ELLEN

1.00 P.M.

‘They’re just kids, they don’t know what they’re doing,’ she tried, but it was hard to forget those threatening faces.

‘Children can be extremely mean,’ said Dr Hiralgo in his soft voice.

If Ellen had had her eyes closed, she would have guessed it was a woman talking.

‘But they didn’t rob you?’

She shook her head. ‘The scratches on my arms made me remember things. It was so strange. It felt as if I was being moved backwards in time. As if an old wound was opening up. Does it sound like I’m rambling?’ Ellen felt completely cold inside. She had taken two sleeping pills the night before, and Margareta had had to drag her out of bed so that she’d get to Dr Hiralgo on time.

‘Not at all, do continue,’ said Dr Hiralgo.

‘No, I can hear it myself. It must have been the pain in my knee that made me confused.’ There was a slight echo in the tiled room, which meant she had to think about everything she said twice.

She had rescheduled yesterday’s session to today. Even though she’d told herself she wouldn’t go any more, here she was anyway.

She looked around the room and tried to find something to fix her eyes on. It felt as though Dr Hiralgo could see right through her, and she couldn’t take it. She moved her eyes from the smooth tiles to the black seams. She was cold. Almost shaking.

‘It hurt just as much as when I was little. A scrape on the knee and I’m crying? Do grownups do that?’

‘If it hurts, yes. But perhaps it wasn’t the pain from the scrape that made you cry.’ He sounded so collected and convincing.

Ellen looked down at her knee. The bandages had come loose: she had to go to the pharmacy and buy bigger ones. Her eyes grew wet and her vision became blurry. ‘I remember that I had sores on my arms.’

‘When was that?’

She didn’t answer. ‘Can I have some water?’

Dr Hiralgo stood up and went out. After a while, he came back with a glass, which he handed to Ellen.

She took a gulp. It was lukewarm and had a metallic taste. Her fingers started tingling. She took another gulp and tried to take a deep breath.

‘Why are you so afraid of remembering?’

‘Because it hurts.’

‘What hurts?’

‘Everything. I feel so guilty about every single thing to do with Elsa. If I’d told someone that she was gone, maybe she’d still be alive today. I don’t really remember …’ Her palms were starting to get sweaty, and she was afraid that Dr Hiralgo could hear her heart beating. ‘Death, death, death,’ she whispered, not caring that he was watching her with big eyes.

‘What did you say?’

It was hard to tell how old he was. His skin was as smooth on his forehead as it was on the top of his head, where the hair was almost non-existent. He had some black strands of hair in a well-groomed braid at the back of his neck.

‘Nothing.’ She swallowed a few times.

‘Tell me about it.’

She hesitated first. ‘Death, death, death. It was suggested to me, by one of the many psychologists I’ve gone to see, that I could say something out loud when I feel that the memories are getting too strong. Sometimes, it’s as if the faucet opens, and I can’t get any air. As if I’m drowning. I try to stop it.’

Dr Hiralgo drummed his index fingers together and moved them up to his mouth. Now he looked right at her. ‘You’re trying to stop a panic attack. Does it work?’

‘Sometimes. I read somewhere that Astrid Lindgren started all her phone calls with her sisters that way. They dealt with all the dark stuff in one go, so they could forget about it later and just talk about light-hearted things.’

‘Interesting.’ He broke into a smile.

She was starting to like him. He was so strangely unpredictable. When she thought he was going to say something instructive, challenging, or judgemental, quite often something else entirely and not at all academic came out of his little mouth, hidden behind its black moustache. He wasn’t trying to diagnose her: he saw her. Ellen.

‘I’ve written down some dreams.’ She took the pad out of her bag, which was on the floor beside the chair she was sitting in. ‘I’m sure they won’t mean anything, they’re just a jumble of strange thoughts.’

‘Tell me, what kind of dreams are these?’

She paged nervously through the pad. ‘Last night, for example, I dreamt about water and there were a lot of people swimming in it.’

‘Were they having fun?’

‘Yes and no,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders so that her ribs hurt.

‘Did you feel you wanted to join in and swim, but you weren’t allowed to?’

‘I don’t know. In between, the water was black and very murky. As if my focus was shifting between the people who were swimming and water completely filled with algae, or whatever it was.’ She shrugged, trying to make it all seem normal, and handed over the pad. ‘I don’t know. It was strange, but it’s not the first time I’ve dreamt about it.’

‘If we were to try to apply this to reality, is there anywhere you feel that you are not included?’

She thought for a moment. ‘You know, I always feel like I’m on the periphery of my own context.’ Ellen felt how hard it was to say that out loud, and had a sudden urge to start crying.

‘Interesting.’

‘You think so? I don’t fit in anywhere. It’s more like awful.’ She stared down at the tiled floor to try to conceal the feelings that were suddenly washing over her.

Dr Hiralgo continued. ‘Is it you who thinks that, or is it your surroundings? Your context?’

‘Both.’

‘Then perhaps you’re not right for each other. Is there any context you would like to be part of?’

She thought for a while before answering. ‘My family, I assume. Or a family. I don’t know. Wise people. Nice ones.’ She sniffled and felt ashamed that she was exposing herself like this to him, but it wasn’t possible to hold back. She didn’t know where all these emotions came from. They just bubbled up, and she couldn’t stop them.

‘Is there any context you don’t want to be part of, but that you are a part of?’

Once again, she had to think about it. The first thing she thought of she didn’t want to say out loud, but it was the only thing coming up.

‘Raise the lid, Ellen. Raise it.’

‘Elsa’s,’ she whispered, and her stomach knotted up.

Then came the tears, and soon she was crying so that her whole body was shaking.

‘Are you okay?’

She pulled her feet up onto the chair, hugged her legs, and began to bang her head against her thighs. She didn’t even notice that Dr Hiralgo went out to get tissues for her until he was back and handing her the box.

‘Thanks. Sorry. I just feel so guilty when I say that. She was my sister, and it’s really not her fault that I feel like this. It’s everyone else’s.’ She took a deep breath and sat up straight in the chair. ‘I don’t want to be compared with her all the time. I can’t stand it. It’s impossible to compete with someone who’s dead!’ The tears continued to run down her cheeks, but she didn’t even bother to wipe them away.

‘What was it like before Elsa died?’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, sitting on her hands.

‘Was it the same sense of competition? Can you remember if you already had a feeling then that you didn’t want to be in Elsa’s context?’

She bit her lip. ‘It was the same. My parents always had stronger feelings for Elsa, favoured her.’ Ellen felt completely cold inside. As soon as she said it out loud, it became so real. It didn’t matter how many times she talked about it and hashed it out. It hurt just as much every time.

‘Was it definitely like that?’

‘Yes. She was better at everything. I was, and I guess I still am, the angry one, who screams and misbehaves and disappoints everyone.’

‘We all have someone who’s better than us. If it’s not a physical person, then we create someone in our subconscious, I think it’s in our nature. You can always find someone to compare yourself with who is better than you. It could be the case that your guilt has been worse because your parents, according to you, preferred Elsa. It could also be a simple construction after the fact to add to the guilt you already feel and have to process.’ He looked at her with what she felt was empathy.

She was trying hard to understand what he meant, but everything was whirling around in her head, and she was having a hard time piecing it together. ‘I’ve done everything. I’ve gone to therapists, psychologists, I’ve read books. Every morning I wake up with her face in my mind. I can’t get rid of her. Wherever I turn, she’s there. Everyone compares us constantly. Everyone wishes she had lived, not me.’ She stood up. ‘I’ve dyed my hair, my eyebrows, gained weight, lost weight, but she follows me everywhere!’

‘Perhaps you could have surgery? Or tattoo your face?’

‘Huh?’ She stopped and looked at the man with the moustache and the smooth forehead.

‘I know why you’re looking at me like that. You think I’ve said something completely off the wall. I said it to help you to understand that you’re focusing on the wrong things. Which is quite natural. But you’re contradicting yourself. You’re attacking the problem from the wrong direction. You think I’m crazy for saying what I said, even though that’s exactly what you yourself just said, only you’re not prepared to drastically change your appearance. And of course, you shouldn’t. But you have to accept your context. You can’t change who you are, but you can look at it differently. Some things are impossible to change.’

Ellen stared at him.

‘Have you slept with my mother?’

‘Ha ha. No. But she is an attractive lady,’ he said, smiling.

She sat down on the chair again and stared at the black seam behind Dr Hiralgo.

‘I’m thinking about the day when Elsa disappeared. I can only remember my mum. Not my dad.’