The Hypnotist (28 page)

Erik begins to search through the papers he keeps in his office. Somewhere in here, there will be information about Eva Blau. Because whenever his patients act differently from what he expects, Erik keeps his notes handy until he can understand the reasons for these deviations.

It could be an observation or some forgotten object. He rummages through papers, files, scraps of paper, and receipts with notes written on them. Faded photographs in a plastic wallet, an external hard drive, some diaries from the time when he believed in complete openness between doctor and patient, a drawing that a traumatized child made one night. Several cassettes and videotapes from his lectures at Karolinska Institute. A book by Hermann Broch, full of annotations. Erik’s hands stop moving. Around a videotape is a piece of paper held in place by a brown rubber band. On the spine of the tape it simply says
Erik Maria Bark, Tape 14
. He removes the piece of paper, angles the lamp, and recognizes his own handwriting: the haunted house.

Ice-cold shivers run up his back and out along his arms, and the hair on the back of his neck stands up. He can suddenly hear the ticking of his watch. His head is pounding and his heart is racing. He sits down, looks at the tape again, picks up the phone with trembling hands, and calls the porters’ office to ask that a videotape player be sent to his office. With feet as heavy as lead he walks over to the window again and peers out at the covering of snow in the inner courtyard. Heavy flakes drift slowly at an angle through the air, landing on the windowpane before losing their colour and melting from the warmth of the glass. He tells himself it’s probably just a coincidence, a strange coincidence, but at the same time he realizes that some of the pieces of the puzzle may fit together.

The haunted house
. Those few words written on a piece of paper have the power to transport him back to the past, to the time when he was still involved with hypnosis. He knows that against his will he must walk up to a dark mirror and try to see what is hiding there, behind the reflections created by all the time that has passed.

The porter taps gently on the door. Erik opens it, confirms his request, and wheels in the stand with the television and the oddly antiquated video player. He inserts the tape, turns off the overhead light, and sits down. “I’d almost forgotten this,” he says to himself, pointing the remote at the machine.

The picture flickers and the sound crackles and breaks up for a little while, and then he hears his own voice coming from the TV. He sounds as if he has a cold as he dutifully notes the place, date, time, and conclusion. “We have had a short break but are still in a post-hypnotic state.”

Erik is riveted by the shaky picture on the screen. It’s been ten years, he thinks, swallowing hard. The video steadies, revealing a half circle of chairs. Then Erik appears, and begins to tidy up. There is a lightness in his ten-years-younger body, a spring he no longer has. Here, his hair is not yet grey; the deep furrows in his forehead and cheeks do not yet exist.

Almost too well, Erik remembers the atmosphere in the room that day. The group was still affected by the first phase of hypnosis before the break, when they were disturbed by the arrival of the new member. They had got to know one another, had begun to identify with one another’s stories. The new addition was deeply unsettling. This, Erik realizes, is what he’s about to see.

The patients come into view, moving listlessly; they sit down on the chairs. A few talk in subdued tones. One laughs. Others sit in silence. The tape is grainy, and their blurred faces are difficult to make out.

Leaning forward in his chair, Erik swallows hard and hears himself explaining in a tinny voice that it is time to continue the session. He sees himself standing by the wall, making notes on a pad. Suddenly there is a knock on the door, and Eva Blau walks in. Even on the tape, across the distance of years, Erik can tell that she is under stress. He can make out patches on her throat and cheeks as he watches himself take her coat, hang it up, and lead her over to the group; he introduces her briefly and welcomes her. The others nod warily or perhaps they whisper hello; a few take no notice of her, staring down at the floor instead.

The group was usually made up of eight people, including Erik. Therapy focused on investigating each person’s past under hypnosis, gradually approaching the most painful point. This hypnosis always took place in front of the group and together with the group. The idea was that this way they would all become more than witnesses to one another’s experiences; via hypnotic openness, they would be able to share the pain and grieve together, as in collective disasters.

Eva Blau sits down on the one empty chair and stares straight into the camera; her face is suddenly sharp and hostile.

This is the woman who broke into his home ten years ago, he thinks. But what did she steal, and what else did she do?

On the screen, Erik introduces the second part of the session by referring back to the first and follows up with playful free associations. This was his way of lightening the mood, helping the group feel that a certain spirit was possible despite the dark, bottomless undercurrents constantly swirling inside everything they said and did. A patient named Pierre is conjuring “a hippie on a chopper” when Eva suddenly leaps to her feet with a crash, protesting the exercise.

“This is just childish nonsense,” she says.

“Why do you feel that way?” asks Erik.

Eva doesn’t reply but sits back down, crossing her arms tightly.

Getting no response, Erik turns to Pierre to see if he would like to carry on with his association, but Pierre shakes his head and forms a cross with his index fingers, pointing them at Eva. “They shot Dennis Hopper because he was a hippie,” he murmurs.

A young, stocky woman— Sibel, her name was Sibel—giggles and glances sideways at Erik. A patient named Jussi clears his throat and raises his hand in Eva’s direction. “In the haunted house you won’t have to listen to our childish non . . . sense,” he says, in his slow and heavy Norrland dialect.

Everyone falls silent. Eva whips around to face Jussi, but whatever she means to say, something makes her change her mind. Perhaps it’s the seriousness in his voice, maybe the cool expression in his eyes.

The haunted house
. The words reverberate in Erik’s head as he stares at the old video frames. He hears himself explain to Eva the principles behind the process of hypnosis, how they always begin with group relaxation exercises before he moves on to hypnotize one or two individuals.

He watches himself pull up a chair and sit down in front of the semi-circle, getting them to close their eyes and lean back. While their eyes are closed, he stands up, talking to them about relaxation; he moves behind them, observing the degree of relaxation in each of them individually. Their faces become softer, looser, less and less aware, more and more incapable of lies, secrets, defences. Erik stops behind Eva Blau and places a hand on her shoulder.

As he watches himself begin to hypnotize her, Erik’s stomach tingles. The younger Erik gently slips into a steep induction with hidden commands; he is so totally assured of his own skill, so pleasurably aware of his ability.

“You are ten years old, Eva,” he says. “You are ten years old. This is a good day. You are happy. Why are you happy?”

“Because the man is dancing and splashing in the puddles,” she says, her face moving almost imperceptibly.

“Who’s dancing?”

“Who?” she repeats. “Gene Kelly, Mummy says.”

“Oh, so you’re watching
Singin’ in the Rain
?”

She nods slowly.

“What happens?”

Eva closes her mouth and lowers her head. “My tummy is big,” she says almost inaudibly.

“Your tummy?”

“It’s huge,” she says, and the tears begin to flow.

“The haunted house,” whispers Jussi. “The haunted house.”

“Eva, listen to me,” Erik goes on. “You can hear everyone else in this room, but you must listen only to my voice. Pay no attention to what the others say, pay attention only to my voice.”

“All right.”

“Do you know why your tummy is big?” Erik asks.

“I want to go into the haunted house,” she whispers.

In his hospital office, Erik gets up off his chair, massages his neck, and rubs his eyes, aware that he is moving closer to his own inner rooms, closer to what has been packed away.

Looking at the flickering screen, he mutters, “Open the door.”

He hears himself counting down, immersing Eva more deeply in the hypnotic state. He explains that she will soon do as he says, without thinking, she will simply accept that his voice is leading her in the right direction. She shakes her head slightly and he continues counting backward, letting the numbers fall.

The picture quality suddenly deteriorates; Eva looks up with cloudy eyes, moistens her lips, and whispers, “I can see them taking someone. They just come up and take someone.”

“Who’s taking someone?” Erik asks.

Her breathing becomes irregular. “A man with a ponytail.” She whimpers. “He’s hanging the little— ”

The tape crackles and the picture disappears.

Erik fast-forwards to the end of the tape, but the picture does not return: half the tape is ruined, erased. He sits in front of the blank screen. He can see himself looking back out of the deep, dark reflection. He can see the face of the man he was then, together with his face as it is now, ten years older. He looks at the video, tape 14, and he looks at the rubber band and the piece of paper with the words the haunted house.

Erik jabs repeatedly at the button until the doors of the lift close. He knows it won’t speed things up, but he can’t help himself. Benjamin’s words from the darkness of the car are mixed with the strange fragments of memory stirred up by the videotape. Once again he hears Eva Blau’s faint voice saying that a man with a ponytail has taken someone. But there was something insincere about her mouth as she said it, something almost like a smile.

There is a roaring sound high up in the shaft as the lift moves downwards with a whine.

“The haunted house,” he repeats to himself, hoping it’s just a coincidence and Benjamin’s disappearance has nothing to do with his past.

The lift stops and the doors open at the underground car park. He walks quickly through it and into a narrow stairwell. Two floors down, he unlocks a steel door, continues along a white tunnel to a secure door, and leans on the buzzer, eventually receiving a response from within. He explains his errand into the microphone.

The storage facility contains all archived patient notes, all research and experiments, records of tests, and questionable investigations. On the shelves are thousands of files, including the results of secret tests on suspected HIV cases in the eighties, compulsory sterilizations, arguments concerning thalidomide, and dental experiments on those with mental health issues from the time when Swedish dental health reform was due to be sanctioned and children from orphanages, the mentally ill, and the elderly were forced to sit with sugar paste in their mouths until their teeth were eaten away by decay— all meticulously archived and preserved here.

The door buzzes and Erik steps into an unexpectedly warm brightness. There is something about the lighting that makes the storeroom feel pleasant, far from the windowless cavern deep underground that it actually is.

The sound of opera is coming from the security guard’s office: a rippling coloratura from a mezzo-soprano. Erik pulls himself together, tries to assume a calm expression, and searches within himself for a smile as he walks over to the sound.

A short, stocky man wearing a straw hat is standing with his back to the door, watering some plants.

“Hi, Kurt.”

“Erik Maria Bark, it’s been a long time. How are things?”

Erik doesn’t really know what to say. “I’ve got a few family problems to deal with at the moment.”

“Right.”

“Lovely flowers,” says Erik, to avoid further questions.

“Pansies. I love them. Conny kept saying nothing could flower down here. What do you mean, nothing can flower down here? I said. Look at me!”

“Exactly,” Erik replies.

“I installed ultraviolet lamps all over the place. It’s like a solarium down here.” Kurt holds out a tube of sunscreen.

“I won’t be staying that long.”

“Oh, just a little bit on your nose,” says Kurt, squeezing out some cream and holding it up.

“Thanks.”

Kurt lowers his voice and whispers, his eyes sparkling, “Sometimes I walk around down here in just my underpants. But don’t tell anybody.”

Erik smiles at him, feeling the strain on his face. There is a silence. Kurt looks at him, expectantly.

“Many years ago,” Erik begins, “I used to videotape my hypnosis sessions.”

“How many years ago?”

“About ten. There’s a series of VHS tapes— ”

“VHS?”

“Yes, they were more or less out of date even then.”

“All our videotapes have been digitalized.”

“Good.”

“They’re in the computer archive.”

“So how do I get access?”

Kurt smiles. Erik notices how white his teeth are in his sunburned face.

“Well, it so happens I can help you with that.”

They walk over to four computers in an alcove by the shelving. Kurt rapidly keys in a password and clicks through folders containing recordings that have been transferred.

“Would the tapes have been in your name?” he asks. “They should be,” says Erik. “Well, they’re not,” says Kurt slowly. “I’ll try under hypnosis.”

He types in the word and carries out a new search. “Huh,” he says. “Have a look for yourself.”

None of the hits have anything to do with Erik’s documentation of his therapy sessions. He tries the words haunted house. He searches under Eva Blau’s name, although the members of his group were not registered as patients with the hospital. “Nothing,” he says wearily.

“We ran into trouble when we were transferring a lot of the material,” Kurt says. “Some of it was in pretty fragile shape to begin with. Stuff got destroyed, like all the Betamax.”

“Who transferred the material?”

Kurt turns to him with an apologetic shrug. “Me and Conny.”

“But the original tapes must still be around somewhere, surely,” Erik ventures.

“Sorry, I’ve no idea.”

“Do you think Conny might know anything?”

“No.”

“Can you call and ask him?”

“He’s down in Simrishamn.”

Erik turns away, trying to think calmly.

“I know a lot of stuff got erased by mistake,” Kurt says.

Erik stares at him. “This was totally unique research,” he says dully.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to criticize.”

Kurt nips a brown leaf from a plant. “You gave up the hypnosis, didn’t you?” he says. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yes. But I need to check, to look at— ”

Erik stops speaking. He hasn’t the energy to explain. He just wants to go back to his office, take a pill, and sleep.

“We’ve always had problems with technology down here,” Kurt goes on. “Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. Every time we mention it, they tell us we have to do the best we can. Just chill out, they said, when we happened to erase an entire decade’s lobotomy research: old films, sixteen millimetre, that had been transferred onto videotapes in the eighties but didn’t make it into the computer age. It’s a shame.”