Mercy aka The keeper of lost causes

26

When she turned thirty-five, the sea of light from the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling returned, thus causing the faces behind the mirrored panes to vanish.

This time not all of the tubes in the reinforced-glass fixtures went on. One day they’re going to have to come in and change them or the room will end up in eternal darkness, she thought. They’re still standing there, spying on me, and they don’t want to have to stop. One day they’ll come inside and change the tubes. They’ll bleed off the pressure ever so slowly, and then I’ll be waiting for them.

They’d increased the pressure again on her last birthday, but that no longer worried her. If she could handle four atmospheres, she could also handle five. She didn’t know what the limit was, but they hadn’t come anywhere near it yet. Just like the previous year, she had hallucinations for a couple of days. It felt as if the background of the room was spinning around while the rest remained in sharp focus. She had sung and felt lighthearted; reality had become meaningless. This time everything returned to normal after only a couple of days. Then she began noticing a howling sound in her ears. At first it was very faint, so she yawned and tried to equalize the pressure as best she could, but after two weeks the sound became permanent. An utterly clear tone, like the one accompanying the test pattern on TV. Higher in register, purer, and a hundred times more enervating. It’ll go away, Merete, you’ll get used to the pressure. Just wait, one morning it’ll be gone when you wake up. It’ll be gone, it’ll be gone, she promised herself. But promises based on ignorance always prove disappointing. When the high-pitched tone had lasted for three months and she was about to go crazy from lack of sleep and the constant reminder that she was living in a death chamber at the mercy of her executioner, she began working out in her mind how she would take her own life.

She knew now that it would all end with her dying anyway. The woman’s face had not displayed the slightest grounds for hope. Those piercing eyes were a clear indication they would not allow her to escape. Not ever. So it would be better to die by her own hand. To decide for herself how it would happen.

The room was completely empty aside from the toilet bucket and the food bucket, the flashlight, the two plastic stiffeners from her down jacket-one of which she’d made into a toothpick-a couple of rolls of toilet paper, and the clothes she was wearing. The walls were smooth. There was nothing to which she could tie the sleeves of her jacket, nothing from which her body could dangle until it was delivered from this life. The only possibility left to her was to starve herself to death. Refuse to eat the monotonous diet, refuse to drink the small amount of water they allowed her. Maybe that was what they were waiting for. Maybe she was part of some sick wager. Since time immemorial, human beings had always transformed the suffering of fellow humans into entertainment. Each stratum of human history had revealed an infinitely thick layer of callousness. And the sediment forming new layers was constantly piling up; she was finding that out for herself now. That was why she made the decision.

She pushed the food bucket aside, stood in front of one of the portholes, and declared that she would no longer eat any of the food. She’d had enough. Then she lay down on the floor and wrapped herself in her ragged clothes and her dreams. According to her calculations, it had to be October 6. She figured she’d last a week. At that time she would have lived for thirty-five years, three months, and one week. To be more precise: twelve thousand, eight hundred and sixty-four days, although she wasn’t entirely sure. She would have no headstone. There would be no birth date or death date to see anywhere. Not a thing left after her death that might link her to the time she’d spent in this cage, where she’d spent this last long period of her life. Other than her killers, she was the only one who would know the date of her death. And she alone would know it beforehand, with more or less accuracy. On approximately October 13, 2005, she intended to die.

On the second day of her refusal to eat, they shouted to her to trade out the buckets, but she refused. What could they do? Either leave the bucket in the hatch of the airlock door or take it back. It was all the same to her.

So they left the bucket in the hatch and repeated the same ritual over the next couple of days. The old bucket out and a new one in. They yelled at her. Threatened to increase the pressure and then let all the air out. But how could they use death as a threat when it was death she desired? Maybe they would come in, maybe they wouldn’t, she didn’t care. She let her mind run amok with thoughts and images and memories that could push the howling in her ears away, and on the fifth day, everything merged into one. Dreams of happiness, her political work, Uffe standing alone on the ship, love that had been shoved aside, the children she’d never had, Mr. Bean and quiet days in front of the television. And she noticed how her body slowly loosened its grip on its unfulfilled needs. Gradually she lay lighter on the floor; a strange stagnation took over, and time passed as the food in the bucket next to her began to rot.

Everything was as it should be, and then all of sudden she felt a throbbing in her jaw.

In her listless condition, it felt at first like a vibration from outside. Just enough to make her open her eyes slightly, but nothing more. Are they coming in? What’s happening? she thought briefly, and then fell back into a silent torpor until a couple of hours later when she awoke with a pain as sharp as a knife stabbing into her face.

She had no idea what time it was; she had no idea if they were out there; and she screamed as she’d never screamed before in that barren room. Her whole face felt as if it had split in two. The pain in her tooth felt like a jackhammer pounding in her mouth, and there was nothing she could do to fight it. Oh God, was this the punishment for taking her life into her own hands? She’d neglected looking after herself for only five days, and now this torment. Cautiously she stuck her finger inside her mouth and felt the abscess around the back molar. That tooth had always been a weak point, providing a steady income for her dentist. A bad spot, which her homemade toothpick had tried to keep clean every day. She carefully pressed on the abscess and felt the pain explode through bone and marrow. She doubled over, opened her mouth wide, and gasped frantically for air. A short time ago her body had succumbed to lethargy, but now it had awakened to this torturous agony. She felt like an animal that would have to chew off its own paw to slip out of a trap. If pain was a defense against death, then she was more alive now than ever before.

“Ohhh!” she sobbed. It hurt so much. She reached for her toothpick and slowly held it up to her mouth. Cautiously she tried to find out whether something stuck in her gums had caused the infection, but as soon as the tip touched the abscess, her tooth once more exploded in agony.

You have to puncture it, Merete. Come on, she told herself, weeping, and jabbed at it again. The little that was left in her stomach threatened to come up. She had to puncture the abscess, but she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t do it.

Instead she crawled over to the airlock door to see what they’d put in the bucket that day. Maybe there was something that might offer some relief. Or perhaps a little drop of water on the abscess would make it stop throbbing so badly.

She looked down at the bucket and saw temptations she’d never dared dream of before. Two bananas, an apple, a piece of chocolate. It was totally absurd. They were trying to bait her hunger. Force her to eat, and now she couldn’t. Couldn’t and wouldn’t.

She grimaced at the next stabs of pain that nearly knocked her over. Then she took out all the pieces of fruit and placed them on the floor, thrust her hand in the bucket and grabbed the water bottle. She stuck her finger in the water and held it up to the abscess, but the icy-cold water didn’t have the expected effect. There was the pain and there was the water, and they had absolutely nothing to do with each other. The water couldn’t even assuage her thirst.

So she moved away, curled up in a fetal position underneath the mirrored panes, and prayed a silent prayer for God’s forgiveness. At some point her body would give up; she knew that. She would have to live her last days in pain.

Eventually it, too, would give up.

The voices came to her as if she were in a trance. They were calling her name. Entreating her to answer them. She opened her eyes and noticed at once that the abscess had stopped throbbing, and that her limp body was still lying next to the toilet bucket beneath the mirrored panes. She stared up at the ceiling, noticing that one of the fluorescent tubes had started to flicker faintly in the fixture high above her. She’d heard voices, hadn’t she? Were they real?

Then a clear voice that she’d never heard before spoke: “That’s right, she took out the fruit.”

It’s real, she thought, but she was too weak to be startled.

It was a man’s voice. Not a young man, but not an old man either.

She immediately raised her head, but not so much that they’d be able to see her from outside.

“I can see the fruit from where I’m standing,” said a woman’s voice. “It’s over there on the floor.” It was the same woman who had spoken to Merete once a year; the voice was unmistakable. Apparently the people outside had been calling to her and had then forgotten to shut off the intercom.

“She’s crawled over between the windows. I’m sure of it,” the woman went on.

“Do you think she’s dead? It’s been a week, you know,” said the man’s voice. It sounded so natural, but it wasn’t. This was her they were talking about.

“It would be just like her to do something like that, the little slut.”

“Should we equalize the pressure and go in and have a look?”

“What were you planning to do with her then? All of the cells in her body have acclimated to five atmospheres of pressure. It would take weeks to decompress her body. If we open the door now, she’ll not only get the bends, she’ll explode on the spot. You’ve seen her feces and how it expands. And her urine, how it bubbles and boils. Keep in mind that she’s been living in a pressure chamber for three and a half years now.”

“Can’t we just pump up the pressure again after we find out whether she’s still alive?”

The woman outside didn’t answer, but it was clear that under no circumstances was that going to happen.

Merete’s breathing became more and more labored. The voices belonged to devils. They’d flay her and sew her back together for an eternity, if they could. She was in the inner circle of hell. The place where the torments never ceased.

Come on in, you bastards, she thought, cautiously pulling the flashlight closer as the whining in her ears got louder. She was going to plant it in the eye of the first person who came near her. Blind the vile creature who dared to set foot in her holy chamber. It was the one thing she’d manage to do before she died.

“We’re not doing anything until Lasse gets back. Do you hear me?” said the woman in a tone of voice that demanded obedience.

“But that’ll take forever. She’ll be dead long before then,” replied the man. “What the hell should we do? Lasse is going to be furious.”

Then came a silence that was nauseating and oppressive, as if the walls of the room were about to contract and leave her there, like a louse squeezed between two fingernails.

She clutched the flashlight even tighter in her hand and waited. All of a sudden the pain was back with a wallop. She opened her eyes wide and drew air deep into her lungs to release the pain in a reflexive scream, but no sound came out. Then she got herself under control. The feeling of nausea remained, and the sensation that she was about to throw up made her regurgitate, but she didn’t say a word. She merely tilted her head back and let the tears flow down her face and over her parched lips.

I can hear them, but they mustn’t hear me, she chanted soundlessly over and over. She clutched her throat, fanned her hand over the bulge in her cheek, and rocked back and forth, clenching and unclenching her free hand ceaselessly. Every nerve fiber in her body was aware of the excruciating pain.

And then the scream came. It had a life of its own. Her body demanded it. A deep, hollow scream that went on and on and on.

“She’s there. Do you hear that? I knew it.” There was a clicking sound from a switch. “Come out so we can see you,” said the revolting female voice. Only then did they discover that something was wrong.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “The switch is stuck.”

Then the woman started tapping on the intercom switch, but it did no good.

“Have you been lying there eavesdropping on what we were saying, you little bitch?” She sounded like an animal. Her voice was raw, honed with years of cruelty and callousness.

“Lasse will fix it when he gets here,” said the man outside. “He’ll fix it. It really doesn’t matter.”

Now it felt as if her jaw would split in two. Merete didn’t want to react, but she had no choice. She had to stand up. Anything to distract the hammering sense of panic in her body. She propped herself up on her knees, noticing how weak she was, then pushed off and managed to sit back on her heels, feeling the fire ignite again inside her mouth. She set one knee on the floor and managed to stand halfway up.

“Good Lord, look at you, girl,” said the ghastly voice outside, and then it began to laugh. The laughter struck Merete like a hailstorm of scalpels. “You have a toothache,” said the laughing voice. “Ye gods, the filthy slut has a toothache. Look at her.”

Merete turned abruptly to face the mirrored panes. The mere act of moving her lips felt worse than death. “I’ll get my revenge one day,” she whispered, pressing her face close to the pane. “I’ll get my revenge. Just wait.”

“If you don’t eat, you’re going to end up burning in hell without ever having that satisfaction,” snarled the woman, but there was something more in her voice. Like a cat playing with a mouse, and the cat wasn’t done playing yet. They wanted their prisoner to live. Live for as long as they had decided, and no longer.

“I can’t eat,” Merete groaned.

“Is it an abscess?” asked the man’s voice.

She nodded.

“You’ll have to deal with it yourself,” he said coldly.

Merete stared at her reflection in one of the portholes. The poor woman before her had hollow cheeks and her eyes looked as if they might fall out of her head. The upper part of her face was distorted from the abscess, and the dark circles under her eyes told their own story. She looked deathly ill, and she was.

She set her back against the glass and slowly slid down to the floor. There she sat, with tears of anger in her eyes and a new awareness that her body wanted to live and was capable of doing so. She would take whatever was in the bucket and force herself to swallow it. The pain would either kill her or it wouldn’t; time would tell. In any case, she would not give up without a fight, because she had just made a promise to that awful bitch out there. A promise she was determined to keep. At some point that disgusting woman would get a taste of her own medicine.

For a moment Merete’s body felt calm, like a shattered landscape in the eye of a hurricane, and then the pain was back. This time she screamed as uninhibitedly as she could. She felt the pus from her gum flow on to her tongue and how the throbbing of the toothache spread all the way to her temple.

Then she heard the whistling of the airlock door, and a new bucket came into view.

“Here! We’ve put some first aid in the bucket for you. Go ahead and take it,” laughed the woman’s voice outside.

Merete quickly crawled over to the hatch on all fours and pulled out the bucket. She looked inside.

Way down at the bottom, lying on a piece of fabric just like a surgical instrument, was a pair of tongs.

A big pair of tongs. Big and rusty.