Daniel Åberg - Virus - Stockholm - S1

Dano’s mother and father gather together the few belongings the family still have left – two big rucksacks and a smaller one father always carries on his stomach. The small rucksack contains their most important possessions except for the passports and money, which he keeps in resealable bags in the front pockets of his jeans.

“We’ll wait,” says Dano’s mother. “Let the others off first. They’re not going to close the doors before everyone is off. If we’re allowed out, we’re all allowed out. Also, we’ll get to see where everyone else is going and we can follow. I don’t think they’re going to let us walk along the tracks.”

Father nods and stands Line back on the seat to rest his arms.

“Do you have the mobile, Dano? And can you hold on for another few minutes to pee?”

Dano smiles, holds up the telephone and nods at his mother.

“Do we have the charger?” she asks, and his father pats the front pocket of the smaller rucksack on his stomach. Bilal is crying quietly in his mother’s arms. She shushes him, whispers that everything will be OK, they’re so close, the nightmare will soon be over.

“Only sixteen kilometres left,” Dano hears her whisper before she suppresses a cough and clears her throat. “Only sixteen of five thousand two hundred kilometres left.”

Thank God she spent the morning charging her mobile at work and that it was almost at 100% when they arrived at South General Hospital, Iris thinks as they sit in the emergency waiting room. She would never have managed to keep Sigrid in such a good mood for this long otherwise.

Her arm has already been examined by a young and very stressed doctor. He is wearing a mask. Sigrid’s questioning look prompted an explanation, but the doctor said no more.

Suspected fracture of the elbow joint was the diagnosis, and currently she is waiting for a transfer up to X-ray. If the doctor is right, she shouldn’t need an operation and they can go home with just a cast.

“Mummy,” Sigrid says and turns towards her. “Mummy, why is everyone so sick?”

The telephone isn’t just for entertainment purposes, but also to keep her from asking questions about what is going on around them. It’s not working too well. Sigrid is getting too old for such tactics and often sees things more clearly than Iris herself.

“We’re at the hospital. This is where people come when they’re sick. It can get quite crowded sometimes.” Sigrid stares into space for a while.

Everything’s fine, this is normal, Iris wants to say. The hospital is always this crowded. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to lie to her child, it doesn’t feel right.

The fact is, she’s never seen the emergency department like this. Well, apart from on television perhaps, in one of the more heart-wrenching episodes of ER. But today isn’t about open wounds, agonising screams and broken body parts. Just a lot of very sick-looking people who want everyone to know about it. Sighs, moans, coughs, wheezes and snot everywhere in an unusually vocal form.

And no one called in comes back looking happier, no light skips towards the exit and the adjoining pharmacy, a fresh prescription awaiting them in the computer. Hollow-eyed, sweaty and frustrated, they lumber past.

“Does your arm hurt, mummy?”

Iris nods. “Yes, a lot. I hope we can go and get that X-ray soon.”

“Will you get a cast? ”

She nods again. “I think so. You have to cast a broken bone, so that it will heal correctly and the bones grow back together in the right place.”

Sigrid looks thoughtfully at her mother’s arm resting in the temporary sling the doctor gave her.

Then she looks back down at the mobile, before passing it towards Iris’ good hand. “Can you try daddy again?”

Iris tries to smile naturally. “He’ll ring us when he has the time. I left him a message telling him that we’re here.”

And sent four text messages. And phoned three times when Sigrid wasn’t watching.

“Why isn’t he answering?”

“He’s probably forgotten his phone at home and gone out. Sometimes he works in cafés, I’m sure that’s what he’s doing now.”

“But…”

Sigrid trails off. Iris thinks she should say something, encourage her daughter to express the fear she knows is gnawing at her. But she’s too tired. They have been here for three hours, it’s nearly five p.m. and she feels like her insides are being chewed to bits by the worry.

She was soaked through with sweat when she finally reached the nursery. The hill up to Söder’s highest point by Sofia Church was all she needed in her state. A teenaged boy who had stopped to rubberneck, helped her tie a simple sling using her cardigan but it did little to ease the pain which cut like knives with every step as the bones rubbed against each other. But she didn’t scream, swear or curse her bad luck; it didn’t feel appropriate given the situation. It only took a few seconds for the paramedics to turn their backs on the driver in the small car and go to the van. He was dead, she understood and she didn’t doubt their judgement. It had been horrible to watch, how they ignored the mangled wreckage of his car and brusquely went to attend to the next.

And as no one was interested in her any longer, she left.

“Iris?” A male nurse looks half-heartedly around the crowded waiting room. Iris lifts her other arm carefully and smiles, but the man makes no attempt to return the friendly gesture, at least not that she can see behind his mask.

She takes Sigrid by the hand. “Come, we’re going for an X-ray.”

They walk along endless corridors. She can see now that the waiting room had housed only a fraction of the coughing, sniffing patients that now fill the corridors. Beside the elevators an older man appears to be having difficulty breathing. He also has a fever. A woman sits beside him; she is struggling like him minus the rasping throat sounds, and she looks helplessly around. When she spots the nurse leading Iris and Sigrid towards them, the colour returns to her cheeks.

“Hey! You! He needs help! We’ve been waiting for two hours and his breathing is getting worse. A doctor was supposed to come, but there’s been no one. What are you guys doing?”

He tries to calm her, but she is too upset to hear what he’s saying. “Why isn’t anyone helping us? He’s burning up and his chest is getting worse by the minute. I’m starting to get really scared. Someone has to get him checked!”

“I…” he starts but stops himself and looks around for someone to help. “I don’t know, I work in X-ray,” he finishes and presses the button to call the lift.

“Then take him upstairs and X-ray his lungs! You must be able to hear how bad they are.”

“It… doesn’t work like that,” the nurse replies.

Sweat is pouring down the woman’s forehead. She is gathering energy for another outburst when she catches sight of Iris and stops.

Once the doors have closed, Iris can stop herself no longer, even if she knows the answer will scare Sigrid.

“What’s happening?”

The nurse doesn’t want to reply at first and instead keeps his eyes fixed on the numbers slowly changing in the panel above the buttons.

“I don’t know much more than you,” he says eventually. “It started getting serious around eleven this morning, here and in the clinics. First it was just in the centre of town. A wave of people came in with flu-like symptoms, high fever and a persistent cough, that sort of thing. It goes straight for the lungs. Most people seem to have severe stomach ache too.”

There is a ping and the elevator stops.

He hurries out and points to the right. “We’re going in here.”