Sonja continues without further hesitation and without softening the truth. She speaks quickly. The words fire like machine-gun bullets through the room—unforeseeable and painful, impossible to defend against.
“She writes that her therapy made her realize how sick she is. That she can never be healthy and that she has harmed too many people. The fact is she writes quite a bit about your conversations, what you talked about in detail and when you met. She even gives the dates for certain conversations.”
Sonja stops for a second and rubs her temples but seems to decide that I can bear to hear what comes next.
“She ends the letter by writing that she is taking her life out of consideration for her family and because she now understands that her life lacks meaning, and that she wants to thank you for helping her realize this.”
Darkness.
Suddenly everything goes black. It takes awhile before I realize that I am crying and have burrowed my face deep in the blanket, blocking out all the light. In the distance I can hear Markus awkwardly ask whether there is anyone he can call, and I think I give him Aina’s phone number.
She wants to thank me for helping her realize that her life lacks meaning. The words ring in my head as I lie on the couch and desperately clutch a pillow. I remember an article I read in the Svenska Dagbladet about subway drivers in Stockholm and how difficult it is for them with all the suicides who jump in front of trains. The toughest of all, the article said, was when the jumper makes eye contact with the driver, sometimes even smiles. As if creating a wordless understanding between the victim and the unwilling executioner.
She wants to thank me for helping her realize that her life lacks meaning.
Aina arrives. I can hear her speaking with Markus outside. They talk quietly and quickly, as if they don’t want me to hear. Markus’s voice is calm, Aina’s shriller. Then I feel Aina’s cheek against mine and she says that everything’s going to be okay. I so desperately want to believe her.
No guilt.
No shame.
No regret.
But no real satisfaction either. Not the relief I had expected and perhaps hoped for. Only the aching sorrow in my chest.
But despite that, another step toward the goal, a piece of the puzzle in the grand plan I have so carefully orchestrated is accomplished.
I look around the little room that is mine. At the bare walls and the tasteful furniture. He is lying on the floor under the table. I imagine the roundness of the body under the old blanket I covered him with. On the table the books, complete with detailed instructions. It’s crazy what you can find in the library.
I have laid out everything else that I require on the table. Set in a neat row on top of the plastic tablecloth. Plastic bottles, cans, tools—the shiny steel reflects the cold glow of the ceiling lamp.
I suspect this will not bring me the peace I am seeking either, but that no longer matters.
The plan has acquired a life of its own; it already replaced the final goal a long time ago.
My colleagues sit around the table in silence. Aina stares vacantly into the middle distance and Marianne lowers her eyes to her lap, nervously clenching her hands. Clenches and releases them, clenches and releases. It’s like an incantation.
Sven takes my hand and looks me straight in the eyes.
“Siri, you know it wasn’t your fault. Sara was sick. It happens to all of us sooner or later. Losing a patient isn’t unusual.”
There is no trace of flirty Sven in his eyes, only a safe, friendly, older colleague. And his gaze does not waver. Suddenly I feel infinitely grateful that he is here. I squeeze his dry, warm hand and try to smile back, but it doesn’t work. I just can’t tell him that this has happened to me once before. One time is no time—but two?
“Have another cookie,” Marianne offers in vain. The lemon bars from the bakery on Folkungagatan remain on the plate.
“I’ll see my patients as usual this week,” I say, looking at Marianne with feigned calm, but it doesn’t sound convincing. I can hear my voice quivering.
Marianne nods and looks hastily at Sven, as if seeking his approval, but Sven is looking doubtfully at me.
“Are you sure? You don’t need to play the hero with us. Take some time off instead,” Sven suggests.
“No. I really think the best thing for everyone right now is if I continue as usual.”
I get up, go to the sink, and rinse my coffee cup to show that I have decided and try to look calm and collected as I set the cup in the dish drainer and turn back toward the table, leaning against the sink.
As if in response to an invisible signal, Marianne gets up, brushes the crumbs from her wide hips, and leaves the room. Only Aina, Sven, and I are left.
A rather uncomfortable silence follows. Aina looks at Sven and then down at the table. Sven clears his throat, rubs his palms against his rust-brown corduroy trousers, and looks at me.
“Listen, Siri, I don’t want to beat around the bush: I think you drink too much. Aina told me about your DUI.”
I open my eyes wide and glare at Aina, but she does not meet my gaze. She pushes the crumbs around on the little table with her finger instead. From left to right. From right to left.
“Siri, I know what I’m talking about. Many years ago, yes, long before I came here, I had the same problem myself. Sometimes I wasn’t entirely sober when I went to work. Well, I mean, no one is saying that you’re drunk at work, but—”
I interrupt him. “This is totally absurd. Damn it, I’m not an alcoholic and YOU ought to know that, Aina. YOU’RE the one who gets loaded every weekend. And screws everything and everyone. How did you get the brilliant idea, by the way, to spread this rumor here in the office? And you, Sven, if there’s anyone who has problems with alcohol, it’s you!”
“Siri,” Sven says in a lowered voice, “it’s in the nature of things for you to deny it. It’s not strange either for you to try to justify your behavior to the police. And Aina told me out of pure concern for you. For your sake. And for the patients. Whatever, we both think it would be good if you took a break. To think through this thing about your drinking. To get over Sara’s death. We can take your patients for a couple of weeks. Come on, it’s not a big deal.”
“NO,” I yell far too shrill and loudly. “NO, I have to continue working. Don’t you get it? That’s just what this is all about. He wants me to stop working.”
Aina and Sven exchange worried glances when I mention the man who has no name. The man who perhaps doesn’t exist. I can tell from their expressions that they are wondering whether I’ve gone completely crazy, or if, with a fool’s stubbornness, I am simply refusing to let go of the lie they believe I have created as a protective shield.
Keep working.
There is so much that needs to be done, so many practical things that have to be arranged. Sara’s relatives. I ought to ask the police whether they were informed and if they eventually want to talk to me. A broken family. I know that Sara was only sporadically in touch with her parents in recent years. They had divorced soon after she ran away from the foster home. Her dad moved to Malmö, where he quickly met a new woman and together they had two children. According to Sara, they were happily living in one of the nicer suburbs, and an older half sister, a failure with zigzag scars on her arms and legs, was not welcome to visit and jeopardize their marital bliss.
Sara’s mother lives in a small apartment in Vällingby. Sara told me that she started drinking pretty seriously in recent years but has still managed to keep her job at an insurance company. I know her mom loaned Sara money now and then, but otherwise their visits had been rare, to say the least, with the exception of the failed attempt to celebrate Midsummer together.
At best, a therapist can help people. Help them feel better, get over difficult events, abandon destructive behaviors and ideas. But the first and most fundamental requirement of a therapist is to do no harm.
Shouldn’t I have understood, shouldn’t I have done something to s
top her? Does my inability to foresee Sara’s death make me a bad therapist? Does my lack of insight make me an accessory, an unwilling executioner? She wants to thank me for helping her realize that her life lacks meaning.
With a single rapid movement I sweep the cookie plate off the table. It crashes to the floor. At Sven’s and Aina’s feet, shards of porcelain are mixed with crushed pieces of lemon bars.
Date: September 6
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Place: Green Room, the practice
Patient: Charlotte Mimer
Charlotte clears her throat discreetly, and I realize I’ve been sitting in silence for far too long. She is expecting my comments regarding her entries, and I mumble something positive and laudatory. Because Charlotte truly has made progress. She has managed to retain control over her food and reduced the manic physical exercise she previously subjected her body to.
She is sitting with her slender, manicured hands clasped casually over the purse in her lap, but all I can see is Sara’s skinny dead body slowly being rocked by the waves. Aina and Sven were right. I should take time off. All my energy goes into trying to be present for Charlotte, and yet I can’t seem to muster any real engagement.
“I’ve been thinking,” she says tentatively. “For the first time in my life I feel that I truly question how I’m perceived, how I’m treated.”
Charlotte drums her fingernails against her purse.
“I’m proud that I’ve chosen to focus on my career. I’m proud of my competence. But I only function in my role as a woman. In line with the demands that are placed on women in our society.”
Charlotte looks distressed, and it becomes clear to me that she has suddenly started to question things that she had previously simply rationalized away.
“I am the most qualified marketing manager at our company. I work incredibly hard. But even so, it’s like it’s not enough. My male colleagues have higher salaries and louder voices, and I’m sick and tired of always having to shout to make myself heard.” She interrupts herself, and I see that she is blinking in rapid succession. Her throat is red again, which always happens when she is agitated, and her fingers are drumming faster and faster.
“I mean, it’s like I’ve always thought that talk about glass ceilings and the old boys’ clubs was nonsense. I’ve always thought it’s only my performance that counts. And now I realize that I was… wrong. The guys overtake me, even though I accomplish more. They play golf with the boss and take saunas with the board and God knows what else.”
Charlotte Mimer is angry. Her jaws are clenched and she squeezes her eyes shut as she talks. Her whole posture signals repressed rage. I have never seen her anger so clearly before. And I don’t know what to say. I assume that she is right. What she is saying is true; women are marginalized. I even see it as a therapist. I see how the problems of young girls are trivialized and neglected. I see the lack of treatment homes for girls. How the schools’ limited resources go toward keeping rowdy boys in line while girls are expected to manage on their own. They are expected to navigate a teenage existence so full of demands and contradictions they’re almost doomed.… Again, I see Sara Matteus’s pale face before me. If someone could have seen Sara earlier. If someone could have helped her when she was a little girl. That’s why I simply nod encouragingly at Charlotte.
“The problem is, I don’t know what I should do.”
Charlotte suddenly looks tired.
“If I start bringing up these issues with my boss, I will be perceived as a troublemaker and can forget about advancing my career. Then I might as well go back to… the call center.”
Her expression indicates that this would be a fate worse than death. Something she doesn’t wish even on her worst enemy. My own expression must betray what I’m thinking, even though I am trained to mask my feelings and opinions, because Charlotte suddenly smiles.
“I know,” she says. “There are worse things than working in a call center.”
That statement is so absurd we both start laughing.
“But…” Charlotte hesitates again. “I mean, I know I ought to do something. I shouldn’t just let this slide. I shouldn’t…”
She seems to be bracing herself. Gathering the courage to formulate something out loud that she previously only dared to think.
“Sometimes it feels as if all this therapy has done me more harm than good.”
Charlotte stares out the window as she says this, and I see that she doesn’t want to look at me. Doesn’t want to meet my eyes.
“Before, everything was okay. Not good, not at all, but it was okay. It was my life. I didn’t reflect so damn much on whether it was good or bad, whether it was right or wrong. I just… just was. The way I was. Now I question everything. My work, my role at the company, my bosses, my femininity, my sexuality.”
She sighs deeply, and I notice that the red patches on her neck are spreading down toward her modest neckline. Her forehead shines with tiny beads of sweat that form an almost invisible membrane over the fine-pored skin.
“And I feel so damn angry, too. Indignant. Almost all the time, actually. Angry and disappointed in myself for letting my life slide out of my hands. Angry at my colleagues. At Mom. At Dad. And at you. I feel so damn mad at you because you’re the one who got this all started.”
She looks at me for a long time in silence, and I try to decipher what I see in her eyes: Is it resignation, or something else? Perhaps it is years of suppressed rage bubbling up like dirty water from an overflowing drain.
It is evening. Summer has finally released its hold, and a light drizzle that a westerly wind is pushing out over the sea sweeps over Stockholm. I’m wrapped in a towel and staring out at the gray sea, sitting on the ugly, lumpy mustard-yellow couch in front of my big French windows. Aina is sitting next to me. We are silent. Our bathing suits are hanging to dry on the flaking white garden furniture outside.
Aina has been staying with me for a week now. I haven’t forgotten that she talked to Sven about my life, but I have forgiven her. Now everything is back to normal. On the surface anyway.
She has come to my rescue, knowing how afraid I am of the dark. She also wants us to swim every day. I know she’s worried that if we don’t do this, I will never dare swim in the bay again. I do as she says but without enthusiasm.
The crime scene technicians and police cars are long gone and there is not a trace of what happened on the shore. Sara’s death left no mark, I think, getting up and starting to turn on all the lights out of habit, because it’s getting dark. Aina positions herself half naked on the rag rug and begins her evening yoga routine.
I am walking to the kitchen to get a glass of wine when suddenly there’s a knock at the door. Who could it be at this hour? I put on Stefan’s old navy blue terry-cloth bathrobe and tentatively go to the front door.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“It’s Markus Stenberg, from the police,” answers a gentle voice.
I pull on the sash at the waist and look back toward Aina, who understands and retreats to the bedroom to put something on. Slowly, I open the door and squint out into the semidarkness. Markus is standing in the rain. His hair is wet and from inside the house I can smell his damp wool sweater.
“I apologize for not calling first, but I would like to talk to you. May I come in?” He looks self-consciously at my bathrobe.
“Sure,” I say, gesturing toward the living room. “Aina and I went swimming.”
“May I sit down?” He points at the couch.
I nod and sit down cross-legged on the rug, because there aren’t any armchairs and I don’t want to sit down right next to him. Aina comes into the room and nods at Markus as she sits down beside me.
Markus clears his throat and looks slightly embarrassed at the sight of the two of us—half-naked women sitting on the floor.
“Sara did not commit suicide,” he begins in his melodic Norrland accent, holding my gaze and running his hand through his short, curly hair.
&
nbsp; “We received the medical examiner’s preliminary report today. There was no water in her lungs, which means she ended up in the water when she was already dead. The cuts on her wrists also occurred postmortem. Besides, she was pumped full of sedatives. Benzodiazepines,” he says gloomily. “And alcohol. The body also showed signs of strangulation. Sara was murdered.”
I don’t know what to say. Sara was murdered? Murder seems even more inconceivable than suicide. I want to say something but can’t get the words out.
“But who would have murdered her?” Aina asks in my place.
Markus shrugs. “There are so many reasons to kill someone,” he says, sounding exhausted.
The comment sounds misplaced coming from such a young man.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how little a human life is worth to some people. In any case, are you aware of someone who threatened Sara in some way?”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not!”
“Did she have any enemies? For example, any jealous ex-boyfriends?”
I shake my head again, slower this time, searching my memory for some clue as to why anyone would want to kill Sara, but I cannot remember anything important.
“She had a new boyfriend, an older man. Sara was confused by their relationship, he gave her lots of attention but didn’t want to”—I pause and feel as though I am betraying Sara’s confidence, but continue anyway—“he didn’t want to have sex with her.”
“Was she afraid of him? Did she feel threatened?”
“No, I think she just felt confused.”
“Do you know who he is, what his name is?”
I try to remember whether Sara had mentioned a name, whether she said anything that might reveal her boyfriend’s identity.
“I have no idea, you’ll have to ask her friends. Maybe they know more than me.”
Some Kind of Peace: A Novel Page 11
