Like all nurses at the nursing home, Helle Smidt Jørgensen was an expert in counting pills. She had lined up all ten kinds in front of her: seven were taken out of bottles with screw tops, the three others were popped out of foil packets.
She pointed to the last three and explained to her student, “You’re going to hate these. They’ll cause permanent damage to the right thumb.” The student looked down at her thumb as if she wanted to say goodbye to it. Helle Smidt Jørgensen added wearily, “It’ll take a while. But now listen. First you take the tops off the dosing cases that are for fourteen days. Then you order them systematically with the morning pills first, then lunch, then dinner, then the sleep aids. That comes to twenty-two pills per day for Signe Petersen, so as you can see, if she isn’t already sick the pills will do their best to make sure she does.”
While she explained all this she herself started to feel ill. She of all people shouldn’t talk about substance abuse. The room grew fuzzy at the edges and her speech became incoherent.
“… Sleeping aids and psychopharmaceuticals are alarmingly prevalent and have been so for years. It is dangerous to drink at the same time but I can’t get through the day otherwise. Before it was only at night, but now it is also the voices in the hallways—that is if there is any police.”
She focused on the student, who looked like she was far away and didn’t quite understand. They never did. She explained patiently, “The pulse quickens and the hands shake. That is the stress hormone adrenaline that affects the sympathetic nervous system when you are hunted around the clock. All day, every day. Uncle at night and the police by day, you see. A little pick-me-up and an extra Stesolid takes the edge off. Around and around.”
Something was wrong but she didn’t know what. She left her office and walked unsteadily down the corridor and sat down on the back-entrance steps of the nursing home. Here she could get some fresh air and recover. The cool wind felt good on her forehead and a single ray of sun braved the gray weather and shone down on her. She inhaled deeply a couple of times and noticed that the world immediately grew smaller, as if anything other than sitting there were of no importance. An unfamiliar feeling came over her, a feeling that was faraway and now close-by. She was a child, she was playing ball, and it was important. Karen, Maren, Mette bam, Anni, Anne, Anette bam, Kylle, Pylle, Rylle bam, Bente bam. The rhymes were easy, also the new one: Alekto, Megaira, Tisifone bam, Nemesis bam, but it was hard to aim the balls. Especially overhand. From time to time she dropped one and had to start from the beginning. That was the rule. She did so, determined to get as good as the big girls. A ball fell from her hands and she had to make every effort to find it, so she opened her eyes and looked. There were people around her, people who wished her well.
She explained that they shouldn’t worry and that everything was going to be all right. They understood. Of course they did, it was easy to understand. It was also easy to swim once you had learned how. She could swim without water wings, proudly, alongside her mother. She loved it when they were at the Østerbro pool just the two of them and of course a whole lot of other people that they didn’t know. She ventured away but lost her courage when a big boy of about ten came swimming toward her. It was hard to turn but she managed it. Then she heard the voice ring out across the hall: all the yellow bands out! That was them. They had yellow bands on, a yellow piece of elastic with a key to the locker around her ankle. She made an angry face at her mother, then they kissed and smiled because as they did this they had to struggle to stay afloat. Then they slowly swam to the edge.