The Sandman

40

Jurek Walter is visible on one of the nine squares of the huge monitor. Like a caged beast he is pacing the dayroom, walking round the sofa, then turning left and going past the television. He goes round the running machine, turns left again and goes back into his room.

Anders Rönn watches him from above on another of the screens, as well as on the other monitor.

Jurek washes his face, then sits down on the plastic chair without drying himself. He stares at the door to the corridor as the water drips onto his shirt and dries.

My is sitting in the operator’s chair. She checks the time, waits another thirty seconds, looks at Jurek, makes a note of the zone on the computer, and locks the door to the dayroom.

‘He’s getting faggots this evening... he likes that,’ she says.

‘He does?’

Anders Rönn already thinks that the routines surrounding this one patient are so repetitive and static that it would be hard to tell the days apart if it weren’t for the daily meeting up on Ward 30. The other doctors talk about their patients and care plans. No one even expects him to repeat that the situation in the secure unit is unchanged.

‘Have you ever tried talking to the patient?’ Anders asks.

‘With Jurek? We’re not allowed to,’ she replies, and scratches her tattooed arm. ‘It’s because... well, he says things you can’t forget.’

Anders hasn’t spoken to Jurek Walter since that first day. He just makes sure that the patient gets his regular injection of neuroleptic drugs.

‘Do you know how the computer system works?’ Anders asks. ‘I couldn’t work out how to sign out of the medical records.’

‘In that case you’re not allowed to go home,’ she says.

‘But I...’

‘I’m joking,’ she laughs. ‘The computers down here are always getting snarled up.’

She gets up, grabs her bottle of Fanta from the desk and goes out into the corridor. Anders sees that Jurek is still sitting completely motionless with his eyes open.

It might not be that much fun doing his specialist service deep underground, behind security doors and airlocks, but for him it’s fantastic to work so close to home, and to be able to spend time with Agnes each evening, he tells himself as he goes after My. She is walking along the dimly lit corridor at a relaxed stroll. When she reaches the brightly lit office he notices that her red underwear is visible through the white fabric of her nurse’s trousers.

‘Now let’s see,’ she mutters, sitting in his chair and rousing the computer from standby mode. With a contented grin she forces the program to close and logs in again.

Anders thanks her, asks who’s working that night, and asks her to restock the medication trolley if she has time.

‘Don’t forget to sign the requisition orders afterwards,’ he says, then leaves.

He walks round the corner into the other corridor and into the changing room. The ward is completely silent. He doesn’t know what drives him to do it, but he opens My’s locker and starts to search through her gym bag with trembling hands. Carefully he unfolds a damp T-shirt and a pair of pale grey jogging pants, and finds a pair of sweaty knickers. He takes them out, lifts them to his face and breathes in her scent. Suddenly he realises that My might see him on the monitor the moment she returns to the control room.