Me on the Floor, Bleeding

by Jenny J

‘So you live with your dad?’

  Give it a rest! I wanted to say. The words were just about to leave my mouth when I remembered how he had so readily, so unselfishly, offered me his time, his design studio and his T-shirt. Ah, his T-shirt. I crossed my arms over my chest to try and hide it.

  ‘Yes. I mean, I go to Jana’s – my mum’s – at the weekends. Every other weekend.’

  ‘I see.’

  He forehead was creased and I could see how much he was longing to ask why. I saw it in his look, in the small wrinkles around the corners of his mouth. I had seen that look on adults before. I said nothing, allowing the wrinkles to slowly disappear. It seemed as if he wasn’t going to ask and I thought good for him for making the more commendable choice. But just when I had relaxed a bit, it came. The question.

  ‘Not that it’s got anything to do with me, but how come you live here and your mother lives there?’

  Why did everyone think it was such a massive problem that I lived with Dad? Or, let me rephrase that: why did everyone think it was such a bloody great problem that I didn’t live with my mum? There seemed to be something really aggravating about a mother who didn’t look after her child full time, but these days I couldn’t even be bothered to go through the issue of different demands being placed on men and women, and how a child who goes to its dad every other weekend isn’t put through the same invasive interrogation.

  ‘She likes the dialect, the trams, the football team. How the hell do I know?’

  He looked at me and I looked at him. I struggled to look indifferent and unmoved. I stared at him as if he was a dead object, a dead pointless object. I gave him that look. Mum’s look.

  I repeated to myself:

  He doesn’t mean anything, he is nothing, he is a stone.

  Eventually he looked away. There was a concerned look in his eyes. I had won but it hadn’t made me especially glad.

  At last he seemed to notice the T-shirt and gave a start when he saw the blood stain. His eyes narrowed in suspicion and I saw him trying to make out the text. Then he looked at me again and I stared challengingly back. He averted his gaze, got up from the desk, and walked towards the door. He was halfway into the corridor when he asked me to switch off the lights. I put the shelf under my arm and walked towards the door, banging my fist on each switch. The humming stopped and it went black. I wished I had a switch connected to my brain.

  So that it could finally be dark and silent.

  No thoughts to think.

  No longing to long.

  A Two-dimensional Aquarium for Tiny, Tiny People

  I didn’t go to school on Wednesday. I didn’t even make a half-hearted attempt to get up when the alarm on my mobile went off. Dad had left early that morning so I didn’t have to confront him. I was woken up anyway at nine o’clock by a dazzlingly beautiful sun that did not match my mood in any shape or form. Yet again I had forgotten to pull down the blind.

  Out of habit I checked Dad’s emails and his Facebook page but there was nothing there apart from yet another cry of desperation from a wounded Denise. I deleted her and that felt good. I was more than happy to delete a few losers here and there. Perhaps I had the potential to be someone who guns down her classmates? I had the clothes for it, anyway. I even owned one of those floppy sports bags and there was a full-length leather coat hanging in my wardrobe.

  I lay down on my bed again and looked at the wallpaper. In its black and white psychedelic pattern I could make out virtuous little lambs as well as wicked devils. I phoned Vrinnevi a couple of times but Dr Roos was busy, so very busy, and did I want to leave a message? No, I’d phone back. It was both a bitter disappointment and a massive relief each time.

  Enzo called during the mid-morning break and I stared at the display where his name was demandingly illuminated but I was incapable of answering.

  At eleven-thirty, as I lay channel surfing and half asleep on the sofa, there was a ring at the door. I dragged myself up, tip-toed into the hall and peered through the peephole. There stood Enzo, just as I thought. It was now lunch break. He waved at the peephole and I realised that somehow he must have heard me. I opened up.

  He stepped in and shut the door quietly. We looked at each other, embarrassed, and said nothing. He was wearing a green Adidas jacket with white stripes down the sides. It was nice – he looked nice in it. Several times he drew breath as if to say something, but he remained silent. I tied and untied the silk belt of my dressing gown, but it wouldn’t go right, somehow. Eventually he managed to say:

  ‘Have you … cut your hair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I ran my fingers through my hair.

  ‘It’s, um, nice. Short, like. Aren’t you well?’

  ‘Yes and no. Depends how you look at it.’

  He went on, falteringly. He was probably not too good at this sort of thing. But who is?

  ‘How … how are you feeling, then?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Okay,’ I said in a low voice, and went back to the sofa, switching off the sound of the TV with the remote.

  I heard him taking off his shoes. He followed me into the sitting room and sat on the sofa, on the saggy part, which made him lean awkwardly towards me.

  ‘So … did something happen in Norrköping or … I mean, you’ve been a bit weird since you came home. Well, not weird but … up and down. Changeable. I mean, you don’t seem to have been feeling very well.’

  ‘No.’ I laughed. ‘I don’t feel very well.’

  ‘Do you want to … talk about it?’

  I shrugged again. Did I want to talk about it? I didn’t know. He looked at me unhappily and I looked unhappily back.

  ‘What are you watching?’

  ‘It’s called a TV. It’s like a two-dimensional aquarium for tiny, tiny people. Minus the water.’

  He smiled as he said:

  ‘Cool.’

  We sat like that for a while, side-by-side, looking at the TV screen where the tiny, tiny people moved about and opened and closed their mouths like fish. After a while Enzo asked if he could turn up the sound and I laughed and said no, and he turned the sound up. I asked if I could rest my head in his lap and he looked surprised, but said yes. In the two-dimensional aquarium there was a film, an American comedy that wasn’t funny. Enzo rested his hand on my shoulder. At first he was tense but then he relaxed; I felt his body become softer and his hand heavier and I don’t think we had ever been as close as we were then.

  And as I lay there staring at the screen with an unfocused gaze, something suddenly came back to me: a memory sharp as a knife and vividly illuminated in the magnesium white. Clear and cold.

  I am about three years old. I’m standing beside Mum and she is reading in the armchair. I pull at her trouser leg, trying to get her attention, to let her know I want to pee and need the potty. I know I’m not supposed to interrupt Mum when she’s reading, not unless it’s absolutely necessary, but I have waited so long and now I can’t wait any more.

  ‘You’ll have to be patient,’ she says distractedly, turning the page. ‘I’ve nearly finished.’

  I wait. I see particles of dust lit up in the afternoon sun and I hope Dad will be home soon, but I have a feeling he won’t. Perhaps not for a very long time.

  Some pee has leaked through my knickers – only a little, enough to make it feel cold between my legs. I clench as hard as I can, standing with my legs crossed, and I think one thing and one thing only: I mustn’t wet myself.

  ‘Jana,’ I say again. There is desperation in my voice.

  ‘You’ll have to wait! Soon, I said.’

  But I can’t wait any longer, I can’t wait another second, and the cold changes to warm. And for a couple of seconds it feels almost pleasurable as the pee comes, and I let go and let all of it out. It’s a warm stream down my leg, to my foot and to the floor. I look at Mum. She is reading. She doesn’t notice.

  The pee turns cold immediately; it stings like the shame that swiftly and weasel-like replaces
the pleasure.

  Mum closes her book.

  ‘So kleine. Done. Now.’

  When she sees it is already too late she is furious. Her eyes – I am afraid of them. They are so harsh.

  ‘I told you to wait, didn’t I?’ she says, and her voice is cold and angry and she holds my arm tight and drags me to the toilet where she briskly sits me down on the potty. I have to sit there for a long, long time, even though it is all fairly pointless.

  There isn’t a drop left to squeeze out.

  Enzo got ready to stand up. I didn’t let him. I made my head heavy.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Break’s nearly over.’

  Gently he lifted my head from his lap, stood up, and left me. I lay there with my cheek against the sofa cushion that was still warm from his body. I heard him carefully put on his shoes, open and then close the front door. And leave me.

  I lay on the sofa all day in my silk dressing gown, like a glamour-girl in a detective novel. I saw the sun sink in the sky. At some stage, I don’t remember when, I got up, fetched the phone and called Mum’s mobile. It went straight to voicemail and I assumed her battery had run out. So I phoned Vrinnevi but by this time Dr Roos had gone home. Then I phoned the university. At first I heard Mum’s recorded voice saying: Jana Müller, and then one of those automatic voices took over, saying: “Extension three four five six is not available. Please try again after the thirtieth of April. If you would like to leave a message …” I hung up.

  I blinked, hard.

  So she had been in touch with the university. I assumed that was good but I couldn’t bring myself to feel happy about it. I only noted coldly that her plan clearly was to return. The thirtieth of April. In twelve days.

  She had contacted the university. But not me.

  I went out onto the balcony. The air was cold and clear, as it can be in spring. The sun was setting behind the trees and dusk was closing in on the horizon. Dead flowers were sticking up from the window boxes: brown snapped-off twigs with one small, light green stem that had survived the winter against all odds. I counted twelve cigarette butts in an old plant pot with a wilted stalk in a sodden lump of earth. Was that Dad’s weekend ration? Or several weeks’ worth? Or was it desperate Denise?

  It hurt so much that no one had contacted me, that no one had phoned. Not Mum. Not … Justin. I didn’t know him but I missed him, missed his copper-red hair, his white body, his pale, pale blue eyes. Short fragments of memory flashed through my brain: his pink washed-out jeans and his hot breath on my neck. The tweezers and the whisky. Timberlake and lime cocktails. My hands under his top there in the forest, his muscles tense from the kayak. Dampness and pine needles and moss. His hands under my nightdress by the stairs, my shoulder blade pressed against the floor, his body heavy on top of mine. The smell of pale yellow rubber, of honourable intentions.

  I didn’t know him but I missed him. I didn’t even know if I was in love, but I missed him.

  I missed him.

  I leaned my forehead on the balcony railing. It was icy cold and cooled my whole face as I pressed my cheek, mouth, chin against it.

  The tower at Telefonplan changed colour again. It was now glowing a bright turquoise in the window. Stark and slender it rose like an exclamation mark over Hägersten. There was a number you could ring and choose which colour would light up each level by pressing different buttons on the keypad. It was some kind of art installation. I phoned directory enquiries and was given a number that I called. I was driven on by the hope of power. Power to make something change. Something big.

  The voice at the other end said you could make every colour by mixing red, blue, and green, but I didn’t understand that. How could you make yellow? I became almost obsessed about making yellow. I phoned and phoned, mixed and mixed, and it went green and red, and cerise and lilac, but not yellow. Perhaps someone else was phoning at the same time because the colours in the mast were not always the ones I pressed. I phoned again and again, and pressed the numbers, heard the ringing at the other end, more green, three, three, three, less blue, four, four, four. But I couldn’t get yellow. If only I could get green minus blue, I thought, but you couldn’t press minus, only plus. In the end I made a pale pink colour and that was the closest, so I settled for that. I said to myself:

  ‘I’m happy with that. After all, I’m not a complete head case.’

  When I heard Dad’s key in the lock I hung up and came in from the balcony. As silently as a cat I crept into my room and shut the door.

  THURSDAY, 19 APRIL

  Obsessed

  It was Mum’s forty-fifth birthday and I had just stepped out of the shower.

  Forty-five years. And she wasn’t even giving me the opportunity to congratulate her.

  I hadn’t set the alarm for today either, but even so I had opened my eyes at one minute to seven, as wide awake as if someone had poured a bucket of ice-cold water over me. I still wasn’t quite sure whether it was right to give into the enormous resistance I felt about going to school. I tended towards a “dunno”. A resounding “dunno.”

  Dripping water I walked through the flat, looking for a towel which wasn’t quite as wet as the one Dad had left on the bathroom floor. I went into my room and managed to bump my hip against the chest of drawers where the laptop was standing. I swore. The screensaver disappeared and Dad’s inbox appeared.

  A new email had turned up.

  From Mum. It had been sent only thirteen minutes earlier.

  My heart stopped.

  I touched the screen gently as if it would bring me closer to her. Then I sat down on the bed and carefully lifted the laptop from the chest of drawers, balancing it on my wet thighs. I took a breath and held it, to steel myself. Then I clicked on the email and it opened out across the screen like a flower slowly opening its petals.

  Jonas

  Last week I found out I have Asperger’s Syndrome.

  Naturally the confirmation is completely overwhelming.

  A total shock, to be honest.

  I am familiar with the diagnosis. I read about it while I was studying and afterwards too, and I noticed certain similarities with my own behaviour, but I still thought the symptoms I read about were much worse than the ones I have.

  In general you can say that the diagnosis concerns a dysfunction in the ability to socialise and communicate.

  How ironic: me, who always thought I was so good at communicating. But over the last few years I have started to realise that I do not communicate in the conventional way. I know I’m direct – too direct, some say. Can you be too direct? For me that is incomprehensible.

  When I talked to my parents they said that Swedes are difficult because they talk around the subject, they don’t say what they really think. You have to work it out for yourself, interpret what it means when they look down or turn their head away. Germans are more straightforward. They are explicit, they tell you what they are thinking and what they expect from you. That’s a simplification, of course, but it’s the way I have been thinking. I thought it was a culture clash and I’m still not sure it isn’t, even if I understand of course that it isn’t only that.

  A person with Asperger’s finds it hard to read other people’s body language, understand what others are thinking and as a rule is socially clumsy and therefore finds it hard to make friends.

  It always worries me when I am with other people. There are few people I can feel completely relaxed with. You were one of them, before. Maja is one, of course.

  So I want to ask you: is that why? Is that why I am so alone? And is it a relief, then, to understand why? Or is it a burden?

  I had to gasp for air. It felt as if someone had forced me down to the bottom of the ocean and anchored me there in the dark, chained to a rock. I was desperate to come up to the surface, desperate to breathe, to get oxygen!

  I looked around the room in confusion. There were my everyday things, my clothes, my books – meaningless objects that I once thought were worth something
. I struggled to understand. The only way was to go back. So I dived down again, returning voluntarily to the dark water.

  People with Asperger’s frequently have special areas of interest that completely absorb them, that they become obsessed with. I do not want to believe that’s true.

  I do not want to believe it’s that simple.

  It feels as if the only things I am genuinely intensely interested in – literature, psychology – have been reduced to symptoms of my illness! Except it isn’t an illness, they tell me, correcting me. Even if that’s what I’ve been calling it all the time. No, not an illness, but a “syndrome”, a “disability”, “a collection of personal character traits”, “a disposition”.

  Of course. You can recover from an illness, but not from this.

  Many people with Asperger’s are dependent on routine.

  I blushed when the psychiatrist said that. He might just as well have given me a slap. It felt as if he had been reading my private notebooks.

  My routines help me, I want to have them. They aren’t a problem for me, they are the solution! He said he thought the upset in my routine explained why I had to be hospitalised after our divorce almost thirteen years ago. Yes, I said. And also because I felt sad, I thought, but I didn’t say it. Perhaps I’ve become Swedish now, I thought, now that all of a sudden I’m not saying what I think. That was a joke, Jonas. You see, I am joking. It is a social skill to be able to joke. But of course you have to joke in the right way, at the right time. Was this the right way, Jonas? The right time? Oh, it’s a hard balancing act. It’s so hard that you keep falling into the ditch time and time again. Can you see how I am also using metaphors? People with Asperger’s find metaphors and similes difficult, find it hard to joke and most of all to understand other people’s jokes. The psychologist said it was something that could be learned and practised, but that in general it does not come naturally for someone with this diagnosis.

  But I feel it comes naturally. Doesn’t it?

  I don’t know anything any more. Nothing feels certain. I have to re-evaluate myself, my surroundings, my entire life.