Юхан Теорин - The Asylum

The man takes three long strides away from the door and Jan tenses as if bracing himself for an attack; he almost jerks backwards.

But the man stops in the middle of the room and stares at Jan. ‘Thanks,’ he says.

Jan holds up a hand in acknowledgement, but doesn’t move. He can see a shadow over by the doorway. Someone else is waiting on the other side — someone who doesn’t want to step forward and show herself. A patient from St Psycho’s, Jan realizes. Josefine’s mother?

‘Thanks,’ the man says again. ‘We’ll take over now, that’s fine.’ His voice sounds mechanical, emotionless.

‘Good.’ But Jan doesn’t think it’s fine at all. His heart is pounding, his fingers are trembling. Security guards and police officers make him nervous.

He is almost convinced that Rami is Josefine’s mother. That Rami is standing in the corridor, less than ten metres away from him. If he waits just a little bit longer he will see her, he will be able to talk to her.

But the guard takes another long stride into the room, his gaze fixed on the lift, and Jan has to go. He looks at Josefine one last time, gives her a reassuring smile and raises his voice: ‘See you soon, Josefine. I’ll come and get you. Do you remember my name?’

Josefine blinks. ‘Jan.’

‘That’s it... Jan Hauger.’

He has said his name so loudly and clearly that Josefine’s mother must have heard him. It feels as if this is important. Then he closes the lift door and goes back to the Dell.

His legs are shaking after his encounter with the guard, but his mind is full of Rami.

He is sure he was so close up there — so close to making contact with her at last, to being able to explain why things turned out as they did with little William, deep in the forest.

‘Shall we play hide-and-seek?’ Jan asked.

It was the right time to make the suggestion now; he and the nine boys were out of sight of Sigrid and her group. The question sounded more like an order, and the boys didn’t object.

‘You’re it, Jan!’ Max shouted.

Jan agreed; of course he was going to be the one looking for them. But he wagged a finger at them and continued in the same firm tone of voice: ‘Run away one at a time. I’ll tell you which direction to go in. Then hide. You are to wait there until I find you, or shout to tell you to come out. Understood?’

The boys nodded, and he began: ‘Max, you go that way.’ He pointed to some boulders about twenty metres away, and Max turned and sped off.

‘Not too far!’ Jan shouted after him, then chose the next child. ‘Paul, you go that way...’ One by one he sent them off among the fir trees, but always in virtually the same direction.

In the end there was only little William left.

Jan walked over to him. He had never been this close to the boy before, and he crouched down so that he was on the same level. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, as if he didn’t know.

‘William,’ the boy answered quietly, glancing away shyly; this was the first time Jan had spoken to him. To William, he was just another grown-up.

‘OK, William...’ Jan pointed. ‘You can go in that direction, down that little path. Can you see the red arrow?’

William looked, and seemed to spot the arrow, almost a metre in length, which Jan had already fixed to the rocky hillside. He nodded.

‘Follow all the arrows you see down there, William — and when they come to an end, that’s where you hide. I think there’s a fantastic hiding place there. Do you understand?’

The boy nodded again, and Jan placed a hand on his head.

‘You won’t need this,’ he said, taking off the yellow woolly hat. ‘We’ll put it in your pocket.’ Jan pretended to tuck William’s hat into his pocket, but it was just a trick — in fact it stayed hidden in his clenched fist. ‘Off you go!’

William turned and ran, scampering through the forest as fast as he could, just like the other boys — but in a completely different direction.

Jan stood up and watched him go. William had reached the first arrow and set off along the ravine, without any hesitation.

The forest was silent, but Jan felt as if he were standing in the eye of a hurricane. So many things could go wrong — a chaotic maelstrom of risks and potential misjudgements whirled around him.

Calm down , said an inner voice. Just stick to the plan .

He could hear the sound of drums. They were beating inside his head, beating and beating.

He took a deep breath. ‘Stay in your hiding places!’ he shouted. ‘I’m coming, ready or not!’

That wasn’t true. Jan didn’t set off to search for the eight boys who had hidden themselves; instead he made his way through the undergrowth towards the ravine, where the ninth boy had disappeared.

William.

Jan broke into a run.

The main entrance to Jan’s apartment block locks automatically at eight o’clock every evening; after that you need a key or an entry code to get in.

He has been back from work for a couple of hours by this stage; he has had dinner and settled down at the kitchen table with the picture books from the Dell in front of him. He has finished the first book, The Animal Lady; he has improved the illustrations and coloured them in. He wonders what Rami would think of the result.

He has made a start on the next book, Viveca’s House of Stone . He is thinking about how to fill in the faint pencil drawings as he reads through the text.

Once upon a time there was an old woman who woke up one morning. What? What? What? she thought, because she was actually lying in a wooden coffin. She wasn’t very strong, but she managed to lift up the lid and peep out. The room in which she found herself was big, with stone walls and a stone floor.

She shouted ‘Hello?’ into the silence, but no one answered.

She knew only one thing: Viveca. Her name was Viveca.

Jan reads the page twice, then begins to ink in the drawing. Viveca is a skinny woman with big eyes. Her head is sticking up out of a coffin.

It was several days before Viveca felt strong enough to get out of the coffin. Ooh. Aah. Aha! When she finally managed to push off the lid and get up, she saw a shabby dog basket on the floor beside her.

There was a label on the basket that said BLANKER, and in the bottom was a pile of grey dust and an empty dog collar. The dust was in the shape of a dog lying down.

Jan notices that the name Blanker is in this book too, just as it was in The Animal Lady .

He reads on, captivated by the story, as he goes over the thin pencil lines.

Eventually Viveca was able to leave the bedroom; the room next door was huge, with beautiful furniture, but everything was old and very dusty. A white wooden clock was hanging on the wall by the staircase, but when she looked at it more closely, she saw that there was something wrong with the hands. Tock, tick. It was going backwards.

Viveca moved into a hallway; there was an outside door, but it wouldn’t open.

In another bedroom on the ground floor she found two more wooden coffins. They were neatly placed side by side, as if a married couple had decided to lie down in them. A man and a woman? No-no-no — Viveca didn’t want to lift the lids and look!

Next to the bedroom was a closed door, and when Viveca opened it she saw a steep staircase leading down into the darkness. Cautiously she made her way down the steps, and found herself in a cellar. On the earth floor she found a pile of yellow bones. The bones of a monster. Ugh. She quickly went back to her room.

The days passed.