He couldn’t answer. The wash basin was on the wall to his left. He had to go and wash his hands. Had to wash away the touch if he had indeed happened to touch the armrest.
‘As you know, the fever is not going down, and we did a new EKG yesterday. The infection in the aortic valve is not subsiding. At regular intervals it’s releasing small septic embolisms, small particles, one might say, filled with bacteria. These bacteria go straight up to her brain stem, and that’s why she continues to be struck by new blood clots in the brain.’
‘I see.’
‘This is the third clot she has had in two months. And with each new one her level of consciousness drops.’
He had heard things like this before. The doctors always told him the worst so as not to give him false hopes.
‘You have to try and accept that she will never wake up from her coma.’
He could no longer fight it, and he stood up and went over to the wash basin.
Four steps. Not three.
He had to wash his hands.
‘There is nothing more we can do to help her. Deep inside you know that too, don’t you?’
He let the water run over his hands. Closed his eyes and felt the relief when the pressure eased.
‘You have to start to let go now. Try to move on.’
‘She reacted when I massaged her this morning.’
Dr Sahlstedt sighed behind his back.
‘I’m sorry, Jonas. I know how hard you’ve struggled to help her, and we all have. But it could be a matter of weeks or months now, we don’t know. In the worst case she could remain like this for another year.’
In the worst case.
He let the water run. Stood with his back to the man who claimed to be Anna’s doctor. Ignorant idiot. How could he claim to know what was moving inside her? How many times had he massaged her legs? Sat next to her and tried to straighten out her crooked fingers? Brought her perfume and fruit to keep her sense of smell alive? Never. The only thing he had done was to hook up some wires to her skull, press a button, and then draw the conclusion that she was incapable of feeling anything.
‘Why does she react then?’
Dr Sahlstedt sat in silence for a moment.
‘I’ve been trying for a long time to get you to talk with some of our . . . some of my colleagues here at the Karolinska Institute, but . . . now I’ve actually taken the liberty of making an appointment for you. I’m convinced that it could help you get through this. You have your whole life ahead of you, Jonas. I don’t think that Anna would want you to spend it here at the hospital.’
The sudden fury came like a liberator. The compulsion died down and retreated to the side.
He shut off the tap, took two paper towels, and turned around.
‘You just said that she couldn’t feel anything. Then why would she care about that?’
Dr Sahlstedt sat utterly still. A sudden beep from his breast pocket broke the silence.
‘I have to go. We’ll talk more another day. You have an appointment with Yvonne Palmgren tomorrow morning at 8.15.’
He tore off a yellow Post-It note from the pad and held it out to him. Jonas stood motionless.
‘Jonas, it’s for your own good. Maybe it’s time you started thinking a little about yourself.’
Dr Sahlstedt gave up and stuck the note on the desk top before he went out the door. Jonas just stood there. Talk to a psychiatrist! What about? She would try to get into his thoughts, and why should he permit that? He’d been so successful at keeping everyone away from them up till now.
Anna was the only one he had let in.
She was his and he was hers. That’s how it would always be. For two years and five months he had devoted all his time to making her well again. Trying to make everything all right. And now they wanted to get him to accept the fact that it had all been in vain.
Nobody was going to take her away from him.
Nobody.
When he came outside it had started to rain. On the nights he spent at the hospital he always took public transport because the parking fees were so high. They charged round the clock, and he couldn’t afford it any more. He buttoned up his jacket and walked towards the subway.
He was terrified of the night, well aware of what was waiting. It was in the loneliness of his apartment that the control took over. The constantly nagging feeling that there was something important he had forgotten. The tap in the bathroom, had he turned it off properly? And the gas rings on the cooker? And what about the door, did he really lock it? Then the temporary calm when he had checked that everything was as it should be. But what if he had bumped into the light switch in the bathroom when he walked past without noticing it? Maybe he had managed to turn on the cooker just as he was checking that it was off. And he was no longer sure that he had locked the door. Had to check again.
The simplest thing was to stay away. Then he knew that everything was under control. Before he left the apartment he always turned off all the gas rings, unplugged the cords of all the electrical appliances and devices, and wiped the dust off the plugs. One never knew if a spark might start a fire. He stored the remote control for the TV in a drawer; it absolutely mustn’t be left out on the table so that a ray of sunlight through the window might strike the sensor and make it catch fire.
And then going out the door. For the past six months the locking ritual had become so complicated that he had to write it down on a piece of paper he kept in his wallet to make sure he didn’t miss something.
He stood down on the street looking up at the black windows of the flat. A man in his fifties he had never seen before came out the front door and gave him a suspicious look. He couldn’t bring himself to go up to the flat. Instead he took his keyring from his pocket and got into his car, turned the ignition and let the engine idle.
Only with Anna was he left in peace. Only she was strong enough to vanquish the annihilating fear.
And now they thought he would just let go and move on.
Where to?
Where was it they wanted him to go?
She was all he had.
It was after the accident that it started again. It came sneaking up, lying in wait for him, at first only as a diffuse need to create symmetry and restore balance. And later, when the gravity of her injuries had become more and more obvious, the pressure to perform the complicated rituals had intensified to an inescapable compulsion. The only way to neutralise the threat was to give in. If he didn’t obey the impulses properly, something horrible would happen. What, he didn’t know, only that the fear and pain grew intolerable if he tried to fight back.
When he was a teenager it had been different. Then the pressure eased if he just avoided touching door handles with his hands or walked backwards down the stairs or touched all the lampposts he passed. Back then it had been easier to handle, when it was possible to hide behind the self-centredness of a teenager.
No one knew, either now or then, and well aware of the insanity of what he was doing he had invented tricks and gestures to make the compulsory rituals look like a natural part of his behaviour.
Every day a secret war.
Only during the year with Anna had he been free.
He loved Anna. He would never leave her.
His mobile rang in his jacket pocket. He took it out and looked at the display. No number. Two rings. He had to answer after the fourth or forget it.
It might be Karolinska Hospital.
‘Jonas.’
‘It’s