Earlier that same day, Julia had had a long conversation with the social security office, and it had gone just as badly as everything else this autumn, this year.
As usual she had put off getting in touch with them for as long as possible in order to avoid hearing their sighs, and when she had finally called she was answered by a robotic machine asking for her personal ID number. When she had keyed in all the numbers, she was put through to the next step in the telephone network labyrinth, which was exactly the same as being put through to total emptiness. She had to stand there in the kitchen, looking out of the window and listening to a faint noise on the other end of the line, an almost inaudible rushing like the sound of distant running water.
If Julia held her breath and pressed the receiver against her ear, she could sometimes hear spirit voices echoing in the distance. Sometimes they sounded muted, whispering; sometimes they were shrill and despairing. She was trapped in the ghostly world of the telephone lines, trapped among those pleading voices she sometimes heard from the kitchen fan when she was smoking. They echoed and mumbled through the building’s ventilation system — she could hardly ever make out a single word, but she would still listen with great concentration. Just once she’d heard a woman’s voice say with absolute clarity, It really is time now.
She stood there by the kitchen window, listening to the rushing noise and looking out onto the street. It was cold and windy outside. Autumn-yellow birch leaves tore themselves away from the rain-soaked surface of the road and tried to escape from the wind. Along the sidewalk’s edge lay a dark gray sludge of leaves, crushed to a pulp by car tires, which would never leave the ground again.
She wondered if anybody she knew would pass by out there. Jens might come strolling around the corner at the end of the terrace, wearing a suit and tie like a real attorney, carrying his briefcase, his hair newly cut. Striding out, his gaze confident. He would see her at the window, stop in surprise on the sidewalk, then raise his arm, waving and smiling at her...
The rushing noise suddenly disappeared, and a stressed-out voice filled her ear:
“Social security. Inga.”
This wasn’t the new person who was supposed to be dealing with Julia’s case; her name was Magdalena. Or was it Madeleine? They’d never met.
She took a deep breath.
“My name is Julia Davidsson, and I wanted to ask if you could—”
“What’s your personal ID number?”
“It’s... I’ve already entered the number on the telephone keypad.”
“It hasn’t come up on my screen. Can you give me the number again?”
Julia repeated the number, and there was silence at the other end of the line. She could hardly even hear the rushing noise anymore. Had they cut her off on purpose?
“Julia Davidsson?” said the voice, as if she hadn’t heard Julia introduce herself. “How can I help?”
“I wanted to extend it.”
“Extend what?”
“My sick leave.”
“Where do you work?”
“At the hospital, Östersjukhuset, the orthopedic department,” said Julia. “I’m a nurse.”
Was she still a nurse? She’d had so much time off in recent years that she probably wasn’t even missed in orthopedics anymore. And she certainly didn’t miss the patients, constantly moaning about their ridiculous little problems when they didn’t have a clue about real unhappiness.
“Have you got a note from your doctor?” asked the voice.
“Yes.”
“Have you seen your doctor today?”
“No, last Wednesday. My psychiatrist.”
“So why didn’t you call earlier?”
“Well, I haven’t been feeling very well since then...” said Julia, thinking, Nor before then, either. A constant ache of longing in her breast.
“You should have phoned us the same day...”
Julia heard a distinct breath, perhaps even a sigh.
“Okay, this is what I’m going to have to do,” said the voice. “I’m going to have to go into the computer and make an exception for you. Just this time.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Julia.
“One moment...”
Julia stayed where she was by the window, looking out onto the street. Nothing was moving.
But then someone came walking along the sidewalk from the busier road that cut across; it was a man. Julia could feel ice-cold fingers clutching at her stomach, before she realized that this man was too old, he was bald and in his fifties and dressed in paint-spattered dungarees.
“Hello?”
She saw the man stop at a building on the opposite side of the street, key in a security code, and open the door. He went in.
Not Jens. Just an ordinary, middle-aged man.
“Hello? Julia?”
It was the voice again.
“Yes? I’m still here.”
“Right, I’ve made a note on the computer to say that your doctor’s note is on the way to us.”
“Good. I...” Julia fell silent.
She looked out onto the street again.
“Was there anything else?”
“I think...” Julia gripped the receiver. “I think it’s going to be cold tomorrow.”
“Right,” said the voice, as if everything were perfectly normal. “Have you changed your account details, or are they the same as before?”
Julia didn’t reply. She was trying to find something ordinary and normal to say.
“I talk to my son sometimes,” she said in the end.
There was a brief silence, then the voice could be heard again:
“As I said, I’ve made a note...”
Julia hung up quickly.
She remained standing in the kitchen, staring out of the window and thinking that the leaves out on the street were forming a pattern, a message she couldn’t understand however long she gazed at it, and she longed desperately for Jens to come home from school.
No, it would have to be from work. Jens should have left school many years ago.
What did you become in the end, Jens? A firefighter? An attorney? A teacher?
Later that day she was sitting on her bed in front of the television in the narrow living room of her one-room apartment, watching an educational program about adders; then she changed channels and watched a cooking program where a man and a woman were frying meat. When that finished, she went back into the kitchen to see if the wineglasses in the cupboards needed polishing. Oh yes, if you held them up to the light, you could see tiny white particles of dust on the surface, so she took the glasses out one by one and polished them. Julia had twenty-four wineglasses, and used them all in rotation. She drank two glasses of red wine each evening, sometimes three.
That evening, when she was lying on her bed beside the TV, wearing the only clean blouse left in her closet, the telephone in the kitchen began to ring.
Julia blinked when it first rang, but didn’t move. No, she wasn’t going to obey it. She wasn’t obliged to answer.
The telephone rang again. She decided she wasn’t at home, she was out doing something important.
She could see out of the window without raising her head, even if all she could see were the rooftops along the street, the unlit streetlamps, and the tops of the trees stretching above them. The sun had gone down beyond the city, and the sky was slowly growing darker.
The telephone rang for the third time.
It was dusk. The twilight hour.
The telephone rang for the fourth time.
Julia didn’t get up to answer it.
It rang one last time, then there was silence. Outside, the streetlamps were starting to flicker, beginning to spread their glow over the tarmac.
It had been quite a good day.
No. There weren’t any good days, actually. But some days passed more quickly than others.