Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

The haunted house . Those few words written on a piece of paper have the power to transport him back to the past, to the time when he was still involved with hypnosis. He knows that against his will he must walk up to a dark mirror and try to see what is hiding there, behind the reflections created by all the time that has passed.

The porter taps gently on the door. Erik opens it, confirms his request, and wheels in the stand with the television and the oddly antiquated video player. He inserts the tape, turns off the overhead light, and sits down. “I’d almost forgotten this,” he says to himself, pointing the remote at the machine.

The picture flickers and the sound crackles and breaks up for a little while, and then he hears his own voice coming from the TV. He sounds as if he has a cold as he dutifully notes the place, date, time, and conclusion. “We have had a short break but are still in a post-hypnotic state.”

Erik is riveted by the shaky picture on the screen. It’s been ten years, he thinks, swallowing hard. The video steadies, revealing a half circle of chairs. Then Erik appears, and begins to tidy up. There is a lightness in his ten-years-younger body, a spring he no longer has. Here, his hair is not yet grey; the deep furrows in his forehead and cheeks do not yet exist.

Almost too well, Erik remembers the atmosphere in the room that day. The group was still affected by the first phase of hypnosis before the break, when they were disturbed by the arrival of the new member. They had got to know one another, had begun to identify with one another’s stories. The new addition was deeply unsettling. This, Erik realizes, is what he’s about to see.

The patients come into view, moving listlessly; they sit down on the chairs. A few talk in subdued tones. One laughs. Others sit in silence. The tape is grainy, and their blurred faces are difficult to make out.

Leaning forward in his chair, Erik swallows hard and hears himself explaining in a tinny voice that it is time to continue the session. He sees himself standing by the wall, making notes on a pad. Suddenly there is a knock on the door, and Eva Blau walks in. Even on the tape, across the distance of years, Erik can tell that she is under stress. He can make out patches on her throat and cheeks as he watches himself take her coat, hang it up, and lead her over to the group; he introduces her briefly and welcomes her. The others nod warily or perhaps they whisper hello; a few take no notice of her, staring down at the floor instead.

The group was usually made up of eight people, including Erik. Therapy focused on investigating each person’s past under hypnosis, gradually approaching the most painful point. This hypnosis always took place in front of the group and together with the group. The idea was that this way they would all become more than witnesses to one another’s experiences; via hypnotic openness, they would be able to share the pain and grieve together, as in collective disasters.

Eva Blau sits down on the one empty chair and stares straight into the camera; her face is suddenly sharp and hostile.

This is the woman who broke into his home ten years ago, he thinks. But what did she steal, and what else did she do?

On the screen, Erik introduces the second part of the session by referring back to the first and follows up with playful free associations. This was his way of lightening the mood, helping the group feel that a certain spirit was possible despite the dark, bottomless undercurrents constantly swirling inside everything they said and did. A patient named Pierre is conjuring “a hippie on a chopper” when Eva suddenly leaps to her feet with a crash, protesting the exercise.

“This is just childish nonsense,” she says.

“Why do you feel that way?” asks Erik.

Eva doesn’t reply but sits back down, crossing her arms tightly.

Getting no response, Erik turns to Pierre to see if he would like to carry on with his association, but Pierre shakes his head and forms a cross with his index fingers, pointing them at Eva. “They shot Dennis Hopper because he was a hippie,” he murmurs.

A young, stocky woman- Sibel, her name was Sibel-giggles and glances sideways at Erik. A patient named Jussi clears his throat and raises his hand in Eva’s direction. “In the haunted house you won’t have to listen to our childish non… sense,” he says, in his slow and heavy Norrland dialect.

Everyone falls silent. Eva whips around to face Jussi, but whatever she means to say, something makes her change her mind. Perhaps it’s the seriousness in his voice, maybe the cool expression in his eyes.

The haunted house . The words reverberate in Erik’s head as he stares at the old video frames. He hears himself explain to Eva the principles behind the process of hypnosis, how they always begin with group relaxation exercises before he moves on to hypnotize one or two individuals.

He watches himself pull up a chair and sit down in front of the semi-circle, getting them to close their eyes and lean back. While their eyes are closed, he stands up, talking to them about relaxation; he moves behind them, observing the degree of relaxation in each of them individually. Their faces become softer, looser, less and less aware, more and more incapable of lies, secrets, defences. Erik stops behind Eva Blau and places a hand on her shoulder.

As he watches himself begin to hypnotize her, Erik’s stomach tingles. The younger Erik gently slips into a steep induction with hidden commands; he is so totally assured of his own skill, so pleasurably aware of his ability.

“You are ten years old, Eva,” he says. “You are ten years old. This is a good day. You are happy. Why are you happy?”

“Because the man is dancing and splashing in the puddles,” she says, her face moving almost imperceptibly.

“Who’s dancing?”

“Who?” she repeats. “Gene Kelly, Mummy says.”

“Oh, so you’re watching Singin’ in the Rain ?”

She nods slowly.

“What happens?”

Eva closes her mouth and lowers her head. “My tummy is big,” she says almost inaudibly.

“Your tummy?”

“It’s huge,” she says, and the tears begin to flow.

“The haunted house,” whispers Jussi. “The haunted house.”

“Eva, listen to me,” Erik goes on. “You can hear everyone else in this room, but you must listen only to my voice. Pay no attention to what the others say, pay attention only to my voice.”

“All right.”

“Do you know why your tummy is big?” Erik asks.

“I want to go into the haunted house,” she whispers.

In his hospital office, Erik gets up off his chair, massages his neck, and rubs his eyes, aware that he is moving closer to his own inner rooms, closer to what has been packed away.

Looking at the flickering screen, he mutters, “Open the door.”

He hears himself counting down, immersing Eva more deeply in the hypnotic state. He explains that she will soon do as he says, without thinking, she will simply accept that his voice is leading her in the right direction. She shakes her head slightly and he continues counting backward, letting the numbers fall.

The picture quality suddenly deteriorates; Eva looks up with cloudy eyes, moistens her lips, and whispers, “I can see them taking someone. They just come up and take someone.”

“Who’s taking someone?” Erik asks.

Her breathing becomes irregular. “A man with a ponytail.” She whimpers. “He’s hanging the little- ”

The tape crackles and the picture disappears.

Erik fast-forwards to the end of the tape, but the picture does not return: half the tape is ruined, erased. He sits in front of the blank screen. He can see himself looking back out of the deep, dark reflection. He can see the face of the man he was then, together with his face as it is now, ten years older. He looks at the video, tape 14, and he looks at the rubber band and the piece of paper with the words the haunted house.