The Asylum (24 page)

34

JAN IS TIRED
when he gets home from the Dell well after midnight – not physically, but mentally. The visit to St Psycho’s has used up all his energy.

But he sleeps peacefully for the rest of the night; he wakes at half past seven and sets off for work on his bike an hour later.

Everything looks perfectly normal in the playground. The swings are empty and there are a few plastic spades in the sandpit, waiting for the children.

But when Jan opens the door, he can see that something is wrong. Hanna and Andreas are standing in the cloakroom with some of the children – but Hanna isn’t supposed to be here, she should have gone home an hour ago.

‘Morning, Jan,’ says Andreas.

Jan smiles at his colleagues, but neither of them smiles back. He asks, ‘Everything OK?’

Andreas nods. ‘I think so … but we’re having a meeting shortly.’

‘A staff meeting,’ Hanna says.

‘What, a feelgood meeting?’

‘I don’t know … I don’t think so.’

Andreas doesn’t sound remotely curious. Jan tries to look equally unconcerned, but as he is taking off his jacket he catches Hanna’s gaze for a second. Her blue eyes are just as blank and unreadable as usual, and she quickly looks away.

Fifteen minutes later they are all sitting around the kitchen table. All except Marie-Louise, who is standing straight-backed in front of her staff. She adjusts her blouse, clears her throat and presses the palms of her hands together.

‘There’s something we need to discuss,’ she says. ‘Something serious. As we all know, the rules regarding security here at the Dell are particularly important, but unfortunately there has been a breach.’ She pauses, then goes on: ‘When I arrived at about seven o’clock this morning, the security door leading to the basement was open. More or less wide open, in fact.’

She looks at her staff, but no one speaks. Jan makes an effort to prevent his eyes from darting all over the place.

‘Hanna, you and I talked about this before the others arrived,’ Marie-Louise goes on, ‘and you say you have no idea how it can have happened.’

Hanna nods. Her gaze is steady, shining with innocence.

Jan is impressed.

‘No, it’s really weird,’ Hanna says. ‘It was definitely shut when I went to bed.’

Marie-Louise stares at her. ‘You’re absolutely certain?’

Hanna glances sideways, but only for a fraction of a second. ‘Almost.’

Marie-Louise sighs. ‘That door must always be kept closed.
Always
.’

The atmosphere is oppressive. Jan is sitting next to Hanna, but he doesn’t say a word. He gazes blankly at Marie-Louise, wondering if he was the one who left the door open when he came up from the basement.

Suddenly they hear a bright, cheerful voice: ‘Good morning, fellow citizens!’

Everyone turns to look at Mira, who is standing in the doorway smiling at the adults, with a big gap in her front teeth. Jan knows that she learned the expression ‘fellow citizens’ a few days ago, and she seems determined to use it as often as possible.

‘Good morning, Mira,’ Marie-Louise says quickly. ‘We’ll be there soon! We just need to have a little chat …’

‘But Ville and Valle want to go to bed! We need to get everything ready for them!’

‘Jan,’ Marie-Louise says quietly, ‘could you go and put Mira’s dolls to bed, please?’

‘Of course.’

He is glad to leave the room. This staff meeting is no fun at all; he can feel the thin web of secrets and lies between himself and Hanna, and he is afraid that one of the others might catch sight of it.

‘Good morning, fellow citizen!’

‘Good morning again, Mira.’

She seems pleased that it is Jan who has come to help her. They sit down next to her bed, and he picks up her two dolls and tucks them in under the covers.

Jan is more relaxed in here. He sorts everything out, he makes sure that Ville and Valle are lying comfortably side by side, with their heads on the pillow, and he runs his hand over the sheet to smooth out any creases – but still other thoughts come crowding into his mind.

He is wondering about the open door, of course.
If
he was the one who forgot to close it last night, he will have to pull himself together. Otherwise a camera will be installed at the Dell, sooner or later.

‘There you go,’ he says. ‘Is that OK, Mira?’

She nods and leans over the bed. Each doll receives a pat on the head, then she backs away.

She picks her nose and looks at Jan. ‘What did the man want?’ she asks. ‘Did he come to take Ville and Valle?’

‘What man?’

Mira removes her finger from her nose. ‘The man who was in here.’

‘There was no man in here.’

‘Oh yes there was,’ Mira says firmly. ‘I saw him when it was dark.’

‘Last night, you mean?’

She nods. ‘He was standing
there
.’ Mira points at the floor by the foot of her bed.

Jan looks but doesn’t say anything for a moment; he doesn’t actually know what to say. ‘You were dreaming,’ he reassures her eventually. ‘You just dreamed there was a man here.’

‘No!’

‘Yes, you did, Mira. You do have dreams sometimes. You dream about things even though they don’t exist, and you dream you’re playing outside even though you’re lying in bed. That’s true, isn’t it?’

Mira gives this some thought, then nods again. Jan has convinced her, even though he himself is far from convinced. A man in the children’s room?

‘Good,’ he says. ‘Let’s leave Ville and Valle to get some sleep, then.’

They move out of the room, with Mira skipping on ahead; she seems to have already forgotten what she told him.

Jan does not forget. He goes back to the staffroom, but almost everyone has gone. Andreas is rinsing his cup; Jan pours himself a fresh cup of coffee and asks in passing, ‘Is the meeting over?’

‘Yup.’

‘So what conclusions did you reach?’

‘Nothing startling,’ says Andreas. ‘I mean, we all know the door is supposed to be kept shut. So we need to make sure that we close it properly behind us, and check that everyone else is doing the same.’

‘Sounds good.’

Suddenly Jan hears the main door slam, and turns around. Hanna has just left; she is finally on her way home after her night shift.

Jan pulls on his boots and quickly runs after her. He catches up with her by the gate, and calls out quietly, ‘Hanna!’

She stops and turns around, but her expression suggests that they don’t even know each other. ‘I’m going home,’ she says. ‘What do you want?’

Jan looks around; there is no sign of any adults or children in
the
playground, but still he dare not say too much. ‘Mira’s had a nightmare.’

‘Oh?’ Hanna’s tone is cool and neutral.

Jan lowers his voice. ‘She had a dream about a man.’

‘Yes, well, she’s had dreams before, it’s …’

‘He was standing in the bedroom last night, next to her bed.’

Hanna looks at him, her expression blank, and Jan lowers his voice even more, to a dull whisper: ‘Hanna … have you let anyone out through the sally port at night? A patient who might have gone into the children’s room?’

She looks down at the path. ‘It’s fine. It’s a friend.’

‘A friend? A friend of yours?’

Hanna doesn’t reply; she just looks at her watch and sets off again. ‘My bus will be here in a minute.’

Jan sighs and follows her. ‘Hanna, we need to—’

She breaks in without looking at him. ‘I can’t talk about this any more. You’ll just have to trust me … It’s fine. We know what we’re doing.’

‘
We?
Who’s
we
, Hanna?’

She doesn’t stop; she opens the gate and closes it behind her. Jan stands there watching her as she crosses the road. He thinks about the old joke, which isn’t particularly funny:

Who was that lady I saw you with last night?

That was no lady, that was my wife
.

But he hears Mira’s voice in his head as he walks back into the pre-school:
Jan, who was that gentleman I saw by my bed last night?

And he hears his own voice answering her:
That was no gentleman. That was Ivan Rössel
.

35

ON THE WAY
home after his day shift, Jan makes a decision: no more secret visits to St Psycho’s. No more trips down to the basement, or to the safe room. After the staff meeting with Marie-Louise, that’s it.

He doesn’t think he was the one who forgot to close the door; it seems more likely that it was Hanna, but it doesn’t actually matter. Hanna ought to put a stop to her nocturnal visits too.

Not ought to – she
must
stop.

But when he gets home and opens the door, there is something waiting for him. A large, fat envelope is lying on the hall floor – but of course it isn’t addressed to him. He is only the courier; the envelope is marked S. P.

Jan sighs and steps over the envelope. He doesn’t want to touch it, but it can’t just stay there, and eventually he picks it up. Now he is holding it in his hand, he might as well open it.

Thirty-six letters, large and small. Jan slowly shuffles through them on the kitchen table. None is addressed to Maria Blanker, but eleven of the letters are for the same person: Ivan Rössel. He seems to have plenty of pen friends.

But what do they want?

Jan ponders for a few seconds, thinking about Hanna and the open door. Then he quickly picks up one of Rössel’s letters. It’s an ordinary white envelope, with no sender’s name, and it isn’t very
well
sealed. He fetches a knife and slides it under the flap, which opens almost at once.

Prying
. Jan doesn’t like that word, but he still inserts two fingers in the envelope and removes the contents. There are several thin sheets of paper, covered with neat writing in ink:

My dearest Ivan, it’s Carin again. Carin from Hedemora, if you remember me. It just occurred to me that I forgot to tell you about my two dogs last time I wrote. One is a
dachshund
and the other is a
terrier
. Their names are Sammy and Willy, and they get on really really well, and I love being with them. It’s wonderful when we all go out for a walk together
.

It is so tempting to lose myself in dreams; I often get so
stressed
because there is just so much to do in my life. So much
responsibility
! There are always piles of
bills
and then there’s my job which of course I just
have
to get right, I really can’t take any more time off. And then I have to walk Sammy and Willy and feed them and take care of them every day
.

But I think about you so much, Ivan. I send you all my love. The
heat
of my soul soars above the sky like a burning flame and descends into your room, into your heart. I feel so much
Love
and
Tenderness
for you, and I have read
everything
about you
.

I know that those of us who live outside a prison wall can be trapped by life just as much as those of you who are locked up behind it, and I have thought a great deal about how we can learn to climb over all the walls that surround us. But you make me
free
and I just
long
to meet you …

The letter goes on for three more pages, with lengthy declarations of love to Ivan Rössel and dreams of a life together. A photograph is attached: it shows a smiling woman with two barking dogs.

Jan folds the sheets of paper and carefully puts them back in the envelope, then he fetches a glue stick and reseals the flap. He doesn’t open any more letters.

A love letter to Ivan Rössel. Well, that’s what it sounded like
anyway.
Jan has read that notorious violent criminals who have ended up in prison often get fan mail – piles of letters from people they have never met. Letters from women who want to help them become better people. Do all of these letter-writers want to help Rössel?

Then he thinks about Rami, and the letter he started writing to her. But his love is different. Completely different.

The squirrel wants to get over the fence
, she had written.
The squirrel wants to jump off the wheel
.

That was almost two weeks ago, and he hasn’t written to her since then. And he promised himself that he wouldn’t smuggle any more letters.

In spite of this he gets out a sheet of paper.
If
Rami is in the hospital under the name Blanker, and
if
he were to write a letter to her – what would he write? He doesn’t want to sound like some lovesick stranger, like Carin from Hedemora.

Jan wants to explain who he is. So he picks up his pen and begins to write:

Hi, my name is Jan and I think you and I met a long time ago in another town, in a place called the Unit. Your name was Alice then, but you were tired of it, I remember. You used to play the guitar, I played the drums, and we talked a lot. I liked talking to you
.

And now you are in St Patricia’s. I don’t know why, that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that I want to help you
.

I’ve been drawing pictures in the books I think you left in the Dell, but I want to do more. A lot more
.

I want to find a way in life for the two of us, and I want to help you …

Jan stops and looks at the words.
To escape
– that’s what he wants to write, isn’t it? But he doesn’t do it. He can’t write something like that unless Rami herself wants it to happen.

In the Unit she had talked about running away virtually every day. She wanted to get out of that place, she wanted to go and
see
her older sister, she wanted to go to Stockholm – she was only fourteen years old, but she had big plans.

Jan had no big plans at all. He just wanted to be with Rami.

True love does not die of natural causes. It is murdered by those who rule over us
.

He ought to write that instead; this letter is no good. He screws it up and starts again:

Maria, my name is Jan Hauger and I work at St Patricia’s, but not in the hospital itself. I am a pre-school teacher, but sometimes I think I am a lynx. You have a new name and see yourself as a squirrel now, but when we knew each other you used to be called Alice Rami. Didn’t you?