Jan lowers his voice. ‘She had a dream about a man.’
‘Yes, well, she’s had dreams before, it’s...’
‘He was standing in the bedroom last night, next to her bed.’
Hanna looks at him, her expression blank, and Jan lowers his voice even more, to a dull whisper: ‘Hanna... have you let anyone out through the sally port at night? A patient who might have gone into the children’s room?’
She looks down at the path. ‘It’s fine. It’s a friend.’
‘A friend? A friend of yours?’
Hanna doesn’t reply; she just looks at her watch and sets off again. ‘My bus will be here in a minute.’
Jan sighs and follows her. ‘Hanna, we need to—’
She breaks in without looking at him. ‘I can’t talk about this any more. You’ll just have to trust me... It’s fine. We know what we’re doing.’
‘We? Who’s we, Hanna?’
She doesn’t stop; she opens the gate and closes it behind her. Jan stands there watching her as she crosses the road. He thinks about the old joke, which isn’t particularly funny:
Who was that lady I saw you with last night?
That was no lady, that was my wife.
But he hears Mira’s voice in his head as he walks back into the pre-schooclass="underline" Jan, who was that gentleman I saw by my bed last night?
And he hears his own voice answering her: That was no gentleman. That was Ivan Rössel.
35
On the way home after his day shift, Jan makes a decision: no more secret visits to St Psycho’s. No more trips down to the basement, or to the safe room. After the staff meeting with Marie-Louise, that’s it.
He doesn’t think he was the one who forgot to close the door; it seems more likely that it was Hanna, but it doesn’t actually matter. Hanna ought to put a stop to her nocturnal visits too.
Not ought to — she must stop.
But when he gets home and opens the door, there is something waiting for him. A large, fat envelope is lying on the hall floor — but of course it isn’t addressed to him. He is only the courier; the envelope is marked S. P.
Jan sighs and steps over the envelope. He doesn’t want to touch it, but it can’t just stay there, and eventually he picks it up. Now he is holding it in his hand, he might as well open it.
Thirty-six letters, large and small. Jan slowly shuffles through them on the kitchen table. None is addressed to Maria Blanker, but eleven of the letters are for the same person: Ivan Rössel. He seems to have plenty of pen friends.
But what do they want?
Jan ponders for a few seconds, thinking about Hanna and the open door. Then he quickly picks up one of Rössel’s letters. It’s an ordinary white envelope, with no sender’s name, and it isn’t very well sealed. He fetches a knife and slides it under the flap, which opens almost at once.
Prying. Jan doesn’t like that word, but he still inserts two fingers in the envelope and removes the contents. There are several thin sheets of paper, covered with neat writing in ink:
My dearest Ivan, it’s Carin again. Carin from Hedemora, if you remember me. It just occurred to me that I forgot to tell you about my two dogs last time I wrote. One is a dachshund and the other is a terrier. Their names are Sammy and Willy, and they get on really really well, and I love being with them. It’s wonderful when we all go out for a walk together.
It is so tempting to lose myself in dreams; I often get so stressed because there is just so much to do in my life. So much responsibility! There are always piles of bills and then there’s my job which of course I just have to get right, I really can’t take any more time off. And then I have to walk Sammy and Willy and feed them and take care of them every day.
But I think about you so much, Ivan. I send you all my love. The heat of my soul soars above the sky like a burning flame and descends into your room, into your heart. I feel so much Love and Tenderness for you, and I have read everything about you.
I know that those of us who live outside a prison wall can be trapped by life just as much as those of you who are locked up behind it, and I have thought a great deal about how we can learn to climb over all the walls that surround us. But you make me free and I just long to meet you...
The letter goes on for three more pages, with lengthy declarations of love to Ivan Rössel and dreams of a life together. A photograph is attached: it shows a smiling woman with two barking dogs.
Jan folds the sheets of paper and carefully puts them back in the envelope, then he fetches a glue stick and reseals the flap. He doesn’t open any more letters.
A love letter to Ivan Rössel. Well, that’s what it sounded like anyway. Jan has read that notorious violent criminals who have ended up in prison often get fan mail — piles of letters from people they have never met. Letters from women who want to help them become better people. Do all of these letter-writers want to help Rössel?
Then he thinks about Rami, and the letter he started writing to her. But his love is different. Completely different.
The squirrel wants to get over the fence, she had written. The squirrel wants to jump off the wheel.
That was almost two weeks ago, and he hasn’t written to her since then. And he promised himself that he wouldn’t smuggle any more letters.
In spite of this he gets out a sheet of paper. If Rami is in the hospital under the name Blanker, and if he were to write a letter to her — what would he write? He doesn’t want to sound like some lovesick stranger, like Carin from Hedemora.
Jan wants to explain who he is. So he picks up his pen and begins to write:
Hi, my name is Jan and I think you and I met a long time ago in another town, in a place called the Unit. Your name was Alice then, but you were tired of it, I remember. You used to play the guitar, I played the drums, and we talked a lot. I liked talking to you.
And now you are in St Patricia’s. I don’t know why, that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that I want to help you.
I’ve been drawing pictures in the books I think you left in the Dell, but I want to do more. A lot more.
I want to find a way in life for the two of us, and I want to help you...
Jan stops and looks at the words. To escape — that’s what he wants to write, isn’t it? But he doesn’t do it. He can’t write something like that unless Rami herself wants it to happen.
In the Unit she had talked about running away virtually every day. She wanted to get out of that place, she wanted to go and see her older sister, she wanted to go to Stockholm — she was only fourteen years old, but she had big plans.
Jan had no big plans at all. He just wanted to be with Rami.
True love does not die of natural causes. It is murdered by those who rule over us.
He ought to write that instead; this letter is no good. He screws it up and starts again:
Maria, my name is Jan Hauger and I work at St Patricia’s, but not in the hospital itself. I am a pre-school teacher, but sometimes I think I am a lynx. You have a new name and see yourself as a squirrel now, but when we knew each other you used to be called Alice Rami. Didn’t you?