Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

“And what is he yelling right now?”

“There are two closed doors between us,” she goes on. “But I can hear him yelling.”

“What is he saying?”

“Horrible words. He’s yelling cunt, cunt, cunt .” Lydia’s cheeks were red, and her forehead was beaded with sweat.

“What do you do?” I asked.

She licked her lips again, her breathing heavy. “I turn up the TV,” she said, her voice subdued. “It thunders out, the applause makes the set rattle, but it feels wrong, it’s no good any more. I’m not enjoying it. He’s ruined it. That’s how it is, but I ought to explain it to him.”

She smiled faintly with her lips pressed together; her face had now lost all its colour. The water shimmered in metallic rolls over her forehead.

“Is that what you do?” I asked.

“What?”

“What do you do, Lydia?”

“I… I go past the pantry and down into the rec room in the basement. I can hear whistling and strange buzzing noises from Kasper’s room… I don’t know what he’s up to. I just want to go back upstairs and watch TV, but I keep going to Kasper’s room. I open the door and go in.” She fell silent. The water was forced out through her half-closed lips.

“You go in,” I repeated. “What do you walk in on, Lydia?”

Her lips were moving slightly. The air bubbles sparkled and disappeared upward.

“What do you see?” I asked cautiously.

“He’s pretending to be asleep when I walk in,” she said slowly. “He’s ripped up the photo of Grandmother! He promised to be careful if I let him borrow the picture, and now he’s destroyed it! It’s the only one I’ve got. And he’s just lying there, pretending to be asleep. I need to have a serious talk with Kasper on Sunday; that’s when we go through how we have behaved toward s each other during the past week. I wonder what advice Dr. Phil would give me. I look down and see that I still have the spoon in my hand, but when I look at it I see a teddy bear reflected in the metal. It must be hanging from the ceiling…”

Lydia suddenly grimaced, as if she were in pain. She tried to laugh, but only strange noises came out. She tried again, but it still didn’t sound like laughter.

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I look,” she said, turning her face upward.

Suddenly she slid off her chair, banging the back of her head on the seat. I rushed over. She sat on the floor, still under hypnosis, but no longer as deeply. She stared at me with terrified eyes as I spoke reassuringly to her.

I left the waiting room and walked down the hallway towards my office. The hospital lobby was empty, apart from a few elderly women waiting for transport. It was so beautiful out, I thought I ought to go for a run tonight as soon as I finished work.

Maja was waiting by my office door. Her full red lips parted in a broad smile, and a hair clasp in her coal-black hair sparkled as she bowed to me. With her usual playfulness, she said, “I hope you don’t regret the fact that you’ve committed yourself, doctor.”

“Committed myself? That’s a hell of a thing to say to a psychiatrist.” She laughed, but I still felt the need to reassure her. “Of course I don’t regret it,” I said.

I stood next to her to unlock the door, feeling a distinct tingling inside. But when our eyes met, I saw an unexpected seriousness in her expression, and I was able to dismiss the sensation. She passed me and went inside. It was hard not to be self-consciously aware of my own body; my feet, my mouth. Maja blushed as she took out a folder containing her papers, pen, and notebook.

“What’s happened since we last met?” she asked.

I made her a cup of coffee and began to describe the afternoon’s session.

“I think we’ve found Charlotte’s perpetrator,” I said. “The person who victimized her so badly that she attempts suicide over and over again.”

Maja looked at me with a gratifyingly rapt expression. “Who is it?”

“A dog,” I said seriously.

Maja didn’t laugh; she was well versed in my work. The most daring and the most striking of my ideas was based on the ancient structure of the fable: to depict people in animal form, to assign forbidden acts and proscribed behaviour to beasts, is one of the oldest ways to circumvent narrative taboos or simply avoid truths that are too frightening or too tempting.

It was very easy, almost treacherously easy, for me to talk to Maja Swartling. She was familiar with the subject, she asked intelligent questions, and above all she was an excellent listener.

“And Marek Semiovic? How is he getting on?” she asked, sucking the end of her pen as she waited for my response.

“Well, you know his background. He came here as a refugee during the war in Bosnia but was given help only for his physical injuries at the time.”

“Yes.”

“He’s… interesting… for my research, even if I don’t really understand yet what’s happening with him. When he’s under very deep hypnosis, he always ends up in the same room, with the same memory- he’s being forced to torture people, people he knows, boys he used to play with, shopkeepers he used to buy from, teachers at his school- but then something happens.”

“During the hypnosis?”

“Yes. He refuses to go any further.”

“He refuses?”

“Free will under hypnosis is limited only by the fact that we can’t lie to ourselves.”

Time passed, and it was evening. The hall outside my office was silent and deserted.

Maja put her things away in her briefcase, wound her scarf around her neck, and stood up.

“I don’t know where the time went,” she said apologetically.

“Thanks for listening,” I said, holding out my hand.

She hesitated. “I’m the one who should thank you . I wonder if I could buy you a drink this evening to express my gratitude?”

I quickly ran through my plans. Simone and her friends were going to see Tosca , and she would be home late. Benjamin was staying with his grandfather, and as far as everyone was concerned, I’d intended to work all evening.

“One drink,” I said, picking up my jacket. I tamped down the feeling that I was overstepping the mark.

“I know a little place on Roslagsgatan,” said Maja, “called Peterson-Berger. It’s very simple but really nice.”

“Good.” I turned off the light and locked the door behind us.

It was about seven-thirty, and there was hardly any traffic. We took our bikes and rode down to Norrtull. The spring quivered in the sound of birdsong in the trees.

When we were met by the restaurant’s smiling proprietress, I grew doubtful. Should I really be here? What would I say if Simone rang and asked what I was doing? A wave of unease rose up, but I justified the outing to myself: Maja was a colleague. We wanted to continue our discussion. Simone, who never hesitated to go out alone with friends, was probably drinking wine right now in the restaurant at the opera house.

“I love their spit-roasted chicken with cumin,” Maja said, leading the way to a table at the far side of the restaurant.

We sat down, and a waitress immediately came over with a jug of water. Maja rested her chin on her hand, gazed at her glass, and said calmly, “If we get fed up with being here, we can always go back to my place.” She looked at me expectantly. For a moment I allowed myself to wonder what she was doing here with me. She was gorgeous, young, and outgoing. I must have been fifteen years older than she was, and I was married.

“Maja, are you flirting with me?”

She laughed, showing deep dimples. “My dad has always said I was born that way. An incorrigible flirt.”

I realized I knew nothing about her. “Is your father a doctor too?” I asked.