The Sandman

136

Anders Rönn has logged in and is sitting in his room trying to summarise the day’s events in the unit journal.

Why is everything happening now?

The same day every month the staff go through the medicine store and other perishable goods.

It takes no longer than forty minutes.

He, My and Leif were outside the medicine store when they suddenly heard the noise.

Deep rumbling, echoing within the walls. My dropped the inventory list on the floor and ran to the surveillance control room. Anders followed her. My reached the large monitor and cried out when she saw the image from patient room 2. Bernie was hanging lifeless against the door to the dayroom. Urine was dripping from his toes, forming a puddle beneath him.

Anders’s skin is still crawling. As a result of the suicide in the ward he was summoned to a crisis meeting of the hospital committee. The hospital manager came straight from a children’s party, annoyed to have been called away in the middle of a game. The manager had looked at him and said that perhaps it had been a mistake to allow an inexperienced doctor to assume the role of senior consultant. His round face with its deeply dimpled chin quivered.

Anders gulps and blushes when he recalls how he stood up and apologised, stammering and trying to explain that, according to his medical notes, Bernie Larsson had been extremely depressed, and that he had found the transfer difficult.

‘Are you still here?’

He starts and looks up to see My standing in the doorway, smiling wearily at him.

‘The hospital management want the report first thing tomorrow morning, so you’re probably going to have to put up with me for a few more hours.’

‘Tough shit,’ she says with a yawn.

‘You can go and lie down in the rest-room if you like,’ he says.

‘Don’t worry.’

‘I mean it. After all, I have to be here anyway.’

‘Are you sure? That’s really sweet of you.’

He smiles at her.

‘Get a couple of hours’ sleep. I’ll wake you when I’m ready to leave.’

Anders hears her walk down the corridor, past the changing room and into the rest-room.

The glow from the computer screen fills Anders’s little office. He clicks to open the calendar, then adds some newly arranged meetings with relatives and care workers.

His fingers pause above the keyboard as he thinks about the new patient again. He feels caught in that moment, the seconds when he was in her room, pulling down her trousers and underwear, and saw her white skin turn red after the two injections. He touched her as a doctor, but he looked between her thighs at her genitals, her blonde hair and closed vagina.

Anders makes a note about a rearranged meeting, then clicks to open up past assessments, unable to concentrate properly.

He reads through the report for Social Services, then gets up and goes out to the surveillance control room.

As he sits down in front of the large screen to look at the nine squares, he immediately notices that Saga Bauer is awake. Her bedside light is switched on. She is sitting quite still and staring at him, directly into the camera.

Feeling a peculiar weight inside him, Anders looks at the other cameras. Patient rooms 1 and 2 are dark. The airlock and dayroom are quiet. The camera outside the room in which My is resting shows nothing but a closed door. The security company’s staff are beyond the first security door.

Anders highlights patient room 3, and the image instantly fills the other screen. The lamp in the ceiling of the surveillance control room reflects off the dusty screen. He moves his chair closer. Saga is still sitting there, staring up at him.

He wonders what she wants.

Her pale face is lit up, and the skin on her neck is taut.

She massages the back of her neck with one hand, rises from the bed and takes a couple of steps forward, all the while looking up at the camera.

Anders clicks away from the image, gets up, looks at the guards and the closed door of the rest-room.

He goes over to the security door, runs his card through the reader and walks into the corridor. The nocturnal lighting has a flat grey tone. The three doors are glowing dully, like lead. He walks up to her door and looks in through the reinforced glass. Saga is still standing in the middle of the floor, but turns to look towards the door as he opens the hatch.

The light from the bedside lamp is shining behind her, between her legs.

‘I can’t sleep,’ she says with big, dark eyes.

‘Are you scared of the dark?’ he smiles.

‘I need ten milligrams of Stesolid, that’s what I always used to get at Karsudden.’

He’s thinking that she’s even more beautiful and slender in reality. She moves with a strange awareness, confident in her body, as if she were an elite gymnast or a ballerina. He can see that her tight, thin vest is damp with sweat. The perfect curve of her shoulders, her nipples beneath the fabric.

He tries to recall if he’s read anything about sleeping problems in her notes from Karsudden. Then he remembers that it really doesn’t matter. He’s in charge of decisions about medication.

‘Wait there,’ he says, then goes and gets a tablet.

When he comes back he can feel sweat between his shoulder blades. He shows her the plastic cup, she reaches her hand through the hatch to take it, but he can’t resist teasing her:

‘Can I have a smile?’

‘Give me the tablet,’ she says simply, still holding out her hand.

He holds the plastic cup in the air, out of reach of her outstretched hand.

‘One little smile,’ he says, tickling the palm of her hand.