The Hypnotist

Chapter 74

Erik is sitting in the car next to Joona, blowing on a paper cup of coffee. They drive past the university, past the Natural History Museum. On the other side of the road, down toward Brunnsviken, the greenhouse shines out in the falling darkness.

“You’re sure of the name, Eva Blau?” asks Joona.

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing in any telephone directory, nothing in the criminal records database, nothing in the database of suspects, or in the register of those licensed to carry a weapon, nothing in the tax office records, the electoral register, or with the vehicle licensing authority. I’ve had every local record checked: the county councils, the church records, the National Insurance Office, the immigration authorities. There is no Eva Blau in Sweden, and there never has been.”

“She was my patient,” Erik persists.

“Then she must have another name.”

“Look, I damn well know what my- ”

He stops as something flutters by, the faintest awareness that she might indeed have had another name, but then it simply disappears.

“What were you going to say?”

“I’ll go through my papers. Perhaps she just called herself Eva Blau.”

The white winter sky is dense and low; it looks as if it might start snowing at any moment.

Erik takes a sip of his coffee, sweetness followed by a lingering bitterness. Joona turns off into a residential area. They drive slowly past houses, past gardens dusted with snow, with bare fruit trees and small ponds covered for the winter, conservatories equipped with cane furniture, snow-covered trampolines, strands of coloured lights looping through cypress trees, red sledges, and parked cars.

“Where are we actually going?” asks Erik.

Small round snowflakes whirl through the air, gathering on the hood and along the windscreen wipers.

“We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

“I found some other people with the surname Blau,” says Joona.

He pulls up in front of a detached garage but leaves the engine idling. In the middle of the lawn stands a plastic Winnie-the-Pooh, six feet high, with the colour flaking off its red sweater. Other toys are scattered throughout the garden. A path made up of irregular pieces of slate leads up to a large yellow wooden house.

“This is where Liselott Blau lives,” says Joona.

“Who’s she?”

“I’ve no idea, but she might know something about Eva.” Joona notices Erik’s dubious expression. “It’s all we have to go on at the mo ment.”

Erik shakes his head. “It’s been a long time. I never think about those days now.”

“Before you gave up hypnosis.”

“Yes.” Erik meets Joona’s ice-grey eyes. “Perhaps this has nothing to do with Eva Blau.”

“Have you tried to remember?”

“I think so,” Erik replies hesitantly, looking at his coffee cup. “Really tried?”

“Maybe not really.”

“Do you know if she was dangerous?”

Erik looks out the window and sees that someone has taken a felt pen and drawn fangs and ugly eyebrows on Winnie-the-Pooh. He sips his coffee and suddenly remembers the day he heard the name Eva Blau for the first time.

It was half past eight in the morning. The sun was pouring in through the dusty windows. I’d been on call overnight, and I’d slept in my office, he thinks.

ten years ago

It was half past eight in the morning. The sun was pouring in through the dusty windows. I’d slept in my office after night duty, I felt tired, but I was packing my gym bag anyway. Lars Ohlson had been postponing our badminton matches for several weeks. He’d been too busy travelling between the hospital in Oslo and Karolinska and lecturing in London; he was due to take a seat on the board. But he’d called unexpectedly yesterday.

“Erik, are you ready?”

“Damn right I’m ready,” I’d said.

“Ready to get beaten,” he’d said, but without the usual vigour in his voice.

I poured the last of the coffee down the sink, left the cup in the pantry, ran downstairs, and biked over to the gym. Lars Ohlson was already in the chilly locker room when I got there. He looked up at me, then turned away and pulled on his shorts. Something in his expression was strange, almost afraid.

“You won’t be able to hold your head up for a week when I’m done with you today,” he said, looking at me. But his hand was shaking as he turned the key in his locker.

“You’ve been working too hard,” I said.

“What? Well, yes, it’s been- ” He stopped and slumped down on the bench.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“Absolutely. What about you?”

I shrugged. “I’m seeing the board on Friday.”

“Of course. It’s the end of your funding. Same song and dance every time, isn’t it?”

“I’m not particularly worried,” I said. “I think it’ll be fine. My research is making good progress, after all. I’ve had some excellent results.”

“I know Frank Paulsson,” he said, getting to his feet. Paulsson was a member of the board.

“Oh? How do you know him?”

“We did our military service together; he’s very much on the ball and quite open.”

“Good,” I said quietly.

We left the locker room and Lars took my arm. “Should I give him a call and tell him they just have to invest in you?”

“Can you do that sort of thing?”

“Well, it’s not exactly accepted practice. But what the hell.”

“In that case, it’s probably best if you don’t.” I smiled.

“But you have to carry on with your research.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Nobody would know.”

I looked at him and said hesitantly, “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”

“I’ll give Paulsson a call tonight.”

I nodded, and he smiled and gave me a slap on the back.

When we got into the big hall, with its echoes and squeaking shoes, Lars suddenly asked, “Would you take over a patient of mine?”

“Why?”

“I haven’t really got time for her,” he replied. “I don’t know that I could do much better by her. My list is pretty full at the moment.”

I started stretching as we waited for a court to become free. Lars jogged on the spot but seemed distracted. He ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “Actually, I think you could.”

“Could what?”

“Could do better by her. I think Eva Blau would benefit from being in your group,” he said. “She’s completely locked around some trauma. At least, that’s what I think, because I just can’t penetrate her shell. I haven’t got through to her once.”

“I’d be happy to offer my advice, if you- ”

“Advice?” He lowered his voice. “To be honest, I’m through with her.” Even speaking quietly, he said this with some vehemence.

“Has something happened?”

“No, no, it’s just… I thought she was really ill. Physically, I mean.”

“But she wasn’t?”

He smiled, which seemed only to etch the stress on his face more deeply, and looked at me. “Can you just do me this favour?” he asked.

“I’ll think about it.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said quickly.

He fell silent and looked over at the court, where two young women who looked like medical students had a couple of minutes left of their session. When one of them stumbled and missed a simple drop shot, he snorted. “What a klutz.”

I rolled my shoulders and pretended to be looking at the clock, but I was actually studying Lars. He stood there biting his nails. Although it was chilly and he hadn’t begun to exert himself, he was sweating. And his face had definitely aged, grown thinner. Somebody yelled outside the hall, and he jumped and wheeled towards the door.

The women gathered up their things and left the court, chatting away.

“Let’s play,” I said, starting to move.

“Erik, wait a second.” He put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “I’ve never asked you to take on a patient before.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m pretty full right now, Lars.”

“What if I cover your on-call hours?” he said, searching my face for a reaction.

“That’s quite a commitment,” I said, surprised. “I know, but you’ve got a family and you ought to be at home.”

“Is she dangerous?”

“What do you mean?” he asked with an uncertain smile, fiddling with his racquet.

“Eva Blau. Is that your assessment?”

He glanced over at the door again. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said quietly.

“Has she threatened you?”

He considered his response for a moment. “Every patient of this kind can be dangerous. It’s difficult to judge… But I’m sure you’ll be able to cope with her.”

“I expect I will.”

“You’ll take her? You will take her, won’t you, Erik? Please?”

“Yes,” I said.

His cheeks flushed, he turned away and moved toward the baseline. Suddenly a trickle of blood ran down the inside of his thigh; he wiped it away with his hand and looked at me. When he realized I had seen the blood, he mumbled that he was having a problem with his groin; he apologized and limped off the court.

I had just got back to my consulting room two days later when there was a knock at the door. Lars was standing in the corridor. Several feet away, a woman in a white raincoat waited. She had a sharp and narrow face and a troubled expression in her eyes, which were heavily made up with blue and pink eyeshadow.

“This is Erik Maria Bark,” said Lars. “He’s a very good doctor, better than I’ll ever be.”

“You’re early,” I said.

#x201C;Is that all right?” he asked anxiously.

I nodded and invited them in.

“Erik, I can’t,” he said quietly. “I think it would be helpful if you were here.”

“I know, but I have to run,” he said, raising his voice again and clapping me on the shoulder. “Call me any time. I’ll pick up, in the middle of the night, any time at all.”

He hurried off and Eva Blau came into my room, closing the door behind her. “Is this yours?” she asked suddenly, holding out a porcelain elephant on the palm of her hand, which was shaking.

“No, that’s not mine.”

“But I saw the way you were looking at it,” she said, in a sneering tone of voice. “You want it, don’t you?”

I took a deep breath. “Why do you think I want it?”

“Don’t you want it?”

“No.”

“Do you want this, then?” she asked.

She yanked open the raincoat. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and her pubic hair had been shaved off.

“Eva, don’t do that,” I said.

“All right,” she said, her lips trembling with nerves.

She was standing far too close to me. She smelled strongly of vanilla.

“Shall we sit down?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

“On top of each other?”

“Why don’t you sit on the couch?”

“The couch,” she said.

“Yes.”

“That would be a real treat, wouldn’t it?” she said. She went over to the desk and sat down in my chair.

“Would you like to tell me something about yourself?” I asked.

“What are you interested in?”

I wondered whether she was a person who would be easy to hypnotize, despite the intense effort she was making to appear hard, or whether she would resist, trying to remain reserved and observant.

“I’m not your enemy,” I explained calmly.

“No?” She pulled open one of the desk drawers. “Please don’t do that.”

She ignored me and scrabbled carelessly among the papers. I went over, removed her hand, closed the drawer, and said firmly, “You are not to do that. I asked you not to.”

She looked at me defiantly and opened the drawer again. Without taking her eyes off me, she took out a bundle of papers and hurled them on the floor.

“Stop that,” I said harshly.

Her lips began to quiver. Her eyes filled with tears. “You hate me,” she whispered. “I knew it. I knew you’d hate me. Everybody hates me.” She suddenly sounded afraid.

“Eva,” I said carefully, “I just want to talk to you for a bit. You can use my chair if you want or you can sit on the couch.”

She nodded and got up to move. Then she suddenly turned and asked quietly, “Can I touch your tongue?”

“No. Sit down, please.”

She eventually sat down but immediately started fidgeting restlessly. She seemed to be holding something in her hand.

“What have you got there?” I asked.

She quickly hid her hand behind her back. “Come and look if you dare,” she challenged, her tone one of frightened hostility.

I felt a wave of impatience rush through me but forced myself to sound calm as I asked her, “Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”

She shook her head.

“Why do you think you’re here?”

Her face twitched. “Because I said I had cancer,” she whispered.

“Were you afraid you had cancer?”

“I thought he wanted me to have it.”

“Lars Ohlson?”

“They operated on my brain. They operated a couple of times. They knocked me out. They raped me while I was unconscious.” Her eyes met mine, and a fleeting smile crossed her lips. “So now I’m both pregnant and lobotomized.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s good, because I long to have a child, a son, a boy to suck at my breast.”

“Eva,” I said, “why do you think you’re here?”

She brought her hand from behind her back and slowly opened her clenched fist. Despite myself, I was leaning forward with curiosity.

The hand was empty; she turned it over several times. “Do you want to examine my cunt?” she whispered. She grasped the lapels of her raincoat with both hands, as if to part them again.

I felt I had to leave the room or call someone in. But Eva Blau stood up quickly.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry. I’m just scared you’re going to hate me. Please don’t hate me. I want to stay. I need help.”

“Eva, I’m just trying to have a conversation with you. As you know, the plan is for you to join my hypnosis group. Dr. Ohlson said you were positive about the idea, that you wanted to give it a try.”

She nodded soberly, then reached out and knocked my coffee cup to the floor. “Sorry,” she said again.

When Eva Blau had gone, I gathered up my papers from the floor and sat down at the desk. A light rain was falling outside the window, and it occurred to me that Benjamin was on an outing with his nursery school today, and both Simone and I had forgotten to send his rain gear with him.

I wondered if I ought to call the school and ask them to let Benjamin stay indoors. Every outing terrified me. I didn’t even like the fact that he had to go down two flights of stairs to get to the dining room. In my mind’s eye, I saw other children bumping into him, someone letting a heavy door swing back in his face. I saw him tripping over the shoes stacked in grubby heaps. I give him his injections, I thought. The medication means he won’t bleed to death from a little cut. But he’s still far more vulnerable than the other children.

I remember the sunlight the following morning, penetrating the dark grey curtains. Simone was sleeping naked next to me. Her mouth was half open, her hair a jumbled mess. I admired her shoulders and breasts, covered with small pale freckles. Goose pimples suddenly appeared on her arm, and I pulled the duvet over her.

Benjamin coughed faintly. He sometimes crept in at night and lay down on the mattress on the floor if he was having nightmares, and I would lie uncomfortably beside him, holding his hand until he went back to sleep. I hadn’t noticed him come in last night, though. I saw that it was six o’clock, rolled over, closed my eyes, and thought how nice it would be to have just a few more hours of sleep.

“Daddy?” Benjamin whispered all of a sudden.

“Go back to sleep for a little while,” I said quietly.

He sat up, looked at me, and said in his high, clear voice, “Daddy, you were lying on top of Mummy last night.”

“Was I?” I said, and felt Simone wake up beside me.

“Yes, you were lying under the duvet rocking on top of her.”

“That sounds a bit silly,” I said, trying to sound casual.

“Mm.”

Simone giggled and hid her head under the pillow.

“Maybe I was having a dream,” I said evasively.

Simone was now shaking with laughter underneath the pillow.

“Did you dream you were rocking?”

“Well- ”

Simone looked up with a big grin. “Go on, answer the question,” she said, her voice perfectly controlled. “Did you dream you were rocking?”

“Daddy?”

“I must have.”

“But,” Simone went on with a laugh, “why were you lying on top of me when you- ”

“Time for breakfast,” I said.

I saw Benjamin grimace as he got up. The mornings were always the worst. His joints had been immobile for several hours, which often led to spontaneous bleeds.

“How are you feeling?”

He held on to the wall for support as he stood.

“Just a minute, little man, I’ll give you a massage.”

Benjamin sighed as he lay down and let me gently bend and stretch his joints. “I don’t want a shot,” he said dejectedly.

“Not today, Benjamin, the day after tomorrow.”

“Don’t want it, Daddy.”

“Just think about Kalle,” I said. “He’s diabetic. He has to have injections every day.”

“David doesn’t have to,” he complained.

“But maybe there’s something else he finds difficult,” I said.

There was a silence. “His daddy’s dead,” Benjamin whispered.

“See?” I finished massaging his arms and hands.

“Thanks, Daddy,” Benjamin said, getting up slowly.

“Good boy.”

I hugged his slender little body, but as usual I suppressed the urge to hold on until he squirmed to get free.

“Can I watch Pokémon?” he asked.

“Ask your mother,” I replied, and heard Simone shout “Coward!” from the kitchen.

After breakfast I sat down in the study and called Lars Ohlson. His secretary answered, and I chatted with her for a few moments before asking if I could have a word with Lars.

“Just a moment,” she said.

I was intending to ask him not to mention me to Frank Paulsson, if it wasn’t already too late.

After waiting a minute or so, she came back on the line. “Lars isn’t available at the moment.”

“Tell him it’s me.”

“I already did,” she said stiffly.

I hung up without a word, closed my eyes, and realized that something wasn’t right. Perhaps I had been conned; presumably Eva Blau was far more troublesome than Lars Ohlson had told me.

“I can cope,” I told myself.

I wasn’t thinking of Eva Blau as a potentially dangerous person then, at least not primarily. My foremost concern was that she would throw my hypnosis group out of balance. I had assembled a small number of men and women whose problems and backgrounds were completely dissimilar. Some were easily hypnotized, others not. I’d wanted to achieve communication within the group, to help each of them move out of their shells and begin to develop new relationships, both with others and with themselves. The one thing most of them had in common was a feeling of guilt, a burden that had caused them to withdraw. Yet, while they blamed themselves for having been raped or tortured or otherwise abused, their burden was compounded by their having lost all trust in the world. I’d worked hard with them to forge the fragile bond that now existed among them, and I was worried that the addition of Eva Blau might separate them.

During our last session, the group had gone to a deeper level than we’d ever managed before. After our usual opening discussion, I’d made an attempt to put Marek Semiovic under deep hypnosis. All my past efforts had failed; he’d been unfocused and defensive.

In hypnosis, the practitioner may try to find a starting point, often a familiar or idealized place that the subject can imagine and from which he can proceed without fear or anxiety. I hadn’t yet found that starting point with Marek.

“A house? A soccer field? A forest?” I suggested.

“I don’t know,” Marek replied, as usual.

“Well, we have to start somewhere.”

“But where?”

“Try to imagine the place you’d have to return to in order to understand the person you are now,” I suggested.

“Zenica, out in the country,” said Marek, his tone neutral. “Zenica-Doboj.”

“Good,” I said, making a note. “Do you know what happened there?”

“Everything happened there, in a big building made of dark wood, like a castle, a landowner’s house, with a steep roof and turrets and verandas.”

The group was focused now; everyone was listening; they all realized that Marek had suddenly opened a number of inner doors.

“I was sitting in an armchair, I think,” Marek said hesitantly. “Or on some cushions. Anyway, I was smoking a Marlboro while… there must have been hundreds of girls and women from my home town passing by me.”

“Passing by?”

“Over the course of a few weeks… They would come in through the front door, and then, they were taken up the main staircase to the bedrooms.”

“Was it a brothel?” asked Jussi, in his strong Norrland accent. “I don’t know what went on there. I don’t know anything, really,” Marek replied quietly.

“Did you ever see the upstairs?” I asked.

He rubbed his face with his hands and took a deep breath. “I have this memory,” he began. “I walk into a little room and I see one of my teachers from high school, and she’s tied to a bed, naked, with bruises on her hips and thighs.”

“What happens?”

“I’m standing just inside the door with a kind of wooden stick in my hand- and I can’t remember anything else.”

“Try,” I said calmly.

“It’s gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“I can’t… I can’t do any more.”

“All right, fine, that’s enough,” I said.

“Wait a minute,” he said, and sat without speaking for a long time. Then he sighed, rubbed his face, and stood up.

“Marek?”

“I don’t remember anything!” he said, his voice shrill.

I made a few notes; I could feel Marek watching me all the time.

“I don’t remember, but everything happened in that freaking house,” he said, looking at me intently. I nodded.

“Everything that’s me- it’s in that wooden house!”

“The haunted house,” said Lydia, from her seat beside him.

“Exactly,” he said, “it was a haunted house,” and when he laughed, his face was etched with anguish.

I checked my watch again. In an hour I was to meet with the hospital board to present my research. If they didn’t agree to continue my funding, I would have to start winding down both the research and the therapy. So far, I hadn’t had time to start feeling nervous. I went over to the sink and rinsed my face, then stood for a while looking at myself in the mirror and trying to summon up a smile before I left the bathroom. As I was locking the door of my office, a young woman stopped in the corridor just a few steps away.

“Erik Maria Bark?”

Her dark, thick hair was caught up in a knot at the back of her neck, and when she smiled at me, deep dimples appeared in her cheeks. She looked happy and smelled of hyacinth, of tiny flowers. She was wearing a doctor’s coat, and her badge indicated that she was an intern.

“Maja Swartling,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m one of your greatest admirers.”

“I’m honoured,” I said.

“I’d love to have the opportunity to work with you while I’m here,” she said, with an uncommon directness I found appealing.

“Work with me?”

She nodded and blushed. “I find your research to be incredibly exciting.”

“Frankly, I don’t even know if there’s going to be any more research,” I explained. “I hope the board of directors is as enthusiastic as you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“My funding only lasts until the end of the year.” My imminent appearance before the board suddenly loomed up. “Right now I have an important meeting.”

Maja jumped to one side. “I’m sorry,” she said. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, smiling at her. “Walk me to the lift.”

She blushed again and we set off together. “Do you think there’ll be a problem renewing your funding?” she asked anxiously.

The usual procedure was for the applicant to talk about his or her research- results, targets, and time frame- but I always found it difficult, because no matter how meticulously I presented my case, I knew I’d inevitably run into difficulties because of the pervasive prejudice against hypnosis.

“If psychotherapy is a soft science, Maja, hypnosis is even softer. By its very nature, even the most exhaustive research in the field leads to relatively inconclusive results,” I said.

“But if they read all your reports, the most amazing patterns are emerging. Even if it is too early to publish anything.”

“You’ve read all my reports?” I asked sceptically. “There are certainly plenty of them,” she replied dryly.

We stopped at the lift.

“What do you think about my ideas relating to engrams?” I said, to test her.

“You’re thinking about the patient with the injured skull?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to hide my surprise.

“Interesting,” she said. “The fact that you’re going against conventional wisdom on the way memory is dispersed throughout the brain.”

“Any thoughts of your own on the subject?”

“I think you should intensify your research into the synapses and concentrate on the amygdala.”

“I’m impressed,” I said, pressing the button for the lift.

“You have to get the funding.”

“I know.”

“What happens if they say no?”

“If I’m lucky, I’ll be given enough time to wind down the therapy and help my patients into other forms of treatment.”

“And your research?”

I shrugged. “I could apply to other universities, see if anyone would take me.”

“Do you have enemies on the board?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

She placed her hand gently on my arm and smiled apologetically. Her cheeks flushed even more. “I know I’m speaking out of turn. But you will get the money, because your work is ground-breaking.” She looked hard at me. “And if they can’t see that, I’ll talk to them. All of them.”

Suddenly I wondered if she was flirting with me. There was something about her obsequiousness, that soft, husky voice. I glanced quickly at her badge to be sure of her name: maja swartling, intern.

“Maja- ”

“I’m not easily put off, you know,” she said playfully. “Erik Maria Bark.”

“We’ll discuss this another time,” I said, as the lift doors slid open.

Maja Swartling smiled, revealing dimples; she brought her hands together beneath her chin, bowed deeply and mischievously, and said softly, “Sawadee.”

I realized I was smiling at the Thai greeting as I took the lift up to the director’s office.

Despite the fact that the door was open, I knocked before entering the conference room. Annika Lorentzon was there already, gazing out the picture window at the fantastic view, far out across Northern Cemetery and Haga Park.

“Just gorgeous,” I said.

Annika Lorentzo smiled calmly at me. She was tanned and slim. Once, her beauty had made her runner-up in the Miss Sweden contest, but now a fine network of lines had formed beneath her eyes and on her forehead. She didn’t smell of perfume but rather of cleanliness; a faint hint of exclusive soap surrounded her.

“Mineral water?” she asked, waving in the direction of several bottles.

I shook my head and noticed for the first time that we were alone in the conference room. The others ought to have gathered by now, I thought; my watch showed that the meeting should have begun five minutes earlier.

Annika stood up and explained, as if she’d read my mind, “They’ll be here, Erik. They’ve all gone for a sauna.” She gave a wry smile. “It’s one way of having a meeting without me. Clever, eh?”

At that moment the door opened and five men with bright red faces came in. The collars of their suits were damp from wet hair and wet necks, and they were exuding steamy heat and aftershave.

“Although of course my research is going to be expensive,” I heard Ronny Johansson say.

“Obviously,” Svein Holstein replied, sounding worried.

“It’s just that Bjarne was rambling on about how they were going to start cutting. The finance boys want to slash the research budget right across the board.”

The conversation died away as they came into the room.

Svein Holstein gave me a firm handshake.

Ronny Johansson, the pharmaceutical representative on the board, just waved half-heartedly at me as he took his seat, while at the same time the local government politician, Peter Mälarstedt, took my hand. He smiled at me, puffing and panting, and I noticed he was still perspiring.

Frank Paulsson barely met my eye; he simply gave me the briefest of nods and then stayed on the far side of the room. Everyone chatted for a while, pouring out glasses of mineral water and admiring the view. For one crystal moment I observed them: these people who held the fate of my research in their hands. They were as sleek, well-groomed, and savvy as my patients were awkward, shabby, and inarticulate. Yet my patients were contained in this moment. Their memories, experiences, and all they had suppressed lay like curls of smoke trapped motionless inside this glass bubble.

Annika softly clapped her hands and invited everyone to take their seats around the conference table. The members of the board settled down, whispered, and fidgeted. Someone jingled coins in his pocket. Another flipped through his calendar. Annika smiled gently and said, “Over to you, Erik.”

“My method,” I began, “involves treating psychological trauma through group hypnosis therapy.”

“So we’ve gathered,” said Ronny Johansson.

I tried to provide an overview of what I’d done thus far. I could hear feet shuffling, chair legs scraping against the floor.

“Unfortunately, I have another commitment,” Rainer Milch said after a while. He got to his feet, shook hands with the men next to him, and left the room. My audience listened without really paying attention.

“I know this material can seem dense, but I did provide a summary in advance. It’s fairly comprehensive, I know, but it’s necessary; I couldn’t make it any shorter.”

“Why not?” asked Peter Mälarstedt.

“Because it’s a little too early to draw any conclusions,” I said.

“But if we move forward two years?” he asked.

“Hard to say, but I am seeing patterns emerge,” I said, despite the fact that I knew I shouldn’t go down that path.

“Patterns? What kind of patterns?”

“Can you tell us what you’re hoping to find?” asked Annika Lorentzon, with an encouraging smile.

I took a deep breath. “I’m hoping to map the mental barriers that remain during hypnosis- how the brain, in a state of deep relaxation, comes up with new ways of protecting the individual from the memory of trauma or fear. What I mean- and this is really exciting- is that when a patient is getting closer to a trauma, the core, the thing that’s really dangerous, when the suppressed memory finally begins to float towards the surface during hypnosis, the mind begins to rummage around in a final attempt to protect the secret. What I have begun to realize and document is that the subject incorporates dream material into his or her memories, simply in order to avoid seeing.”

“To avoid seeing the situation itself?” asked Ronny Johansson, with a sudden burst of curiosity.

“In a way. It’s the perpetrator they don’t want to see,” I replied. “They replace the perpetrator with something else, often an animal.”

There was silence around the table. I could see Annika, who had so far looked mainly embarrassed on my behalf, smiling to herself.

“Can this be true?” said Ronny Johansson, almost in a whisper.

“How clear is this pattern?” asked Mälarstedt.

“Clear, but not fully established,” I replied.

“Is there any similar research going on elsewhere in the world?” Mälarstedt wondered.

“No,” Ronny Johansson replied abruptly.

“But does it stop there?” said Holstein. “Or will the patient always find some new way of protecting himself under hypnosis, in your opinion?”

“Yes, is it possible to move beyond this protective mechanism?” asked Mälarstedt.

I could feel my cheeks beginning to burn; I cleared my throat. “I think it’s possible to move beyond the mechanism, to find what lies beneath these images through deeper hypnosis.”

“And what about the patients?”

“I was thinking about them, too,” Mälarstedt said to Annika Lorentzon.

“This is all very tempting, of course,” said Holstein. “But I want guarantees. No psychoses, no suicides.”

“Yes, but- ”

“Can you promise me that?”

Frank Paulsson was just sitting there, scraping at the label on his bottle of mineral water. Holstein looked tired and glanced openly at his watch.

“My priority is to help my patients,” I said.

“And your research?”

“It’s- ” I cleared my throat again- “it’s a by-product, when it comes down to it,” I said quietly. “That’s how I have to regard it. I would never develop an experimental technique if there was any indication that it was detrimental to a patient’s condition.”

Some of the men around the table exchanged glances.

“Good answer,” said Frank Paulsson, all of a sudden. “I am giving Erik Maria Bark my full support.”

“I still have some concerns about the patients,” said Holstein.

“Everything is in here,” Paulsson said, pointing to the folder of notes I had provided in advance. “He’s written about the development of the patients; it looks more than promising, I’d say.”

“It’s just that it’s very unusual therapy. It’s so bold we have to be certain we can defend it if something goes wrong.”

“Nothing can really go wrong,” I said, feeling shivers down my spine.

“Erik, it’s Friday and everybody wants to go home,” said Annika Lorentzon. “I think you can assume that your funding will be renewed.”

The others nodded in agreement, and Ronny Johansson leaned back and began to applaud.

Simone was standing in our spacious kitchen when I got home. She’d covered the table with groceries: bundles of asparagus, fresh marjoram, a chicken, a lemon, jasmine rice. When she caught sight of me she laughed.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head and said with a broad grin, “You should see your face.”

“What do you mean?”

“You look like a little kid on Christmas Eve.”

“Is it so obvious?”

“Benjamin!” she shouted.

Benjamin came into the kitchen with Pokémon cards in his hand. Simone hid her merriment and pointed at me. “How does Daddy look, Benjamin?”

He studied me for a moment and began to smile. “You look happy, Daddy.”

“I am happy, little man. I am happy.”

“Have they found the medicine?” he asked.

“What medicine?”

“To make me better, so I won’t need injections,” he said.

I picked him up, hugged him, and explained that they hadn’t found the medicine yet but I hoped they soon would, more than anything.

“All right,” he said.

I put him down and saw Simone’s pensive expression.

Benjamin tugged at my trouser leg. “So what was it, Daddy?”

I didn’t understand.

“Why were you so happy, Daddy?”

“It was just money,” I replied, subdued. “I’ve got some money for my research.”

“David says you do magic.”

“I don’t do magic. I try to help people who are frightened and un happy.”

Simone let Benjamin run his fingers through the marjoram leaves and inhale their scent. “Tomorrow I sign the lease for the space on Ar senalsgatan.”

“But why didn’t you say anything? Congratulations, Sixan!”

She laughed. “I know exactly what my opening exhibition is going to be,” she said. “There’s a girl who’s just finished at the art college in Bergen. She’s absolutely fantastic; she does these huge- ”

Simone broke off as the doorbell rang. She tried to see who it was through the kitchen window, before she went and opened the front door. I followed her and saw her walk through the dark hall and toward the doorway, which was filled with light. When I got there, she was standing looking out.

“Who was it?” I asked. “Nobody. There was nobody here.”

I looked out over the shrubbery toward the street. “What’s that?” she asked suddenly.

On the step in front of the door lay a rod with a handle at one end and a small round plate of wood at the other.

“Strange,” I said, picking up the old tool and turning it over in my hands.

“What is it?”

“A ferrule, I think. It was used to punish children in the old days.”

It was time for a session with the hypnosis group. They would be here in ten minutes. The usual six plus the new woman, Eva Blau.

I picked up my pad and read through my notes from the session a week earlier, when Marek Semiovic had talked about the big wooden house in the country in the region of Zenica-Doboj.

It was Charlotte’s turn to begin this time, and I thought I might then make a first attempt with Eva Blau.

I arranged the chairs in a semicircle and set up the video camera tripod as far away as possible.

I was eager that day. The stress of worrying about funding had been relieved, and I was curious as to what would emerge during the session. I was becoming increasingly convinced that this new form of therapy was better than anything I had practised in the past- that the importance of the collective was immense in the treatment of trauma. I was excited by the way the lonely isolation of individual pain could be transformed into a shared and empathetic healing process.

I inserted a new tape in the video camera, zoomed in on the back of a chair, adjusted the focus, and zoomed out again.

Charlotte Ceder entered. She was wearing a dark blue trench coat with a wide belt tightly cinched around her slender waist. As she pulled off her hat, her thick, chestnut-brown hair tumbled around her face. As always, she was beautifully, and terribly, sad.

I went over to the window, opened it, and felt the soft spring breeze blowing over my face. When I turned around, Jussi Persson had arrived.

“Doctor,” he said in his calm Norrland accent.

We shook hands and he went over to say hello to Sibel, who had just come in. He patted his beer belly and said something that made her giggle and blush. They chatted quietly as the rest of the group arrived: Lydia, Pierre, and finally Marek, slightly late as usual.

I stood motionless, waiting until they felt ready. As individuals, they had one thing in common: they had each suffered traumatizing abuse of one kind or another, abuse that had created such devastation within their psyches that they had concealed what had happened from themselves in order to survive. In some cases, I had a greater command of the facts of their lives than they did. They were each, however, acutely aware that their lives had been decimated by terrible events in the past.

“The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.” I would often quote William Faulkner. I meant that every little thing that happens to people remains with them throughout their lives. Every experience influences every choice. In the case of traumatic experiences, the past occupies almost all the space available in the present.

Everyone was waiting for me to start, but Eva Blau had not yet arrived. I glanced at the clock and decided to begin without her.

Charlotte always sat farthest away. She had taken off her coat and was as usual dressed elegantly. When our eyes met, she smiled tentatively at me. Charlotte had tried to take her own life fifteen times before I accepted her into the group. The last time she had shot herself in the head with her husband’s elk rifle, right in the drawing room of their villa. The gun had slipped, and she had lost one ear and a small part of her cheek. There was no trace of it now; she had undergone expensive plastic surgery and changed her hairstyle into a smooth, thick bob that concealed her prosthetic ear and hearing aid. Yet despite the fact that she was beautiful and impeccably groomed, I sensed an abyss within her, on whose edge she was constantly teetering. Whenever I saw her tilt her head to one side, favouring her good ear as she politely and respectfully listened to the others, I always went cold with anxiety.

“Are you comfortable, Charlotte?” I asked.

She nodded and replied, in her gentle, beautifully articulated voice, “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Today we’re going to investigate Charlotte’s inner rooms,” I explained.

“My own haunted house.” She smiled.

“Exactly.” I was always pleased and a little amazed at the way that certain meaningful phrases and expressions were commonly adopted as part of the private idiom in use within the group.

Marek grinned joylessly and impatiently at me as our eyes met. He had been training at the gym all morning, and his muscles were suffused with blood.

“Are we all ready to begin?” I asked.

Sibel spat her chewing gum into a tissue and got up quickly to throw it away. She glanced at me shyly and said, “I’m ready, doctor.”

Slowly I led them into a trance, evoking the image of a wet wooden staircase down which I was leading them. A familiar special energy began to flow among us, a unique warmth we all shared. My own voice, clear and articulated at first, began to register as a series of mesmerizing, calming sounds that guided the patients. I seemed to be watching through someone else’s eyes as their bodies settled more heavily into their chairs and their features flattened and relaxed, assuming the coarse, open expression shared by those under hypnosis.

I moved behind them, gently touching their shoulders, guiding them individually all the time, counting backward, step by step.

“Continue down the staircase,” I said quietly.

I hadn’t told the board that the hypnotist also becomes immersed in a kind of parallel trance as he puts his patients under. In my opinion this was both unavoidable and a good thing. My own trance always took place underwater. I didn’t understand why, but I liked the image of water; it was clear and pleasant, and I had developed a way of using it as a visual and tactile metaphor to help me understand and interpret the course of events during sessions.

My patients were each seeing something completely different, of course; all drifting down into memories, into the past, ending up in the rooms of their childhood, the places where they had spent their youth; returning to their parents’ summer cottages, or the garage of the little girl who lived next door. They didn’t know that for me they were deep underwater at the same time, slowly floating down past an enormous coral formation, a deep-sea plinth, the rough wall of a continental rift, all of us sinking together through gently bubbling water.

This time I wanted to try to take them all with me into a deeper hypnosis. My voice kept on counting, speaking of pleasant relaxation as the water roared in my ears. I watched them.

Jussi hissed something to himself.

Marek’s mouth was open, and a trickle of saliva ran out.

Pierre looked thinner and weaker than ever.

Lydia’s hands hung loosely over the arms of her chair.

“I want you to go even deeper, even farther,” I said. “Continue moving downward, but more slowly now, more slowly. Soon you will stop, very gently coming to rest… a little deeper, just a little more, and now we are stopping.”

The whole group stood facing me in a semicircle on a sandy seabed, level and wide like a gigantic floor. The water was pale and slightly green. The sand beneath our feet moved in small, regular waves. Shimmering pink jellyfish floated above us. From time to time, a flatfish whirled up a little cloud of sand, then darted away.

“We are all deep down now,” I said.

They opened their eyes and looked straight at me.

“Charlotte, it’s your turn to begin,” I went on. “What can you see? Where are you?”

Her mouth moved silently.

“There’s nothing here that is dangerous,” I reminded her. “We’re right behind you all the time.”

“I know,” she said in a monotone.

Her eyes peered at me like those of a sleepwalker, empty and distant.

“You’re standing outside the door,” I said. “Would you like to go in?”

She nodded, and her hair moved with the currents of water.

“Let’s go through the door now,” I said.

“Yes.”

“What do you see?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you gone inside?” I asked, feeling distantly that I was rushing things.

“Yes.”

“Can you see anything?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Is it something strange?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Tell me what you see,” I said quickly.

She shook her head. Small air bubbles were released from her hair and rose towards the surface, glittering. The nagging sense that I was doing the wrong thing seemed closer now, more insistent, warning me that I wasn’t listening, that I wasn’t helping lead her forward but, instead, was pushing her. Still, I couldn’t help saying, “You’re in your grandfather’s house.”

“Yes,” she replied, her voice subdued.

“You’re inside the door, and you’re moving forward.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Just take one step.”

“Maybe not right now,” she whispered.

“Raise your head and look.”

“I don’t want to.” Her lower lip was trembling.

“Can you see anything strange?” I persisted. “Anything that shouldn’t be there?”

A deep furrow appeared in her forehead, and I suddenly realized that she would very soon let go and simply be ripped out of her hypnotic state. This could be dangerous; she could end up in a deep depression if it happened too quickly. Large bubbles were floating out of her mouth like a shining chain. Her face shimmered, and blue-green lines played across her brow.

“You don’t have to look, Charlotte,” I said reassuringly. “You can open the French doors and go out to the garden if you like.”

But her body was shaking, and I realized it was too late.

“We are completely calm now,” I whispered, reaching out to pat her gently.

Her lips were white, her eyes wide open.

“Charlotte, we are going to return to the surface together, very slowly,” I said.

Her feet kicked up a dense cloud of sand as she floated upward.

“Wait,” I said faintly.

Marek was looking at me, trying to shout something.

“We are already on our way up, and I am going to count to ten,” I continued, as we moved quickly toward s the surface. “And when I have counted to ten you will open your eyes and you will feel fine.”

Charlotte was gasping for breath as she got unsteadily to her feet. She adjusted her clothing and looked at me entreatingly.

“Let’s take a short break,” I said.

Sibel got up slowly and went out for a smoke. Pierre followed her. Jussi remained where he was, heavy and inert. None of them was completely awake. The ascent had been too steep, too quick. I remained seated; I rubbed my face and was taking some notes when Marek sauntered over.

“Well done,” he said, with a wry grimace.

“It didn’t quite go as planned,” I replied, without looking up.

“I thought it was funny,” he said.

“What?” I asked. “What was funny?” I met his eyes, which burned with an obscure hostility.

Lydia was on her way over, jewellery rattling. Her henna-dyed hair glowed like threads of copper as she walked through a sunbeam.

“The way you put that upper-class whore in her place,” Marek said.

“What did you say?” asked Lydia.

“I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about- ”

“You’re not to call Charlotte a whore, because it isn’t true,” Lydia said softly. “Right, Marek?”

“Fine, whatever.”

I moved away, looking at my notes, but kept on listening to their conversation.

“Do you have issues with women?” she continued.

“Things happened in the haunted house,” he said quietly. “If you weren’t there, you wouldn’t understand.”

He fell silent, clamping his teeth so tightly together I could see his jaw muscles working.

“There is actually nothing that is wrong,” she said, and took his hand in both of hers.

Sibel and Pierre came back. Everyone was quiet and subdued. Charlotte looked very fragile. Her slender arms were crossed over her chest; her hands were on her shoulders.

I changed the tape in the video camera, gave the date and time, and explained that everyone was still in a post-hypnotic state. I looked through the lens, raised the tripod a fraction, and refocused the camera. Then I straightened the chairs and asked the group to sit down again.

“Let’s continue,” I said.

There was a sudden knock at the door and Eva Blau walked in. I could see instantly that she was under stress and went over to greet her.

“Welcome,” I said.

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

Eva Blau sat down on the empty chair and clamped her hands firmly between her thighs. I went back to my place and carefully introduced the second session.

“Please get comfortable. Let’s keep our feet on the floor, hands on our knees. The first part didn’t quite turn out as I expected.”

“I’m sorry,” said Charlotte.

“Nobody need apologize, least of all you; I hope you understand.”

Eva Blau was staring at me the whole time.

“We’re going to begin with thoughts and associations from the first session,” I said. “Would anyone like to comment?”

“Confusing,” said Sibel.

“Frus… tra… ting,” said Jussi. “I mean, I only just had time to open my eyes and scratch my head, and it was all over.”

“What did you feel?” I asked him.

“Hair,” he answered, with a smile.

“Hair?” asked Sibel, giggling.

“When I scratched my noggin,” Jussi explained.

Some of them laughed.

“Let’s have some associations with hair,” I said, with a smile. “Charlotte?”

“I don’t know. Hair? Beard, maybe… no.”

Pierre interrupted her in his high voice. “A hippie, a hippie on a chopper,” he said with a smile. “He’s sitting like this, chewing a piece of Juicyfruit, and- ”

Suddenly Eva got up with such a violent movement that the chair banged behind her. “This is just childish nonsense,” she said angrily, pointing at Pierre.

“Why do you feel that way?” I asked.

Eva didn’t reply, she merely met my gaze before sulkily flopping back down on her chair.

“Pierre, would you continue, please,” I said calmly.

He shook his head, forming a cross with his index fingers and pointing them at Eva, pretending to protect himself against her.

“They shot Dennis Hopper because he was a hippie,” he whispered conspiratorially.

Sibel giggled even more loudly and glanced expectantly at me. Jussi raised his hand and turned to Eva.

“In the haunted house you won’t have to listen to our childish nonsense,” he said, in his strong accent.

The room fell completely silent. It occurred to me that Eva had no way of knowing what the haunted house meant to our group, but I left it.

Eva Blau turned to Jussi. It looked as if she were going to yell something at him, but he simply gazed back at her with such a calm, serious expression that she appeared to change her mind and settled back down.

“Eva, we begin with relaxation exercises and breathing and then I hypnotize you, one by one or in pairs,” I explained. “Of course, everyone participates all the time, regardless of the level of consciousness on which you find yourself.”

An ironic smile passed over Eva’s face.

“And sometimes,” I went on, “if I feel it will work, I try to put the whole group into a deep hypnosis.”

I pulled up my chair and asked them to close their eyes and lean back. “Your feet should be on the floor, your hands should be resting on your lap,” I repeated.

As I gently led them deeper into a state of relaxation, I decided to begin by investigating Eva Blau’s secret rooms. It was important for her to make some contribution soon, in order to be accepted by the group. I counted backwards and listened to their breathing, immersing them in a light hypnotic state and leaving them just beneath the silvery surface of the water.

“Eva, I am speaking only to you,” I said. “You should feel safe and relaxed. Just listen to my voice and follow my words. Follow my words spontaneously all the time. Do not question them. You are amid their flow, not anticipating, not analyzing, but right here in the moment the whole time.”

We were sinking through grey water, falling down into the dark depths past a thick rope, a hawser festooned with swaying ribbons of seaweed. I looked up and glimpsed the rest of the group dangling there with the tops of their heads brushing the rippling mirror.

At the same time, I was actually standing behind Eva Blau’s chair with one hand on her shoulder, speaking calmly, my voice growing softer. She was leaning back, her face relaxed.

In my own trance, the water around her was sometimes brown, sometimes grey. Her face lay in shadow, her mouth tightly closed. Her brow was furrowed, but her gaze was completely blank. Lars Ohlson’s notes contained almost nothing about her background, so I decided to try a cautious entry strategy. Evoking a calm and happy time ironically often proves to be the quickest way into the most difficult areas.

“You are ten years old, Eva,” I said, coming around so that I could observe her from the front.

Her chest was barely moving; she was breathing calmly, gently, from down in her diaphragm.

“You are ten years old, Eva. This is a good day. You are happy. Why are you happy?”

Eva pouted sweetly, smiled to herself, and said, “Because the man is dancing and splashing in the puddles.”

“Who’s dancing?” I asked. “Who?” She didn’t speak for a moment. “Gene Kelly, Mummy says.”

“Oh, so you’re watching Singin’ in the Rain?”

A slow nod.

“What happens?”

I saw her face slowly sink toward s her chest. Suddenly a strange expression flitted across her lips.

“My tummy is big,” she said, almost inaudibly. “Your tummy?”

“It’s huge,” she said, with tears in her voice.

Jussi was breathing heavily beside her. From the corner of my eye I could see that he was moving his lips.

“The haunted house,” he whispered, in his state of light hypnosis. “The haunted house.”

“Eva, listen to me,” I said. “You can hear everyone else in this room, but you must listen only to my voice. Pay no attention to what the others say, pay attention only to my voice.”

“OK,” she said, her expression contented.

“Do you know why your tummy is big?” I asked. “I want to go into the haunted house,” she whispered.

I counted backwards, suggesting the staircase that led ever down. As I counted, I was thinking that something wasn’t right. I myself was immersed in pleasantly warm water, as I slowly drifted down past the rock face, deeper and deeper.

Eva Blau lifted her chin, moistened her lips, sucked in her cheeks, and whispered, “I can see them taking someone. They just come up and take someone.”

“Who’s taking someone?” I asked.

Her breathing became irregular. Her face grew darker. Brown, cloudy water drifted in front of her.

“A man with a ponytail. He’s hanging the little person up on the ceiling,” she whimpered.

She was clutching the hawser with the billowing seaweed tightly with one hand; her legs were paddling slowly.

Something wasn’t right. With an effortful thrust I pushed myself outside the hypnosis. Eva Blau was faking. I was absolutely certain that she wasn’t under hypnosis. She had resisted, blocked my suggestion. She’s lying, she isn’t under hypnosis at all, my brain whispered coldly.

She was throwing herself back and forth on her chair. “The man is pulling and pulling at the little person, he’s pulling too hard.” Suddenly she met my gaze and stopped moving. Her lips distended in a wide, ugly grin. “Was I good?” she asked me.

I didn’t reply. I just watched as she stood up, took her coat from the hook, and calmly walked out of the room.

I wrote THE HAUNTED HOUSE on a piece of paper, wrapped it around tape number 14, and secured it with a rubber band. But instead of archiving the tape as usual, I took it to my office. I wanted to analyze Eva Blau’s lie and my own reaction, but I was still in the hall when I realized what had been wrong all along: Eva had been aware of her face and had tried to look sweet; she had not had the listless, open face that those under hypnosis always have. A person under hypnosis can smile, but it isn’t their usual smile, it’s a somnolent, slack smile.

As I turned the corner leading to my office, I saw Maja Swartling waiting outside my door. I surprised myself by remembering her name. When she caught sight of me, her face lit up and she waved.

“Sorry to keep bothering you like this,” she said quickly, “but since I’m basing part of my dissertation on your research, my advisor suggested that I interview you.” She looked at me intently.

“I understand,” I said.

“Is it all right if I ask you a few questions?” she asked.

Suddenly she looked like a little girl: wide awake but unsure of herself. Her eyes were very dark, set off against the milky glow of her fair skin. She wore her shiny hair in looped braids: an old-fashioned hair-style, but it suited her.

“Is it all right?” she repeated softly. “You have no idea how persistent I can be.”

I realized I was standing there smiling. There was something so bright and healthy about her. She laughed and gave me a lingering, satisfied look. I unlocked the door and she followed me into the office, settled down in the visitor’s chair, and took out a notepad and pen.

“What would you like to ask me?”

Maja blushed deeply and sat, then began to talk.

“I’ve read your reports,” she said, “and your hypnosis group is made up not only of victims, people who have been subjected to some kind of abuse, but also perpetrators, those who have done terrible things to others.”

“You have to understand that sometimes the level of coercion is so great that a person is forced to commit terrible acts. The victim becomes the perpetrator through the very process of victimization. In any event, for patients like this, it works the same way in the subconscious, and in the context of group therapy this is in fact a resource.”

“Interesting,” she said, taking more notes. “I want to come back to that, but what I’d like to know now is how the perpetrator sees himself or herself during hypnosis- after all, you do put forward the idea that the victim often replaces the perpetrator with something else, like an animal.”

“I haven’t had time to investigate how perpetrators see themselves, and I don’t want to speculate.”

Maja leaned forward, lips pursed. “But you’ve got an idea?”

“I have a patient, for example, who- ” I fell silent, thinking of Jussi Persson, the man from Norrland who carried his loneliness like a dreadful self-imposed weight.

“What were you going to say?”

“Under hypnosis this patient returns to a hunting tower. It’s as if the gun is in control of him; he shoots deer and simply leaves them lying there.”

We sat in silence, looking at each other.

“It’s getting late,” I said.

“I still have a lot of questions.”

I waved my hand. “We’ll have to meet again.”

She looked at me. My body suddenly felt strangely hot as I noticed a faint flush rising on her pale skin. There was something mischievous between us, a mixture of seriousness and the desire to laugh.

“Can I buy you a drink to say thank you? There’s a really nice Leba nese- ”

She stopped abruptly as the telephone rang. I apologized and picked it up.

“Erik?” It was Simone, sounding stressed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I… I’m out in back, on the bike path. It looks like someone’s broken into our home.”

An ice-cold shudder ran through me. I thought about the ferrule that had been left outside our door, the old instrument of punishment.

“What happened?”

I heard Simone swallow hard. Some children were playing in the background; they might have been up on the soccer field. I heard the sound of a whistle and screams.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Nothing, a class of schoolchildren,” she said firmly. “Erik, Benjamin’s veranda door is open and the window has been smashed.”

Maja Swartling stood and pointed at the door, asking if she should go. I nodded briefly, with an apologetic shrug. She bumped into the chair, which scraped along the floor.

“Are you alone?” asked Simone.

“Yes,” I said, without knowing why I was lying.

Maja waved and closed the door soundlessly behind her. I could still smell her perfume.

“It’s just as well you didn’t go inside,” I went on. “Have you called the police?”

“Erik, you sound funny. Has something happened?”

“You mean apart from the fact that there might be a burglar inside our house right now? Have you called the police?”

“Yes, I called Dad.”

“Good.”

“He said he was on his way.”

“Move farther away from the house, Simone.”

“I’m standing on the bike path.”

“Can you still see the house?”

“Yes.”

“If you can see the house, anyone inside the house can see you.”

“Stop it!” she said.

“Please, Simone, go up to the soccer field. I’m on my way home.”

I stopped behind Kennet’s dirty Opel and got out of the car. Kennet came running toward me, his expression tense.

“Where the hell is Sixan?” he shouted.

“I told her to wait on the soccer field.”

“Good, I was afraid she’d- ”

“She would have gone inside otherwise, I know her; she takes after you.”

He laughed and hugged me tightly. “Good to see you, kid.”

We set off around the block, to get to the back. Simone was standing not far from our garden. Presumably she had been keeping an eye on the broken veranda door the whole time; it led straight to our shady patio. She looked up, left her bike, came straight over and gave me a hug, and looked over my shoulder. “Hi, Dad.”

“I’m going in,” he said, his tone serious. “I’m coming with you,” I said.

Simone sighed. “Women and children wait outside.”

All three of us stepped over the low potentilla hedge and walked across the grass to the patio, with its white plastic table and four plastic chairs.

Shards of glass covered the step and the doorsill. On the wall-to-wall carpet in Benjamin’s room, a large stone lay among fragments and shards. As we went in, I reminded myself to tell Kennet about the ferrule that we’d found outside our door.

Simone followed us and switched on the ceiling light. Her face was glowing, and her strawberry-blonde hair hung down in curls over her shoulders.

Kennet went into the hall, looked into the bedroom on the right, and into the bathroom. The reading lamp in the TV room was on. In the kitchen, a chair lay on its side on the floor. We went from room to room, but nothing seemed to be missing. In the downstairs bathroom, the toilet paper had been yanked violently off the roll and lay strewn across the floor.

Kennet looked at me with an odd expression. “Do you have any unfinished business with anyone?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not as far as I know,” I said. “Obviously, I meet a lot of damaged people in my work. Just like you.”

He nodded.

“They haven’t taken anything,” I said.

“Is that normal, Dad?” asked Simone.

Kennet shook his head. “It isn’t normal, not if they break a window. Somebody wanted you to know they’d been here.”

Simone was standing in the doorway of Benjamin’s room. “It looks as if someone has been lying in his bed,” she said quietly. “What’s the name of that fable? Goldilocks, isn’t it?”

We hurried into our bedroom and saw that somebody had been lying in our bed too. The bedspread had been pulled down and the sheets were crumpled.

“This is pretty weird,” said Kennet.

There was silence for a little while.

“The ferrule!” Simone exclaimed.

“Exactly. I thought about it and then I forgot,” I said. I went into the hall and got it from the stand.

“My God,” said Kennet. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a boy.”

“It was outside our door yesterday,” said Simone.

“Let me have a look,” said Kennet.

“They used to use it for corporal punishment,” I said.

“I know what it is,” said Kennet, running his hand over it.

“I don’t like this at all. The whole thing feels creepy,” said Simone.

“Has anyone threatened you, or have you experienced anything that could be construed as a threat?”

“No,” she replied.

“But perhaps that’s how we should regard it,” I said. “Perhaps someone thinks we should be punished. I thought maybe it was just a bad joke, because we coddle Benjamin so much. I mean, if you didn’t know about Benjamin’s illness, we’d seem pretty neurotic.”

Simone went straight to the telephone and called Benjamin’s pre-school to check that he was all right.

That evening we put Benjamin to bed early; as usual, I lay down beside him and told him the entire plot of a children’s film about an African boy. Benjamin had watched it many times and almost always wanted me to tell him the story when he settled down to go to sleep. If I forgot the smallest detail he would remind me, and if he was still awake when I got to the end, Simone got to sing lullabies.

That night, he fell asleep easily. I made a pot of tea, and Simone and I settled down to watch a video. But neither of us could focus on the movie, so I paused the machine and we talked about the break-in, reassuring ourselves with the fact that nothing was stolen; someone had just unrolled the toilet paper and messed up our beds.

“Maybe it was some teenagers who wanted a place to screw around,” said Simone.

“No, I don’t think so. They would have left more of a mess if that were the case.”

“But don’t you think it’s a bit strange that the neighbours didn’t notice anything?” asked Simone. “I mean, Adolfsson doesn’t usually miss much.”

“Maybe he was the one who did it,” I suggested. “Screwed around in our bed?”

I laughed and pulled her close. How good she smelled! She was wearing my favourite scent, Aromatics Elixir, heavy, but not cloying or sweet. She pressed herself to me, and I felt her slim, boyish body against mine. I slipped my hands inside her loose shirt, running them over her silky skin. Her breasts were warm, her nipples hard. She groaned when I kissed her throat; a blast of hot breath shot into my ear.

We undressed by the glow of the television, helping each other with rapid, seeking hands, fumbling, laughing, and kissing again. She drew me to the bedroom and pushed me down onto the bed with playful severity.

“Time for the ferrule,” she said.

I nodded, transfixed, and watched as she moved closer to me, bowing her head to allow her hair to trail over my legs; she smiled as she moved steadily upward. Her curls cascaded over her slender, freckled shoulders. Her arm muscles tensed as she straddled my hips. Her cheeks flushed deep red as I pushed inside her.

For a few seconds the memory of some photographs flickered through my mind. I had taken the pictures on an isolated beach in the Greek archipelago, two years before Benjamin was born. We’d taken a bus along the coast and got off at what we thought was the prettiest spot. When we realized the beach was completely deserted, we decided not to bother with swimsuits. We ate warm watermelon in the sunshine and then lay naked in clear, shallow water, kissing and caressing each other. We made love perhaps four times that day on the beach, growing ever warmer and more indolent. I recalled Simone’s skin, sticky with salt water, her heavy, sun-drenched gaze, her introverted smile. Her small, taut breasts, her freckles, her pale pink nipples. Her flat stomach, her navel, her reddish-brown pubic hair.

Now Simone leaned forward, chasing her orgasm. She thrust backwards, kissed my chest, my throat. She was breathing faster, her eyes closed; she gripped my shoulders and whispered. “Don’t stop, Erik, please don’t stop.”

She was moving faster, heavier, her back slippery with sweat. She groaned loudly, still thrusting backwards, over and over again, stopping with quivering thighs before starting again; she stopped, whimpering, gasped for air, moistened her lips, and supported herself on my chest with her hands.

I parked my bike outside the neurological unit and stood for a little while, listening to the birds rustling in the trees; I could see their bright spring colours among the dense leaves. I thought about waking up next to Simone this morning and looking into her green eyes.

My office looked just as I had left it; the chair on which Maja Swartling had sat while she interviewed me was still pulled out, and my desk lamp was on. I switched it off. It was only half past eight, and I had plenty of time to go through my notes from yesterday’s abortive hypnosis session with Charlotte. It was easy to understand why it had turned out as it had: I had forced the pace of events, striving only to reach the goal. I should have known better. I was far too experienced to make that kind of mistake. It’s impossible to force a patient to see something she absolutely does not want to see. Charlotte had gone into her room but had not wanted to look up. That should have been enough for one session, it was courageous enough.

I changed into my white coat, disinfected my hands, and thought about the group. I wasn’t completely happy with the role Pierre had assumed; it was a little unclear. He often hung around Sibel or Lydia and was talkative and mischievous, but he remained extremely passive during hypnosis. He was a hairdresser, openly homosexual, who wanted to be an actor. On the surface he lived a perfectly functioning life- except for one recurring detail. Every Easter he went on a charter holiday with his mother. They locked themselves in their hotel room, got drunk, and had sex. What his mother did not know was that Pierre sank into a deep depression after every trip and frequently tried to commit suicide.

I didn’t want to force my patients. I wanted it to be their own choice to talk about issues.

There was a knock at the door. Before I had time to answer, it opened and Eva Blau walked in. She had shaved off all her hair and made up only her eyes. She made a strange face, as if she were trying to smile without using her facial muscles.

“No, thank you,” she said suddenly. “There’s no need to invite me to supper, I’ve already eaten. Charlotte is a wonderful person. She cooks for me, meals for the whole week; I put them in the freezer.”

“That’s kind of her,” I said.

“She’s buying my silence,” Eva explained cryptically, moving to stand behind the chair where Maja had sat the previous day.

“Eva, would you like to tell me why you’ve come here?”

“Not to suck your cock- just so you know.”

“You don’t have to continue with the hypnosis group,” I said calmly.

She looked down. “I knew you hated me,” she mumbled.

“No, Eva, I’m just saying you don’t have to be part of the group. Some people don’t want to be hypnotized, some aren’t receptive even though they really do want to try, and some- ”

“You hate me.”

I took a moment. “Eva, I don’t hate you. I’m just saying that your participation in the group isn’t meaningful or helpful to you, if you’re unwilling to be hypnotized.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “But you’re not to stick your cock in my mouth.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“Sorry,” she whispered, and took something out of her bag. “Look, this is for you.”

I took the object from her. It was a photograph. The picture showed Benjamin’s christening. I recognized it immediately.

“Sweet, isn’t he?” she said proudly.

I could feel my heart beginning to pound. “Where did you get this?” I asked her.

“That’s my little secret. I look out for myself, you know. It’s the only way to be in this life.”

She sat down on the sofa, calmly unbuttoned her blouse, and exposed her breasts to me. “Stick your cock in then, if it makes you happy.”

“You’ve been to my house,” I said.

“You’ve been to my house,” she answered defiantly. “Eva, you told me about your home. Breaking in is another matter altogether.

“I didn’t break in,” she retorted quickly. “You broke a window.”

“The stone broke the window.”

I felt suddenly exhausted; I was losing control and was about to turn my fury on a sick, confused woman.

“Why did you take this picture from me?”

“You’re the one who takes! You take and take! What the fuck would you say if I took things from you? How do you think that would feel?”

She hid her face in her hands and said she hated me; she repeated it over and over again, perhaps a hundred times, before she calmed down.

Then she said steadily, “You have to understand that you make me angry when you claim that I take things. I gave you something, a lovely picture.”

“Yes.”

She smiled broadly and licked her lips. “Now I want you to give me something.”

“What do you want?” I asked calmly.

“I want you to hypnotize me,” she replied.

“Why did you leave a ferrule outside my door?” I asked.

She stared blankly at me. “What’s a ferrule?”

“It’s a flat stick that was once used to punish children,” I said.

“I didn’t leave anything outside your door.”

“That isn’t true. You left an old- ”

“Don’t lie!” she screamed.

“Eva, I will call the police if you don’t know where the boundaries are, if you can’t understand that you have to leave me and my family alone.”

“What about my family?” she said.

“Just listen to me.”

“Fascist pig!” she yelled. She leaped to her feet and left the room.

My patients sat before me in the semicircle. It had been easy to hypnotize them this time, and we had drifted softly down together through lapping water. I was working with Charlotte again. Her face was relaxed yet sorrowful, with deep, dark circles under her eyes; the point of her chin was slightly crumpled.

I waited. It was clear that Charlotte was under deep hypnosis. She was breathing heavily but silently.

“You know you’re safe with us, Charlotte,” I said. “Nothing can harm you. You feel good. You are pleasantly relaxed.”

She nodded sadly and I knew she could hear me; she was following my words and was no longer able to distinguish between actual reality and the reality of hypnosis. It was as if she were watching a film in which she herself took part. She was both audience and actor, united as one.

“Don’t be cross,” she whispered. “Sorry, I’m so sorry. I will console you, I promise, I will console you.”

We were in the haunted house. I knew we had reached Charlotte’s dangerous rooms and I wanted her to stop; I wanted her to have the strength to look up from the floor and see something, to catch a glimpse of the thing she was so afraid of. I could hear the group breathing around me. I wanted to help her, but I had no intention of forcing the pace this time; I was not about to repeat last week’s mistake.

“It’s cold in Grandfather’s gym,” Charlotte said suddenly.

“Can you see anything?”

“Long floorboards, a bucket, a cable,” she said, almost inaudibly.

I could see her eyelids quivering. Fresh tears seeped through her eyelashes. Her open hands were nested in her lap, palms up, like an old woman.

“You know you can leave the room whenever you want to.”

“Can I?”

“Whenever you want.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

She fell silent, lifted her chin, then slowly turned her head, her mouth half open like a child’s.

“I’ll stay a little while longer,” she said.

“Are you alone in there?”

She shook her head. “I can hear him,” she murmured, “but I can’t see him.” She frowned, as if she were trying to see something that was out of focus. “There’s an animal here,” she said suddenly.

“What kind of animal?” I asked. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

“Daddy has a big dog…”

“Is your daddy there?”

“Yes, he’s here, he’s standing in the corner; he’s upset, I can see his eyes. I’ve hurt Daddy, he says. Daddy is upset.”

“And the dog?”

“The dog is moving about in front of his legs, sniffing. It comes closer, moves back. Now it is standing quietly beside him, panting. Daddy says the dog is to guard me. I don’t want that, it shouldn’t be allowed to do that; it isn’t- ”

Charlotte gasped for breath. A dreadful shadow passed over her face. I thought it was best to come up out of the trance, up out of the black sea. She ran the risk of wrenching herself out of the hypnosis if she moved forward too quickly. We had found the dog; she had stayed and looked at it. This was an enormous step forward. In time we would solve the riddle of who the dog actually was.

As we floated up through the water, I saw Marek part his lips and bare his teeth at Charlotte. Lydia reached out through a dark green cloud of seaweed, trying to stroke Pierre’s cheek; Sibel and Jussi closed their eyes and drifted upward. We met Eva Blau hovering just beneath the surface.

We were almost awake. The dividing line where reality dissolves into the influence of hypnosis is always unclear, and the same is true during the reverse journey, back to the territory of consciousness.

“We’ll take a break now,” I said, and turned to Charlotte. “Good idea?”

“Thank you,” she said, lowering her eyes.

Marek got up, asked Sibel for a cigarette, and went outside with her. Pierre remained in his seat next to Jussi. Lydia stood up slowly, stretched her arms languidly above her head, and yawned. I thought I would tell Charlotte I was pleased she had chosen to stay a little while longer in her haunted house, but she had left the room.

I had picked up my pad to make a few quick notes when Lydia came over to me. Her heavy jewellery clinked softly, and I could smell her perfume as she stood next to me. “Isn’t it my turn soon?”

“Next time,” I replied, without looking up from my notepad.

“Why not today?”

I put my pen down and met her gaze. “Because I was intending to continue with Charlotte.”

“But if she doesn’t come back,” Lydia persisted.

“Lydia, I try to help all my patients.”

She tilted her head to one side. “But you’re not going to succeed, are you?”

“What makes you think that?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Statistically, one of us will commit suicide, a couple will end up in an institution, and- ”

“You can’t reason like that.”

“Yes, I can,” she said, “because I want to be one of those who makes it.” She took a step closer to me and her eyes gleamed with unexpected cruelty as she lowered her voice. “I think Charlotte will be the one who takes her own life.”

Before I had time to respond, she simply sighed and said, “At least she hasn’t got any children.”

I watched Lydia go and sit down. When I glanced at the time, I realized more than fifteen minutes had passed. Pierre, Lydia, and Jussi had returned to their seats. I called Marek in; he was wandering around in the hall, talking to himself. Sibel was standing in the doorway, smoking, and giggled wearily when I asked her to come in.

Lydia’s expression was smug when I finally had to admit that Charlotte hadn’t returned.

“Right,” I said, bringing my hands together. “Let’s continue.”

I saw their faces before me. They were ready. In fact, the sessions were always better after the break; it was as if they were all longing to return to the depths, as if the lights and the currents down there were whispering to us, inviting us to join them once again.

The effect of the induction was immediate. Lydia sank into a deep hypnosis in just ten minutes.

We were falling. I could feel lukewarm water washing over my skin. The big grey rock was covered with corals. The tentacles of their polyps were waving in the water. I could see every detail, every glowing, vibrant color.

“Lydia,” I said, “where are you?”

She licked her dry lips and tipped her head back; her eyes were just closed, but she had an irritated expression around her mouth, and her brow was furrowed. “I’m taking the knife.” Her voice was dry and rasping.

“What kind of knife is it?” I asked.

“The knife with the serrated edge, the one on the draining-board,” she said in a surprised tone, then sat in silence for a while, her mouth half open.

“A bread knife?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Go on.”

“I cut the pack of ice cream in half. I take one half and a spoon to the sofa in front of the TV. Oprah Winfrey. Dr. Phil is sitting in the audience. She asks him a question and he holds up his index finger. There’s a piece of red thread tied around it, and he’s just about to tell us why when Kasper starts yelling. I know he doesn’t want anything, he’s just trying to spite me. He yells because he knows it will upset me. I won’t tolerate bad behaviour in my house.”

“What is he yelling?”

“He knows I want to hear what Dr. Phil says. He knows I enjoy Oprah; that’s why he’s yelling.”

“And what is he yelling right now?”

“There are two closed doors between us,” she goes on. “But I can hear him yelling.”

“What is he saying?”

“Horrible words. He’s yelling cunt, cunt, cunt.” Lydia’s cheeks were red, and her forehead was beaded with sweat.

“What do you do?” I asked.

She licked her lips again, her breathing heavy. “I turn up the TV,” she said, her voice subdued. “It thunders out, the applause makes the set rattle, but it feels wrong, it’s no good any more. I’m not enjoying it. He’s ruined it. That’s how it is, but I ought to explain it to him.”

She smiled faintly with her lips pressed together; her face had now lost all its colour. The water shimmered in metallic rolls over her forehead.

“Is that what you do?” I asked.

“What?”

“What do you do, Lydia?”

“I… I go past the pantry and down into the rec room in the basement. I can hear whistling and strange buzzing noises from Kasper’s room… I don’t know what he’s up to. I just want to go back upstairs and watch TV, but I keep going to Kasper’s room. I open the door and go in.” She fell silent. The water was forced out through her half-closed lips.

“You go in,” I repeated. “What do you walk in on, Lydia?”

Her lips were moving slightly. The air bubbles sparkled and disappeared upward.

“What do you see?” I asked cautiously.

“He’s pretending to be asleep when I walk in,” she said slowly. “He’s ripped up the photo of Grandmother! He promised to be careful if I let him borrow the picture, and now he’s destroyed it! It’s the only one I’ve got. And he’s just lying there, pretending to be asleep. I need to have a serious talk with Kasper on Sunday; that’s when we go through how we have behaved toward s each other during the past week. I wonder what advice Dr. Phil would give me. I look down and see that I still have the spoon in my hand, but when I look at it I see a teddy bear reflected in the metal. It must be hanging from the ceiling…”

Lydia suddenly grimaced, as if she were in pain. She tried to laugh, but only strange noises came out. She tried again, but it still didn’t sound like laughter.

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I look,” she said, turning her face upward.

Suddenly she slid off her chair, banging the back of her head on the seat. I rushed over. She sat on the floor, still under hypnosis, but no longer as deeply. She stared at me with terrified eyes as I spoke reassuringly to her.

I left the waiting room and walked down the hallway towards my office. The hospital lobby was empty, apart from a few elderly women waiting for transport. It was so beautiful out, I thought I ought to go for a run tonight as soon as I finished work.

Maja was waiting by my office door. Her full red lips parted in a broad smile, and a hair clasp in her coal-black hair sparkled as she bowed to me. With her usual playfulness, she said, “I hope you don’t regret the fact that you’ve committed yourself, doctor.”

“Committed myself? That’s a hell of a thing to say to a psychiatrist.” She laughed, but I still felt the need to reassure her. “Of course I don’t regret it,” I said.

I stood next to her to unlock the door, feeling a distinct tingling inside. But when our eyes met, I saw an unexpected seriousness in her expression, and I was able to dismiss the sensation. She passed me and went inside. It was hard not to be self-consciously aware of my own body; my feet, my mouth. Maja blushed as she took out a folder containing her papers, pen, and notebook.

“What’s happened since we last met?” she asked.

I made her a cup of coffee and began to describe the afternoon’s session.

“I think we’ve found Charlotte’s perpetrator,” I said. “The person who victimized her so badly that she attempts suicide over and over again.”

Maja looked at me with a gratifyingly rapt expression. “Who is it?”

“A dog,” I said seriously.

Maja didn’t laugh; she was well versed in my work. The most daring and the most striking of my ideas was based on the ancient structure of the fable: to depict people in animal form, to assign forbidden acts and proscribed behaviour to beasts, is one of the oldest ways to circumvent narrative taboos or simply avoid truths that are too frightening or too tempting.

It was very easy, almost treacherously easy, for me to talk to Maja Swartling. She was familiar with the subject, she asked intelligent questions, and above all she was an excellent listener.

“And Marek Semiovic? How is he getting on?” she asked, sucking the end of her pen as she waited for my response.

“Well, you know his background. He came here as a refugee during the war in Bosnia but was given help only for his physical injuries at the time.”

“Yes.”

“He’s… interesting… for my research, even if I don’t really understand yet what’s happening with him. When he’s under very deep hypnosis, he always ends up in the same room, with the same memory- he’s being forced to torture people, people he knows, boys he used to play with, shopkeepers he used to buy from, teachers at his school- but then something happens.”

“During the hypnosis?”

“Yes. He refuses to go any further.”

“He refuses?”

“Free will under hypnosis is limited only by the fact that we can’t lie to ourselves.”

Time passed, and it was evening. The hall outside my office was silent and deserted.

Maja put her things away in her briefcase, wound her scarf around her neck, and stood up.

“I don’t know where the time went,” she said apologetically.

“Thanks for listening,” I said, holding out my hand.

She hesitated. “I’m the one who should thank you. I wonder if I could buy you a drink this evening to express my gratitude?”

I quickly ran through my plans. Simone and her friends were going to see Tosca, and she would be home late. Benjamin was staying with his grandfather, and as far as everyone was concerned, I’d intended to work all evening.

“One drink,” I said, picking up my jacket. I tamped down the feeling that I was overstepping the mark.

“I know a little place on Roslagsgatan,” said Maja, “called Peterson-Berger. It’s very simple but really nice.”

“Good.” I turned off the light and locked the door behind us.

It was about seven-thirty, and there was hardly any traffic. We took our bikes and rode down to Norrtull. The spring quivered in the sound of birdsong in the trees.

When we were met by the restaurant’s smiling proprietress, I grew doubtful. Should I really be here? What would I say if Simone rang and asked what I was doing? A wave of unease rose up, but I justified the outing to myself: Maja was a colleague. We wanted to continue our discussion. Simone, who never hesitated to go out alone with friends, was probably drinking wine right now in the restaurant at the opera house.

“I love their spit-roasted chicken with cumin,” Maja said, leading the way to a table at the far side of the restaurant.

We sat down, and a waitress immediately came over with a jug of water. Maja rested her chin on her hand, gazed at her glass, and said calmly, “If we get fed up with being here, we can always go back to my place.” She looked at me expectantly. For a moment I allowed myself to wonder what she was doing here with me. She was gorgeous, young, and outgoing. I must have been fifteen years older than she was, and I was married.

“Maja, are you flirting with me?”

She laughed, showing deep dimples. “My dad has always said I was born that way. An incorrigible flirt.”

I realized I knew nothing about her. “Is your father a doctor too?” I asked.

She nodded. “Professor Jan E. Swartling.”

“The brain surgeon,” I said, impressed.

“Or whatever you call it when somebody pokes around inside another person’s head,” she said acidly. It was the first time the smile had left her face.

We ate. To counter my anxiety, I was drinking too quickly and ordered more wine. It was as if the looks the staff were giving us, their obvious assumption that we were a couple, were making me nervous. I got drunk and didn’t even look at the bill before I signed it, crumpled up the receipt, and missed the wastepaper basket next to the cloakroom. Out on the street, in the lovely, mild spring evening, I was definitely intending to go home. But Maja pointed to a door and asked if I would like to come up, just to see what her apartment was like and to have a cup of tea.

“Maja,” I said, “you are incorrigible. Your father is right.”

She giggled and tucked her arm under mine.

We stood very close to each other in the lift. I couldn’t help looking at her smiling mouth, her pearly white teeth, her high forehead, and her black, shiny hair.

She noticed and tentatively caressed my cheek; I leaned down to kiss her, but the lift stopped with a jerk.

“Come on,” she whispered, as she unlocked her door.

Her studio apartment was small but very pleasant. The walls were painted a soft Mediterranean blue, and white linen curtains hung at the one window. The kitchen area was fresh, with a white tiled floor and a small, modern gas stove. Maja went into the kitchen, and I heard her opening a bottle of wine.

“I thought we were having tea,” I said, when she emerged with the bottle and two wineglasses. I was slurring my words.

“This is better for you,” she said.

“Well, in that case,” I said, accepting a glass and spilling wine on my hand.

She wiped my hand with a tea towel, sat down on the narrow bed, and leaned back.

“Nice place,” I said.

“It seems strange, having you here,” she said with a smile. “I’ve admired you for such a long time.”

Suddenly she leaped up.

“I have to take a picture of you,” she exclaimed, giggling. “The important doctor here in my little place!” She got her camera and trained the lens on me.

“Look serious,” she said, peering through the viewfinder.

She giggled some more as she snapped away, encouraging, joking, telling me I was hot, I was gorgeous, asking me to pout. Gradually, I relaxed.

“Unbelievably sexy.” She laughed light-heartedly.

“Will I make the front cover of Vogue?”

“Unless they choose me,” she said, handing me the camera.

I got to my feet unsteadily and pointed the camera at her. She had thrown herself down on the bed.

“You win,” I said, and took a picture.

“My brother always called me Pudding,” she said. “Do you think I’m fat?”

“You’re incredibly beautiful,” I murmured. She sat up and pulled her sweater over her head. She was wearing a pale green silk bra over her voluptuous breasts.

“Take a picture now,” she whispered, unhooking her bra.

She was blushing furiously and smiling. I focused, looking into her dark, shimmering eyes, at her smiling mouth, her young, generous breasts with their pale pink nipples.

“I’ll take a close-up,” I mumbled and knelt down, feeling desire pulse through my body.

She supported one heavy breast with her hand. The camera flashed. I had a powerful erection; it was aching and pulling. I lowered the camera, leaned forward, and took one breast in my mouth. She pressed it against my face, and I licked and sucked at the hard nipple.

“God, yes,” she whispered. “God, that’s wonderful.”

Her skin was hot, steaming. She unbuttoned her jeans, pulled them down, and kicked them off. I stood up, thinking that I mustn’t go to bed with her, that I couldn’t do that, but I picked up the camera and photographed her again. She was wearing only a pair of thin pale-green panties.

“Come here,” she whispered.

I looked at her through the lens again as she smiled and parted her legs. I could just see the dark pubic hair curling around the crotch of her panties.

“It’s fine,” she said.

“I can’t.”

She smiled. “Oh, I think you can.”

“Maja, you’re dangerous, so dangerous,” I said, putting down the camera.

“I know I’m a naughty girl.”

“But I’m a married man, you have to understand that.”

“Don’t you think I’m beautiful?”

“You’re amazingly beautiful, Maja.”

“More beautiful than your wife?”

“Stop it.”

“But I turn you on, don’t I?” she whispered, then giggled before suddenly becoming serious.

I nodded, moved back, and saw her give a very satisfied smile. “I can still carry on with my interviews, can’t I?”

“Absolutely,” I said, moving toward the door.

She blew me a kiss, I blew one back, and then I left her studio, hurried downstairs, and headed for my bike.

That night I dreamed I was looking at a stone relief depicting three nymphs. I woke myself up saying something out loud, so loud I could hear the echo of my own voice in the dark, silent bedroom. Simone had come home while I was asleep; she stirred in her sleep beside me. I was drenched with sweat from my dream, and the alcohol was still coursing through my blood. A street cleaning truck rumbled past the window, flashing its light. The building was silent. I got up to take a pill and tried not to think, but what had happened the previous evening returned, immediately and vividly: I had photographed Maja Swartling while she was practically naked. I had taken pictures of her breasts, her legs, and her transparent spring-green panties. But we didn’t have sex, I kept repeating to myself. I hadn’t intended to, I hadn’t wanted to- I had over-stepped, but I hadn’t betrayed Simone. Had I? I was wide awake now, chillingly wide awake. What was the matter with me? How the hell had I let myself be persuaded to photograph Maja naked? She was beautiful and seductive, and I had been flattered by her attention. Was that all it took? I realized with surprise that I had discovered a real weak point in myself: I was vain. Nothing within me could claim I was falling in love with her. It was my vanity that enjoyed her company so much.

I rolled over and pulled the duvet over my face, and after a while I fell into a heavy sleep again.

Marek was in a state of deep hypnotic rest. He sat low in his chair, his sweater straining over his powerful upper arms and his overdeveloped back muscles. His hair was cropped very short, exposing a scalp covered with scars. His jaws were chewing slowly; he raised his head and looked at me with empty eyes.

“I can’t stop laughing,” he said loudly. “The shocks are making this guy from Mostar jump around like a cartoon character.”

Marek looked happy, his head swaying from side to side.

“He’s lying on the concrete floor, dark with blood, breathing fast, very fast. And then he curls up and starts crying. Fucking pussy. I shout at him, tell him to get on his feet, tell him I’ll kill him if he doesn’t get up. I lean over to give him one more shock, but his body just jerks like a dead pig. I call over to the door and tell them the fun is over, but they come in with this guy’s older brother. I know him, we worked together for a couple of years at Aluminij, the factory- ”

Marek stopped speaking, his chin quivering.

“What happens now?” I asked quietly.

He sat in silence for a while before he began speaking again. “The floor is covered with green grass; I can’t see the guy from Mostar any more; there’s just a little mound of grass.”

“Isn’t that strange?” I asked. “I don’t know, maybe, but I can’t see the room any more. I’m outside, walking across a summer meadow; the grass is damp and cold beneath my feet.”

Carefully, I brought everyone out of the hypnosis, checking to make sure each of them was all right before I started the discussion. Marek wiped the tears from his cheeks and stretched. He had big patches of sweat under his arms.

“I was forced to do it, that was their thing. They forced me to torture my old friends,” he said.

“We know.”

He looked at us with a shy, searching smile. “I laughed because I was frightened. I’m not like that. I’m not dangerous,” he said.

“You liked hurting people,” Lydia said with a soft smile. “Why can’t you admit that?”

“Shut your mouth!” yelled Marek, moving over to her with his hand raised.

“Sit down,” I said forcefully.

“Don’t shout at me, Marek,” Lydia said calmly.

He met her gaze and stopped. “Sorry,” he said, with an uncertain smile; he ran his hand over his head a couple of times and sat down. I called for a break.

It was a gloomy day. Rain hung heavily in the air. The wind blowing in was cold, and carried with it a faint smell of wet leaves, a reminder of winter that made me feel glum. My patients began to return to their seats.

Eva Blau was dressed all in blue; she had even painted her narrow lips with blue lipstick and made up her eyes with blue mascara. She seemed anxious as usual, placing her cardigan around her shoulders and then taking it off, over and over again.

Lydia was talking to Pierre; as he listened, his eyes and mouth contracted in painful, repetitive tics.

Marek had turned his back on me. His body-builder’s muscles twitched as he searched for something in his backpack.

I waved to Sibel; she carefully stubbed out her cigarette on her shoe and replaced it in the pack.

“Let’s continue,” I said, intending to make a fresh attempt with Eva Blau.

Although Eva Blau’s face was tense, a teasing smile played across her blue-painted lips. I was wary of her pliancy; it was a form of manipulation. I had an idea of how I could stress the voluntary nature of hypnosis to her, though. It was obvious to me that she needed help to relax and begin to sink.

I watched Eva as I told everyone to let their chin drop to their chest. She immediately reacted with a big smile. As I counted backwards, I could feel the descent against my back, the water enveloping me, but I remained alert. Eva was sneaking a look at Pierre, trying to breathe with the same rhythm.

“You are sinking slowly,” I said. “Deeper down into rest, into relaxation, into a pleasant heaviness.”

I moved behind my patients, seeing their pale necks and rounded backs; I stopped behind Eva and placed a hand on her shoulder. Without opening her eyes she turned her face up slowly, pushing her lips out slightly.

“Now I am talking only to Eva,” I said. “Eva, I want you to remain awake but relaxed the whole time. You are to listen to my voice when I speak to the group. You will feel the same calmness, the same pleasant immersion, but you will not be hypnotized; you will remain awake throughout.”

I felt her shoulders relax.

“Now I am speaking to everyone again. Listen to me. I am going to count, and with each number we will sink deeper, deeper into relaxation. Eva, you will accompany us, but you will remain conscious and awake all the time.”

As I returned to my place I counted backwards, and when I sat down in front of them I could see that Eva’s face was limp, completely relaxed. It was almost hard to believe it was the same person. Her lower lip was drooping, the wet, pink inside a stark contrast to the blue lipstick, and her breathing was very heavy. I turned inwards, let go, and sank through the water in a dark shaft. We were inside a shipwreck or a flooded house. A stream of salt water came up to meet me from below. Air bubbles and small pieces of seaweed floated by.

“Keep going, deeper, calmer,” I exhorted them gently.

After perhaps twenty minutes we were all standing deep underwater on a perfectly smooth steel floor. A few odd molluscs had managed to attach themselves to the metal. Small clumps of algae could be seen here and there. A white crab scuttled sideways across the flat surface. The group stood in a semicircle in front of me. Eva’s face was pale, her expression faintly surprised. A grey, watery light billowed over her cheeks, reflecting and flowing.

Her face looked naked, almost innocent, when she was so deeply relaxed. A bubble of saliva formed at the side of her open mouth.

“Eva, tell us what you can see.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Tell the rest of us,” I urged calmly. “Where are you?”

She suddenly looked strange. It was as if something had surprised her. “I’ve gone away. I’m walking along the soft track with the pine needles and long pine cones,” she whispered. “Maybe I’ll go to the canoe club and look in through the window at the back.”

“Is that what you do now?”

Eva nodded and puffed out her cheeks like a sulky child.

“What can you see?”

“Nothing,” she said, quickly and firmly.

“Nothing?”

“Just one little thing… I am writing on the road outside the post office with a piece of chalk.”

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing important.”

“And you can’t see anything through the window?”

“No… just a boy. I’m looking at a boy,” she slurred. “He’s lovely, really sweet. He’s lying on a narrow bed, a sofa bed. A man in a white terry-cloth robe lies down on top of him. It looks nice… I like looking at them. I like boys. I want to kiss them.”

Afterward, Eva sat there, her mouth twitching and her eyes darting back and forth over everyone in the group. “I wasn’t hypnotized,” she said.

“You were relaxed; that works just as well,” I replied.

“No, it didn’t work at all, because I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying. I made it all up. I just said whatever came into my head. It was all just in my imagination.”

“So the canoe club doesn’t actually exist?”

“Nope,” she replied tersely.

“The soft track?”

“I made everything up,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

Eva Blau was a person who exerted an effort never to give away anything about herself. It was obvious she was troubled by the fact that she had been hypnotized and had described events she was really involved in.

Marek spat silently into the palm of his hand when he noticed that Pierre was watching him. Pierre blushed and quickly looked away.

“I have never done anything to boys,” Eva went on, raising her voice. “I’m nice. I’m a nice person. Children like me. All children like me. I’d be happy to babysit, Lydia. I went to your house yesterday, but I didn’t have the nerve to ring the bell.”

“Please don’t do that again,” said Lydia quietly.

“Do what?”

“Don’t come to my house again,” Lydia said.

“You can trust me,” Eva went on. “Charlotte and I are already best friends. She cooks for me, and I pick flowers for her to put on the table.” Eva’s lips twitched as she turned to Lydia once again. “I bought a present for Kasper. It’s a fan that looks like a helicopter. It’s fun. You fan yourself with the rotors.”

“Eva,” said Lydia darkly.

“The rotors are plastic, soft plastic. It’s not dangerous at all, he can’t hurt himself with it, I promise.”

“Don’t come to my house,” said Lydia. “Do you hear me?”

“Oh, not today, I can’t come today. Today I’m going to Marek’s. I think he could use some company.”

“Eva, you heard me,” Lydia persisted.

Eva responded with a smile. “I haven’t got time tonight.”

Lydia’s face grew white and tense. She stood up quickly and left the room. Eva remained in her seat, gazing after her.

Simone hadn’t arrived when I was shown to our table at the K.B. restaurant. I sat down and wondered whether to order a drink while I was waiting. It was ten past seven. I had booked the table myself. It was my birthday and I was feeling happy. We rarely managed to go out in those days; she was busy with her gallery project, I with my research. When we did have a free evening together, we usually chose to spend it on the sofa with Benjamin, watching a film or playing a video game.

At twenty past seven, the waiter brought me a martini glass containing Absolut vodka, a few dashes of Noilly Prat, and a long twist of lime peel. I decided to wait a little while before calling Simone, but when the drink was half gone, I was starting to feel anxious and annoyed. Reluctantly I took out my phone, dialed Simone’s number, and waited.

“Simone Bark.” She sound distracted, her voice echoing in an empty space.

“Sixan, it’s me. Where are you?”

“Erik? I’m at the gallery, what’s…” Her voice died away; then I heard a loud groan. “Oh, no. No! I’m so sorry, Erik, I completely forgot. There’s been so much going on today; we’ve had the plumber here and the electrician and- ”

“You’re at the gallery?” I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice.

“Yes, and I’m covered in paint and plaster.”

“We were supposed to be having dinner together,” I said wearily, lowering my voice. I glanced around at the other diners, embarrassed at having been stood up.

“I know, Erik. I’m so sorry. I forgot.”

“At least we have a good table,” I added sarcastically.

She sighed. “There’s no point in waiting for me.” I could hear how upset she was and took some cold comfort in shaming her. “Erik,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”

“It’s OK,” I said. I pressed the button to end the call.

Well, there wasn’t much point in going anywhere else, and I was hungry and I was in a restaurant. I quickly waved the waiter over and ordered herring with beer for an appetizer, crispy fried duck breast with diced bacon and orange sauce for my main course, along with a glass of Bordeaux, and, to finish, a Gruyère Alpage with honey.

“You can take away the other place,” I said to the waiter, adding, in a mournful tone, “I’ll be dining alone, it seems.” He gave me a sympathetic look as he poured my Czech beer and set out the herring and crisp bread.

I wished I had at least brought my notepad so I could have done something useful while I was eating.

My mobile phone suddenly rang in my inside pocket. Ah, I thought. Simone was kidding; she’s on her way.

“Hi, it’s Maja Swartling.”

“Maja, hi.”

“I was going to ask- wow, there’s a lot of noise around you. Is this a bad time?”

“I’m sitting in K.B.,” I said. “It’s my birthday,” I added morosely.

“Oh, congratulations, it sounds like a big party.”

“I’m alone,” I said tersely.

“Oh.” She was silent for a moment. I didn’t expect what she said next. “Erik, I’m sorry I tried to seduce you. I’m so ashamed.” She cleared her throat and tried to adopt a neutral tone as she went on. “I was going to ask if you’d mind reading the transcripts of my first interviews with you. I’ve finished them, and I’m about to hand them in to my advisor, but if you’d like to read them first- ”

“Just leave them in my cubbyhole.”

We said goodbye. I poured the last of the beer into my glass, knocked it back, and the waiter cleared the table. He returned almost immediately with the duck breast and red wine.

I ate with a sense of gloomy emptiness, unnaturally aware of the mechanisms of chewing and swallowing, the muted scrape of my knife and fork against the plate. I drank my third glass of wine and watched the pictures on the wall metamorphose into members of my hypnosis group. The voluptuous woman gathering her dark hair sensually at the back of her neck, causing her swelling breasts to lift, was Sibel. The skinny, anxious man in the suit was Pierre. Jussi was hidden behind a strange grey shape, and Charlotte, elegantly dressed and straight-backed, was sitting at a round table with Marek, who was wearing a childish suit.

I don’t know how long I had been staring at the pictures when I suddenly heard a breathless voice behind me. “Oh, you’re still here! I’m so glad I caught you.” It was Maja Swartling. She was beaming and gave me a big hug, to which I responded awkwardly.

“Happy birthday, Erik.”

Her thick black hair smelled wonderfully clean, and a faint scent of jasmine was hiding somewhere at the nape of her neck. She pointed at the chair opposite me. “May I join you?”

I ought to have sent her away. I had promised myself I wouldn’t see her again, and she should have known better than to come. But I hesitated, because in spite of everything I was glad of the company.

She was standing by the chair, waiting for my answer. “I find it difficult to say no to you,” I said, hearing the ambiguity in my words.

She sat down, summoned the waiter, and ordered a glass of wine. Then she gave me a mischievous look and placed a box beside my plate. “It’s only something small,” she explained, blushing furiously once again.

“A present?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Purely symbolic. I only found out it was your birthday twenty minutes ago.”

I opened the box and discovered to my surprise something that looked like miniature binoculars. My bewilderment must have shown on my face.

“They were called ‘anatomical binoculars,’ ” Maja explained. “My great-grandfather invented them. Actually, I think he won the Nobel Prize- though not for the binoculars. It was in the days when only Swedes and Norwegians used to win,” she added apologetically.

“Anatomical binoculars,” I repeated wonderingly. “Anyway, they’re really quaint- sweet, even- and very old. I know it’s a silly present- ”

“It certainly isn’t, it’s wonderful.” I looked into her eyes and saw how beautiful she was. “It’s very, very kind of you, Maja. Thank you so much.”

I placed the binoculars carefully back in their box and put them in my pocket.

“My glass is empty already,” she said in surprise. “Shall we order a bottle?”

It was late by the time we decided to go on to Riche, which was not far from the national theatre. We almost fell over when we were handing our coats in at the cloakroom; Maja was leaning on me and I misjudged the distance to the wall. When we regained our balance and saw the morose, deadly serious expression on the attendant’s face, Maja burst out laughing and, glancing at him apologetically, I led her away to the bar.

We each ordered a gin and tonic. It was hot and crowded, and we had to stand close together, leaning in to speak directly into each other’s ears in order to talk. Suddenly, we found ourselves kissing passionately. The back of her head thudded against the wall as I pressed myself against her. The music throbbed. She was speaking close to my ear, telling me we should go back to her place.

We rushed outside and into a taxi.

“We’re only going to Roslagsgatan,” she slurred. “Roslagsgatan seven teen.”

The driver nodded and pulled out into traffic. It was something like two o’clock in the morning, and the sky was beginning to lighten. The buildings flashing by were pale grey shadows. Maja leaned against me. I thought she was going to go to sleep when I felt her hand caressing my crotch. I was hard at once, and she laughed quietly, her lips against my neck.

I’m not sure how we got up to her studio. I remember standing in the lift licking her face, aware of the taste of salt and lipstick and powder, catching sight of my own drunken face in the blotchy mirror.

Inside her place, Maja stood in the hallway, let her jacket fall to the floor, and kicked off her shoes. She drew me over to the bed, helped me undress, and pulled off her white panties.

“Come here,” she whispered. “I want to feel you inside me.”

I lay down heavily between her thighs; she was very wet, and I simply sank into the warmth as she wrapped herself around me, squeezing me tightly. She groaned in my ear, clung to my back, moved her hips gently.

We had sex carelessly, drunkenly. I began to feel more and more detached from myself, more and more isolated and mute. I was getting close to my orgasm; I intended to pull out, but instead simply gave in to a convulsive, rapid ejaculation. She was breathing fast. I lay there panting as my penis grew limp and slid out of her. My heart was still pounding. I saw Maja’s lips part in a strange smile, which made me feel uncom fortable.

I felt ill. I no longer understood what had happened. What was I doing here? Stupid. This was so stupid.

I sat up in bed beside her.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, stroking my back.

I shrugged off her hand. “Don’t,” I said abruptly. My heart was thudding with fear.

“Erik? I thought- ”

She sounded upset. I felt I couldn’t look at her, I was angry with her. What had happened was my fault, of course. But it would never have happened if she hadn’t been so persistent.

“We’re both tired and drunk,” she whispered.

“I have to go,” I said, in a choked voice; I picked up my clothes and staggered into the bathroom. It was very small and full of creams, brushes, towels. A fluffy bathrobe was hanging from a hook, along with a pink razor on a soft, thick cord. I did my best to avoid looking at myself in the mirror as I washed myself with a pale blue cake of soap shaped like a rose. As I dressed, my elbows bumped into the walls.

When I came out she was waiting anxiously. She stood with the sheet wound around her body, looking very young. “Are you angry with me?” she asked, and I could see her lips trembling as if she were about to cry.

“I’m angry with myself, Maja. I should never, ever- ”

“But I wanted to, Erik. I’m in love with you, can’t you see that?” She tried to smile at me, but her eyes filled with tears. “You’re not allowed to treat me like shit now,” she whispered, reaching out to touch me.

I moved away and said this had been a mistake, my tone somewhat more dismissive than I had wished.

She nodded and lowered her eyes. I didn’t say goodbye, I simply left the studio and closed the door behind me.

I walked all the way to the hospital. Perhaps I could convince Simone that I had spent the night in my office.

In the morning I took a taxi home to our house in Järfälla. It was a mistake; my body heaved with nausea every time the cab hit a bump. Worse, I felt disgust at what I’d done the night before. I couldn’t possibly have been unfaithful to Simone. It couldn’t be true. Maja was beautiful and amusing, but she was not someone I could ever care about in any real way. How the hell could I have let myself be flattered into going to bed with her?

I didn’t know how I was going to tell Simone this, but I had to do it. I had made a mistake, people do, but people can forgive each other if they just explain, and I felt that our relationship was strong enough to withstand the explanation.

I knew I could never let Simone go. I would be hurt, badly, if she was unfaithful to me, but I would find a way to forgive her. I would never leave her because of something like that.

Simone was in the kitchen pouring herself a cup of coffee when I got home. She had on her tatty, pale pink silk robe. We’d bought it in China when Benjamin was only one, and they had both gone with me to a conference.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Please.” I sat down heavily at the table.

“Erik, I’m so sorry I forgot your birthday.”

“I stayed over at the hospital,” I explained, thinking it must be obvious from the tone of my voice that I was lying.

She looked down at the floor for a moment- I held my breath, waiting for anger or an accusation- the strawberry-blonde hair obscuring her face. Then, without a word, she went into the bedroom, returning a moment later with a package. She extended it toward me with a shy smile on her face and I tore off the paper with playful eagerness.

It was a boxed set of CDs by Charlie Parker, containing concert recordings from each of his appearances during his only visit to Sweden: two shows at the concert hall in Stockholm, two in Gothenburg, one at Amiralen in Malmö and the subsequent jam session at the Academic Club, the show at Folkets Park in Helsingborg, at the arena in Jönköping, at Folkets Park in Gävle, and finally at the Nalen jazz club in Stockholm.

“Thank you,” I said.

“What does your day look like?” she asked.

“Well, I have to go back to work.”

“I was thinking,” she said, “that maybe we should have a really nice meal together at home tonight.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Only it can’t be too late- the painters say they are coming at seven tomorrow morning. Why the hell do they always have to come so early?”

I realized she was expecting an answer. “And you always end up waiting for them anyway,” I mumbled.

“Exactly.” She smiled, sipping her coffee. “So what shall we have? Perhaps that thing with tournedos in a port wine and currant sauce, do you remember?”

“That was a long time ago,” I said, struggling not to sound on the verge of tears.

“Don’t be pissed off with me.”

“I’m not, Simone.” I tried to smile at her.

Later, when I was standing in the hall with my shoes on, just about to leave, she emerged from the bathroom. She had something in her hand.

“Erik,” she said.

“Yes?”

“What’s this?”

They were Maja’s miniature anatomical binoculars.

“Oh, that. A present,” I said, hearing the elusiveness in my voice.

“It’s a beautiful object. It looks antique. Who gave it to you?”

I turned away to avoid looking her in the eye. “Just a patient,” I said, trying to sound absent-minded as I pretended to search for my keys. “God knows how he found out it was my birthday.”

She laughed in amazement. “I thought doctors weren’t allowed to accept gifts from their patients. Isn’t that unethical?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it,” I said, opening the door.

Simone’s gaze was burning into my back. I should have talked to her, but I was frightened of losing her. I didn’t dare. I didn’t know how to begin.

As I was about to go into the therapy room, Marek stopped me. He was barring the door and smiling an empty, odd smile at me.

“We’re having a bit of fun in here,” he said.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s a private party.”

I looked at him carefully. Suddenly, I heard screaming through the door.

“Let me in, Marek,” I said.

He grinned. “Doctor, that’s not possible at the moment.”

I pushed past him. The door opened, Marek lost his balance, grabbed for the doorknob, but ended up on the floor anyway.

“I was just joking,” he said. “It was only a joke, for God’s sake.”

All the patients were staring at us, frozen.

Marek stood up and dusted himself off.

I noted that Eva Blau had not arrived yet, and then I went over to the tripod and started adjusting the camera. I checked the wide-angle view and zoomed in; I saw Sibel wipe away tears, or so I thought. I tested the microphone through my headphones. I heard Lydia cheerfully exclaim, “Exactly! That’s always the way with children! Kasper doesn’t talk about anything else anymore; it’s just Spider-Man, Spider-Man, all the time!”

And I heard Charlotte respond, “I’ve gathered they’re all crazy about him at the moment.”

“Kasper doesn’t have a daddy. Perhaps Spider-Man acts as his male role model,” said Lydia, laughing so loudly that my headphones reverberated. “But we’re fine,” she went on. “We laugh a lot, even if we’ve had a few problems lately.” She dropped her voice confidentially. “It’s as if he’s jealous of everything I do, he wants to destroy my things, he doesn’t want me to talk on the phone, he throws my favourite book down the toilet, he yells at me… I think something must have happened, but he just won’t tell me.”

Jussi began to talk about his haunted house: his parents’ home up in Dorotea, in southern Lapland. They owned a lot of land close to an area where the Sami people lived in their traditional huts, even as late as the 1970s. “I live very close to a lake, Djuptjärnen,” he explained. “The last part of the route is old wooden tracks. In the summer, kids come there to swim. They love the myths about Nächen, the water sprite.”

“The water sprite?” I asked.

“People have seen him sitting and playing his fiddle by Djuptjärnen for over three hundred years.”

“But not you?”

“No,” he said, with a grin.

“But what do you do up there in the forest all year?” asked Pierre, half smiling.

“I buy old cars and buses, fix them up, and sell them; the place looks like a scrapyard.”

“Is it a big house?” Lydia asked.

“No, but it’s green. My dad painted the place one summer, a kind of peculiar pale green. I don’t know what he was thinking; someone must have given him the paint.” He laughed, then fell silent. It was time for a break.

Lydia produced a tin of saffron-scented biscuits that she offered around. “They’re totally organic,” she said, urging Marek to take some.

Charlotte smiled and nibbled a tiny bit from one edge.

“Did you make them yourself?” asked Jussi with an unexpected grin, which brought a gentle light to his heavy face.

“I almost didn’t have time,” said Lydia, shaking her head and smiling. “I almost got into a quarrel at the playground.”

Sibel sniggered and ate her biscuit in a couple of fierce bites.

“It was Kasper.” Lydia sighed. “We’d gone to the playground as usual this morning, and one of the mothers came over and said Kasper had hit her little girl on the back with a shovel.”

“Shit,” whispered Marek.

“I went completely cold when she said that,” said Lydia.

“What do you do in a situation like that?” Charlotte asked politely.

Marek took another biscuit and listened to Lydia with an unusually focused expression on his face, as if he were studying her as much as listening to her. For the first time, I wondered if he had a crush on her.

“I don’t know. I told the mother that I took it very seriously. I think I was quite upset, actually. Even though she said it was nothing to worry about, and she thought it had been an accident.”

“Of course,” said Charlotte. “Children play with such wild enthu siasm.”

“But I promised to speak to Kasper. I told her I would deal with it,” Lydia went on.

“Good.” Jussi nodded.

“She said Kasper seemed to be a really sweet boy,” Lydia added with a smile.

I sat down on my chair and flicked through my notes; I was anxious to get the second session under way as quickly as possible. It was Lydia’s turn again.

She met my eyes and smiled tentatively. Everyone was silent, expectant, as I began. The room was quiet with our breathing. A dark silence, growing more and more dense, followed our heartbeats. With each exhalation, we sank more deeply. After the induction my words led them downward, and after a while I turned to Lydia.

“You are moving deeper, sinking gently; you are very relaxed. Your arms are heavy, your legs are heavy, your eyelids are heavy. You are breathing slowly and listening to my words without question; you are surrounded by my words, you feel safe and compliant. Lydia, right now you are very close to the thing you do not want to think about, the thing you never talk about, the thing you turn away from, the thing that always lies hidden to the side of the warm light.”

“Yes,” she answered, with a sigh.

“You are there now,” I said.

“I am very close.”

“Where are you at this moment?”

“At home.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-seven.”

I looked at her. Reflections and flashes of light passed across her high, smooth forehead, her neat little mouth, and her skin, so pale it was almost sickly. I knew she had turned thirty-seven two weeks ago. She hadn’t gone far back in time like the others, but just a few days instead.

“What’s happening? What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The telephone…”

“What about the telephone?”

“It rings, it rings again, I pick up the receiver and put it down straight away.”

“You are perfectly calm, Lydia.”

She looked tired, troubled perhaps.

“The food will get cold,” she said. “I’ve made lentil soup and I’ve baked bread. I was going to eat in front of the TV, but of course that won’t be possible.”

Her chin quivered, then stopped.

“I wait a while, look out into the street through the blinds. There’s no one there. I can’t hear anything. I sit down at the kitchen table and eat a little bit of warm bread with butter, but I have no appetite. I go down to the cellar, it’s cold down there as usual, and I sit on the old leather sofa and close my eyes. I have to compose myself. I have to gather my strength.”

She fell silent. Strips of seaweed drifted past and came between us.

“Why do you have to gather your strength?” I asked.

“So I’ll be able to get up and walk past the red rice-paper lantern with the Chinese symbols and the tray of scented candles and polished stones. The floorboards sag and creak beneath the plastic mat.”

“Is anyone there?” I asked Lydia quietly, but immediately regretted it.

“I pick up the stick and push down the bubble in the mat with my foot so I can open the door and go in and switch on the light,” she said. “Kasper’s blinking in the light, but he doesn’t sit up. He’s peed in the bucket. It smells very strong. He’s wearing his pale blue pyjamas. He’s breathing hard. I poke him with the stick through the bars. He makes pitiful noises, moves away a fraction, and sits up. I ask if he’s changed his mind and he nods, so I push a plate of food into the cage. The cod’s shrivelled up and turned a dark colour. He crawls over and eats it and I’m pleased, and I’m just about to tell him how happy I am that we understand each other when he throws up on the mattress.”

Lydia’s face contorted in a wry grimace. “And there I was”- her lips were taut, the corners of her mouth turning down- “I thought we were done.” She shook her head and licked her lips. “Do you understand how this makes me feel? He says sorry. I repeat that it’s Sunday tomorrow; I slap my face and scream at him to look.”

Charlotte was looking at Lydia through the water with frightened eyes.

“Lydia,” I said, “you are going to leave the basement now, without being frightened or angry; you are going to feel calm and collected. I am going to lift you slowly out of this deep relaxation, up to the surface, up to clarity, and together we are going to talk about what you’ve said, just you and I, before I bring the others out of their hypnosis.”

She snarled quietly, tiredly.

“Lydia, are you listening to me?”

She nodded.

“I’m going to count backwards, and when I reach one you will open your eyes and be fully awake and aware: ten, nine, eight; you are rising gently to the surface, your body feels completely relaxed and comfortable; seven, six, five, four; soon you are going to open your eyes but remain seated on your chair; three, two, one… now open your eyes. You are fully awake.”

Our eyes met. Lydia’s face looked somehow shrivelled, dried up. This was not something I had expected. I still felt cold because of what she had told me. If the rule of confidentiality had to be weighed against the duty of disclosure, this was a case in which it was crystal clear that the obligation to remain silent no longer applied, since a third party was obviously in danger.

“Lydia,” I said quietly, “you understand that I have to contact Social Services?”

“Why?”

“What you told me leaves me no choice.”

“In what way?”

“Don’t you see?”

Lydia drew back her lips. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You described how- ”

“Shut your mouth,” she snapped. “You don’t know me, you have nothing to do with my life, and you have no right to meddle in what I do in my own home.”

“I have reason to suspect that your child- ”

“Shut your mouth!” she screamed, and left the room.

I’d parked next to a high fir hedge three hundred feet from Lydia’s large wooden house in Rotebro. The social worker had agreed to my request to accompany her on the first home visit. My report to the police had been received with a certain amount of scepticism but had, of course, led to a preliminary investigation.

A red Toyota drove past me and stopped outside the house. I got out of the car, walked over, and introduced myself to the short, stocky woman who stood outside the car.

Sodden advertising leaflets were sticking out of the letter box. The low gate stood open. We went up the path to the house. I noticed there were no toys in the neglected garden. No sandbox, no swing in the old apple tree, no bike on the path. It was a sunny day, but all the blinds were closed. The hanging baskets were full of dead plants. A flight of rough stone steps led up to the door. I thought I sensed a movement behind the yellow opaque glass. The social worker rang the bell. We waited, but there was no answer, no sound except birdsong and the intermittent noise of distant traffic. She yawned, looked at her watch, rang the bell again, and tried the handle. The door was not locked. She opened it. We were looking into a small hallway.

“Hello?” she shouted. “Lydia?”

We walked in, took off our shoes, and continued through a door into a passageway with pink wallpaper and pictures of people meditating, with bright light around their heads. There was a pink telephone on the floor next to a hall table.

“Lydia?”

I opened a door and saw a narrow staircase leading to the basement.

“It’s down here,” I said.

The social worker followed me down the stairs and into the rec room, which contained an old leather sofa and a table, the top of which was made up of brown tiles. On a tray stood several scented candles among polished stones and pieces of glass. A deep red rice-paper lantern with Chinese characters on it hung from the ceiling. A plastic mat lay over the floorboards. Against one wall was a door. My heart was pounding as I moved over to it. When I tried to open it, the door got stuck on a large bubble in the plastic mat. I pushed down the bubble with my foot and went inside.

There was no cage. Instead, an upturned bicycle stood in the middle of the floor with the front wheel removed. A repair kit lay beside a blue plastic box: rubber patches, glue, monkey wrenches. One of the shiny hooks had been inserted under the edge of the tyre and braced against the spokes. Suddenly there was a creaking sound from the ceiling, and we realized someone was walking across the floor of the room above. Without exchanging a word we hurried up the stairs. The kitchen door was ajar. I noticed there were slices of bread and crumbs on the yellow linoleum floor.

“Hello?” the social worker called out.

I went in and saw that the fridge door was open. Lydia was standing in the pale glow of the light, her eyes gazing at the floor. Only after a few seconds did I see the knife in her hand. It was a long bread knife with a serrated edge. Her arm was hanging loosely by her side. The knife blade glimmered beside her thigh as her hand shook.

“I don’t want you here,” she hissed, suddenly looking at me.

“All right,” I said, moving backwards toward s the doorway.

“Shall we sit down and have a little chat?” said the social worker, keeping her tone neutral.

I pushed open the door and saw that Lydia was slowly moving closer.

“Erik,” she said. I started to close the door, and Lydia sprang forward. I raced down the hall, but the door at the end was locked. Lydia kept pace, making a strange wailing noise as she ran. I yanked open another door and stumbled into a TV room. Lydia followed me in. I bumped into an armchair as I made for the balcony door, but it was impossible to turn the handle. Lydia flew at me with the knife, and I took cover behind a large oval table.

“It’s your fault,” she said, as she chased me this way, that way, around the table.

The social worker ran into the room. She was completely out of breath. “Lydia,” she said sharply. “Stop this right now.”

“It’s all his fault,” said Lydia.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What’s my fault?”

“This,” said Lydia, drawing the knife across her throat. She looked into my eyes as the blood splashed down over her dress and her bare feet. Her mouth was trembling. The knife fell to the floor. One hand groped for support, but she sank down to the floor, coming to rest, balanced on one hip, like a mermaid.

Annika Lorentzon’s smile was troubled. Rainer Milch leaned across the table and poured a glass of mineral water with a hiss of carbon dioxide. His cuff links flashed royal blue and gold.

“I’m sure you understand why we wanted to speak to you as soon as possible,” said Peter Mälarstedt, adjusting his tie.

I opened the folder they had handed to me. Identical materials sat before each board member. The contents of the folder stated that Lydia had made a complaint against me. She claimed that I had driven her to attempt suicide by coercing her to confess to things that had not taken place. She accused me of having used her for the purposes of my experiments and implanted false memories in her mind during deep hypnosis, and she said I had persecuted her ruthlessly and cynically in front of the others until she was completely shattered and had suffered severe emotional distress.

I looked up from the papers. “Is this some kind of joke?” I said.

Annika Lorentzon looked away. Svein Holstein’s face was completely expressionless as he said, “She’s your patient, and these are serious accusations.”

“I don’t want to accuse a very disturbed patient of lying,” I said angrily, “but she’s either lying or she’s delusional. It’s impossible to implant memories during hypnosis. I can lead them to a memory, but I can’t create one. I lead them up to doors, but I can’t open those doors on my own.”

Rainer Milch looked at me, his expression grave. “The suspicion alone could destroy all your research, Erik, so I’m sure you realize how critical this is.”

I shook my head irritably. “Under hypnosis, she related events concerning herself and her son that I considered so serious I felt I had no choice but to contact Social Services. The fact that she would react in this way was- ”

Ronny Johansson interrupted me sharply. “But she hasn’t even got any children. It says so here.” He tapped on the folder with a long finger. I snorted and got a strange look from Annika.

“Erik, being arrogant in this situation is not particularly helpful,” she said quietly.

“From the very first day she walked into this hospital, her relationship with her son has been the focus of almost every remark,” I said, with an irritable smile. “And not only in a therapeutic context. Whenever she chats with the others, she- ”

Annika leaned over the table. “Erik,” she said slowly, “she has no son. She’s never had any children.”

“She hasn’t got any children?”

“No.”

The room fell silent.

I watched the bubbles in the mineral water rising to the surface.

“I don’t understand. She still lives in her childhood home.” I attempted to explain as calmly as I could. “All the details matched. I can’t believe- ”

“You can’t believe,” Milch broke in, “but you were wrong.”

“They can’t lie like that under hypnosis.”

“Are you certain she was under hypnosis?”

“I’d stake my reputation on it.”

“In a way, you have, Erik. But it doesn’t matter now. The damage is already done.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, half to myself. “Perhaps she was talking about her own childhood; it’s nothing I’ve come across, but perhaps she was working through a memory of her own.”

“It could be exactly as you say,” Annika interjected. “It could be a number of things. But the fact remains that your patient made a suicide attempt for which she blames you. We suggest you take a leave of absence while we investigate the matter.” She smiled wanly at me. “This will all sort itself out, Erik, I’m sure of it,” she said gently. “But right now you have to step aside until we’ve looked into everything. We simply can’t afford to let the press wallow in this.”

I thought about Charlotte, Marek, Jussi, Sibel, Pierre, and Eva. We’d all worked to establish trust, a rapport. All individual progress had been the hard-won result of the specific chemistry we’d achieved as a group. My abandonment of them would leave them feeling betrayed and let down.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I said.

Annika patted my hand. “It will sort itself out. Lydia Everson is obviously unstable and confused, but the most important thing now is to do things by the book. You will request a leave of absence from your activities involving hypnosis while we conduct an internal investigation into these events. I know you’re a good doctor, Erik. I’m sure you’ll be back with your group in no more than”- she shrugged her shoulders- “six months.”

“Six months?” I leaped to my feet. “I have patients; they rely on me. I can’t just leave them,” I said furiously.

Annika’s gentle smile disappeared like a candle flame being extinguished. Her face closed down and her voice turned brittle. “Your patient has demanded that an immediate ban be placed on your activities. She has also made a complaint against you to the police. These are not trivial matters as far as we are concerned; we have invested in your work, and if it should transpire that your research has not been up to the required standard, we will have to take appropriate measures.”

I didn’t know what to say; I just wanted to laugh at the whole thing. “This is ridiculous,” was all I managed to get out. I turned to leave the room.

“Erik,” Peter Mälarstedt called after me, “consider this a good opportunity.”

I stopped. “What?”

“To- ah- reconsider the trajectory of your work.”

I wheeled to face him. “Peter, do you believe all that crap about implanting false memories?”

Annika slammed the palm of her hand down on the table. “Erik, enough. That’s not the important thing. The important thing is to follow the rules. Take a leave of absence from your work with hypnosis, try to regard it as an offer of reconciliation. You can continue with your research, you can work in peace and quiet, but you will not practise hypnosis therapy while we are conducting our investigation.”

“I can’t admit to something that isn’t true.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

“Well, that’s what it sounds like. If I request a leave of absence, it looks as if I’m making an admission.”

“Tell me you’ll request a leave of absence,” she insisted stiffly.

“This is fucking idiotic,” I said with a laugh, and left the room.

It was late in the afternoon. The sun was sparkling in the puddles after a brief shower, and the smell of the forest- wet earth and rotten roots- rose up from the ground as I ran along the track around the lake, pondering Lydia’s actions. I was certain she had been speaking the truth under hypnosis- but which truth had she actually told me? Presumably she was describing a real concrete memory, but she had placed the memory in the wrong time. During hypnosis it is even more obvious that the past is not past, I reminded myself.

I filled my lungs with the fresh, cold spring air and sprinted the last stretch home through the forest. When I got to our street I saw a big black car parked in front of our drive, with two men leaning against the bonnet, waiting. One of them was checking his reflection in the shiny paintwork as he smoked a cigarette. The other was taking pictures of our house. They hadn’t seen me yet. I slowed down and was just wondering whether to turn around when they spotted me. The man with the cigarette quickly stubbed it out with his foot, while the other immediately turned the camera on me. I was still out of breath as I approached them.

“Erik Maria Bark?” asked the man who had been smoking.

“What do you want?”

“We’re from the press, Expressen.”

“The press?”

“Yes. We’d like to ask you a few questions about one of your patients.” I shook my head and waved a hand. “I can’t discuss my patients.”

“Right.”

The man’s gaze slid over my flushed face, my black track-suit top, my bulky trousers, and my woolly hat. I heard the photographer behind him cough. A bird darted through the air above us, its body describing a perfect arc, reflected in the roof of the car. Above the forest, the sky was thickening and darkening. It looked like more rain.

“There’s an interview with your patient in tomorrow’s paper. She makes some pretty serious accusations against you,” said the journalist.

I met his gaze. He had a fairly sympathetic face: middle-aged, running slightly to fat.

“This is your chance to respond,” he said quietly.

The lights weren’t on in our house. No doubt Simone was still at the gallery. Benjamin was at preschool.

“Otherwise her version will be printed with no contradiction from you,” the man said frankly.

“I would never dream of discussing a patient,” I repeated slowly. I walked up the drive past the two men, unlocked the door, went inside and stood in the hall, and listened to them drive away.

The telephone rang at seven-thirty the following morning. It was Annika Lorentzon. “Erik,” she said, sounding strained. “Have you seen the paper?”

Simone sat up in bed beside me, her expression anxious; I waved dismissively and moved into the hall.

“If this is about Lydia’s accusations, I’m sure everybody realizes they’re just lies.”

“No,” she said sharply. “Everybody doesn’t realize that at all. After reading this story, many people will see her as a weak, defenceless, vulnerable person, who has been used by a particularly manipulative doctor toward his own selfish ends. The man she trusted most of all, the man in whom she confided, has betrayed and exploited her. That’s what’s in the paper.”

I could hear her breathing heavily at the other end of the line. She sounded hoarse and tired. “This compromises everything we do, as I’m sure you understand.”

“I’ll write a response,” I said curtly.

“That won’t be enough, Erik.” She paused briefly, then said tone-lessly, “She’s intending to sue.”

I snorted. “She’ll never win.”

“You still don’t understand how serious this is, do you?”

“So what is she saying?”

“I suggest you go out and buy a paper. Then I think you ought to sit down and think about your response. The board would like to see you at four o’clock this afternoon.”

When I saw my face on the front page, I felt as if my heartbeat were slowing down. It was a close-up of me in my woolly hat and black top. My face was flushed, I looked bilious and irritable, and I seemed to be waving my hand dismissively. I bought a copy of the paper and went back home. The centre spread was adorned with a picture of Lydia, curled up with a teddy bear in her arms. The whole article focused on how I, Erik Maria Bark, had used her as a kind of lab rat, persecuting her with assertions of abuse. I had broken her down, taking advantage of her suggestibility during deep hypnosis to manipulate her into believing herself guilty of imaginary crimes. The culmination of my persecution had come when I stormed into her house and challenged her to commit suicide. She had simply wanted to die, she said. She compared herself to a member of a cult and me to a cult leader and asserted that, thanks to me, she had no will of her own. It was only when she was in the hospital that she finally dared to start questioning my treatment of her. According to the reporter, she had wept and explained that she wasn’t interested in any kind of compensation. Money could never make up for what she had been through. All she wanted was that I never be allowed to do this to anyone else.

On the next page was a picture of Marek. The ex-torturer agreed with Lydia, saying that my activities were life-threatening, and that I was obsessed with making up sick ideas to which my patients were then forced to confess under hypnosis.

Farther down the page, a so-called “expert” furnished a comment- I’d never heard of the man- but here he was denigrating the whole of my research, equating hypnosis with a séance and hinting that I probably drugged my patients in order to get them to do what I wanted.

There was an empty silence inside my head. I sat at the kitchen table until the door opened and Simone walked in. When she had read the paper, her face was ashen.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said. My mouth was completely dry.

I sat there staring into empty space, thinking the unthinkable. What if my theories were wrong? What if hypnosis didn’t work on deeply traumatized individuals? What if it was true that my desire to find patterns had influenced their memories? I didn’t believe it was possible for Lydia to see a child that didn’t exist while she was under hypnosis. I had been convinced that she was describing a genuine memory, but now I was beginning to doubt myself.

It was a strange experience, walking the short distance through the lobby to the lift up to Annika Lorentzon’s office. For years, the place had been like a second home to me, but now none of the staff wanted to look me in the eye. When I passed people I knew and associated with, they simply looked stressed and strained, turned away, and hurried off.

Even the smell in the lift was strange. It smelled of rotten flowers, and it made me think of rain, farewells, funerals.

As I walked out of the lift, Maja Swartling slipped quickly past, ignoring me. Rainer Milch was waiting for me in the doorway of Annika’s office. He moved aside and I went in and said hello.

“Please sit down, Erik,” said Rainer.

“Thank you, I’d prefer to stand,” I said curtly, but regretted it at once. What the hell had Maja Swartling been doing in here? Perhaps she had come to my defence. After all, she was one of the few people who had a real, detailed knowledge of my research.

Annika Lorentzon was standing by the window on the far side of the room. I thought it was both odd and impolite of her not to welcome me. Instead she stood there with her arms wrapped around her body, staring fixedly out the window.

“We gave you a real opportunity, Erik,” said Peter Mälarstedt.

Rainer Milch nodded.

“But you refused to back down,” he said. “You refused to step aside voluntarily while we conducted our investigation.”

“I could reconsider,” I said quietly.

“It’s too late now. We could have used it to defend ourselves the day before yesterday; today it would just look pathetic.”

Annika opened her mouth. “I’m going to appear on TV tonight to explain how we could have allowed you to continue,” she said faintly, without turning to face me.

“But I haven’t done anything wrong,” I said. “The fact that a patient comes along with ridiculous accusations surely can’t be allowed to negate years of research, countless treatments that have always been beyond reproach- ”

“It isn’t just one patient.” Rainer Milch interrupted me. “It’s several. In addition, we have a contact who has been studying your work for several years. In her opinion, you have overreached, and almost all your theses are built on castles in the air. You have no proof, and you constantly disregard the best interests of the patients in order to ensure that you are right.”

I was completely at a loss. “And the name of this expert?” I asked.

They didn’t respond.

“Is her name perhaps Maja Swartling?”

Annika Lorentzon’s cheeks flushed red. “Erik,” she said, turning to face me at last. “You are suspended from today onwards. I don’t want you in my hospital any longer.”

“But what about my patients? I have to see- ”

She cut in. “They will be transferred.”

“That won’t do them any good, they- ”

“Well, whose fault is that?” she said, raising her voice.

There was total silence in the room. Frank Paulsson stood with his face averted; Ronny Johansson, Peter Mälarstedt, Rainer Milch, and Svein Holstein remained seated, their faces expressionless.

“So that’s it, then,” I said emptily.

Just a few weeks before I had stood in this same room and been allocated new funding. Now it was all over.

When I reached the lobby, a group of people were waiting for me. A very tall woman with blonde hair thrust a microphone in front of my face.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “Do you still believe that hypnosis is a good form of treatment?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“So you’re going to continue practising?”

I turned away, but the television cameraman followed me, the black gleam of the lens seeking me out. I looked at the blonde woman, read the name badge on her chest, stefanie von sydow, saw her white crocheted hat and her hand, waving the camera over.

“I wonder if you’d like to comment on the fact that another of your patients, a woman named Eva Blau, was committed last week to a secure psychiatric unit.”

“What are you talking about?”

The white light streaming through the tall hospital windows at the end of the corridor was reflected in the recently mopped floor of the secure psychiatric unit at Southern Hospital. I passed a long row of locked doors with flaking paint and rubber strips around their edges and stopped outside B39. Looking back down the corridor, I noticed that my shoes had left tracks in the shining film covering the floor.

From a distant room, loud thuds could be heard, then the faint sound of weeping, and then silence. I stood for a while trying to gather my thoughts before I knocked on the door, turned the key in the lock, and went in.

The waft of disinfectant I brought in with me blended with the miasma of sweat and vomit in the dark room and almost made me retch. Eva Blau was lying on the bed with her back to me. I went over to the window to pull up the roller blind and let in some light, but the mechanism was stuck. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Eva starting to turn over. I tugged at the blind but lost my grip and it flew up with a loud crack.

“Sorry,” I said, “I just wanted to let in a bit of light.”

In the sudden brightness, Eva Blau was sitting up and looking at me with heavily drugged eyes, the corners of her mouth curving downwards bitterly. My heart was pounding. The tip of Eva’s nose had been cut off. She was hunched over, with a bloodstained bandage around her hand, just staring at me.

“Eva, I came as soon as I heard,” I said.

She banged her clenched fist slowly against her stomach. The circular wound from the severed tip of her nose glowed red in her tortured face.

“I tried to help you all,” I said. “But I’m beginning to understand that I was wrong about almost everything. I thought I was on to something important, that I understood how hypnosis worked. But I didn’t, I didn’t understand anything. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you, not one of you.”

She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, and blood began to trickle from the wound above her mouth.

“Eva? Why have you done this to yourself?” I asked her.

“It was you, you, it’s your fault!” she yelled. “It’s all your fault. You’ve destroyed my life, you’ve taken everything I have!”

“I understand that you’re angry with me because- ”

“Shut the fuck up, You don’t understand anything. My life has been destroyed, and I will destroy yours. I can wait, I can wait as long as it takes, but I will have my revenge.”

Then she started to scream, her mouth wide open, the sound hoarse and insane. The door flew open and a doctor came in.

“You were supposed to wait outside,” he said. He sounded shaken, but he was angry.

“The nurse gave me the key, so I thought- ”

He pulled me into the corridor, closed the door, and locked Eva in.

“Haven’t you done enough harm? This patient is suffering from persecutory delusions- ”

I interrupted him with a smile. “I don’t think so.”

“That is my assessment of this patient,” he said.

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

“Hundreds of times every day she demands that we lock her door and lock the key inside the key cupboard.”

“Yes, but- ”

“And she keeps saying she won’t testify against anyone, that we can subject her to electric shocks and rape, but she won’t tell us anything. What the hell did you actually do to your patients? She’s terribly frightened. I can’t believe you went ahead and- ”

“She’s angry with me, but she isn’t afraid of me.”

“I heard her screaming,” he said.

After my visit to the hospital and my encounter with Eva Blau, I drove to Television Centre and asked to speak to Stefanie von Sydow, the TV news reporter who had tried to get a comment out of me earlier. The receptionist dialled an editorial assistant and then handed me the phone. I said I was ready to do an interview if they were interested. After a little while the assistant came downstairs. She was a young woman with short hair and an intelligent expression.

“Stefanie can see you in ten minutes,” she said.

“Good.”

“I’ll take you to make-up.”

The interview was brief. When I went home, the entire house was in darkness. I called out but there was no reply. I was surprised to find Simone upstairs sitting in front of the television, but it wasn’t switched on.

“Has something happened?” I asked. “Where’s Benjamin?”

“He’s at David’s,” she answered tonelessly.

“Isn’t it time he was home? What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“But what’s the matter? Talk to me, Simone.”

“Why should I? I don’t even know you.”

Anxiety rose sharply within me like mercury in a thermometer; I moved closer and tried to brush a strand of hair from her face.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, snatching her head away. “What is it? Talk to me, Simone.”

She nodded, and in a voice full of pain, she said, “Erik, please tell me the truth. Have you been unfaithful?”

My heart raced, but my voice stayed gruesomely steady. “What are you talking about?”

“Who is Maja?”

“Maja? I don’t know… should I know who that is?”

“Have you been cheating on me?” Simone’s lips quivered.

“Simone? What is this about?”

My thoughts swirled. How could she know? “I would never… I get it… You’re talking about Maja Swartling. Yes? She hates me for some reason, she’s already influenced the board, and- ”

“Erik,” Simone interrupted. “You get one more chance. Have you slept with another woman?”

“No.”

“You have not been unfaithful. You give me your word?” Her eyes filled with tears.

“I promise,” I whispered.

She opened a pale blue envelope and tipped out several photographs: I saw myself posing in Maja Swartling’s apartment, then a series of pictures of her dressed only in those pale green panties. Tresses of her dark hair curled over her broad white breasts. She looked happy, blushing high on her cheeks. A number of photographs were close-ups of one breast in varying degrees of fuzziness. In one of the pictures she was lying with her thighs wide apart.

“Sixan, let me try to- ”

“I can’t cope with your lies,” she said, and hurled the photos at me, one by one.

The evening news was on. Suddenly there was a report on a scandal brewing at Karolinska University Hospital, involving a hypnotist. Annika Lorentzon did not wish to comment on the case during the ongoing investigation, but when the reporter brought up the significant funding recently allocated by the board to the hypnotist in question, Annika Lorentzon found herself on the defensive.

“That was a mistake,” she said.

“What was a mistake?”

“Erik Maria Bark has been suspended until further notice.”

“Only until further notice?”

“He will not be practising hypnosis at Karolinska Hospital in the future,” she said.

Then I saw my own face on the screen; I was sitting in the television studio looking frightened.

“Will you be continuing to practise hypnosis at other hospitals?” the interviewer asked me.

For a moment I looked confused, as if I didn’t understand the question, and then I shook my head almost imperceptibly.

“Erik Maria Bark, do you still believe that hypnosis is a good form of treatment?” she persisted.

“I don’t know,” I answered feebly. “Will you continue to practise?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“I will never hypnotize anyone again,” I replied. “Is that a promise?”

“Yes.”