The Sandman

85

Jurek stops the running machine and leaves the room without giving either of them so much as a glance. The other patient slowly gets up.

‘Zyprexa makes you feel like shit... and Stemetil doesn’t work on me, it just fucks my insides up...’

Saga stays where she is for a little while, facing the television, watching as the figure skater speeds up and hearing the sound of skates cutting across the ice. She can feel the other patient’s staring eyes as he slowly approaches.

‘My name’s Bernie Larsson,’ he says in an intimate voice. ‘They don’t think I can fuck with all the bastard Suprefact in my system, but they don’t know a fucking thing...’

He jabs his finger in her face, but she stands her ground, her heart pounding.

‘They don’t know a fucking thing,’ he repeats. ‘They’re so fucking brain-damaged...’

He falls silent, staggers aside and burps loudly. Saga is thinking that she might be able to place the microphone in the artificial palm next to the running machine.

‘What’s your name?’ Bernie asks, panting.

She doesn’t answer, just stands there with her eyes lowered, looking towards the television, thinking that her time is running out. Bernie walks behind her back and quickly sticks his hand round and pinches her hard on the nipple. She pushes his hand away and feels anger start to bubble up inside her.

‘Little Snow White,’ he smiles with his sweaty face. ‘What’s the matter with you? Can I feel your head? It looks so fucking soft. Like a shaved cunt...’

From the little she’s seen of Jurek Walter, the running machine is what he’s most interested in inside the dayroom. He was on it for at least an hour, then he went straight back into his room.

Saga walks slowly over to the running machine and steps up onto it. Bernie follows her, biting a fingernail and pulling off a sharp fragment. Sweat is dripping from his face onto the dirty vinyl floor.

‘Do you shave your cunt? You have to do that, yeah?’

Saga turns and stares at him intently. His eyelids are heavy, his eyes have a drugged look about them, his blond moustache hides the scar left by a cleft palate.

‘You never touch me again,’ she replies.

‘I can kill you,’ he says, scratching her neck with his sharpened nail.

She feels the wound sting as a loud voice echoes from the loudspeaker:

‘Bernie Larsson, step back.’

He tries to touch her between the legs as the doors open and a guard with a baton comes in. Bernie moves away from Saga and holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

‘No touching,’ the guard says sternly.

‘OK, I know, fucking hell.’

Bernie feels his way wearily over the armrest of the sofa and sits down heavily, then shuts his eyes and belches.

Saga gets off the running machine and turns to the guard.

‘I want to see a legal ombudsman,’ she says.

‘Stay where you are,’ the guard says, glancing at her.

‘Can you pass on the message?’

Without replying, the guard goes over to the airlock and is let out. It’s as if she hadn’t said anything, as if her words had stopped mid-air before reaching him.

Saga turns away and slowly approaches the artificial palm. She sits down on the edge of the running machine, right beside it, and looks at one of its lower leaves. The underneath isn’t too dirty and the glue on the microphone will firm up in four seconds.

Bernie is staring up at the ceiling, licking his lips, then he shuts his eyes again. Saga watches him as she slides a finger into the lining of her trousers, gets the microphone out and hides it in her hand. She pulls off one of her shoes and leans forward to adjust its tongue, thereby shielding the palm from the camera. She shifts position slightly, and is just reaching out to the leaf to attach the microphone as the sofa creaks.

‘I’ve got my eye you, Snow White,’ Bernie says in a weary voice.

She calmly withdraws her hand, puts her foot back in her shoe, and sees Bernie sitting there watching her as she sticks the velcro down.