The Hypnotist

Chapter 100

Benjamin is curled up against the wall behind the television. He feels scarily dizzy; he’s having trouble focusing his eyes. But the worst thing is the thirst. He’s thirstier than he’s ever been in his life. The hunger has abated. It hasn’t gone, it’s still there, a nagging ache in his gut. But it is completely overshadowed by thirst- thirst and the pain in his joints. The thirst is like being stabbed, as if his throat were full of open sores. He can barely swallow now; there is no saliva in his mouth. How many days has he been here, lying on this floor, in this house? Benjamin, Lydia, Marek, and Annbritt, in this one furnished room, doing nothing.

Benjamin listens to the faint tapping of the snow as it lands on the roof. He thinks about how Lydia made her way into his life, running after him one day as he was walking home from school.

“You forgot this,” she’d called, and handed him his hat.

He’d stopped and thanked her. She’d given him a strange look and said, “You’re Benjamin, aren’t you?”

He asked her how she knew his name.

She’d stroked his hair. “Oh, dear boy. I called you Kasper.” And when he’d looked at her uncomprehendingly, she’d added, “I’m your real mother. I gave birth to you. Haven’t they told you?” She opened her bag and gave him a little pale-blue crocheted outfit. “I made this for you when you were in my belly,” she whispered.

He explained that his name was Benjamin Peter Bark and he couldn’t be her child. He’d tried to speak to her calmly and kindly. She listened with a smile on her face, then shook her head sorrowfully.

“Ask your parents,” she had said to him. “Ask them if you really are their child. You can ask, but they won’t tell you the truth. They couldn’t have children. You’ll be able to tell that they’re lying. They’ll lie because they’re afraid of losing you. You’re not their biological child. I can tell you about your real background. You’re mine. Can’t you see how alike we are? I was forced to give you up for adoption.”

“But I’m not adopted.”

“I knew it. I knew they wouldn’t tell you,” she said.

He thought about it and suddenly realized that she could actually be telling the truth; he had felt different for a long time.

Lydia smiled at him. “I can’t prove it to you. You have to trust your own instincts, you have to explore your feelings. Then you’ll realize it’s true.”

They parted, but he’d met up with her again the following day. They went to a café and sat talking for a long time. She told him how she had been forced to give him up for adoption but had never forgotten him. She had thought about him every day since he was born and was taken away from her. She had yearned for him every minute of her life.

Benjamin had told Aida everything, and they’d agreed that it was best if Erik and Simone knew nothing about what he’d learned until he had thought the whole thing through. He wanted to get to know Lydia first. It could be true, couldn’t it? Lydia contacted him via Aida’s e-mail and sent him the picture of the family grave.

“I want you to know who you are, Kasper,” she said. “This is the resting place of your family. One day we’ll go there together, just you and me.”

Benjamin started to believe her. He wanted to. She was exciting. It felt strange for him to be so wanted, so loved. She had given him money and small mementoes from her childhood, she had given him books and a camera, and he had given her drawings and things he had collected when he was a child.

She had even stopped Wailord from hassling him. One day she simply handed him a piece of paper on which Wailord had written that he gave his word never to come near Benjamin or his friends again. His parents would never have been able to achieve something like that. He was becoming more and more convinced that Erik and Simone- people he had believed throughout his whole life- were liars. It annoyed him that they never talked to him, never really showed him what he meant to them.

He had been so incredibly stupid.

Then Lydia had started to talk about coming to the apartment, about visiting him at home. She wanted his keys. He didn’t really understand why. He said he could let her in if she rang the doorbell, but she got angry with him. She said she would have to punish him if he didn’t do as he was told. Her outburst surprised and scared him. She explained that when he was very small she had given his adoptive parents something called a ferrule as a sign that she wanted them to give him a proper upbringing. Then she took his keys out of his backpack and said the whole conversation was ridiculous; she would be the one to decide when she visited her own child.

That was when he realized there was something not quite right about Lydia.

The next day when she was waiting for him, he simply went up to her and told her as calmly as he could that he wanted his keys back and he didn’t want to see her again.

“Of course, Kasper,” she’d said. “You must have your keys.” She reached into her bag and handed them to him.

He headed off, but she followed him. He stopped and waited for her and told her she hadn’t understood: he didn’t want to see her again.

Benjamin peers down at his body. A large bruise has appeared on his knee. If his mother saw that, she’d go crazy, he thinks.

Marek is staring out the window as usual. He inhales deeply through his nose and spits on the window in the direction of Jussi’s body, out in the snow. Annbritt is slumped at the table. She is trying to stop crying; she swallows, clears her throat, and makes a hiccuping sound. When she came out and saw Lydia kill Jussi, she screamed and screamed until Marek pointed the gun at her and said he would kill her if she made one more sound.

There is no sign of Lydia. Benjamin thinks hard for a moment, then painfully raises himself into a sitting position. He says hoarsely, “Marek, I need to tell you something.”

Marek looks over at Benjamin with eyes as black as peppercorns; then he gets down on the floor and starts doing push-ups. “What do you want, you little shit?”

Benjamin swallows, his throat agonizingly sore. “Jussi told me Lydia’s going to kill you,” he says. “She was going to take him first, then Annbritt, then you.”

Marek continues with his push-ups, counting under his breath, and gets up with a sigh. “You’re a funny little shit, aren’t you.”

“He said she only wants me. She wants to be alone with me. It’s true.”

“Oh, is it really?”

“Yes. Jussi said she told him what she was going to do. She was going to start by killing him, and now he’s- ”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Are you just going to sit here waiting until it’s your turn?” Benjamin asks. “She doesn’t care about you. She thinks this would be a better family if it was just me and her.”

“Did Jussi really say she was going to kill me?” Marek asks.

“I promise, she’s going to- ”

Marek laughs loudly. “I’ve already heard everything anyone can say to avoid pain,” he says with a grin. “All the promises, all the tricks, all the deals, and all the ruses.” He turns indifferently to face the window.

Benjamin sighs. He’s trying to come up with something else to say when Lydia walks in. Her mouth is a thin, strained line and her face is pale. She is holding something behind her back.

“So a week has passed and it’s Sunday again,” she states ceremoniously, closing her eyes.

“The fourth Sunday in Advent,” Annbritt whispers.

“I would like us to relax and reflect upon the past week,” Lydia says slowly. “Jussi left us three days ago. He is no longer among the living; his soul is travelling on one of the seven wheels of heaven. He will be torn to pieces for his treachery, through thousands of incarnations as a beast of slaughter and an insect.” She pauses. “Have you reflected?” she asks, after a while. They nod, and Lydia smiles contentedly. “Kasper, come here,” she says quietly.

Benjamin tries to get to his feet, making a real effort not to grimace with the pain, but still Lydia asks, “Are you making faces at me?”

“No,” he whispers.

“We are a family, and we respect one another.”

“Yes,” he replies, his voice full of tears.

Lydia smiles and produces the object she has been hiding behind her back.