Юхан Теорин - The Asylum

Josefine takes off her outdoor clothes and scampers off.

Hanna begins to relax.

‘Excuse me...’ a voice behind her says. ‘Have you seen any handmade books around here?’

Hanna turns around. ‘Sorry?’

She realizes that it is Josefine’s foster mother who has asked the question. Or her legal guardian, perhaps. The woman seems to be in her thirties; her grey woolly hat is pulled well down over her forehead, and she is wearing narrow, black-framed glasses.

Hanna looks at her with curiosity. She has only seen this woman on the odd occasion in the past; Josefine is usually brought to the Dell and picked up by an older man.

‘I left some books here last summer,’ the woman goes on. ‘Four slim books... I wrote them for my older sister, but she wasn’t allowed to have them.’

Hanna knows exactly what she is talking about — Jan’s picture books. But she shakes her head. ‘Sorry. I don’t think I’ve seen them... but you’re welcome to have a look.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. Come on in.’

The woman takes off her shoes and unbuttons her jacket.

Hanna has to ask, ‘Is your name Alice Rami?’

The woman nods and straightens her back, but her expression is wary. Her gaze is very direct. ‘How do you know that?’ she asks.

‘Because... I’ve heard of you.’ ‘Oh?’

The woman is not smiling, but Hanna goes on anyway: ‘You were a musician, weren’t you?’

Alice Rami grimaces. ‘For a little while, many years ago.’

‘What happened?’

Rami sighs. ‘A lot of things happened. My sister was ill; she just kept on getting worse and worse, and I wasn’t feeling too good either. So I stopped playing.’

She is talking about her older sister, Hanna realizes. Maria Blanker.

‘But she’s getting the care she needs now?’ Hanna asks.

Alice Rami nods, and Hanna wants to ask why her sister is locked up inside St Patricia’s. But that would probably be too intrusive. Instead she asks, ‘Do you think she’ll be out soon?’

‘We’re hoping so,’ Rami says quietly. ‘For Josefine’s sake.’

‘Good.’ She nods to Rami with a sympathetic look on her face. ‘I know what it’s like to wait for someone.’

‘Are you waiting too?’

‘I was. I was waiting for a man... a very special man.’

There is a brief silence, then suddenly Hanna hears voices behind her. Marie-Louise and Dr Högsmed have emerged from the kitchen. Högsmed is asking something about a staff locker, and Marie-Louise replies, ‘Yes, he did have one... But we keep a set of spare keys.’

Hanna looks at Rami again. Here she is — the woman Jan Hauger has been waiting for all through the autumn. But in the wrong place, which is slightly ironic.

Jan was never in contact with Alice Rami. He never got the answers to his questions, but perhaps Hanna can try? If she and Lilian aren’t friends any more, perhaps Rami could be her friend? She feels lonely now. Abandoned.

‘We can look for the books together, if you like.’

Hanna hears a rattling sound behind her and looks around. Marie-Louise has opened Jan’s locker; it was stuffed full, and several things have fallen out on to the floor: a raincoat, a small bicycle pump and a number of books.

Hanna doesn’t want to look at Jan’s possessions. She turns back to Alice Rami, and goes on: ‘We can check in the book boxes in the playroom.’

But Rami is no longer listening to her. Her gaze is fixed on a point to Hanna’s right. ‘There they are,’ she says.

Hanna looks around. Rami is looking at the picture books — they are lying on the floor in front of Jan’s locker. And when Hanna looks more closely she recognizes them, of course: The Animal Lady, The Witch Who Was Poorly, Viveca’s House of Stone and The Princess with a Hundred Hands .

Four stories about loneliness.

Hanna is still standing in the hallway, and before she can stop her Rami goes into the staffroom and over to the locker. She bends down between Marie-Louise and Dr Högsmed and picks up the books, one by one.

She leafs through them. ‘Someone has been drawing in these,’ she says quietly. ‘Do you know who’s done these drawings?’

Rami looks up, but Hanna cannot say anything. She can only shake her head, even though she can clearly see Jan Hauger’s face in front of her.

There is a fifth book on the floor; it was lying underneath the others, and Hanna hasn’t seen it before.

An old, black notebook with a picture on the cover: a faded Polaroid that has been stuck on. The photograph shows a boy with blond hair, staring into the camera from a hospital bed.

Rami picks up the notebook. She straightens up and looks at it for a long time. ‘I recognize this too,’ she says eventually. ‘I was the one who took this picture... a long, long time ago.’

She opens the book and reads a name: Jan Hauger . She looks up. ‘Does he work here?’

Marie-Louise looks troubled. ‘No,’ she says quietly. ‘Unfortunately he isn’t with us any more... Did you know him?’

Rami nods, without saying anything further.

Hanna can feel the panic welling up in her stomach. She wants to say something, but Rami just keeps looking through Jan’s diary, staring at the drawings and densely written pages with a look of incredulity on her face.

She keeps hold of the book, and smiles affectionately.

‘Oh yes, I knew him. We were friends, Jan and me.’

Thanks to Kajsa Asklöf, Roger Barrett, Katarina Ehnmark Lundquist, Ann Heberlein, Rikard Hedlund, Kari Jacobsen, Cherstin Juhlin, Anders Parsmo, Ann Rule, Åsa Selling and Bengt Witte, who directly or indirectly helped with this novel.