by Alex Dahl
I feel unsettled, like something is happening at the back of my mind that I can’t quite grasp; it’s the feeling of trying to recover a forgotten dream. My thoughts return to this afternoon’s session with Leah Iverson. There was something alarming in her level of intensity – in all the time she’s been coming to see me, I have never seen her in a state like that before. I know I’ll need to return to the session, write up some notes and consider whether to intervene further, but right now, I need to focus on the evening ahead.
I step into the dress and watch myself transform from weary and anonymous-looking to something close to glamorous. Definitely this dress. I choose a cashmere Louis Vuitton scarf to drape across my bare shoulders and a little violet clutch bag with a clasp set with turquoise stones that pick up the color of the dress. From the wall I unhook my trusty skyscraper nude Louboutins and wince at the thought of wearing them all night; my feet are more accustomed to Uggs and sneakers these days. I put the shoes on and go through to the bathroom to do my make-up.
‘Black is better,’ says a voice from the doorway. I jump, smearing mascara to the side of my right eye. My husband is standing there, smiling bemusedly at me, beads of rainwater studding his jacket, some dripping from his hair onto the tiles.
‘Don’t you like this?’ I ask, turning to face him. He looks me up and down.
‘You look beautiful. Ravishing in fact. But on this occasion, definitely black. It’s a very formal event.’
‘Okay,’ I say, and return to the mirror to remove the mascara blob. I feel a pang of disappointment. I wanted Eirik to be impressed with my choice, but my husband is even more of a perfectionist than I am, and this is his work event, so I am happy to choose another dress.
I take a sip of the wine while Eirik gets in the shower, and I watch the outline of his big body through bursts of rising steam, like a skyscraper behind fog. For a moment I consider joining him, slipping my arms around his wet torso from behind, holding him close. I decide against it; Eirik will be fully focused on the evening ahead and most likely needs a little time to himself to get in the right headspace and go over his speech again.
When he emerges from the shower, I’ve changed and am wearing a foolproof silk-and-taffeta gala dress I bought in Paris several years ago and have only worn once. I’ve coiled my hair into a high bun, securing a few stray strands to the side in place with discreet diamanté slides. Eirik takes me in, a slow smile spreading across his face.
‘Wow,’ he says. He wipes himself briskly down with the towel and then throws it into the corner of the bathroom. He sidles up against me where I’m standing at the sink and puts his arms around me from behind, our eyes meeting in the mirror. He pulls me very close and nuzzles my neck, and I can feel his erection nudging against my buttocks. With one hand, Eirik undoes my hair from its clip, sending it flowing around my shoulders, and with the other hand he hoists the dress up around my hips and then he’s inside me, moving hard but slow, our eyes still locked on each other’s in the mirror.
*
Though it would be less than a five-minute walk, a black Conservative Party car picks us up and drops us at the residence. Before we step outside onto the pavement, where several reporters and photographers await the arrival of politicians and various celebrities, Eirik gives me a reassuring smile. I lock my eyes on his confident, calm gaze, suddenly feeling nervous. This isn’t my world, but if Eirik wins the elections, it will be. I might even live here someday, I think to myself, glancing up at the dramatically lit, imposing residence. It’s still raining heavily, and a man swoops in with an umbrella and opens my door, ensuring not a single drop of rain touches me. Eirik and I pose for the photographers under an awning and I feel a deep thrill in my stomach at the surrealness of it; of waking up this morning, seeing clients all day, then coming here and being photographed for newspapers and gossip magazines because I’m married to one of Norway’s most popular politicians.
The dinner is exquisite, filet mignon and lobster, and as the last course is cleared away, the speeches begin. I allow myself to drift about on my thoughts, taking in my surroundings and the other guests, making sure to laugh when I hear laughter, and clap when everyone else does. A blonde woman at a table close to the row of windows catches my eye. I feel a sudden jolt – she looks so much like Elisabeth in profile that I lean forward to get a better view. She is craning her neck to see the woman speaking, so I have only a limited view of her face. Her eyes crease as she smiles and her hands are clasped together, as if poised for the next round of applause. Her hair is glinting beautifully; tiny glass beads are woven into her updo, catching the light from the enormous chandeliers overhead. I imagine the woman getting up and walking across the room to me, beaming, her arms outstretched, and for the briefest of moments it’s her, it really is her, Elisabeth, and none of the terrible things that have happened were real, it was just a dream. Just another bad dream.
I must be staring at her, mesmerized, and as if she realizes she’s being watched, the woman turns in my direction. For a second, our eyes meet across the room. I realize that the woman is Mette-Marit, the crown princess, and that she looks nothing like Elisabeth after all. I clear my throat and let my eyes drop to the table in front of me. The palms of my hands are slick, my heart hammering. Will I forever be seeing the ghost of Elisabeth in the faces of strangers? My thoughts dart briefly to Leah Iverson, and I realize that the way she behaved this afternoon in our session also reminded me of Elisabeth. The disjointed sentences, the bruises, the desperation she emanated. I wonder where Leah is right now; I really hope she is safe and taking care of herself tonight.
The woman who was speaking, the minister of education, has stopped and returned to her seat. From every corner, waiters swoop in and refill wine glasses, conscious of the brief lull in proceedings before the next speech. Eirik squeezes my knee lightly.
‘I’m on,’ he says, winking at me before standing up, the room erupting into an enthusiastic round of applause. He walks to the top of the room and stands still, waiting for the applause to die down, smiling and nodding. There is nothing about his composure that suggests he is even mildly nervous to stand here in a room full of the upper echelons of Norway’s society, including the crown prince and princess, about to give a speech. I am mesmerized watching him speak; he comes across as a man entirely in his element – confident, knowledgeable, with a dash of humor thrown in. It’s strange to think that this is the same man who sleeps next to me every night, whose most intimate moments are shared with me. I think about the sex earlier, how it felt more like the thrilling sex between strangers than the usual, less adventurous sex we normally have, carefully planned around ovulation cycles and likeliness of conception. For a moment, I allow myself to imagine that tonight of all nights was the time it actually worked, and that in this very moment that much-wanted child is beginning inside me: a single cell breaking into two. I make myself stop this train of thought because it hurts too much. Every month, no matter how hopeful I’ve felt, no matter how hard I have tried to believe that it will happen for us eventually, the dreaded blood arrives. My heart beats faster. I take a big glug of champagne and return my attention to Eirik’s speech. I hear him speak my name and get the sudden sensation of several hundred pairs of eyes on me.
‘My wife, Dr Kristina Moss,’ he says. ‘None of this would have been possible without her.’ People smile and clap and a flash goes off somewhere, and it occurs to me, perhaps for the first time, that Eirik needs me as much as I need him.
3
Kristina
I wake to a repetitive muffled sound. Eirik is gone from bed and I sit up, blinking several times, but it feels as though my eyes have been stuck together. My pulse is fast and a vivid headache chases through my skull. I remember last night, all the drinks, the hours of sitting through moderately interesting speeches about political reform, progress, prosperity. For a moment I see the crown princess in my mind, how beautiful she looked with her radiant smile and subtly glinting updo. The n
eon light from a phone screen moves around from over in the corner, sending roaming shapes across the room.
‘Eirik?’ I whisper.
‘Hey,’ he says, shining the light toward me. ‘Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘What’s happening? What time is it?’
‘It’s 5.15. I’m going to have to fly to Bergen, unfortunately. A car’s waiting outside to take me to the airport.’
‘Wait, what? It’s Saturday.’
‘I know.’
‘We’re going to spend the night at my sister’s, remember?’
‘I know. I’m sorry. Look, this is strictly confidential, but there’s a situation at the west coast party office. One of the guys I directly oversee has been accused of gross misconduct.’
I feel tears of disappointment pricking my eyes, though I know I’m being dramatic. Eirik’s decision to go from international corporate law into politics was a joint decision and I knew full well that it would be demanding on our marriage. Or did I, really? There are so many things in life we can only truly understand once we’re actually living and feeling them.
‘Okay,’ I say.
‘I am sorry, Kristina.’ Eirik comes over to my side of the bed and squats down beside me. ‘Pass on my love to Camilla and the kids. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. I love you.’ He presses his lips to my forehead, and I catch a whiff of his familiar cologne, the same he’s used since his student days, when we met: Fahrenheit by Christian Dior, and for some reason this brings more tears to my eyes. He rushes from the room and I imagine him stepping into a shiny party car pulled up outside the building, his mind razor sharp and trained on the day ahead. He has an ability to completely compartmentalize his career from the rest of his life and never lets anything impact his work. I think it is because he lost his mother in childhood and became accustomed to closing off parts of himself and his feelings for protection. For several minutes after he’s gone, his scent clings to the air in our bedroom and I close my eyes, though I know I won’t get any more sleep.
*
We walk down to the soggy, deserted beach, stopping for the kids to jump in every single puddle. I make myself smile at them and say all the right things when they rush over to where I’m standing with Camilla under a giant oak tree to show us some trinket or another, but inside it feels like I could fall to pieces just looking at my niece and nephew. What hurts so much is taking in their impossible sweetness; it’s like being taunted by everything I don’t have.
I zone out from the long story Camilla is telling me about the audacity of her awful colleague and try to allow those feelings – they may feel like a numb, impenetrable kind of nothingness, but that is never the case. I remind myself that if I was one of my own clients, I would feel so much empathy for the woman standing on this beach watching those beautiful children play.
Also, I suppose I’m still a little upset that Eirik didn’t come with me, though it’s nice for Camilla and me to have this rare time together, just the two of us and the kids. Her husband, Mikkel, decided to go on an overnight fishing trip when I explained Eirik couldn’t make it, giving Camilla and me some ‘sister time’.
‘Look!’ screams Vilja, holding up a chewed stick triumphantly.
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘Look at this,’ shouts Birk, shoving his little sister aside, who responds by throwing the chewed stick hard at the back of his head. Camilla rolls her eyes at me, then intercepts, speaking calmly and diplomatically until the argument dies down and they run back down toward the sand, laughing and shouting. My sister – the perfect mother. She really is. She took to motherhood like a duck to water, like she was born to take care of little people, unlike me. I feel a surge of familiar jealousy toward my older sister, though these days I recognize it instantly and am able to consciously choose to not rise to it. We are fourteen months apart, and as a child, it was hard to be in the shadow of someone always that little bit faster, cleverer, more accomplished. I often felt like a lesser version of her, and it wasn’t until I was older that I realized I probably got treated as such. As a teenager, I made a real point out of distancing myself from Camilla, dying my hair blonde and barely acknowledging her at school. As adults, we are extremely close – I’d say Camilla is the person I’m closest to besides Eirik.
Still, our relationship occasionally feels difficult for me – ever since Eirik and I started trying for a baby two years ago. I suppose I took it for granted that I would just get pregnant as soon as I wanted to, like my sister. That I still haven’t, in spite of everything, feels like a profound betrayal by my body and these are things I work intently on in my own therapy. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to make my peace with it if we remain unsuccessful, especially if the underlying reason turns out to be the aftermath of trauma. The irony of dedicating my life to healing other people’s trauma, while being held back by my own. I swallow hard and turn to my sister.
‘Did I tell you that we’re taking a break from IVF?’
‘No.’
I nod. Our eyes meet; hers are full of kindness. She looks how I hope I look when my clients share something important with me.
‘Yeah. Well. My body was literally crumbling from overstimulation. It’s a relief to have a break from all the injections.’
‘I can imagine. I’m sorry, Kristina. It will happen.’
‘Yeah.’ I look at Birk and Vilja chasing each other down the beach, their wellies leaving soggy footprints that moments later get erased by the surging, cold waves.
‘It will.’
‘Yeah. You know, it sounds a little mad, but I sometimes feel this irrational hope that it could still happen naturally. That if we could just remove ourselves from all the stress, from the invasive procedures, the injections and the carefully timed sex that doesn’t feel sexy at all, then it might just happen—’
‘And it might.’
I nod and think about last night again, how different and exciting it felt. ‘Yeah, it might.’ One cell that becomes two that becomes a thousand that becomes a million; it could be happening inside me right now. But I don’t dare to believe anymore, and consciously shut down these thoughts – nothing hurts more than false hope.
I move my thoughts away from my own problems and stare out at the raging, gray sea, but feel a flicker of the anxiety I felt after Leah Iverson’s session on Friday return. I wonder what she is doing at this moment, whether she is doing better. I think about the envelope she handed me, and its strange contents. I stood watching as she ran across the street after the session, still clutching the little package she’d handed me. Her shape became distorted in the fierce downpour, like a spectre, then it disappeared, merging with the trees and bushes in the park. I opened my hand, then the envelope in it. Inside was a set of old-fashioned keys, like the ones to my grandmother’s farmhouse in Valdres. There was also a local area map, with handwritten instructions scribbled on it. A location was marked with an ‘x’ in the middle of what seemed to be a vast forest. ‘Bekkebu’, Leah had written above it – the name of her cabin, I recalled. Near a lake called Heivannet, she’d made a second marking – a ‘p’ for ‘park here’. At the top of the map, she’d written ‘Please please please come.’
It’s not the first time a client has asked me to meet outside the therapy room – it can be very difficult for people to grasp the boundaries between therapist and client, when therapy is necessarily built on emotional intimacy. I’ve had clients who constantly ask me personal questions, and who have spent significant amounts of time attempting to convince me that we would make great friends in real life. Leah, too, has on a few occasions expressed curiosity about who I am in my personal life. Still, it is definitely out of character for Leah Iverson to behave like this, imploring me to meet with her at a remote cabin – she seemed almost possessed and not at all like herself. I make a mental note to get in touch with her GP tomorrow morning, and to email Leah to suggest she come in for an extra session this week.
‘Why don’t you sta
y until tomorrow?’ asks Camilla, bringing me back to the blustery beach and my little niece and nephew laughing into the wind, their white-blonde heads thrown back, their hands extended as though they are trying to embrace the whole world.
‘I would, but I have a client at eight thirty,’ I say. This isn’t exactly true – my first is at eleven, but I’d like a couple of hours in my peaceful, bright office before seeing anyone, catching up on emails and case notes like I always do on a Monday morning. Besides, I am exhausted after a full weekend with Camilla, Vilja and Birk and I want to enjoy a long evening at home with Eirik, cooking together and snuggling by the fireplace.
*
I leave Camilla’s at four and start the drive back to Oslo, but get caught up in the painfully slow Sunday-afternoon traffic of weekenders returning to the city from their cabins. At one point it completely stops moving and I put the car in neutral, securing the handbrake. I sit, cocooned, listening to the slam of the rain, which is falling heavily again for the ninth day in a row. I turn the wipers off to better hear the rain and, without them, the world instantly becomes a gray blur. I still feel disconcertingly empty, like I have all weekend. I’m not sure if it’s due to how emotional I sometimes get being around my niece and nephew, or a lingering sense of worry for Leah Iverson. I am usually good at switching off from my clients at weekends – I have to be. Or it is because this is the first time I’ve returned to Oslo on this same road without stopping in to see Elisabeth. And I never will again. Villa Vinternatt is down there, set snug in a leafy forest between the motorway and the sea, less than three minutes’ drive away from where the traffic has ground to a standstill. And she isn’t there. Of course – that must be why I feel unsettled and a little melancholic.
