m a writer.’ Here, the work psychologist could have said that that’s what everyone wants to be, but what are you going to do? But he doesn’t. He’s read one of my pieces and says: ‘Good idea. You can use a room here and we’ll teach you how to use the computer and you can stay here until you know what you’re doing.’
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