Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

Simone had been married to Erik for eight years when, fingers trembling, she opened the envelope from Maja. Ten colour photographs fell out onto the kitchen table. The pictures had not been taken by a professional photographer. Blurred close-ups: a woman’s breast, a mouth and a naked throat, pale green underwear, black hair in tight curls. Erik was in one of the pictures. He looked surprised and happy.

Maja was a pretty, very young woman with dark, strong eyebrows and a large, serious mouth. In the only photo that showed her completely, she was lying on a narrow bed dressed in just her underwear, strands of black hair falling over her broad white breasts. She looked happy, too, a faint blush high on her cheeks.

It is difficult to recall the feeling of being deceived. For a long time everything was just a sense of sorrow, a strange, empty craving in her stomach, a desire to avoid painful thoughts. And yet she remembers that the first thing she felt was surprise, a gaping, stupid surprise at being so comprehensively taken in by someone she had trusted completely. And then came the embarrassment, followed by a despairing sense of inadequacy, burning rage, and loneliness.

Simone lies in bed as these thoughts go round and round in her head, spinning off in various painful directions. She remembers the way Erik looked into her eyes and promised he hadn’t had an affair with Maja- that he didn’t even know anyone named Maja. She had asked him three times, and each time he had sworn he didn’t know a Maja. Then she had pulled out the photos and thrown them at him, one by one.

Slowly the sky grows light above the city. She falls asleep a few minutes before Erik returns. He tries to be quiet, but when he sits on the bed she wakes up. Erik says he’s going for a shower. Looking up at him, she can tell he’s taken a lot of pills again. Heart pounding, she asks him the name of the policeman who called during the night. When he doesn’t answer, she realizes that he’s passed out in the middle of the conversation. Simone tells him she called the number, and did a policeman answer? No, it was some giggling woman called Daniella. But Erik just can’t keep awake; it’s infuriating. Then she yells at him, demands to know, accuses him of having destroyed everything, just when she had begun to trust him again.

She’s sitting up in bed now, staring at him. He doesn’t seem to understand her agitation. She says the words that, no matter how many times she has thought them, seem no less painful, sad, or distant from her hopes.

“It might be best if we separate.”

That seems to get his attention momentarily. But Simone is already gathering her pillow and the duvet. Entering the guest room, she lies on the sofa and cries for a long time, then blows her nose. Now it’s really morning. She hasn’t the strength to deal with her family right now. She goes to the bathroom, washes up, then creeps back to the bedroom. Erik is out like a light, so she collects an outfit and dresses in the guest room. She hastily puts on her makeup and leaves the apartment to have breakfast somewhere before she goes to the gallery.

She reads in a café in Kungsträdgården for a long time before she can manage to get down the sandwich she ordered with her coffee. She puts her newspaper down for a moment and looks through the café’s big window, which overlooks a large stage. A dozen or so men are preparing for some kind of event. Pink tents have been erected. A barrier is placed around a small ramp. Suddenly something happens. The men stumble backwards, yelling at one another. There is a crackling noise and a rocket shoots up into the air. Simone leans forward to follow its flight. It rises into the bright morning sky, then bursts in a transparent blue glow, and the explosion reverberates between the buildings.

Simone sits in the office of the gallery, taking in the large self-portrait of the artist Sim Shulman posing in a black ninja costume, a sword raised high above his head, when the phone in her bag begins to buzz.

“Simone Bark,” she answers, forcing the sadness out of her voice.

“Hello, it’s Siv Sturesson from Edsberg School,” says an older woman.

“Oh,” says Simone hesitantly. “Yes?”

“I’m just calling to see how Benjamin is.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“He’s not in school today,” says the woman, “and he hasn’t called in sick. We always get in touch with the parents in cases like this.”

“Right,” says Simone. “I’ll call home and check. Both Benjamin and his father were still there this morning when I left. I’ll get back to you.”

She rings off and immediately calls the apartment. It isn’t like Benjamin to oversleep or flout the rules.

Nobody picks up at home. Erik is supposed to have the morning off. A fresh fear sinks its claws into her, before it occurs to her that Erik is probably lying there snoring with his mouth open, knocked out by his beloved pills, while Benjamin is listening to loud music. She tries Benjamin’s phone; no reply. She leaves a short message, then tries Erik’s mobile, but of course it’s switched off.

She calls out to her assistant at the art gallery. “Yiva, I have to go home. I’ll be back soon.”

Her assistant peers out of the office, a thick file in her hand, and calls out, with a smile, “ Kiss-kiss!”

But Simone is too stressed to return their running joke. Throwing her coat around her shoulders, she picks up her bag and almost runs to the underground station.

There is a particular silence outside the door of an empty house. As soon as Simone puts her key in the lock, she knows no one is in.

The skates lie forgotten on the floor, but Benjamin’s backpack, shoes, and jacket are gone, as are Erik’s overcoat and scarf. The Puma bag containing Benjamin’s medication is in his room. She hopes this means Erik has given Benjamin his injection.

Simone glances around the room, thinking it is a bit sad that he has taken down his Harry Potter poster and put almost all his toys in a box in the cupboard. He was suddenly in a hurry to grow up when he met Aida.

It occurs to Simone that perhaps Benjamin is with her now.

Benjamin is only fourteen, Aida is seventeen; he claims they’re just friends, but it’s obvious that she’s his girlfriend. Has he even told her he has a blood disorder? Does she know that the slightest blow could cost him his life if he hasn’t taken his medication properly?

She sits down and buries her face in her hands, trying to stop all the terrifying thoughts. Simone can’t help worrying about her son. In her mind’s eye she has always seen Benjamin being hit in the face by a basketball during break time or imagined a spontaneous bleed suddenly starting inside his head: a dark bead expanding like a star, trickling along all the convolutions of his brain.

She is overcome by an almost unbearable feeling of shame when she remembers the way she lost patience with Benjamin because he wouldn’t walk. He was two years old and still crawling everywhere. She would scold him and then tease him when he cried. Said he looked like a baby. Benjamin would try to walk, take a few steps, but then the terrible pain would force him to lie down again.

They didn’t know then that he had a blood disorder, that the blood vessels in his joints burst when he stood up.

Once Benjamin had been diagnosed with von Willebrand’s disease, it was Erik who took over the care the condition demanded, not Simone. It was Erik who gently moved Benjamin’s joints back and forth after the night’s immobility, in order to reduce the risk of internal bleeding; Erik who carried out the complex injections, where the needle absolutely must not penetrate the muscle but must be emptied carefully and slowly beneath the skin. The technique was far more painful than a normal injection. For the first few years, Benjamin would sit with his face pressed against his father’s stomach, weeping silently as the needle went in. These days he went on eating his breakfast without looking, just offering his arm to Erik, who swabbed it, administered the injection, and put on a dressing.