Christian Jungersen - You Disappear

“I did call him. Often. But he hung up on me every time.”

Now I know he’s lying again. Shit. Only Niklas and I know the codes for the phones. Why do I keep having these moments where I believe him? They just wear me out.

Softly, I say, “Fine. Come along, Frederik, we’re leaving now.”

“I’m not going before Laust says he’ll save the school.”

“Yes you are. Come, we’re leaving.”

“No.”

I’m used to him fighting me tooth and nail until finally he does what I say anyway. I get up. “Come Frederik, we’re going now.”

“I won’t. I’m not leaving.”

“But you never called Laust, damn it. You can’t, after all.”

“I got permission to borrow Niklas’s phone, as long as I let him hear what I said.”

Right away I know he’s telling the truth. And the repercussions of what Niklas has done are enormous. “But we’re involved in a court case, God damn it! Neither of us is supposed to talk to Laust unless we’ve agreed with Bernard first about what we’re going to say.”

Frederik looks up at me. “Bernard? But he’s not our lawyer anymore.”

“No no, I know that. Not Bernard. The new … Neither of us is supposed to talk to Laust unless we’ve agreed with the new lawyer …”

It comes to me in a flash: the strong urge to be done with it all. As if it were unfolding before me, I see how I take quick long strides out to Laust and Anja’s kitchen without letting anything distract me. How I find Laust’s carving knife on the left side of the fourth drawer from the top. How I — before I myself or anyone else has a chance to think or feel a thing — draw it across my throat. Freedom. Joy. It’s over.

The silence, the sense of purpose, the knife.

One of Frederik’s psychiatrists told me that when she’s making a diagnosis, it’s important for her to listen to her own feelings. If a patient makes her nervous, it might be because the patient is afraid and can ease his fear by spreading it. Or if a patient makes her confused, perhaps it’s because he finds life chaotic.

Frederik sits at my side. He’s tensed like a boxer waiting for the fight bell to ring for the next round, but I have to take these suicidal impulses seriously. Only by listening to them will I be able to understand him.

And it comes to me that when we get out of here, we need to drive to the psychiatric emergency room at Hillerød Hospital. I’ll have to put up with sitting by myself again in some sad waiting room while he’s being examined — this time for life-threatening depression. But if he’s going to give me such vivid fantasies, I don’t dare shoulder the responsibility for him alone.

• • •

It’s Sunday. For four days, Frederik’s been in the hospital, under observation for depression. I’ve lain in bed since Friday afternoon. The curtains are drawn. The blackbird outside the window lacerates my ears, and nothing’ll stop it.

In another hour and a half, the realtor’s coming by with three families to see the house. Everything’s a mess, and I need to wash my hair before going out. I can’t put it off any longer.

While I’m standing under the showerhead, I hear my cell phone ring. Could it be Bernard, wanting to take on our case and see me again? I run to the bedroom and find the phone on the dresser, but the display doesn’t show any calls. For a moment — perhaps longer — I sit naked on the edge of the bed, though it makes the mattress wet.

Back in the shower. It smells bad in here, I think. I need to air it out before the buyers come — better that it’s too cold than that it stinks. Now the cell’s ringing again. Or is it? There’s an echo of distant melody, my ringtone, but it might just be the shower water splashing on the floor and the crooked green tiles. The tones could be arising spontaneously.

I run back to the bedroom anyhow. Once more there haven’t been any calls, and once more I sit down on the bed.

This time I leave the cell on the table in the bathroom while I finish showering, and when I’ve dried my hair, I bring up his number. It’s something I’ve been doing often, each time with some convoluted new pretext in my head, and each time I stop myself before the decisive depression of the call button. The pretexts are all too transparent anyway.

Now I’ve found the simplest, most watertight excuse yet. I press the button, and when he answers I assume my most innocent voice.

“Hi Bernard, it’s Mia. Sorry I didn’t take your call, but I was in the shower.”

“What?”

“Yes. You called, but I was in the shower.”

“I didn’t call.”

“Well that’s weird. I must have been looking at a list of old calls … Well, uh, you’ll have to excuse me.”

It’s quiet for a bit.

His voice. “How are you doing?”

The voice is deep, it booms from my cell’s tiny speaker in a way that it doesn’t boom in person. I know both timbres so well. We actually don’t need to talk anymore. That was all, I just needed to hear his voice. Now I can relax, now everything’s better.

He asks again. “How are you, Mia?”

“Not that great.”

“What happened?”

“Frederik’s in the hospital. They think he might be suffering from depression.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it? Isn’t that a sign of progress?”

“Yes, it’s good. I don’t know …”

Then it’s quiet again.

“I don’t know,” I say once more. “What about you?”

“To be completely honest, things here aren’t going so well either.”

“What’s wrong ?” I find myself shouting, as if he’s suffered some disaster.

“Well, it isn’t—”

“Yes?”

“No, it isn’t so … It’s just Lærke, she’s been struggling with some stupid sores she gets because she sits so much.”

I see vividly before me the spongy sores she might be getting from poor circulation in her buttocks.

And then without warning: he says it in the space of a second, and the tone of his voice is something I’ll replay again and again in my head. “I end up saying too much to you, Mia. It just slips out. I’m not cross, but you shouldn’t call me again. I need to hang up. I’m sorry.”

Hastened. From one moment to the next. And then a click. Then three short beeps, and quiet. I memorize the sound of his voice — and the click — and the three beeps. They all fuse into a single sound: the last I’ll ever hear from him.

A wan diffuse light lies upon the maze of small and rather deserted streets of low yellow row houses. Andrea lives here, and the support group is meeting at her place tonight. Three times I think I’ve found a parking spot, and each time it turns out to be reserved for disabled drivers. Perhaps the buildings here have been especially designed for wheelchair users? Petals from a cherry tree speckle the lime-green surface of the car in front of me, which has a handicapped sticker in the window.

As I maneuver my car into a tight space a little farther away, I catch sight of Kirsten; she stops and stands waiting for me. Two weeks ago, she told me on the phone that her husband had been admitted to the hospital again. The doctors say she might get him home in a couple of months, but it could also be that he’ll never return.

Together we walk over toward Andrea’s house, and on the way we meet Gerda and Anton. They’ve already heard from others in the group that Frederik was only in Hillerød for a few days, and that he’s been home again for a week now. Gerda tells us she’s finally gotten a new caseworker from the local authorities, but Merethe already told me.

Andrea lets us in, and she gives me a great long hug. She’s the group member I talk most to on the phone. Every time I call her, I feel a strong desire to take care of her — to protect her from her hard life with two small children and a husband who has multiple handicaps. But in reality, she’s the one who looks after me. Despite a demanding career as a biologist, she always has time to pose the right questions, to listen, and to come up with new suggestions about neurological research — like her tip about the Iowa Gambling Task — that might save Frederik in his court case.