Stalker

60

They have moved to Rocky’s room, with the door closed and the lighting turned down. The weak lamplight is reflecting off a Playboy calendar. Erik has set up his tripod, attached the video camera and adjusted the angle and exposure, and has made sure the microphone is pointing in the right direction.

A small red dot indicates that the camera is recording.

Kyrklund is sitting on a chair, his broad shoulders are relaxed, rounded, like a bear’s. His head is drooping. He slid into deep relaxation very quickly, and responded well to the induction.

The difficult part isn’t the act of hypnosis, but finding the right level and placing the patient in a state where the brain is as relaxed as possible, yet still able to distinguish between real memories and dreams.

Erik is standing just behind Rocky, slowly counting backwards as he prepares Rocky to examine his memories.

‘Two hundred and twelve,’ Erik says in a monotone. ‘Two hundred and eleven… you will soon find yourself standing outside Rebecka Hansson’s house…’

When a patient is placed in deep hypnosis, the hypnotist often enters a sort of trance as well, in what is known as hypnotic resonance.

It’s vital that Erik manages to differentiate between his absolutely present self, and a clearly observing self.

The observing self, in his own personal trance, is always underwater. That’s become his internal image of hypnotic immersion.

While his patients are led through their memories, Erik sinks into a warm sea, past steep cliffs and coral.

In this way Erik can remain utterly present in the patient’s experience, yet still maintain a protective distance.

‘Eighty-eight, eighty-seven, eighty-six,’ Erik goes on in a somnolent voice. ‘The only thing that exists is my voice, and your desire to listen to it… With each number you’re sinking deeper and deeper into relaxation… eighty-five, eighty-four… there’s nothing dangerous here, nothing to be worried about…’

As Erik counts down, he sinks through strangely pink water together with Rocky Kyrklund. They’re following the chain of an anchor. The rusty links are covered in stringy algae. Above them, on the silvery surface, is the hull of a large ship with motionless propellers.

They drift lower.

Rocky’s eyes are closed and small air-bubbles are rising from his beard. He’s got his arms by his sides, but the water passing them makes his clothes sway.

‘Fifty-one, fifty, forty-nine…’

Out of the violet darkness sticks the top of a vast underwater mountain, grey-black, like a heap of ash.

Rocky raises his face and tries to look, but only the whites of his eyes are visible. His mouth opens, and his eyes close again. His hair is drifting above his head as bubbles emerge from his nostrils.

‘Eleven, ten, nine… You will be able to remember all your real memories of Rebecka Hansson when I say so…’

As Erik sinks through the water, simultaneously he observes Rocky on the chair in his room. A string of saliva is hanging from his mouth, and the seams of his white vest are coming loose under his arms.

‘Three, two, one… Now you open your eyes and can see Rebecka Hansson the way she was when you last saw her…’

Rocky is standing in front of him on top of the underwater mountain, his clothes moving in the gentle current, his hair floating like slow flames above his head. He opens his mouth and large bubbles stream out and float up in front of his face.

‘Tell me what you can see,’ Erik says calmly.

‘I see her… I’m standing in the garden at the back of the house… Through the terrace door I see her sitting on the sofa watching television. Her knitting needles are moving and a ball of blue wool is slowly unravelling beside her hip… She’s said she doesn’t want to see me, but I think she’ll open her legs anyway…’

‘What’s happening?’

‘I knock on the glass door, she takes her glasses off and lets me in… she says she has to go to bed because she’s working in the morning… but that I can stay the night if I like…’

Erik doesn’t interrupt, just waits for the next segment of memories, waits for the images to join up.

‘I sit down on the sofa and touch her necklace… There’s an old knitting pattern in a women’s magazine on the floor… Rebecka puts her knitting down on the table and I slip a hand between her thighs… she pulls away, says she doesn’t want to… but I pull her nightdress up again…’

Rocky is breathing heavily.

‘She resists, but I know she’s changed her mind, I can see it in her eyes, she wants this now… I kiss her, and put my hand between her legs.’

He’s smiling to himself on the chair, then turns serious.

‘She says we should go to her bedroom, and I put a finger in her mouth and she sucks it, and… Outside.’

Rocky stops himself and just stares, his eyes wide open.

‘There’s someone outside! I can see a face. There’s someone at the window.’

‘Outside the house?’ Erik asks.

‘It was a face, I go over to the glass door but I can’t see anything… just darkness, and the room reflected in the glass… and then I see someone standing behind me… I spin round, ready to lash out, but it’s only Rebecka… she gets scared and tells me to leave… she means it, so I go into the hall and take all the money she’s got in her bag, and…’

He falls silent, breathing more heavily, and the energy in the room changes, slowly becomes more dangerous.

‘Rocky, I want you to stay with Rebecka,’ Erik says. ‘It’s the same evening, you’re at home with her, and-’

‘I’ve gone to the Zone,’ Rocky interrupts in a slurred voice.

‘Later that evening, you mean?’

‘I ignore the strippers on the main stage,’ he whispers. ‘I ignore the dealers, because what I’m looking for…’

‘Do you go back to Rebecka’s?’

‘No, we sit in the disabled toilet so we can be alone.’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘My girlfriend… the woman I love. Tina, who… She gives me a blow job without a condom, she doesn’t care, she’s in a hurry now, she’s sweating all over.’

Erik wonders if he ought to bring the patient out of hypnosis, he can feel Rocky moving too quickly through his memories, and no longer knows if it’s possible to keep him at the right level.

‘Tina coughs over the basin and looks at me in the mirror with fear in her eyes… I know she’s in a bad way, but…’

‘Is Tina your accomplice?’ Erik asks, looking at Rocky’s open face.

‘For fuck’s sake, they owe me a hundred thousand, I’ll be getting it next week,’ he mutters. ‘But right now I can only afford… shitty brown shoe-scrapings, have to dissolve it in acid so I can shoot up.’

Rocky starts to shake his head anxiously, and is breathing unevenly through his nose.

‘There’s no danger here,’ Erik says, as calmly as he can. ‘You’re quite safe, you can talk about everything that happens.’

Rocky’s body relaxes again, but his face is lined and sweaty.

‘I sit there, let her have the spoon… I’m not getting a kick any more, but I feel great and start to nod off, and I see her use a cable as a tourniquet round her arm… the adapter’s whirring and getting all tangled, and she can’t sort it out afterwards… I’m too out of it to help her, I hear her ask for help with a sob in her voice…’

Rocky whimpers slightly and the atmosphere seems to contract to a single dark pinprick.

‘What’s happening now?’ Erik asks.

‘The door opens,’ Rocky replies. ‘Some bastard has picked the lock… I shut my eyes, I’ve got to rest, but I know it’s the preacher, the preacher’s found me…’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I can tell because of the filthy smell of old gear. It’s withdrawal, it smells metallic, like fish-guts…’

Rocky shakes his head again, his breathing is getting too quick, and Erik thinks he should start to bring Rocky out of his hypnosis, but holds back.

‘What’s happening?’ he whispers.

‘I open my eyes and the preacher looks a fucking wreck,’ he says. ‘Hepatitis, probably, completely yellow eyes… The preacher snorts back some snot, then starts to speak in a really high voice.’

Rocky is breathing shallowly, twisting on his chair and moaning in anguish between his words.

‘The preacher goes over to Tina… she’s shot up, but can’t get the cable loose… Dear God in heaven, have mercy on my soul, dear God in heaven…’

‘Rocky, I’m going to start to wake you up, and-’

‘The preacher’s holding a machete, and it sounds like when you stick a spade into mud-’

Rocky starts to retch, he’s panting heavily now, but goes on talking.

‘The preacher chops her arm off at the shoulder, loosens the tourniquet and drinks…’

‘Listen to my voice now.’

‘And drinks the blood from her arm… while Tina lies bleeding to death on the floor… Dear God in heaven… Dear God-’

‘Three, two, one… now you’re above the disabled toilet, you’re high above it, and nothing you can see is going to hurt you…’

‘Dear God,’ Rocky sobs, hanging his head.

‘You’re still in a state of deep relaxation, and you’re going to tell me how much of what you’ve just said to me was a dream… You’ve taken drugs, and have been having nightmares… You’re looking down at yourself on the toilet floor. What’s really going on?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rocky says slowly.

‘Who is he?’

‘The preacher’s face is covered in blood… shows me a polaroid picture of Rebecka… just like Tina the week before, and…’

His hoarse voice disappears, but his mouth keeps moving for a while until it stops. He leans his big head to one side, and looks straight through Erik with empty eyes.

‘I didn’t hear what you said.’

‘It’s my fault… I should pluck out my eye, for it has offended me, it would be better to pluck my eye out than this.’

Rocky tries to stand up, but Erik holds him down with a gentle hand on his shoulder, and feels the big body vibrate, trembling with fear.

‘You’re in a state of deep relaxation,’ Erik says, as sweat trickles down his back. ‘But before you wake up, I want you to look straight at the preacher and… tell me what you see.’

‘I’m lying on the floor, I can see boots… I can smell blood, and I shut my eyes.’

‘Go back a little.’

‘I can’t do any more,’ Rocky says, and starts to come round from his hypnosis.

‘Stay there, just for a moment… There’s no danger, you’re relaxed, you’re telling me about the first time you saw the unclean preacher.’

‘It’s in the church…’

He opens his eyes for a moment, then shuts them again, and mutters something inaudible.

‘Tell me about the church,’ Erik says. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rocky gasps. ‘It’s not a sermon…’

‘What can you see?’

‘He’s wearing make-up over his stubble… and his arms are so fucking riddled with holes that-’

Rocky tries to stand up, but his chair falls over and he collapses and hits the back of his head on the floor.