This time I dressed myself. Long johns under my jeans, an undershirt, the knitted sweater, and my down coat, hat, and mittens. Artan’s ‘it’s pretty warm out’ ran right off of me. For me it was winter, like the last time we were outside. Artan unlocked the door and then closed it behind us. My heart pounded in my chest as we approached the sliding doors.
There was only snow here and there; the ground was mostly bare, and I walked in the wet, flattened grass, arm in arm with Artan. The air was whining with all the little birds calling out, and it was a sound I had to keep out, so I pulled down my hat. The bolted-down outdoor furniture stood here and there in the hospital park, so you could sit down somewhere and enjoy the weather or a cup of coffee.
‘I thought we would take the path by the water,’ said Artan. ‘It’s a slightly longer walk, but I believe in wearing you out.’
I didn’t say anything to that; I just walked beside him, surrounded by all this life, feeling like a stranger, like something from another time. We walked around the lake, which was still frozen in spots; the small boats were pulled up, upside down on wooden sawhorses, and the owners were there, making sure everything was all right, with their thermoses and oranges.
Artan was walking quickly, his arm linked with mine.
‘Walk, Anna. Walk faster.’
I did as he said and it was like we were flying over the path and around the lake. Who is Artan? I asked myself, that he can fly like this? We encountered people who were out walking their dogs, or just taking a walk, and I blinked at the light, which danced like blue spots behind my eyelids every time I closed my eyes. But Artan was quick with his ‘Look, Anna. Look at that boat, how beautiful it is, painted red and blue,’ and I saw, of course. I saw it all. All of it, I saw. The orange orange peels, the man’s eyes as he watched us flying there, the childish blue watery colour of the sky, the scents of the ground, which seemed to be steaming there at our feet. Artan sped up and I followed him, as if I were stretching myself after him, because now he didn’t care whether I came with him. I fought with my whole being to keep up with his pace.
When we landed in the hospital park again, he said, ‘We missed lunch. I’ll think of something.’
Steam came off me as I entered the ward, and I didn’t want anyone to see it so I hurried into my room and quickly hung my coat in the wardrobe and I just tossed everything else in and closed the door. I threw myself down under the blanket and felt my heart gradually start to beat more slowly. I closed my eyes and the colours behind my eyelids were so bright that they hurt.
Did I want this? Did I want this light? I had no answer, and the questions that arose piled up and tangled up like threads inside me. Artan’s face popped up, first as shadow, and then he appeared for real with his dark eyes and he was carrying a tray. Oh, how I hated these trays, I thought. All the plastic carafes and the soap that was attached to the wall. Oh, how I hated this ward with its fixed times and its particular rhythm that was impossible to slide into.
And yet I wouldn’t go home. I was sure of that. Sure that that time had passed and could never return. I knew nothing about my future, and this severed tie was what I held in my hands.
Was that why I couldn’t get well? No matter how much I liked Urban, we wouldn’t be siblings. Birgitta and Sven and Ulf, they were far behind me and I had travelled on a path they couldn’t tread. There was no way back. Did Urban know that? Deep inside?
‘Boiled cod, potatoes, and peas,’ said Artan, placing the tray on the nightstand.
I ate it all, shovelling it down as if I’d never eaten before. Like a dog, I thought, and I was ashamed for Artan to see me like this. But he didn’t say anything; he just sat there on his chair, waiting for me to finish. When he would eat, I didn’t know.
‘We’ll keep taking our walks,’ was all he said, and he left with the tray.
The stiffness was something I had grown used to. That my body went in different directions. And my thoughts. It was like jumping from one ice floe to the next, with a crevice of cold sea between them. I had found a way to control my tongue, if I had to say anything. Which almost never happened. I didn’t even speak to Artan very much—only the simplest things, the things that were necessary for us to go out. I answered when spoken to, but no more than that. But the light that had made its way in was always there in the dark, and I didn’t want to call it by its true name, but sometimes on my own, in the dark, before I went to sleep, in the embrace of the medicine, I spelled out the word ‘hope.’
*
‘The walks are helping you get better,’ said Bengt. ‘It’s good that you’re accomplishing them. As I understand it, they’re something you look forward to. I would like you to be more active in the ward too. Participate in something, Anna, even if it’s just watching TV after dinner. You don’t have to interact with the other patients at all. It’s fine if you stick to the aides. But force yourself to do something. Play a game. Can we agree on that, Anna? That you’ll play a game next time? I’ll tell one of the aides on the ward.’
I didn’t say anything. A game? What was he talking about? I was supposed to play a game? Bengt had on a white shirt with pale-blue buttons, and the wobbly intern was there too, and he nodded encouragingly at me and I thought he smelled like alcohol, so I said that, ‘you smell like alcohol,’ and he said, ‘what do you know about alcohol, Anna?’ ‘That it’s a curse,’ I said, and at that word, curse, he wrote something down on his notepad.
‘Curse, that’s a strong word, Anna.’
As if there were strong and weak words, and he leaned toward me and I asked what a weak word was, but he didn’t answer; he just leaned back again and ran his hand through his hair. He did that several times, until Bengt said, ‘Then we have an agreement. I’ll tell Rodney; he’s coming tonight.’
We sat out in the hall and it felt threatening, with everyone who might go by; I had still only looked at Sara, and the others were like shadows flitting by. I was afraid of them, it was as simple as that. That we were alike, and that I would see that likeness if I looked at them. I had never sat on the candy-striped sofa before; I’d only seen it out of the corner of my eye.
‘This is Yahtzee,’ said Rodney, trying to catch my eye. ‘There are five dice, and you have to collect different things. Just roll the dice and I’ll explain it as we go.’
He gave me the dice and I took them, of course; I held them in my hand.
‘Throw them on the table,’ said Rodney. ‘You can do it.’
I threw the dice on the table. The sound when they landed on the surface of the table.
‘Look here. You have two fives. Save those and roll the other dice again. You’re going to collect fives,’ he explained.
I threw them again. ‘Skritch,’ it sounded in my head.
‘There, another five. Good. Roll again.’
I took the two dice and tossed them out on the table. A four and a three.
‘Fifteen for three fives. That’s good. You have to have at least three of all these up here in order to get a bonus. Now it’s my turn.’
Rodney rolled the dice and I curled up in a ball, because I could feel someone passing by very close to me. It ran through me like a shock and I stared at the dice Rodney had thrown.
‘I’m collecting twos. Watch now, Anna.’
I watched as he rolled again and he got three more twos.
‘Yahtzee,’ said Rodney. ‘I got really lucky there,’ he said, sounding apologetic. He probably wanted me to win, but I thought about the shock that had gone through me, which I could still feel like a mix between a blow and a caress.
‘Rodney, can we stop now?’
‘Yes,’ said Rodney. ‘It was good that you tried. Next time we’ll play longer.’
I nodded and went into my room. Sara was there, and she was lying down and reading a magazine, but I didn’t care. She wasn’t a danger to me. We weren’t alike. I was sure
of that, and the bed received me and I crept under the blanket and the sheet and it was like half of me was asleep and half of me was wide awake. I tried to put the awake side to sleep, the side that wandered out into the ward looking for something. I saw Rodney sitting in the common room, and Nurse Inga handing out medicine. And then the line of patients outside the nurses’ office. Who was there? A girl with her hair up in a ponytail. Was it me? What was I doing there? And behind me in line, a man, and I turned around and looked into his face. It was Conrad. It was Conrad, standing there with his black hair and his eyes coloured by the sea and he looked at me and for one instant each of us saw who the other was.
‘Anna,’ he said. ‘Anna, are you here?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m here.’
I took his hand. It was dry and warm and it closed around mine. Conrad’s hand. My father. It was my father, standing in front of me and holding my hand. It wasn’t frightening like everything else. Had he been there all along? I looked and looked into his eyes, which told me that I was lost and found. I wanted to say something more to him, something important, but I was back in my bed and all alone. What had happened? The giant’s foot pressed into me and I sank into bed and Inga who came in with the medicine shouted my name. Why was she shouting? I got the IV and that meant I would end up in the soft place without colours and I took them and asked for more and the moment was over and Conrad had never been there.
Inga moved on to Sara, who was crying, and Inga sat down with her for a moment and I died there, in bed, and no one noticed it, how the darkness threw itself over me. I said some sort of farewell and if I were ever to wake up again I would be in a completely different place.
-
THE LIGHT. THE white light hitting us. And the scents: dirt and something sweet was there behind it, blending together. We walked across the dry mountains and listened to the crickets. Conrad’s hand was dry and soft, and he held me just like I held him. We walked on the path, and the sky was round as a ball with the sea down there.
‘The sea,’ said Conrad. ‘That’s the sea, Anna.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s the sea.’
Because I could see. I saw the blue-green down there, stretching all the way to the horizon. We walked and it was like we were walking in heaven, because the clouds were below us. Now I’ve seen the sea, I thought. Now it can all end. We were so small beside the sea. Destroyed, without knowing it. The mild breeze stroked my cheek, pulled gently at my clothes. We climbed down, grabbing onto small bushes so we wouldn’t fall.
Down, down to the sea that glittered. Then a roar behind us: an airplane breaking away and climbing, just behind us. I could almost reach up and touch it. I followed the plane’s path across the sky, the white line it was writing on the sky.
‘They’re going to die,’ said Conrad, and I nodded.
I could already see it before me. The dead hanging in their seats as the plane travelled on through the sky. The dead pilots and the cargo of gods that had come to fetch us.
‘But we’re already here,’ I whispered. ‘We are already here.’
Conrad, climbing down there. I had to get to him. I wanted my distance to him to be as short as possible, so I put one foot behind the other and pulled leaves from the bushes and the strong scent of the bushes hit me. Down there: a small rocky beach. We were heading for it. I slipped and slid down, cutting my knee, but I didn’t care about the blood; I only saw Conrad and the sea down there.
The beach unfolded. I took off my clothes. I walked straight in and took my first stroke. And then another. My body stretched out with my strokes and I could feel the water all around me, like a caress. The water seemed both to hold me and to push me on. I heard Conrad behind me. He was swimming too. I saw a point out there, where the sea met the sky, and that’s where I was going. I was happy? Certainly that’s what I was, with my body just stretching out in stroke after stroke. I was happy with Conrad there behind me. So terribly happy.
-
-
On the Design
As book design is an integral part of the reading experience, we would like to acknowledge the work of those who shaped the form in which the story is housed.
Tessa van der Waals (Netherlands) is responsible for the cover design, cover typography, and art direction of all World Editions books. She works in the internationally renowned tradition of Dutch Design. Her bright and powerful visual aesthetic maintains a harmony between image and typography and captures the unique atmosphere of each book. She works closely with internationally celebrated photographers, artists, and letter designers. Her work has frequently been awarded prizes for Best Dutch Book Design.
Paul Citroen (1896–1983) was a Dutch artist and teacher who received his education at the Bauhaus in Weimar. His oeuvre includes paintings, photos, and stamp designs. His most famous work is perhaps “Metropolis” (1923), a photo montage of a large city that inspired the German director Fritz Lang in the making of the now classic film of the same name. The photograph on the cover is of his niece Eva Bendien, who was born in Arnhem in 1921 and later went on to become a gallery owner and art dealer.
The cover has been edited by lithographer Bert van der Horst of BFC Graphics (Netherlands).
The Helios Disaster Page 10
