Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

Carefully, I brought everyone out of the hypnosis, checking to make sure each of them was all right before I started the discussion. Marek wiped the tears from his cheeks and stretched. He had big patches of sweat under his arms.

“I was forced to do it, that was their thing. They forced me to torture my old friends,” he said.

“We know.”

He looked at us with a shy, searching smile. “I laughed because I was frightened. I’m not like that. I’m not dangerous,” he said.

“You liked hurting people,” Lydia said with a soft smile. “Why can’t you admit that?”

“Shut your mouth!” yelled Marek, moving over to her with his hand raised.

“Sit down,” I said forcefully.

“Don’t shout at me, Marek,” Lydia said calmly.

He met her gaze and stopped. “Sorry,” he said, with an uncertain smile; he ran his hand over his head a couple of times and sat down. I called for a break.

It was a gloomy day. Rain hung heavily in the air. The wind blowing in was cold, and carried with it a faint smell of wet leaves, a reminder of winter that made me feel glum. My patients began to return to their seats.

Eva Blau was dressed all in blue; she had even painted her narrow lips with blue lipstick and made up her eyes with blue mascara. She seemed anxious as usual, placing her cardigan around her shoulders and then taking it off, over and over again.

Lydia was talking to Pierre; as he listened, his eyes and mouth contracted in painful, repetitive tics.

Marek had turned his back on me. His body-builder’s muscles twitched as he searched for something in his backpack.

I waved to Sibel; she carefully stubbed out her cigarette on her shoe and replaced it in the pack.

“Let’s continue,” I said, intending to make a fresh attempt with Eva Blau.

Although Eva Blau’s face was tense, a teasing smile played across her blue-painted lips. I was wary of her pliancy; it was a form of manipulation. I had an idea of how I could stress the voluntary nature of hypnosis to her, though. It was obvious to me that she needed help to relax and begin to sink.

I watched Eva as I told everyone to let their chin drop to their chest. She immediately reacted with a big smile. As I counted backwards, I could feel the descent against my back, the water enveloping me, but I remained alert. Eva was sneaking a look at Pierre, trying to breathe with the same rhythm.

“You are sinking slowly,” I said. “Deeper down into rest, into relaxation, into a pleasant heaviness.”

I moved behind my patients, seeing their pale necks and rounded backs; I stopped behind Eva and placed a hand on her shoulder. Without opening her eyes she turned her face up slowly, pushing her lips out slightly.

“Now I am talking only to Eva,” I said. “Eva, I want you to remain awake but relaxed the whole time. You are to listen to my voice when I speak to the group. You will feel the same calmness, the same pleasant immersion, but you will not be hypnotized; you will remain awake throughout.”

I felt her shoulders relax.

“Now I am speaking to everyone again. Listen to me. I am going to count, and with each number we will sink deeper, deeper into relaxation. Eva, you will accompany us, but you will remain conscious and awake all the time.”

As I returned to my place I counted backwards, and when I sat down in front of them I could see that Eva’s face was limp, completely relaxed. It was almost hard to believe it was the same person. Her lower lip was drooping, the wet, pink inside a stark contrast to the blue lipstick, and her breathing was very heavy. I turned inwards, let go, and sank through the water in a dark shaft. We were inside a shipwreck or a flooded house. A stream of salt water came up to meet me from below. Air bubbles and small pieces of seaweed floated by.

“Keep going, deeper, calmer,” I exhorted them gently.

After perhaps twenty minutes we were all standing deep underwater on a perfectly smooth steel floor. A few odd molluscs had managed to attach themselves to the metal. Small clumps of algae could be seen here and there. A white crab scuttled sideways across the flat surface. The group stood in a semicircle in front of me. Eva’s face was pale, her expression faintly surprised. A grey, watery light billowed over her cheeks, reflecting and flowing.

Her face looked naked, almost innocent, when she was so deeply relaxed. A bubble of saliva formed at the side of her open mouth.

“Eva, tell us what you can see.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Tell the rest of us,” I urged calmly. “Where are you?”

She suddenly looked strange. It was as if something had surprised her. “I’ve gone away. I’m walking along the soft track with the pine needles and long pine cones,” she whispered. “Maybe I’ll go to the canoe club and look in through the window at the back.”

“Is that what you do now?”

Eva nodded and puffed out her cheeks like a sulky child.

“What can you see?”

“Nothing,” she said, quickly and firmly.

“Nothing?”

“Just one little thing… I am writing on the road outside the post office with a piece of chalk.”

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing important.”

“And you can’t see anything through the window?”

“No… just a boy. I’m looking at a boy,” she slurred. “He’s lovely, really sweet. He’s lying on a narrow bed, a sofa bed. A man in a white terry-cloth robe lies down on top of him. It looks nice… I like looking at them. I like boys. I want to kiss them.”

Afterward, Eva sat there, her mouth twitching and her eyes darting back and forth over everyone in the group. “I wasn’t hypnotized,” she said.

“You were relaxed; that works just as well,” I replied.

“No, it didn’t work at all, because I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying. I made it all up. I just said whatever came into my head. It was all just in my imagination.”

“So the canoe club doesn’t actually exist?”

“Nope,” she replied tersely.

“The soft track?”

“I made everything up,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

Eva Blau was a person who exerted an effort never to give away anything about herself. It was obvious she was troubled by the fact that she had been hypnotized and had described events she was really involved in.

Marek spat silently into the palm of his hand when he noticed that Pierre was watching him. Pierre blushed and quickly looked away.

“I have never done anything to boys,” Eva went on, raising her voice. “I’m nice. I’m a nice person. Children like me. All children like me. I’d be happy to babysit, Lydia. I went to your house yesterday, but I didn’t have the nerve to ring the bell.”

“Please don’t do that again,” said Lydia quietly.

“Do what?”

“Don’t come to my house again,” Lydia said.

“You can trust me,” Eva went on. “Charlotte and I are already best friends. She cooks for me, and I pick flowers for her to put on the table.” Eva’s lips twitched as she turned to Lydia once again. “I bought a present for Kasper. It’s a fan that looks like a helicopter. It’s fun. You fan yourself with the rotors.”

“Eva,” said Lydia darkly.

“The rotors are plastic, soft plastic. It’s not dangerous at all, he can’t hurt himself with it, I promise.”

“Don’t come to my house,” said Lydia. “Do you hear me?”

“Oh, not today, I can’t come today. Today I’m going to Marek’s. I think he could use some company.”

“Eva, you heard me,” Lydia persisted.

Eva responded with a smile. “I haven’t got time tonight.”

Lydia’s face grew white and tense. She stood up quickly and left the room. Eva remained in her seat, gazing after her.