Хьелль Аскильдсен - The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

The days pass. I don’t know exactly how many. I am quite sure that I am the talk of the town. I haven’t spoken to anyone I know since I came in here, no one at all. And that’s fine with me, I have no wish to see or to speak to anyone. I will, however, have to speak to the doctor some day soon. I find it hard to fall asleep with my constant stream of thoughts, and when I finally do, I always awaken with the feeling of having slept for eternity. It doesn’t help much that the days are long and full of light. Unlike my soul.

I am admitted onto the hospital’s psychiatric ward—the secure one—and referred to a shrink. I miss my children. A lot. To escape my constant stream of thoughts, I have started walking. Up and down the hallways like a stray mutt looking for an owner. I count my steps. A doctor walks past. His smell, the smell of men, hits my nostrils, and I think immediately of Fari. If he could see me now, he would think it would be best to put me down like the dog I am. That I deserved it. Even though all of this is his fault! Stop using scent! What the hell do you get out of it?! You are a bastard, an abuser of women! You shit! I am immediately surrounded by hospital personnel. They take me back to my room and strap me to the bed. I’m still screaming. Louisa, calm down. Bastard! Never come here again! You mean nothing to me! My broken voice carries itself down the hall. Like the whine of a wounded animal.

After having been on the ward for days, examined closely under the psychiatrist’s magnifying glass, I receive my diagnosis: nervous breakdown. The psychiatrist suspects that this is a result of inherited patterns of behaviour … As soon as I hear this, it feels as if my muscles finally relax. Resignation. When I look at myself in the mirror, a stranger looks back at me. I no longer see myself.

I resume my walks up and down the halls, but these are led now by the conversations I have with the voices, which have taken up residence in my head. Without having consulted with me first, my body has started to walk differently. The steps are shorter, and when I stop and stand still, my feet fight restlessly to carry the weight of my body. I am no longer in control of my body. I am convinced that I share my body with someone else. Another me. The voices in my head never agree: one voice says that I am here because I killed my daughter, while another says that it is the doctors who are out to kill me . That I have been filled with lies and manipulated into believing that I have killed. I don’t know what I should believe.

I am placed before the District Court. It decides that, due to my psychological state, I should neither serve time nor be punished in any other way. Can this really be true? Can I really come home? My reactions are slow. My mother… My mother… My mother… The sentence sits waiting in my throat without wanting to come out. It is my mother’s fault. She is to blame. But my mouth will not obey.

There are conditions for my verdict. Conditions for the freedom I have been sentenced with. My children are taken from me, and complete custody given to Fari. I am classified as incapable of taking care of myself, as someone you have to be careful with, someone who could be a danger to her surroundings. It is further concluded that the best option for me would be to be placed in the care of my mother. To my horror, she has offered to be my guardian. My mother … I stutter. The judge looks at me calmly, smiling faintly. Yes, yes… you can go home to your mother…

I hide away in my thoughts. It would be best if I just ended it all here. I can’t get over the urge to take my own life. I begin looking in the cupboard, I want to be free from the pain of the mind. Now. I can’t, the pain, my body simply cannot handle it. I open the cupboard, where we keep all the little things, and find a cord that would work. I take it out without hesitating.

In my restless state I can no longer control my thoughts. My pain, my grief is too consuming, it has swallowed me whole. I go into my room and tie the cord securely to the door handle. With my back against the door, I lower myself slowly down into a squatting position. I carefully wind the cord around my neck. I try to work out how long it should be. Deliberately, I make it a little shorter and then, finally, I tie it firmly around my neck.

I am calm when I let go. I cannot think clearly. The only thing left is the pain. It will be gone soon. In a little while there will be nothing left. The cord is tight around my neck, and my arse is almost touching the ground. I hang there, noticing how the pain and the grief are gradually leaving my body. Sounds become muted. They are coming from far away now. My heart is pumping blood rapidly around my body in a vain attempt to save something which cannot be saved. My pulse increases as too much blood gathers in my brain. My vision starts to flicker and fill with white noise. It is too late to regret this. My whole body aches with doubt now, but everything goes black. It is too late.

They say that she need not do anything, because she is an only child. From morning until night her parents wait on her every need. They cut up her dinner for her. Zip up her jacket when she is getting dressed. Tie her shoelaces when she puts on her shoes. She is the beloved only child, the favourite child, Arsugaq. She is picked up in a car when school is out. She must not walk, no, because she risks being run over or being kidnapped by some drunkard. As soon as she comes home, it’s “…don’t run around like that, you might hurt yourself. Sit down and relax and play with your iPad…” Between the piles of dusty toys she sits all day with her iPad, sneezing.

Mum is always saying how Arsugaq is the second tallest in her class. She acts like she is concerned about her height, although really she’s proud. But when she talks about her daughter, she omits to mention how Arsugaq cries when she doesn’t win in a competition. Because Mum knows that she has not raised her right. She dismisses it with comments like “…she’s just so stubborn!”, but Arsugaq, the little doll, finds it hard to understand what Mum tells her. She only knows that she mustn’t make her angry.

One day Mum and Dad come home in a particularly good mood. “We’ve got something for you,” they say with smiles of anticipation. Arsugaq looks at the package on the table. It’s a large package. “Go on, you can open it,” they say. She opens her gift; it’s a puppy. Dad places it down on the floor and turns it, so that it starts to move around on the floor. Mum claps her hands together and laughs. But Arsugaq doesn’t find it funny. The hard puppy with the fake fur stops moving. She picks it up, examines it carefully and then tosses it in with all the other toys covered in dust. She has always wanted a dog. A dog to walk her to school. A dog that would wait outside for her all day. A dog that would be overjoyed when she came home. A dog that she could sleep with in her room filled with toys. A dog that could keep her company in her loneliness in the midst of all the dust.

Her classmates are on their way to the after-school club, while Arsugaq is getting picked up in the car, as always. She runs over to the car; today she has something to be pleased about. She gets in the back and takes a gift out of her school backpack, which she hands to her mum.

“I’ll open it at home,” says Mum, smiling into the rearview mirror. When they get home, Arsugaq reminds Mum about opening her gift. “Oh, yes!” she says. It’s a trivet, which Arsugaq has made in school from a cork plate covered with orange fabric, on which coloured needles have been glued to each other to form circles. Mum is pleased and thanks her, kisses her on the cheek and places the present in the cupboard. Arsugaq is sad because she used so many of her needlework classes on making this for Mum, simply for her to shut it away like that. She knows that the cupboard is used for storing all of the junk that never gets used. Arsugaq had hoped that Mum would like it because it was so colourful. At home, everything is white.