A Fool, Free

by Beate Grimsrud

  I’m repaired, then fall apart. The same patients are admitted here all the time. I’ve got friends here. Kassandra is back, seeing her again is both sad and a joy. We sit in the corridor and play cards. She’s the unit’s uncrowned queen of Chicago. I show her my latest find. A turquoise hoodie with a pattern in silver and black, and a hood that reaches down to my bum. She asks if I’ve become a raver. ‘I’m just Eli,’ I reply. Think that I might give the hoodie to her. But then she says that she’s now out of her turquoise psychosis. It quite simply got too much.

  Nearly everyone is gathered out in the corridor. Staff and patients. Then we hear some strange noises from the ceiling. We all look up. As if something was creeping around up there. It must be a rat. A rat creeping back and forth. A huge rat. Finally something is happening, these uniform days with screams and tears, coffee and food. Card games and jigsaw puzzles. Angst, depression and mania. Psychotic rants about punishing devils and gods that it’s impossible to understand or that you’ve finally understood. A rat in the ceiling is something we can agree on and maybe have even longed for.

  We move down the corridor like a herd. We creep behind the sound in a flock. What can it be? Then a light comes crashing down from the ceiling. And shortly after a whole ceiling tile. Fortunately no one gets it on the head. No one says a word, and then suddenly, a person comes tumbling down. It’s Daniel, a young psychotic lad. He lies there on his back on the floor without moving. The staff hurry off to get the restraining bed, but then leave him lying on the floor. He tells us that he got up into the ceiling from the toilet. What an inventive way to try to escape. And it’s good to see that the staff let him lie there. He’s not restrained, but is instead drugged and put on his own bed. He wakes up for supper. Sits beside me at the table. It’s fried herring. ‘This is the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time,’ he says.

  It’s March and there’s only a thin layer of snow that barely covers the ground. I’m going to have my portrait taken for a newspaper. I’m not allowed out without an escort, and Ingemar, my mental health worker and nurse, offers to come with me to my flat, where I’m going to meet the photographer. She turns up twenty minutes late, a dauntless young woman. She has an enormous bag and pulls out all her photographic equipment and then produces a large axe. ‘I thought you could hold this.’ Ingemar looks sceptically at the axe. Patients from psychiatric units are of course not allowed to have knives or axes or any other dangerous paraphernalia. Who should we pretend he is? My boyfriend perhaps.

  The photographer has no idea that she’s dealing with a psychotic patient who has been sectioned. I’m allowed to stand in various poses holding the axe. The photographer is not satisfied. She wants to go out into the park on the other side of the road. There has to be trees in the picture. What is Ingemar going to do now? He has to come with me.

  The three of us go out. I stand up straight and hold the axe limply as though I had never held an axe before. I smile. Think about Mona Lisa’s androgynous smile. Was it ordered or real? You can see lies in people’s faces, the lines round the eyes. A computer program can erase it. But not well enough to prevent around 20 per cent of all people who tell the truth from being branded as liars.

  Ingemar stands just outside the photo frame and stares. It’s a very good picture.

  *

  A man goes berserk in the unit. He’s naked. The corridor is full of patients and they all witness a particularly brutal act of restraint. The atmosphere is fearful and uneasy. The following day, the new boss decides that we’re going to have a big meeting after breakfast and talk about what’s happened. The young psychotic girl who talks to herself about heaven and hell is sitting at the front, and she repeats pensively: ‘Are men gods or children?’ Does she have any idea why she’s sitting here?

  Maybe twenty patients are gathered together in the dining room. The boss talks about the commotion the day before and wonders if anyone has any questions. There are a few. Then one by one, the patients start to talk about their own experiences of being restrained. That they use more modern restraint methods at the main hospital. Ones that allow you to move when you need to get up for a pee. The whole thing takes off. People talk at the same time. Yesterday’s incident is forgotten, but there are other incidents which are not.

  One of the manic girls gets up and starts to mix English and Swedish. All the swear words she knows cascade out of her mouth: ‘You motherfucker. You asshole. Go to hell.’ She gesticulates. ‘We’re at the bottom. I’m homeless, you bitch.’ It’s hard to understand what it is she wants to say, and there are others who always want to say something. Someone shouts: ‘Where is Olof Palme?’ The boss doesn’t manage to keep control of who’s speaking next or to answer any questions. He’s rendered speechless.

  Only the deeply psychotic girl is silent. Her eyes are downcast and she appears not to notice the pandemonium. The boss tries to close the meeting. He says that everyone can come to him individually to discuss their issues. I think to myself that it’s probably the first and last time that the new head will arrange an open meeting with patients in a psychiatric unit. A sentence crosses my mind. In English. Is this my people? Yes, sometimes.

  My body is crawling. Shaking. Especially in my right leg and my mouth. Stiff jaws that crack against each other. I’m sitting in the dining room, have just made two sandwiches. Can’t get anything down. Have liked food less and less recently.

  The day shift come round and say good morning. An old man in hospital clothes is sitting beside me. He has been here for a while. But not as long as me. I’m now in my sixth month. I am no longer sectioned. I’m free. I’m now here voluntarily and will be leaving soon. Home to my dangerous flat with windows that you can fall or throw yourself out of. Will I take my own life, I wonder. Take a bite and the food just swells in my mouth.

  ‘Butter is the best thing of all,’ says the elderly gentleman beside me. ‘This is as close to the Scandic hotels as you can get, and butter is the best of all foods. Superior to all else. You could survive on only butter. Butter and blueberries are good for your eyes, my grandmother always used to say. It’s... I think it’s vitamin K.’

  There’s a peaceful atmosphere in the dining room. The sun shines gently in through the window. The old man seems so content. Then another old man suddenly stands up. It’s his room-mate. He doesn’t speak Swedish. He comes over to the old man who was just now so happy with the butter and the food, and slaps him across the face. The nurse opposite looks down into her cornflakes and says nothing. The nurse at the next table quickly gets up and shouts at the man who can’t speak Swedish. ‘Leg egg!’ The dining room falls silent. Leg egg and then nothing more. Everyone understands. The man who lashed out goes back to his place and the nurse who shouted puts her arm round the man who was slapped.

  ‘I’ll get some dental floss and strangle you,’ says my room-mate in her sleep.

  It’s the afternoon. Sweet Kassandra, I think. Are you sleeping again? We’ve removed the screens between our beds, try to make things nice. She’s been living in supported accommodation for just over a year, but can’t cope any longer. She doesn’t want to go back to the loneliness. ‘You were talking in your sleep,’ I say, and tell her what she said. She laughs. ‘I have to save myself,’ she says. ‘Exactly what I’ve thought so many times,’ I say. She lies down again and falls asleep. How can she sleep so much?

  I write a little. What can I do for Kassandra? I don’t think that about all the patients here, but I want Kassandra to be happy. I worry about the fact that she never does anything. I reflect that Kassandra never says that she’s good at anything. She often starts sentences with: can’t, don’t dare, don’t know. I wish I could give her a little of my self-belief. I write a few sentences, but don’t get any further. There’s no point in pushing it.

  I fall asleep myself and am woken by Kassandra crying. ‘Everything’s so hopeless,’ she sniffs. ‘I want to die.’ ‘Is there nothing you’d like to do in life?’ I ask. ‘Study, some sort of hobby
? Travel? I know that you don’t dare, but just a small trip. Whatever. Meet someone.’ ‘Cut myself,’ Kassandra says. ‘Not that,’ I say. She cut herself a few days ago.

  ‘I’ve cut myself with everything,’ she says, and pulls the duvet over her head. Then she pops up again. ‘Once when we were on Gotland, and me and my sister were sitting on the beach waiting for our parents to collect us, I got so desperate. I just wanted to cut myself. I thought of using a pine cone. You might laugh about it now, but it’s pretty pathetic. You feel so ashamed when you’re sitting there at A&E and need to get stitches for something you’ve done to yourself. If no one notices, I just put a plaster on,’ she says and disappears under the duvet again.

  ‘Kassandra, think for a moment.’ ‘Die,’ she replies and starts crying again. ‘In life, I said. Is there nothing in life that you want to do?’ The crying continues for some time, but then she squeaks: ‘I want to shop.’ I dig her out from under the duvet and give her a hug.

  For six months I’ve been forced to say where I’m going and when I’ll be back. Sometimes I’ve been allowed to go out on my own, other times not. Friends have come and collected me and dropped me off again after my boxing sessions. I’ve been allowed to go to my therapist Janus alone, but have to promise to come straight back. No spontaneous trips to town and shopping sprees with Prince Eugen or just wandering around by myself.

  Now everything is open. I have the key to my own door. Can close it and open it as I choose. There’s no structure. No times. No questions. How do you find that feeling of self again after having been sectioned? What do you do with the freedom? It’s easy to feel frightened and insecure. You have to create a new foundation. New walls. A new ceiling. A room that doesn’t slope.

  I lie in bed and imagine that I’m sawing. I can feel it in my arm. It’s a blunt saw. I imagine that I’m sawing alternately through a thick branch and through my leg. I feel nothing in my leg. Close my eyes and switch from the leg to the branch, and from the branch to the leg. See that I’m cutting through the skin and veins, sinews and nerves, and then into the thigh bone. I go back to the branch. Nearly halfway. But then the image switches to the bone in my leg again.

  I put everything I’ve got into it. Why don’t I feel anything? The blood is pouring out and hiding all the details. I have to stop, I think. I don’t want the saw to damage my leg. Don’t want to jump out of the window. The images keep coming. In my mind I pull open the window in the bedroom and throw myself out. Feel in my arm that I’m sawing properly. I must be finished with this branch soon. But it’s not the branch. The image is of my leg again.

  I’ve nearly sawed all the way through now and am sweaty, and wet with blood. I have to stop, I think. The picture doesn’t disappear. It gets stuck in my head. What if I’m doing it? What if I jump?

  ‘Who do you want to be now? My eyes are with you all the time, even if I’m not there. Like the eyes on an aeroplane,’ Espen says. ‘And now and now. Who do you want to be? I’ll close your tear ducts and you can be who you want to be. I’ll hide it on the shelves and in cupboards, in your files of writing ideas under the bed. In the pockets of newly bought clothes. Who do you want to be? Now and now. A girl with a mask for a face.’

  We’ve had a meeting with my mental health team and my friends. How can we help Eli to live at home after six months in the unit? The social worker can offer support in the home for one hour twice a week. Lolo thinks she can stay over every Tuesday night. I’ll have daily contact with my mental health workers. My previous doctor, for whom I did a headstand on his desk to show that I was balanced, suggests that I could live with a family who are interested in culture. Lisen is tasked with finding out more. This proves to be impossible, so I’m back to square one again, on my own in the flat with the boys’ voices. My old doctor also suggests cognitive therapy, that I should swap Janus for Jonathan. I’m sceptical about pretty much everything. Move and change therapist, that sounds like too many big changes. I want everything to sort itself out naturally. It doesn’t.

  I’ve been going to psychodynamic Janus for four years now. Going to stop soon, but can’t really deal with the separation. Don’t dare to let go. So right now I’m doubling up. One day a week with Janus and one day a week with Jonathan. I tell Janus that I’m going to cut up the two women’s voices in my right ear. That’s why I’ve got a knife in my bag. I normally use it at the workspace to make kindling for the wood burner. Now it’s in my bag. I take it out and show it to him, take it out of its sheath and feel the edge. It’s sharp. The intensity of the knife. Janus asks me to put it back. I weigh it in my hand. It’s almost alive. ‘Put it back.’ I slip it back into its sheath and put it back in my bag. Janus phones the unit and asks to talk to Elsa, my mental health worker. He asks her to come and get me. ‘Eli isn’t well.’

  Elsa knows that I have a knife in my bag and says that she doesn’t want to be with me when I have a knife. ‘Come with me to the unit and get an injection, but without the knife.’ Janus says that he can keep the knife for me. Reluctantly I hand it over, feel naked and defenceless without it. He puts it in his desk drawer. And I’ll think about it time and again, that it’s lying there.

  Elsa and I take the bus and the metro across town. The women’s voices aren’t there. I don’t want to go to the unit. But don’t want to go anywhere else either. I walk beside Elsa and let her decide.

  Elsa is pensive and looks worried at times. But she always has a little laughter hidden in the corners of her mouth. She’s an artist at heart. I think she understands what I do. That I’m a writer. She’s straightforward and puts me in my place if she thinks I’ve done something wrong or am not doing what we agreed.

  Suddenly I feel frightened. We’re crossing a zebra crossing when Elsa grabs me. We stop in the middle of the road and let a car pass. The fear generated by this sudden contact stays with me. I try to listen to what Elsa is saying: ‘Sorry, it’s over now.’ It’s not over. I’m frightened all the time. Frightened with all my body. Frightened that it will happen again. That what might happen again? I don’t know. That terrifying thing. Don’t remember, but can’t forget.

  Lying in bed. The flat isn’t a safe place. I get up and approach the window. The thought races through me, that I do it, but still manage. I jump six storeys down. But there’s a piece of material in the air that catches me. It rocks with less and less movement. Until I am lying perfectly still facing the sky. I listen to my body. Go through each body part and am just there. Just like Jonathan has taught me. All the parts are whole. I’m floating higher up than I would dare. They need a crane to get me down.

  Every time I get off the metro on the way to my therapist, Janus, on the good side of town, the same man is sitting there begging. He’s made his own little space with blankets, cushions and cardboard boxes, and a tin for money. I normally give him some change. He nods in thanks and I hurry on. I often think that one day it will be Janus who’s sitting there. In his clean clothes, with his bad back. Maybe I wouldn’t just give him change, but notes instead. Or what if one day, instead of going to Janus, I sat down beside the beggar and poured out my heart. He probably can’t afford to be sad.

  One day the beggar isn’t there. His things are still there. Beside the money tin, there’s a note written in big letters: Back soon. Who’s missing him? He’s his own master. No one will know where he’s gone.

  It’s summer again. Lolo and I are at the cottage. My brother’s daughter comes to visit, as she has done every year. She’s eight now. She’s going to stay with us for a week. As she has done every year since she was four. Last year she was little. A playground was all she needed. A swing, a climbing frame. She could sit in the sand with a bucket and spade and build a castle, as she had done every year before. Or be totally thrilled to ride on a camel in the interval at the circus. Or try to lie as still as she could in the mornings so as not to wake me, as she did when she was little, but eventually sighed and said: ‘Sleeping makes me so tired.’

  This year she
’s all ages. Sometimes she’s three and cries and whines when she gets frustrated. Sometimes grown up. She stands there clutching a toy rabbit from a jumble sale, and suddenly asks: ‘How are you coping with the financial crisis?’ ‘I haven’t noticed anything,’ I reply. ‘I’ve got such a special job.’ ‘Lucky you aren’t an architect. They’re having a difficult time,’ she says gravely, and gives her rabbit a squeeze. ‘So are some people in industry,’ I say. ‘And young people.’ ‘But not you,’ she said, relieved. ‘Then I can have another ice cream, can’t I?’ We’ve agreed on only one ice cream a day, but I break the rule.

  She’s been allowed to run riot with my wardrobe. Her favourite is a black and purple leopard-skin patterned hoodie with a hood that reaches down to her bum. She looks like she’s taking part in a medieval role-play. But she makes hip-hop moves with her arms and wants to dance to loud music. She desperately wants to have the same hoodie.

  Her mum has said that we can go to H&M and buy a summer dress. When we get into town, we go to my special expensive shop instead and buy her a hoodie. We also buy a cool T-shirt with neon print. I buy something too. A black sweater with long yellow fur down the arms. I look like something out of the Muppet Show. And some vests and a pair of trousers. I’ve got a wardrobe full. When we get out, she says: ‘Eli, shouldn’t you be saving for a flat rather than buying so many clothes?’ Well, that’s me told. I think ferme la bouche, you little besserwisser. You’re my baby, and we’re going to play together for many years to come.

  When I watch her throw all her clothes onto the sand and run naked out into the water with a whoop, I am suddenly struck by the realisation that I don’t want her to grow up.