Юхан Теорин - The Asylum

Jan can’t know that, but he hopes it’s true.

He gets up. The Angel is sitting on the shelf in the hallway. One of the Angels — the transmitter. He left the receiver inside St Psycho’s. The standby button glows brightly; he has put new batteries in. He has thought about switching it on from time to time, but he knows that the distance from the receiver is too great. He would need to get much closer.

Jan stares at the Angel and thinks things over for another minute or two. Then he fetches his rucksack and his outdoor clothes. Dark outdoor clothes.

He doesn’t cycle tonight, nor does he catch the bus. He goes on foot. He chooses the same route as he took last Sunday: a long detour through the forest and across the stream that flows past the hospital complex, then round to the slope at the back, a couple of metres from the fence.

Clouds are scudding by above the hospital grounds.

Jan is close. It is dark now, the darkness of November, and there is no need to hide among the fir trees. He can go right up to the top of the slope, above the stream. Slinking along like a lynx.

The fence around St Patricia’s is lit up like a stage by the floodlights, but deeper in the grounds he can see broad patches of shadow. Pale lights are showing in some of the narrow windows, but most have the blinds drawn. The patients are hiding themselves.

Jan feels as if he is being watched — but not by eyes. By the hospital itself.

St Psycho’s immutable stone façade is staring coldly at him, and he shudders. He would like to retreat back into the forest, but continues along the edge of the slope to a large rock left behind by glaciation. There is a well-trodden path here, which means that people have been walking past the hospital for many years, perhaps stopping to wonder what kind of monsters are locked up in there.

‘ Haven’t you brought any bananas for the monkeys? ’

Jan remembers Rami shouting at a group of middle-aged men in suits who had come to the Unit one evening on some kind of study visit. Perhaps they were politicians. Every single one had looked at her with fear in their eyes, and scuttled off down the corridor.

The Angel’s range is three hundred metres. Jan is less than three hundred metres from the hospital now, he hopes, but he is safe from the floodlights. The pre-school is to the left behind the hospital complex, but it is hidden by the fence and the conifers. Jan looks at his watch: quarter past nine. Time to get started. He puts down his rucksack and unzips it. He takes out the Angel and switches it from standby to transmit.

He leans against the rock and thinks. He doesn’t know what to say, and he doesn’t know if Rami is listening over there. And he can’t say her name, in case the Angel has ended up in the wrong hands.

But at last he raises the microphone to his lips. ‘Hello?’ he says quietly. ‘Hello, squirrel?’

No one replies. Nothing happens.

He looks over at the hospital, silently counting the windows. Fourth floor, seventh from the right. It is one of the windows with a light on, if he has counted correctly. A pale ceiling light. A bulb protected by some kind of mesh, so that no one can smash it?

He takes a deep breath and tries again: ‘If you can hear me, give me some kind of sign.’

He looks at the window, expecting to see a figure step into the light behind the bars. That doesn’t happen, but something else does — the light suddenly goes out. The window is in darkness for a few seconds, then the light comes on again.

Jan feels an icy chill run down his spine.

‘Did you do that, squirrel?’

The light goes out again, this time just for a couple of seconds, then it comes back on.

‘Good,’ Jan says into the Angel. ‘Turn the light out once for yes, twice for no.’

The light goes out again. He has made contact.

‘Do you know who I am?’

The light goes off immediately.

‘Jan Hauger... I’m the one who’s been sending you letters. And I was in the room next door to you years ago. In the Unit.’

The light doesn’t go off this time, but of course he hasn’t asked a question.

‘And your name is Maria Blanker?’

Yes .

‘But you used to have a different name?’

Yes .

‘Alice Rami? Was that your name?’

Yes .

At last. Jan lowers the Angel. He is speaking to Rami at long last.

What can he say now? He has so many questions, but none that can be answered with a yes or no.

The seconds tick by, the drums reverberate inside his head. Jan feels stressed by his own indecisiveness, and blurts out one more question: ‘Rami, can we meet up again? Just you and me?’

Standing in front of a six-metre-high fence, it is a ridiculous question. But the light goes off for a few seconds, then flashes on again.

‘Good... I’ll be in touch soon. Thanks.’

What is he thanking Rami for? He looks over at the hospital, at all those glowing windows, and he feels chilled to the bone, but most of all he feels shut out. Right now he would like to be sitting in there too, together with Rami.

He sets off back through the forest. Back home, where he will try to finish the picture book so that he can show all four of them to her. When they meet.

Who is Rami now? She is the Animal Lady. She has created Jan so that he will find his way over the fence and help her to get away from the house of stone. Away from the Animal Lady’s desert island, away from the forest where the poorly witch lies dying.

Jan sat close to Rami and she held on tightly to his arm, just above the bandages around his wrist. They were holding on to each other. He had finished telling her about the days in the sauna, and about jumping into the pond. He didn’t feel much better, but at least he had done it.

And Rami had listened, as if his story meant something. Then she had asked quietly, ‘Have you told anyone else about this?’

He shook his head. ‘But I’m sure they think I have,’ he said. ‘One of them... Torgny, he rang me three days ago. He was scared, I could hear it in his voice. They probably think I’ve told on them already, but I haven’t.’ Jan looked down at the floor and went on: ‘I know they’ll be waiting for me at school when I go back... They’re just going to start on me all over again.’

He fell silent. He was sitting here feeling terrified at the mere thought of the Gang of Four. He was cowering behind the fence in the Unit, knowing that the gang were out and about on the streets, happy and free. They had each other, they had loads of friends. He had only Rami.

‘And it would be OK,’ he said. ‘I sometimes think it would be nice if there was a button you could press so that everything just ended. I didn’t really struggle much when they threw me in the sauna... I thought I deserved it, I suppose.’

‘No,’ said Rami.

‘Yes,’ said Jan.

The room was utterly silent for a moment, then Rami suddenly said, ‘I’ll take care of them.’

‘But how?’

‘I don’t know yet... When I get out of here.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Soon.’

Jan looked at her. Rami was unlikely to be talking about being let out of the Unit — she was talking about running away.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I know people.’

She got up and walked over to one of the black curtains. ‘I found this in the storeroom,’ she said.

She lifted the curtain, and Jan saw an old black telephone on the floor.

‘Does it work?’

She nodded. ‘Is there anyone you want to ring?’

Jan shook his head. He had no one to ring.

‘I usually speak to my sister in Stockholm,’ Rami went on. ‘I can ring anyone I like.’