The Hypnotist

Chapter 69

Erik jabs repeatedly at the button until the doors of the lift close. He knows it won’t speed things up, but he can’t help himself. Benjamin’s words from the darkness of the car are mixed with the strange fragments of memory stirred up by the videotape. Once again he hears Eva Blau’s faint voice saying that a man with a ponytail has taken someone. But there was something insincere about her mouth as she said it, something almost like a smile.

There is a roaring sound high up in the shaft as the lift moves downwards with a whine.

“The haunted house,” he repeats to himself, hoping it’s just a coincidence and Benjamin’s disappearance has nothing to do with his past.

The lift stops and the doors open at the underground car park. He walks quickly through it and into a narrow stairwell. Two floors down, he unlocks a steel door, continues along a white tunnel to a secure door, and leans on the buzzer, eventually receiving a response from within. He explains his errand into the microphone.

The storage facility contains all archived patient notes, all research and experiments, records of tests, and questionable investigations. On the shelves are thousands of files, including the results of secret tests on suspected HIV cases in the eighties, compulsory sterilizations, arguments concerning thalidomide, and dental experiments on those with mental health issues from the time when Swedish dental health reform was due to be sanctioned and children from orphanages, the mentally ill, and the elderly were forced to sit with sugar paste in their mouths until their teeth were eaten away by decay- all meticulously archived and preserved here.

The door buzzes and Erik steps into an unexpectedly warm brightness. There is something about the lighting that makes the storeroom feel pleasant, far from the windowless cavern deep underground that it actually is.

The sound of opera is coming from the security guard’s office: a rippling coloratura from a mezzo-soprano. Erik pulls himself together, tries to assume a calm expression, and searches within himself for a smile as he walks over to the sound.

A short, stocky man wearing a straw hat is standing with his back to the door, watering some plants.

“Hi, Kurt.”

“Erik Maria Bark, it’s been a long time. How are things?”

Erik doesn’t really know what to say. “I’ve got a few family problems to deal with at the moment.”

“Right.”

“Lovely flowers,” says Erik, to avoid further questions.

“Pansies. I love them. Conny kept saying nothing could flower down here. What do you mean, nothing can flower down here? I said. Look at me!”

“Exactly,” Erik replies.

“I installed ultraviolet lamps all over the place. It’s like a solarium down here.” Kurt holds out a tube of sunscreen.

“I won’t be staying that long.”

“Oh, just a little bit on your nose,” says Kurt, squeezing out some cream and holding it up.

“Thanks.”

Kurt lowers his voice and whispers, his eyes sparkling, “Sometimes I walk around down here in just my underpants. But don’t tell anybody.”

Erik smiles at him, feeling the strain on his face. There is a silence. Kurt looks at him, expectantly.

“Many years ago,” Erik begins, “I used to videotape my hypnosis sessions.”

“How many years ago?”

“About ten. There’s a series of VHS tapes- ”

“VHS?”

“Yes, they were more or less out of date even then.”

“All our videotapes have been digitalized.”

“Good.”

“They’re in the computer archive.”

“So how do I get access?”

Kurt smiles. Erik notices how white his teeth are in his sunburned face.

“Well, it so happens I can help you with that.”

They walk over to four computers in an alcove by the shelving. Kurt rapidly keys in a password and clicks through folders containing recordings that have been transferred.

“Would the tapes have been in your name?” he asks. “They should be,” says Erik. “Well, they’re not,” says Kurt slowly. “I’ll try under hypnosis.”

He types in the word and carries out a new search. “Huh,” he says. “Have a look for yourself.”

None of the hits have anything to do with Erik’s documentation of his therapy sessions. He tries the words haunted house. He searches under Eva Blau’s name, although the members of his group were not registered as patients with the hospital. “Nothing,” he says wearily.

“We ran into trouble when we were transferring a lot of the material,” Kurt says. “Some of it was in pretty fragile shape to begin with. Stuff got destroyed, like all the Betamax.”

“Who transferred the material?”

Kurt turns to him with an apologetic shrug. “Me and Conny.”

“But the original tapes must still be around somewhere, surely,” Erik ventures.

“Sorry, I’ve no idea.”

“Do you think Conny might know anything?”

“No.”

“Can you call and ask him?”

“He’s down in Simrishamn.”

Erik turns away, trying to think calmly.

“I know a lot of stuff got erased by mistake,” Kurt says.

Erik stares at him. “This was totally unique research,” he says dully.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to criticize.”

Kurt nips a brown leaf from a plant. “You gave up the hypnosis, didn’t you?” he says. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yes. But I need to check, to look at- ”

Erik stops speaking. He hasn’t the energy to explain. He just wants to go back to his office, take a pill, and sleep.

“We’ve always had problems with technology down here,” Kurt goes on. “Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. Every time we mention it, they tell us we have to do the best we can. Just chill out, they said, when we happened to erase an entire decade’s lobotomy research: old films, sixteen millimetre, that had been transferred onto videotapes in the eighties but didn’t make it into the computer age. It’s a shame.”