He looked at the piece of paper. Then he sat down and began to draw a picture of a girl with a guitar, standing on an enormous stage in front of a huge audience, all with their hands in the air. He made as good a job of Rami’s face as he possibly could, then he pushed the picture under the door and quickly crept away.
The following morning he heard noises out in the corridor. Heavy footsteps and loud voices, then the sound of Rami’s door slamming shut.
When everything had gone quiet he went and knocked on her door.
‘Who is it?’ she asked tonelessly through the door, her voice lacking any hint of curiosity.
‘Jan.’
There was a brief silence, then she said, ‘Come in.’
He opened the door very slowly and carefully, as if it might break. The room was in darkness, but he was used to that.
‘Thanks for the picture,’ she said.
‘You’re welcome.’
Rami was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, with the guitar beside her like some kind of pet. Jan couldn’t see if she was restrained in any way.
He wasn’t afraid, but he stayed by the door. ‘It went well yesterday,’ he said. ‘Really well.’
Rami shook her head. ‘I’ve got to get away from this place, they’re going to break me in here... You want to get out too, don’t you?’
She had raised her head and was looking at him. Jan nodded slowly, even though it wasn’t true. He wanted to stay in the Unit until he was old enough to leave school; he wanted to eat, sleep, play table tennis with Jörgen and play the drums with Rami.
She looked up at the ceiling again. ‘But first I’m going to get my revenge on her.’
‘On who?’
‘The Psychobabbler. She’s the one who had me locked up.’
‘I know,’ Jan said.
‘But that’s not the worst thing,’ Rami said, nodding in the direction of her desk. ‘While I was locked up she came in here and took my diary. I just know she’s sitting there reading it now. From cover to cover.’
Jan looked over at the desk. What Rami said might well be true, because the book that had been lying on the desk was gone.
‘She’s going to regret that,’ Rami said. ‘She and her family.’
38
Jan doesn’t recall ever having spoken to a neighbour, not in all the years he has lived in apartment blocks. He might have said hello if he met someone on the stairs, but he has never stopped to chat. To him a stairwell is not a meeting place, it is just a no-man’s-land where the only sound is the reverberating echo of doors closing.
But here in Valla there is one neighbour he has spoken to, and now he wants to see him again.
When he gets home after the evening with Hanna, he places Rami’s picture books on the kitchen table. He sleeps well that night.
He is still tired when he wakes up, but there are things he must do, and after breakfast he picks up an empty coffee cup and goes down two flights of stairs to the door that says V. LEGÉN on it, and rings the bell.
It takes almost a minute before the door opens. An aroma of pipe tobacco and alcohol reaches Jan’s nostrils as his grey-haired neighbour stares blankly at him, but he gives Legén a big smile.
‘Hello there,’ Jan says. ‘Me again, from upstairs... I’m baking another cake, and I wondered if you could possibly spare a bit more sugar?’
The neighbour seems to recognize him, but doesn’t bother to say hello. ‘Ordinary sugar?’
‘Any kind.’
Legén simply takes the cup and turns away; he doesn’t invite Jan into the dark hallway, but Jan steps inside anyway.
There is no sign of the bag from St Patricia’s that was lying on the floor last time; Jan follows Legén into the kitchen. There are plates piled high all over the place, little islands of bottles and cans on the floor, and the windows are covered in a grey film of dust and grease.
‘I work at St Patricia’s, by the way,’ he says to Legén’s back.
His neighbour doesn’t react at all; he simply carries on tipping sugar into the cup.
‘You used to work there too, didn’t you?’ Jan goes on.
There is no reply this time either, but he thinks he picks up a brief nod over by the worktop. So he tries again: ‘Did you work in the laundry?’
This time Legén definitely nods.
‘How long were you there?’
‘Twenty-eight years. And seven months.’
‘Wow. But you’ve retired now?’
‘Yes,’ Legén says. ‘Now I just make wine.’
Jan looks around. It’s true; that’s what the bottles and cans are for. The fruity, alcoholic aroma is coming from the containers, not from Legén.
‘But maybe you still remember how things looked up there... in the hospital?’ Jan says slowly.
‘Maybe.’
‘Any secret passageways?’ Jan says, smiling to show that this is a joke. Which it isn’t.
Legén stops pouring sugar and looks at Jan, who adds, ‘I’d really like to hear some of your stories, if you feel like talking.’
‘Why?’ asks Legén, picking up the cup of sugar.
‘Well, I work there... I’m just curious about the place. I’ve never been up to any of the wards.’
‘Oh?’ says Legén. ‘So where do you work, then?’
Unable to come up with a convincing lie, Jan replies, ‘At the pre-school.’
‘Pre-school? There is no pre-school.’
‘There is now. It’s for children whose parents are in St Patricia’s.’
Legén simply shakes his head in amazement; he considers Jan’s request for a moment, then hands over the cup of sugar. ‘OK... A hundred, in that case.’
‘A hundred what?’
‘A hundred kronor and I’ll tell you. You can try my wine as well.’
Jan thinks about it, then nods. ‘If you talk to me I’ll fetch the money afterwards.’
Legén sits down at the kitchen table; he doesn’t speak for a little while, but eventually he says, ‘There are no secret passageways. Or at least I’ve never seen one. But there is something else.’
He rummages among the newspapers and receipts covering the surface of the table, and finds a pencil and a torn piece of paper. He begins to draw squares and narrow rectangles.
‘What’s that?’ Jan asks.
‘The laundry.’ Legén draws an arrow. ‘You go to the drying room. There’s a big, wide door. But you don’t go through it, you use the door on the right, just here. That takes you into a storeroom’ — he draws a thick circle around one of the squares — ‘and in there, behind all the stuff, is the way up.’
‘A staircase?’
‘No. An old lift. It goes straight up to the wards... The whole place. But not many people know about it.’
Jan looks at the messy sketch. ‘But there are usually people in the laundry. And plenty of security guards.’
‘Not on Sundays,’ says Legén. ‘The laundry is empty on Sundays; you can operate the lift from inside, and go up and down as you wish.’
For the first time he meets Jan’s eye, and Jan gets the feeling that Legén is talking about himself. All of a sudden there is some kind of understanding between them. Twenty-eight years at St Psycho’s, Jan thinks. Plenty of time to learn about every square metre of the place, every door and every corridor.
And he must have met many of the patients. Seen them and thought about them.
‘Did you use the lift?’ Jan asks.
‘Now and again,’ Legén replies.
‘On Sundays?’
‘Now and again.’
‘You used to meet someone up there?’