I Can See in the Dark

Chapter 3

Our ward sister Anna Otterlei is an exception.

The well-being of the patients is much more than a career choice, it’s her life’s mission, or so it seems, and she’s quite inexhaustible. She’s loving, self-sacrificing and serene, she cares and comforts, she nurses and soothes. She’s constantly in their rooms, sitting on a chair by the bed, speaking softly and confidingly, stroking their cheeks with a warm hand. She finds out what they need and what they dream of, she shares the sorrows of a lifetime which will soon be at an end. She partakes in their fear of death, that final, slow descent into darkness. Personally, I can’t be bothered. If you extend a hand, you only receive tears and despair in return, these are doors I don’t want to open, I have enough of my own as it is. I’ve enough of my own pounding heart, with all the whisperings in the corners, evil tongues that know, perhaps, what I really am.

Sometimes at night, a lorry drives into my bedroom; it comes roaring through the door and parks next to my bed. Its diesel engine goes throbbing on until dawn. I’m worn out by the time I finally put my feet on the floor. On the other side of the bed. Silence frightens me even more, because I’ve lived my whole life in this din, with these voices and this noise.

But then there’s my angel, Sister Anna. She’s lovely, but she’s also sharp, like a cake with sweet icing and a bitter little berry in the middle. She’s the one I’m most cautious with. The rest of the staff on the ward aren’t clever enough to see through me, they haven’t the sensitivity for unravelling human riddles. And I am one such human riddle.

If only I had a woman! A woman like Sister Anna, with her beauty and her wisdom, her indomitable desire to be good. She’s blonde and bosomy and beautiful, with a high, arched brow and plump cheeks, like a small, well-nourished child. Lips red as cherries, a neck like a swan’s, eyes that seem to gaze down from on high, with the barest twinkle in them. She’s about the same age as me, in her early forties. And although she’s constantly looking in my direction, it’s not with any desire or yearning. I have none of the qualities women dream of. But I like being near her, catching the scent and the warmth of her; she warms like a stove. She shines like a sun. She sails like a ship. Truly, she’s a woman after my own depraved heart.

Everyone has virtues, everyone has a talent, everyone has a right to respect. That’s how we human beings like to think. But rotten individuals do exist and, I have to admit it, I’m one of them; a rotten individual who in certain situations can turn spiteful, to the extent that I become almost unhinged. But I find no difficulty in aping other people, aping politeness and friendliness and kindness. It’s restraining the bad impulses that’s tough. I often think of the things that might happen if I really lost control, and that does happen from time to time.

But then there’s Sister Anna, pretty little Anna, she is the angel in the human story. Sometimes, when she comes along the corridor, I go weak and wobbly at the knees. But the joy of kissing Anna’s cherry-red lips will never be mine. I know too much about the commerce of love.