A Fool, Free

by Beate Grimsrud

  ‘Wouldn’t it be liberating to be rid of all that anxiety?’ Jonathan asks.

  ‘Yes.’ I don’t say any more. How can I say yes?

  ‘Some people experience it as a break in a process they can no longer control,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, I’ve wanted to smash everything around me including myself, until there’s nothing left.’

  ‘Maybe that’s the only way then,’ Jonathan says.

  ‘Can’t talk about it.’

  ‘But you can try. Did they try to calm you down?’

  ‘I mean, I don’t want to talk about it now.’

  ‘Then we won’t. Perhaps it might never need happen again,’ he says.

  I don’t believe that. I know that I’ve been unreachable. That I’ve been caught in movement without words. ‘I have to deal with one day at a time,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. What are your plans now?’

  It’s night. The only sweet things in the unit are peppercakes. They’ve got great tins of them in the kitchen. I ask various staff if I can have some. How generous they are varies. I go back to my room and cram biscuit after biscuit into my mouth. Can’t get enough. I get up again. More tea. Another evening smoke. More peppercakes.

  Tonight, someone has put out a whole tin of peppercakes beside the crispbread and tea things in the dining room. I take seven times seven. Comfort food. Compulsive eating after my Zyprexa injection. A known side effect of Zyprexa is hunger. I’m going to eat until I’ve filled the hole in me that wants something, but I don’t know what to fill it with.

  We live only for a short while without catastrophe. I listen to an audio book of Greek myths. A singing head that floats on the water. I only hear snatches. Don’t mix intelligence with pleasure. I take a peppercake and jam the whole thing into my mouth. Odysseus counts those he recognises, hesitates by one of them, Tiresias the prophet; he too had to go down to Hades in the end, having lived for nine generations as a man and a woman. Things like that impress me. My granddad used to say that we should live a little in each century, so we could understand time. We should live a little as each gender, so we could know what gender is, I think.

  My ruminations about changing sex have never been taken seriously. Have I taken them seriously myself? I have tried so many different therapies, but it’s never been resolved. I usually mention it when I’m confused. At the hospital, they say they would never discuss such a decision with me under any circumstances. ‘You are too ill.’ When I was little, I wanted to be like Torvald. I wanted to be treated like him and have the same demands made of me. I wanted to have his clothes and his toys. His placid nature. I don’t want to be him any more. I just want to be at peace and not waver between genders. Or continue to waver, but do it with greater pride. When I hear about research into what women and men are good at or how they behave, I don’t feel that I belong to either group. I think of myself as Eli. Eli with the boys.

  I lie with all the peppercakes on my duvet. Take them one by one in my hand. Press them with the index finger of the other hand. The peppercake breaks. If it breaks in three, then I can make a wish.

  You didn’t believe it, Kiril, but I dreamt about you last night. You were so different. At least in appearance and movements, and you said nothing, and you didn’t come towards me with your tail in the air and roll over onto your back, or recognise me and own me, like you used to. You were round as a ball, like a big fat owl. You had something brown on your chest. As though your fur had changed from soft and grey to a pepper prickly winter fur. No, it was like feathers. Brown feathers. And I barely recognised your little face. It was yours, but it was different in your fatness and roundness. And your beautiful green eyes were dark and mean. Looking warily from side to side.

  But if you’re Kiril, you’re my responsibility and I love you, no matter what. I wondered what it would be like carrying this unfamiliar Kiril around. To have an unfamiliar Kiril at home with me. One that waddled instead of stretching, running and jumping. One that could perhaps even fly. But I thought, it’ll be fine. You love the one you love for always.

  I have to move all the time. Run in the corridor and get reprimanded. ‘Sit down!’ Laugh, and they say hush. I ask if I can go out. There aren’t enough staff, so no one can come with me. I dump down onto a chair for a short while. A woman in a grey hoodie has been sitting in the same armchair beside me all day. She’s put on twenty kilos in two years, a side effect of the medicine. She has a quiet, depressed voice. Hidden in her cheeks are two dimples that I would love to fill with laughter, but I can’t today. When the night shift comes, we’re suddenly allowed to go out on our own, even though it says ‘only out with staff’ in my papers. ‘Don’t walk so fast,’ she says. I make an effort. I laugh. Been doing push-ups in the corridor all day. Am euphoric. On the way back, we go up the longest steps in Söder. ‘Slow down,’ the woman says. ‘I don’t think I can do it.’ She takes one step at a time then stops. I jump manically up all the steps on both feet.

  The weeks pass. I think that I’ll be allowed to go home soon. I think that I’m much better. ‘We’ve applied to the county court for your detention to be renewed. You can’t deal with the medication yourself. We can’t trust you to take your psychosis medicine as prescribed.’ I lie in bed. Doctor Manne is standing in the room with Nurse Ingemar, who I like a lot. I shout: ‘No. Not the county court again.’

  I immediately think about what I can break in here. I throw myself forwards in the bed. ‘It’s no fun having to tell people things like this,’ Ingemar says. ‘One of the drawbacks of the job.’ Manne has had to hurry off, but Ingemar stays sitting where he is. He tries to joke, but I’m not in the mood. I run out into the corridor and smash up a table. Kicking and punching until each leg is broken. ‘A job in a demolition company might be the thing for you,’ Ingemar says, holding me in a firm grip.

  One sleep train after another pulls out. I don’t manage to get on, I’m wide awake. Get some more sleeping pills. I’ve taken ten now. Outside it’s dark and raining. It’s been dark all day. If only it was snow. Why do I live in a cold place where there isn’t even snow in winter? All this rain and chill. The first snow is the most beautiful. You find stories everywhere, mine are hidden deep in the snow.

  I pull the white sheet over my head. Imagine that it’s snow and pretend that I’m sleeping in a snow cave. I can’t be in what’s actually here. The unit, the corridor, the mealtimes. I have to dream, forwards and backwards in time. I dream back to the ski trips and nights in the snow of my youth. Marit, Hild, Torvald and I on countless trips in the mountains. Marit, who squints up at the mountainside and says that it’s maybe best just to start digging. We put snow protectors over our ski boots and start to shovel. Build a cave as it should be, with a tunnel entrance and the room a little higher up, set in the snow. Then we get into our sleeping bags, fully dressed with our hats on, and lie as closely together as we can on our mats, in the home that we’ve made ourselves. If we’ve done it right, it can be minus twenty outside, and only minus one inside. We can see our breath when we say goodnight.

  No doubt there’s snow in the sky. Snow and sun and you can sleep deeply in there with an angel at the end of your bed. I lie with the sheet over my head in my own home-made cave in the psychiatric unit. There’s even snow here. I can’t be on my own in here in the cave. I find my wallet, take out a photo-booth picture of Marit. She’s thirteen. With dark plaits and clear blue eyes. Lying there with her picture in my hand is like clutching onto something that’s broken.

  After a week, I get a notice.

  The consultant at the clinic has in the attached application requested continued detention for you in accordance with the mental health act. You are therefore requested to attend the county court in person in connection with oral negotiations. Should you fail to show or respond, the case can still be decided.

  Background: Well-known forty-year-old woman with schizophrenia.

  Current status: The patient is in a state of acute psychosis. Talks i
ncomprehensibly, shakes and is very anxious. Claims there is radiation coming from the walls. Feels unsafe, cries and laughs without motivation. Does not want to stay in the unit, threatens to break the windows and doors. Behaviour confused, talks about herself in the third person. Not possible to assess the risk of suicide.

  Somatic: Not examined. Will not cooperate.

  The day of the negotiations in the county court arrives. I feel nervous. If only you could touch nervousness. Cut it out of everything. Hold it and give it courage and warmth. I didn’t want to have a lawyer this time, it’s a waste of public money. They can’t actually do anything and don’t know you. I now intend to defend myself. Kristin offers to fly over from Oslo to be with me during the negotiations. But I can’t find out when the case is being heard. Between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., it says. Mad people have all the time in the world. Kristin can’t manage to get to the nursery and still make a flight for nine, so we decide that she shouldn’t come.

  The county court comes to the hospital and uses a room there. There’s a judge, three jurors, an expert psychiatrist, the senior doctor from the unit and a lawyer who comes all the same. I meet her outside and tell her she doesn’t need to say anything. I’ve got my mental health worker, Elsa, and Sonja with me.

  The doctor explains about my need for care. Then I am given the floor. I say that I am not a schizophrenic. That I am nearly healthy again. That my doctor, Manne, says that I’m suffering from a psychotic disorder. ‘Why do you insist on calling me schizophrenic? I don’t recognise myself in your descriptions of me. They were written by a doctor who doesn’t know me.’ I say that I don’t need care. That I might take the medicine. But perhaps not the neuroleptic one, as I’m frightened that it might have a negative effect on my creativity. I need my creativity in order to survive. I have to write.

  The expert psychiatrist asks me some questions and I answer as best I can. But I can’t express myself. Their questions break my sentences in two. I say that it’s all like a dream. The expert says that she understands that it all seems like a dream. She asks some more questions and I answer in order to save myself. The picture of me, but most of all, my picture of myself inside. All this isn’t true. The judge asks Sonja to give her opinion. She thinks that I need all the care I can get. She and Kristin have swapped roles after many years. Kristin thinks that as long as I can write, I have no need to be in a secure unit.

  Then there is a pause in the proceedings. The jurors and judge are going to talk. We others have to leave the room. When we’re called back in, the doctor doesn’t come with us. He has other things to do and can’t be bothered to wait for the outcome. He’s sure of his case, and he’s right. He’s won. I am to be detained for a further four months.

  The County Court has today held oral negotiations behind closed doors. During the negotiations, the consultant upheld his application for the continued detention of Eli Larsen. The County Court finds that Eli Larsen suffers from a serious psychiatric disorder. In addition, the County Court finds that she, as a result of her psychiatric disorder and personal circumstances otherwise, has indisputable need for continued care. As a result of Eli Larsen’s mental condition, there is reason to believe that this care cannot be given with her agreement. The conditions for being sectioned in accordance with the Mental Health Act are thus fulfilled and the consultant’s application is therefore granted.

  I am taken back to the unit. Go into the dining room. No one there. Stand in front of the trolley with tea and coffee and biscuits. Think about the scalding water on my hand when I was a child. I dropped the glass without deciding to. It was a reflex. Only Granny can punish me. I take the thermos of boiling hot tea water and pour it over my head. It burns my scalp. Runs down my face and neck, down my back. The pain wakes me up. Only I can punish myself.

  Lisen comes to visit me regularly. She suggests that we should write a children’s book together. Can I? I feel blank. I can with a bit of help. I can. We’ve found a new way of spending time together. We write. I haven’t written for children since I was a child myself. Lisen sits at the computer. I make things up. Lisen makes things up. I make things up. A hole in the cloud of psychosis. Deep in the world of stories, my thoughts are clear. I am creative and calm.

  I find great cracks in all the sickness. The unmotivated laughter and outbursts of anger are in the dim distance. I can concentrate for an hour and then take a break and then another hour. A year ago, I was so medicated that I could only talk about what I had already written. It was impossible to create anything new. Now things are getting better and better. We discuss things. Is it wrong to manipulate a child’s voice from the wings? How to enter a child’s body? Give it feelings and thoughts without creating a divide between what is told and the experience of the protagonist. Should it be in the first person, which is so often used in children’s and young adult fiction? We choose the third person. How to avoid making the adult the norm and the child the deviant? I’m a deviant. Can we use that in some way? Lisen refers to her own children. I feel a little jealous. Counter it by talking about my nieces and nephews.

  On her way here, Lisen has seen a big painted oak, with eyes and a mouth and a broken branch as a nose. Is that an image we can use as a starting point? We dig around. Both of us carry images from our childhood eyes. We sit in the dining room. Are frequently interrupted, many are curious about what we’re up to. ‘We’re writing a children’s book,’ we say proudly. Little do we know that it will in fact be the start of a whole series.

  I’ve got a knife with me in my handbag. A sharp knife with a nice sheath. I’ve got it with me to defend myself. I’m on release from the unit and at home in my flat. I know that there are spy cameras hidden in the walls. I know that they’re listening. There’s radiation coming from the walls. It’s electricity that’s being sent to watch me, control my steps. Observe my movements.

  I hide in my bed. They’re listening to my thoughts and sending them home to Mum in Norway. Everyone can hear what I’m thinking. I listen to the same song over and over again on my earphones. It creates a wave from one ear to the other inside my head. But it doesn’t help.

  I ring the police and tell them that I am Prince Eugen and that I know that they’re after him. The voice on the telephone knows nothing about it. She plays the innocent, asks for Prince Eugen’s ID number. ‘I don’t know it,’ I reply. She asks what he’s done. ‘Prince Eugen had Erik hit Eli. Made her bang her head against the wall. Got her to punch her own head with her fists.’ ‘Who are you?’ the voice asks. ‘Eli’s not here. She’s not allowed to come out.’ ‘Who are you then?’ ‘I am Prince Eugen,’ I say in a woman’s voice, which confuses the woman on the other end even more. ‘Where do you live?’ Prince Eugen tells her where I live, even knows my flat number. ‘Do you belong to a mental health unit?’ ‘No,’ he lies. ‘You have to come and take away the spying equipment.’ ‘We’ll see what we can do.’

  When he puts down the receiver he regrets having called. Why did I do that? They’re going to trick me. He checks in my bag for the knife. It’s where it should be. He feels safer once he’s done that. After three quarters of an hour, there’s a ring at the door. Should I open? What if it’s a child selling raffle tickets? It isn’t. The sun from the window on the stairwell assails him. The dust vibrates in the air. It’s two policemen. They ask politely if they can come in. ‘Okay. What do you want?’ ‘To see how you are.’

  They stomp into the flat, a man and a woman. They’re so big and have so much paraphernalia. ‘How are you?’ ‘Good.’ ‘Can we sit down?’ They’re already in my kitchen. ‘Why are you watching me?’ ‘Are we watching you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What do you think might be the reason?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Nor do we.’ ‘The cameras are there in the corner.’ ‘There are no cameras in the corner. Do you know what, Eli?’ ‘She’s not here.’ ‘We think that you’re Eli, and we’re going to let you in on a secret. We don’t have time to watch you. We’ve got other things to do. So now you know.’

 
I go and lie down. Fall asleep. Dream that we’re a team doing a brain operation on a patient. We’ve got green scrubs on and mouth masks pulled up over our faces. There’s something wrong with the patient’s flow of thoughts. It’s unstoppable. There’s lots of chit-chat amongst the doctors and nurses. We try to laugh off the tension. We don’t have much time. We talk about property prices. About the best buys on the market. About who has maids and who has cleaners. That we have to be finished in time to pick up our kids from nursery. I make sure that everyone is doing what they should. Give orders.

  Then suddenly we all pull down our masks. There is absolute silence. Everyone was so confident to begin with but now starts to doubt what they have to do. It’s as if none of us have done this before. As if we actually work in a bank and have suddenly been asked to perform this operation.

  Am I the one who has to cut? Am I the one who’s responsible? How do you do that again? The scalpels lie there clean and sterilised on a tray. The equipment flashes as it should. The gravity in the room is tangible. No one wants to start. All at once, I’m scared. It’s me who’s the patient.

  It’s a normal morning in the unit. Nothing going on. There are no workshops here like there were in the last hospital. No one crying, no one screaming. We sit in armchairs in the corridor. Get ourselves a coffee. Take a few sips. Put the cup down. Get a new one, and put the cup down. Talk to some of the nurses. The hours creep by. It’ll soon be time for lunch. And then supper and more coffee. Then an evening snack and soon my four months are over.