Certain Signs that You are Dead

by Torkil Damhaug

  Another sound penetrating. Like a foot being pulled free of the bog, and he thought that it was her name that had betrayed him; perhaps he’d said it out loud. The sound came again, closer now. The trees in the area where it came from stood close together, and he felt vulnerable, lying there in the falling light, chalk-white amongst the green. He started to count, because that helped. These seconds were his time, and the thought made it possible to lie like a rigid corpse between the fronds of bracken.

  The shadow emerged from the trees, stood in the midst of the clearing, half turned, the black hood pulled up. Like an alarm sounding, freezing everything into silence, not a twig in the forest moving now. Arash saw how the sunlight gathered itself into a cone that searched for his naked body. Then the figure bent over, looked to be examining something on the ground.

  The silence ended. It was the evil birds he was hearing, the ones that tempted him to go on. And the bracken laid its leaves flat and would no longer hide him. But the figure in black was busy searching over by the boulders, examining that little hollow he had so nearly crept into. Stood up straight again, took a few paces towards him, backwards, turned around slowly, stared in his direction. Arash closed his eyes, unable to bear the thought of meeting the other’s gaze at the moment of his discovery. Now I’m going to get up, he whispered to himself, because the waiting was unendurable. Better to crawl across to the one waiting there and get it over with. Then Marita’s face was there again, the empty eyes, and suddenly he felt something else, something stronger than the longing to give himself up to the figure in black. Anger was what made him release the grip on his leg, dig with his hand into the moss he was lying on, free a lump of it, dig deeper until he felt something hard, the edge of a stone.

  He opened his eyes as the dark figure turned away again and began crossing the clearing. Tall, and powerfully built, the gun in the left hand, and as the figure disappeared between the trees, Arash noticed something about the way it walked, one leg dragging slightly. If this was a dream, he would not have seen that particular detail, he was certain. Then that thought paled and faded, and the warning songs of the good birds came back, drowning out all other sounds.

  12

  A bird sat on the telephone wire outside. Jennifer, still half asleep, was looking at it. The smell of roasting meat wafted in to her. The bird was a magpie, she saw as she woke up. Her distance vision was still good. It was when things came too close that she had trouble.

  She found Zoran in the kitchen.

  – What time is it?

  He glanced at his wristwatch. – Five thirty.

  – Have I slept the whole day away? she wailed.

  He dried his hands, put his arm around her.

  – Not the whole day. And not my day, at any rate. Don’t you remember anything from before you fell asleep?

  She remembered every moment. He had crept in under the duvet. Naked. Sneaked his way inside her. Lay like that for a long time completely still. Moved a little each time she was about to fall asleep. Finally she came almost without a muscle tensing.

  She leaned up and kissed him. He smelled of onions and olives.

  – What are you making?

  He opened the oven door, a joint sizzling inside. – I asked Lydia and Knut to come over.

  – This evening?

  – You’re invited too.

  She gestured with her arms, looked down at her half-naked and unwashed body.

  – Come as you are, he smiled. – That’s fine.

  – You’re impossible.

  She went to the bedroom, opened a cupboard. She had left some clothes there over the last few weeks, a couple of summer dresses, so she wouldn’t have to go home first if she was late in the morning. And shampoo and conditioner, a travelling make-up bag and underwear. All of it in bags, nothing unpacked on to the shelves.

  – When are you going to open a restaurant? Knut Reinertsen exclaimed as the roast appeared on the table.

  Zoran was wearing an apron. He sliced the beef, thin and neat.

  – I wouldn’t rule it out.

  – Then I insist on a regular table there, said the psychiatrist.

  Jennifer’s contribution had been to lay the table, light the candles, put the roses Lydia had brought into a blue vase. Now she sat there wishing she could have spent the evening alone with Zoran.

  With another bottle of wine opened, she drifted into mild intoxication, secretly watching him across the table. In the evening light from the window, his face was younger and more beautiful than she could remember having seen it before. Not too beautiful, fortunately, and not too young. There was something else about it, a quality that would not vanish with the passage of the years. She had always been attracted to men who were older than her. For some reason or other an image of Roar Horvath came into her mind. He had been almost ten years younger. There were other, younger men she couldn’t even be bothered to remember. Maybe all those mistakes had been necessary in order for her to sit there and look at Zoran like this. If that was the case, then it was all worth it.

  – You lot seem to have found a good way of getting rid of your patients, Knut Reinertsen mused aloud. He was the only one at the table who didn’t work at the hospital, and the only one who could not resist alluding to what had happened there the previous evening.

  – Why don’t we talk about something else? Jennifer suggested, trying in vain to stifle a yawn.

  – Long day? asked Lydia.

  –This light, said Jennifer, with an exasperated gesture in the direction of the window. – I can’t sleep.

  Zoran filled people’s glasses. – Before she goes to bed, she has an extensive routine designed to keep it out.

  He described the procedure she went through every evening that was supposed to prevent event the faintest sliver of light from getting through.

  – It’s true, Jennifer admitted. – I must have complete darkness. I never used to be like that.

  – What do you say to that, Mr Psychiatrist? asked Zoran.

  Knut Reinertsen dabbed around his mouth. – There’s a biological explanation, of course, he began. – But the psychological one is more interesting.

  He took a sip of wine and glanced round, probably to make sure he had everyone’s full attention.

  – The desire to block out light indicates a deep-seated desire not to see. The symbolism is simple, not to say blindingly obvious.

  – Thank you for that analysis, Knut, said Zoran. – Send your bill to me, since I was the one stupid enough to raise the question.

  – It’s nothing, really. But I looked through the newspapers and didn’t see anything about what happened at the hospital yesterday—

  – Wasn’t the idea to talk about something else? Jennifer interrupted, aware of her own slight irritation.

  – Knut doesn’t take hints like that, said Zoran.

  – Dangerous place, that hospital, Knut went on, – even for those in good health.

  – Was it you who examined him? Lydia asked, directing her question to Zoran.

  He raised his wine glass, glanced at it. – One of the junior doctors. I didn’t get a chance to look at him before he disappeared.

  Knut pointed at him with his fork. – Then it’s true that the man was admitted with minor injuries?

  Zoran glanced across at Jennifer. – It’s probably not unlikely that the people who started the job before he was admitted came back to complete it.

  – Then presumably they would show up on the security cameras?

  Jennifer had had exactly the same thought. – Some of the ones in the basement are out of order, she said.

  – Yet another thing that doesn’t work, Lydia sighed. – At management meetings we spend all our time discussing things like that and almost none at all on the medical side.

  – Someone got into the basement, Jennifer went on. – A window by the entrance to the psychiatric department was broken, and the lock on the basement door forced.

  Lydia shook her head. – I hea
rd it was one of the porters who found the patient.

  – He’s a good bloke, Zoran interjected. – Iranian.

  Lydia folded her serviette. – Do you know him?

  – Zoran got him the job, said Jennifer. It was one of the things she admired about him, his concern for the welfare of others. – He was still there when I arrived last night. He looked as if he’d had a breakdown.

  The sight of the porter on the corridor floor, the blood on the white shirt.

  – He’s probably a refugee, Knut nodded, – since he’s Iranian.

  – He was imprisoned in Tehran’s most notorious prison, Zoran said. – I don’t even like to think about the sort of things that go on in there.

  – So he suffers from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, said Knut. – And what happened at the hospital yesterday triggered it off again. Poor bastard.

  He started talking about various programmes he had taken part in, providing emergency help in disaster areas; the unspeakable cruelties people were capable of inflicting on each other. – Has this porter been offered professional help?

  – I wish I knew, said Zoran. – I haven’t been able to get in touch with him today.

  – How can someone break into a hospital unnoticed? I mean, there are hundreds of staff swarming all over the place.

  For some reason or other Knut Reinertsen was looking at Jennifer as he said this. He had a way of speaking that always made her feel inadequate.

  – Maybe because we have other things to do besides going round checking doors, she said, aware herself of how sharp her response sounded.

  – That was a dreadful shift, Lydia interjected, perhaps trying to smooth things over. – Inexperienced junior doctors who have to ask about everything, nurses who can’t handle the workload. You have to chase round after things they haven’t had time to lay out. Typical that something so gruesome and absurd should happen on an evening like that.

  She sipped at her wine. Jennifer said no when Zoran offered her more, she’d had enough. Could feel that she would be able to sleep and hoped the guests would leave before she became wide awake again.

  Lydia was talking about something else that had happened the previous evening. A pregnant woman with severe pains in the abdomen.

  – We did an ultrasound on her and found a normal foetus five months old. The only problem was, it wasn’t in the womb, it had attached itself to the lining of the stomach wall.

  – There, you see, said Knut.

  – See what?

  – You don’t need to be a woman to carry a child. We all have a stomach wall. Soon we’ll have the technology that will enable men to become biological mothers. That must surely be of interest to you in your studies of childlessness.

  Lydia laughed quietly.

  – But it’s paradoxical, he growled, his voice even louder now. – At the same time as we spend billions helping people to have more children, we’re doing nothing to prevent overpopulation, which is the greatest threat in our time.

  Zoran opened another bottle of wine and topped up Knut’s glass. He seemed to find the psychiatrist’s improvisations entertaining.

  – Don’t you agree, Zoran? That is the real cause of all the wars and the environmental disasters, that there are quite simply too many of us. Imagine what it’s going to be like here in fifty years’ time, with less food, less energy and a population that carries on growing at an explosive rate.

  – It won’t do that, said Zoran as he topped up his own glass. – It’ll even out.

  – But not enough, and not quickly enough. It will be like a game. Somebody has to leave, because there isn’t room for everyone.

  – There’s probably something in what you say, Lydia agreed.

  – Says you, who spends all her time trying to counter nature’s own natural braking mechanisms. If you really are worried about the future, why are you helping those who are unable to have children?

  Zoran shook his head. – Lydia is one of the best researchers we have, Knut. Give her a little cred now and then. He leaned over to her, patted her arm. – Actually he admires you just as much as the rest of us here do. Knut has a weakness for intelligent women, same as me.

  Suddenly it was as though Jennifer could see Lydia with Zoran’s eyes, the strips of grey in the untidy medium-length hair catching in the evening light, even the slightly diverging eyes making her attractive in a mysterious way. Jennifer felt a twinge of something she hadn’t felt for a while, something that might have been jealousy, the faint edge of a thought that Zoran might like Lydia more than her. He meant what he said about intelligence, and Lydia was an unusually talented researcher, with a passionate interest in the outcome of this project to find the genetic reasons for childlessness. Jennifer couldn’t manage quite that same degree of involvement.

  She stood up. On her way to the toilet she passed so closely behind Zoran that one breast brushed against his shoulder. He glanced up at her, and in her mild intoxication that twinge of jealousy came as a reminder of how her life had been so far. A sort of passion had driven her on, she thought distantly, a longing for everything that lay just beyond her reach. Maybe that would have to burn itself out before peace became possible for her.

  By the time she returned to the dining room, the slivovitz was on the table. Knut was still talking about the murdered man, that perhaps they should search the whole hospital, just to make sure there were no more bodies hidden away in cupboards and closets. Or skeletons, he added, just in case they hadn’t got his point.

  – This man thinks about death the whole time, Lydia said, raising her eyebrows. – What it is about psychiatrists?

  Jennifer’s phone began vibrating in her handbag. She ignored it. Just wanted to carry on sitting there feeling slightly tipsy, waiting for the moment when she could have Zoran all to herself, sleep next to him. Maybe something else first, but then sleep, so close to him that not even the light could bother her.

  Ivar was the name on the display. He didn’t often call, and she really didn’t feel like answering. But a little worm had begun nibbling somewhere inside her. If she didn’t get rid of it at once, it would just eat itself bigger and bigger.

  She took the call out in the kitchen.

  – Where were you? he asked, and hearing the accusation in his voice, she remembered.

  – Was it today?

  – You know perfectly well it was.

  That wasn’t true. She had forgotten. Got the days mixed up.

  – We’ve been waiting over an hour.

  – Sorry, she stammered. – I’m really sorry. Is Trym there?

  An exasperated heavy sigh from the other end. – He’s sitting here on the sofa. Waiting for you.

  – Ivar, please listen. I’ll call you back in two minutes. Go somewhere where Trym can’t hear you. Sorry, she repeated, and she really was. – Honestly.

  She went into the bedroom, called back.

  – The boy is in trouble, and you can’t even be bothered to come and have a chat with him.

  – I thought we had agreed on tomorrow.

  She should have told the truth, that she’d been at work all night, that she was exhausted, that their arrangement had escaped her mind completely.

  – Have you thought about him even once since the last time I called you? Ivar wanted to know. – Have you any idea of just how serious this is?

  – I think about it all the time, she sighed as she sank down on Zoran’s bed.

  The silence at the other end was unendurable.

  – I’ve spoken to a psychiatrist, she lied.

  – Oh yes?

  – He’s going to be able to offer him something. Soon.

  She returned to the dining room. Walking a little unsteadily. Not because of the wine. All three of them looked at her.

  – Everything all right? asked Zoran, reaching out a hand, pulling her in.

  – Yes. She slid down into her chair. – That is …

  There was a slice of tiramisu left, a spoon with cream
.

  – It’s my son, she said suddenly, pushing the plate aside. – He has problems.

  She was overtired and had drunk more than she should. Didn’t usually involve other people in her problems. She had discussed Trym with Zoran, but not even he knew everything.

  – Borderline, said Knut Reinertsen.

  She was startled. – What the fuck do you mean?

  She didn’t often swear in Norwegian; it always sounded as if it was someone else speaking.

  – Your son is going with a woman with a borderline personality disorder.

  Everyone was looking at Knut. He didn’t appear to have any objection to that at all.

  – Aren’t you being just a bit trigger-happy now, Knut? said Zoran.

  – Listen. If a patient comes to you with chest pains, let’s say an elderly man, he’s nauseous, cold sweats, shooting pains in his left arm, what would you say?

  – That’s different, Zoran protested.

  – Is it? If I talk to someone for two minutes and the person in question has all the symptoms of a particular diagnosis? The fact is, most diagnoses are made within the first minute. In your field too.

  Zoran shook his head.

  – This Katja, or whatever her name was, Knut continued. – Not meaning to offend you, Jenny, but it wasn’t hard to see that your son would have problems.

  – Katja, exclaimed Lydia. – Was that her name?

  Zoran looked at Jennifer. – Is it Sigurd that’s in trouble?

  She was still upset. – You’re wrong, Knut. Sigurd is in full control of his life. I’m talking about my elder son. He’s the one who needs help.