Юхан Теорин - The Asylum

‘Were they from women?’

‘Some of them, yes.’

‘Love letters?’

‘Maybe... I haven’t read them.’ Jan has no intention of telling anyone that he opens the letters and secretly reads them.

There is a pile of paper on the table in front of them, a computer printout. Hanna reaches out and brushes it with her fingertips. ‘I wanted to show you this... Ivan gave me the manuscript of his book.’

‘When he was down in the school?’

Hanna shakes her head. ‘That wasn’t Ivan... It wasn’t anyone from the hospital.’

‘So who was it, then?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

Jan gives up. He looks at the manuscript and sees that the title is My Truth . There is no author’s name, but of course he knows who it is. ‘Rössel’s memoirs,’ he says.

‘Not memoirs,’ Hanna says with a quick glance at Jan. ‘I’m just reading it now and it’s a kind of hypothesis.’

‘A hypothesis? On how the murders happened?’

Hanna nods without saying anything. The tea is ready, and she pours them each a cup.

They sit down at the table, but Hanna carries on staring at the manuscript, and in the end he asks, ‘Are you in love with Ivan Rössel?’

She looks up and quickly shakes her head.

‘So what’s all this about, then?’

Hanna doesn’t reply, but she leans forward, gazing at him with those clear blue eyes for a long time, as if she is considering Jan’s appearance.

She wants me to kiss her , Jan thinks.

Perhaps this is one of those occasions when people kiss each other. But when he thinks about kisses he remembers Rami’s mouth pressed against his own in the Unit, and everything feels wrong.

He must think about something else. About the pre-school. About the children. ‘I’m worried about Leo,’ he says.

‘What?’

‘Leo Lundberg... Leo at the Dell.’

‘I know who Leo is,’ Hanna says.

‘Yes, but... I’ve tried to talk to him, tried to care about him, but it’s difficult. He’s not happy... I don’t know how to help him.’

‘Help him with what?’

‘Help him to forget what he’s seen.’

‘And what has he seen?’

Jan shakes his head. The very thought of little Leo upsets him, but in the end he answers, ‘I think Leo saw his father kill his mother.’

Hanna gazes blankly at him. ‘Have you spoken to Marie-Louise about this?’

‘A bit, but she’s not really interested.’

‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Hanna says. ‘You can’t take away someone else’s wounds; they’re always going to be there.’

Jan sighs. ‘I just want him to be happy, like any other kid... I want him to know that there’s a lot of love in the world.’

Even he can hear that this sounds ridiculous. There’s a lot of love in the world . It sounds a bit over the top.

‘Perhaps you’re trying to compensate for that other boy,’ Hanna says.

‘What other boy?’

‘The one you lost in the forest.’

Jan gazes down at the table, then looks up at her. A confession is forcing its way out, like some kind of compulsion. ‘That’s not exactly what happened,’ he says eventually. ‘I didn’t lose him.’

‘No?’

‘No... I left him in the forest.’

Hanna is staring at him, and Jan quickly goes on: ‘It wasn’t for very long... and he was perfectly safe.’

‘Why did you do it?’

Jan sighs. ‘It was a kind of revenge... on his parents. On his mother. I wanted her to feel really bad. And I thought I knew what I was doing, but...’

‘And did you feel better afterwards?’ Hanna asks.

‘I don’t know, I don’t think so... I don’t give it much thought these days.’

‘Would you do it again?’

Jan looks at her and shakes his head, trying to look as honest as possible. ‘I would never harm a child.’

‘Good,’ Hanna says. ‘I believe you.’

Those blue eyes are still gazing at him. He can’t really work Hanna out. Perhaps he ought to stay, talk to her some more, try to find out how she really feels about him, and about Ivan Rössel.

No. He gets to his feet. ‘Thanks for the tea, Hanna. See you at work.’

He heads out into the cold night air and goes straight home, with his rucksack full of Rami’s picture books.

The concert that would end with a kiss and a fight was to be held in the TV room in the Unit.

Seven o’clock was the advertised time, but by then only three people had turned up. The first was the woman in black who had stuck her head around Rami’s door to remind her about an appointment — the one Rami had nicknamed the Psychobabbler. And Jörgen had brought in a little girl with timid blue eyes; Jan had never seen her speak to anyone. She was just as shy as he was.

Jan had set up his drums slightly to one side behind Rami’s microphone, so that he would be heard but not seen. He was already regretting this whole idea.

At five past seven more people began to turn up — the ghosts, as Rami called them. They ambled in and sat cross-legged on the floor. Jan didn’t know many names, but he was starting to recognize most of the Unit’s inmates by now. There were fourteen or fifteen of them, all in their early teens — mostly girls, but a few boys too — some with spiky black hair, others with neatly combed locks. Some sat motionless, some kept on shifting restlessly, looking around the whole time. Were they drug addicts? Were they bullies, or perhaps the victims of bullying?

Jan had no idea why anyone else had been admitted to the Unit. He didn’t know anyone except Rami. And when he saw a skinny young girl stare at her and then lean over to her friend and whisper loudly, ‘Who’s she ?’, he realized that Rami had kept even more of a low profile.

She waited silently at the microphone, her back straight and her face almost chalk-white as she clutched her guitar.

Jörgen went and stood beside her with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, gazing out across the room. ‘OK, people, time for some music. Our friends Alice and Jan are going to play us a couple of songs.’

This introduction was greeted with nervous giggles, and a disappointed question: ‘But what about the TV?’ It was a tall boy in a denim jacket. Jan couldn’t remember his name. ‘There’s ice hockey on tonight... Aren’t we allowed to watch TV?’

‘Of course — after the music,’ said Jörgen. ‘Quiet now.’

But the ghosts were not quiet; they nudged one another and giggled and whispered.

Rami was also suffering from stage fright. Not as badly as Jan, but he could see that she had closed her eyes and seemed to be trying to forget that there was anyone else in the room. And yet there was a clear connection between Rami and the audience — as soon as she opened her mouth, every single person sitting on the floor fell silent. They were all staring at her.

‘OK,’ she drawled into the microphone. ‘This is an American song I’ve translated...’

She began with ‘The House of the Rising Sun’, which suited Jan; this was the drum accompaniment he knew best. Then she went on to her version of Neil Young’s ‘Helpless’, followed by Joy Division’s ‘Ceremony’, both of which Jan had also rehearsed with her.

Rami had begun to relax while she was singing, and there was more colour in her face. When ‘Ceremony’ ended she suddenly turned around, walked over to Jan — and kissed him on the lips.

He stopped playing. The kiss lasted three seconds, but the world came to a standstill.

Rami smiled at him, then walked back to the microphone.

‘This last song is called “Jan and Me”,’ she said, nodding to Jan to signal a four-beat.

He had never heard of the song; he was off balance after the kiss, but eventually he managed to start playing, keeping time with her nods. Rami played a minor chord and began to sing: