The Sandman

169

Joona wakes up in hospital, feeling frozen. His arms are itching where infusions of warm liquid are slowly being fed into him. A male nurse is standing by his bed, and smiles at him when he opens his eyelids.

‘How are you feeling?’ the nurse asks, leaning forward. Joona tries to read the name-badge, but can’t get the letters to stay still long enough.

‘I’m freezing,’ he says.

‘In two hours your body temperature should be back to normal. I’ll give you some warm juice...’

Joona tries to sit up to drink, but suddenly feels a pain in his bladder. He lifts the insulating blanket off and sees that two thick needles are sticking into his abdomen.

‘What’s this?’ he asks weakly.

‘A peritoneal lavage,’ the nurse says. ‘We’re warming your body up from inside... You’ve got two litres of warm liquid in your abdomen right now.’

Joona shuts his eyes and tries to remember. Red containers, icy slush, and the shock as he jumped from the ship straight into the incredibly cold water.

‘Disa,’ Joona whispers, and feels goosebumps rising on his arms.

He leans back on the pillows and looks up at the heater above him, but can’t feel anything but cold.

After a while the door opens and a tall woman with her hair pulled up and a tight silk sweater under her doctor’s coat comes in. It’s Daniella Richards, he’s met her many times before.

‘Joona Linna,’ she says in a heavy voice. ‘I’m so sorry—’

‘Daniella,’ Joona interrupts hoarsely. ‘What have you done to me?’

‘You were on the point of freezing to death, in case you hadn’t noticed. We thought you were dead when you were brought in.’

She sits down on the edge of the bed.

‘You have no idea how incredibly lucky you were,’ she says slowly. ‘No serious damage, from the look of it... We’re warming up your internal organs.’

‘Where’s Disa? I have to...’

His voice cracks. There’s something about his thoughts, his brain. He can’t put the words together properly. All his memories are like crushed ice in black water.

The doctor lowers her gaze and shakes her head. She has a small diamond on a necklace round her neck.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Daniella repeats slowly.

As she tells him about Disa, her face starts to quiver with sad little spasms. Joona looks at the veins in her hand, sees her pulse beating, and her ribcage rise and fall under her green sweater. He tries to understand what she’s saying, shuts his eyes, and suddenly everything that’s happened crashes into his consciousness. Disa’s white face, the cut on her neck, the scared set of her mouth and her bare foot in just her nylon tights.

‘Leave me alone,’ he says in a hollow, hoarse voice.