James Jenkins - The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Volume 1

‘And now you’ll have a proper lunch,’ says Hedda Wallin. ‘So that both body and soul get what they need.’

It’s a lovely walk home. Fru Sandell accompanies them. She’s curious. And a little impertinent. She asks if her friend the doctor takes liberties? She has heard of doctors who do such things. Mesmerize their patients and unbutton their clothes. And if someone were going to unbutton your blouse, wouldn’t it be nicer with someone other than Dr. Lohrman? Hedda Wallin rolls her eyes. Elvira Wallin laughs. Dr. Lohrman is so old. Probably forty. Mother rolls her eyes even more.

‘Totally ancient, in other words?’ Fru Sandell laughs. ‘Do you know how old I am?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Oh no, don’t worry. But that beard of his. The man looks like a little billy goat.’

‘Goat or not,’ Elvira ventures to joke. Cheeky with the adult women. ‘He has his housekeeper there. It’s all very respectable. A tailor is more intrusive.’

They laugh their way up Tegnérsgatan. Even mother laughs a little. That makes Elvira Wallin happy. Mother is often so weighed down with worry. Problems with money and stock shares. Karl and Margareta’s studies. It’s not easy being a single woman and having a hysterical daughter on top of things.

They eat. Vegetable soup and a small cutlet. Mother talks with Fru Sandell. They sit the whole evening and talk about the old times. When they were young and rushed off to dances with officers from the Life Guards. Mother loves talking about those times. How fun it was for her and her friends then. When the king was crowned and there were parties in Stockholm. Before the regiments moved out to the wilderness. They never talk about having fun nowadays. Instead, they get together, the same officers’ wives, and complain. They crochet, help the poor and bake cakes. Talk about books. Zola and Fröding. Politics. Julius Mankell and the Suffrage Union. And they read coffee grounds, go to séances and visit churches. They crochet and embroider. Go to the theater. Go for strolls. Watch the parade of Guards. And have little secret gatherings. Like a secret society. The Göta Life Guards’ Handcrafts Association, mother calls it. A little order of women with education and taste. And ‘who get along fine without men’.

She takes the laudanum in her room. After she’s brushed out her hair. Before she extinguishes the lamp. Two drops in a little glass of water. It tastes strong. Burns like brandy. She takes another dose. Just in case. Blows out the lamp. Lies a little while in the dark and listens for sounds in the house. She waits to get to ride the dragon. To take off in a colorful Chinese dream, but she gets extremely drowsy. She hears steps. Creaking. Distant voices. Elvira Wallin falls asleep to the sound of Dr. Lohrman’s machine and with the bitter taste of laudanum on her tongue. The memory of the spasm creeps up and down her legs. Pulls at her. Tickles. And Elvira Wallin walks down the stairs. The long, narrow backstairs down into the cellar under the house on Upplands­gatan. She dreams. A special laudanum dream. Mother gives her the key there. And Fru Sandell and Fru von Kantzow and Fru Mosander are there too. They stand on the staircase and watch as she goes by. While a wind licks at all their white petticoats. She’s lightheaded. Tired and feverish. She takes someone’s hand. Thinks about the machine. That it was nice to drive the tension out of her body. She wants to try it directly against her skin. Where she can feel it more.

It’s dark in the cellar. A hand is holding her wrist. Someone is standing behind her. Takes hold of her other wrist. Shoves her forward. Towards that which smells. Towards that which twists around her legs, which tears and claws and makes her think of Fru Hansson. Is she the one holding onto her? Elvira Wallin stumbles forward. And falls. She starts to scream in the dream. But doesn’t wake up. It tears at her hair and her petticoat. Presses her down on the dirt floor. She hears Dr. Lohrman’s voice far away. Thinks about Fru Hansson and mother and what she feels is a thousand times stronger than the doctor’s machine. It buzzes and hisses and thrusts until everything goes black.

Elvira Wallin wakes up in the hallway outside her room. On the floor. In just her petticoat. She’s sweaty and her whole body is shaking. Her hair is tangled and there is dirt under her fingernails. She doesn’t cry. Doesn’t scream. She just lies there. Waits out the spasms that shake her body. She thinks that she’s had a fit. That she’s drunk. That her stomach hurts. Her groin. She can’t remember how she got out of bed. She can’t remember where she’s been.

She crawls into bed. Splashes a lot of laudanum in the water glass on the bedside table. A cup of water and opium. It tastes bad. And her head spins until she doesn’t remember anything anymore.

Much later her mother comes in. She’s worried. Elvira has slept too long. Mother found her corset in the kitchen. Does Elvira walk in her sleep? With her frail back, she should sleep tied down. She knows that. Mother goes for coffee. Fusses over her. Sends an errand boy to Dr. Lohrman.

The doctor comes at lunchtime. Elvira Wallin is still lying in bed. Tired and feverish. The maid Signe gave her honey water and wheat bread with butter. Helped her to comb her hair and change her undergarments. Elvira Wallin has long scratches on her legs. From her ankles all the way up around her hips. Thin, superficial wounds. As if a cat clawed her, says the maid. But she wouldn’t have a cat under her skirt. Hedda Wallin orders her to cut Elvira’s fingernails. So that she doesn’t scratch herself like a dog.

‘Do you remember what happened last night?’ the doctor asks. He sits on a stool in the doorway to Elvira Wallin’s bedroom. Fru Wallin and Signe stand in the hallway, silent and out of sight.

‘I went down the stairs.’

‘Again?’

‘Yes.’

‘And it was the same dream you usually have?’

‘Yes. But yet it was so different.’

‘Can you say what was different?’

‘The dream was blurrier than ever before. It was so frightening. I think I’m going to need your machine, Doctor. I have knots of tension.’ Elvira Wallin points at herself. ‘There and there and there and there. It itches so.’

‘Is that why you scratch yourself?’

‘I’m not the one scratching me. They hold onto my hands and scratch me. It’s driving me crazy.’

‘Who scratches you? Is it one person or more than that?’

‘I don’t know. But there are many of them. I can’t see. It’s dark.’

Dr. Lohrman takes off his glasses. Tries not to look when Elvira Wallin scratches the inside of her thigh.

‘I want massage and laudanum. Then I’ll be quite well.’

‘Do you promise to tell then? About what was different?’

‘The patient promises to reveal the most painful and private details of her dream,’ writes Dr. Lohrman. ‘But as soon as she is brought to a strong paroxysm and has gotten her small dose of laudanum, she falls into a deep sleep. The patient giggles during the massage and her mother and the maid have to hold her so that the process can be performed correctly. The little maid who holds the patient’s legs gets kicked in the face and her nose starts to bleed. The tumult attracts the housekeeper Andersson and Fru Wallin’s other two children, who all three stand in the doorway and witness the procedure. The older child, a boy of fourteen, finds the procedure interesting, while his younger sister finds it frightening. When her older sister’s giggles turn to screams, the little girl begins to cry. Fru Wallin reprimands the housekeeper and asks her to take the child away. As soon as the patient’s paroxysm has passed and she has become limp and docile, Fru Wallin lets go of her and runs to see to her younger children.