“No, he was more sophisticated than that. He would forbid our mom from cleaning Rose’s room, or he’d punish her by stopping her allowance, or find all manner of ways to favor the rest of us.”
“And the rest of you thought that was okay?” asked Carl.
She shrugged her shoulders with an evasive air. “Back then, we thought Rose didn’t care. That she was fine in her own way.”
“What about your mom?” asked Assad.
Yrsa pursed her lips, sitting silently for half a minute before she was composed enough to continue. Her eyes searched about the room, avoiding direct eye contact with them, which continued for some time after she began speaking again.
“Our mom was always on our dad’s side. I mean, not seriously, but in the way that she would never contradict him or take Rose’s side. And when she finally did stand up for Rose this one time, he just directed his tyranny at her—that was the price for her rebellion. You can see it in 1996, where our mom gave up and started going after Rose just like our dad. In hindsight, she just followed in his wake.”
“Then that’s why Rose is screaming for help from your mom in that year’s notebook. But did she get that help?”
“Our mom moved out, leaving Rose almost defenseless. She has hated our mom for that ever since.”
“She writes ‘Bitch’ when your mom moves out.”
Yrsa confirmed with a nod, looking down at the floor.
Mona interrupted. “We can see that Rose was feeling worse from then on. And even though she did well in high school, the harassment only became worse and worse. In the end she didn’t dare do anything other than what her dad demanded. And when she was asked to pay full board and lodging for staying at home after graduating high school, she accepted an office job at the steel plant where her dad worked. Half a year later, he died in a tragic accident at the plant, and Rose was standing next to him when he was crushed by a steel slab. ‘Help me,’ she writes after that.”
“Why do you think she does that, Yrsa?”
She turned to face Carl, looking dead tired. Perhaps her and her sisters’ passive role had hit her in all its horror. She certainly couldn’t answer.
Again, it was Mona who came to her aid. “Yrsa has explained to me that she and her sisters didn’t know for certain because Rose moved away at that time. But there is no doubt that Rose was in permanent shock and suffering from depression of some sort. Sadly, she didn’t seek treatment, so her depression worsened. A sort of gloom and guilt that made her do the strangest things. She began going to pubs to pick up men. She slept with anyone. Had a series of one-night stands. And she adopted different personalities when she was with these men. She didn’t want to be herself anymore.”
“Suicidal thoughts?” asked Carl.
“Maybe not in the beginning, right, Yrsa?”
She shook her head. “No. She tried to escape from herself by dressing up like us. She pretended she was someone else, maybe because our dad hadn’t bullied us and we had actually had a fairly normal family life, which was thanks to Rose, because she always intervened and took the battles for us,” she said quietly. “It was worst at the millennium. On New Year’s Eve all four of us girls were together for once. We all had our partners with us, but Rose was alone and definitely not feeling well. It was just after we had sung ‘Auld Lang Syne’ that Rose declared that she was fed up with everything and that this year would be her last. A few weeks later, at Lise-Marie’s birthday bash, we saw her playing with a pair of scissors as if she might cut her wrists with them.”
Yrsa sighed. “Back then it was only a threat, and not like last year when she was committed to the Nordvang psychiatric center having almost cut both her arteries.” She dried her eyes and regained her composure. “Anyway, we managed to persuade her to see a psychologist back then. In fact, that was down to Lise-Marie, our youngest sister, who she has always been closest to.”
“Okay. I wonder if the psychologist from back then is someone who might be able to help us understand all this,” said Carl. “Do you remember the name, Yrsa?”
“The girls tried to talk with him, but he said he couldn’t due to patient confidentiality, Carl. Yrsa has told me who he is. I used to know him. Benito Dion was competent and actually taught us cognitive—”
“You said ‘was.’ Is he still alive?”
Mona shook her head. “And even if he was, he’d be over a hundred today.”
Damn it!
Carl took a deep breath and scanned the list of Rose’s phrases. “I can see that over the next few years, she slowly returns to a more normal state of mind—from ‘black hell’ to ‘dark’ and then to ‘grey.’ Then she implores herself not ‘to think’ and not to exist at all. ‘I don’t exist,’ she writes. But what happens in 2004, when there is suddenly a change in tone with ‘white light’? Do you know, Yrsa?”
“No, but I think Gordon figured that out. She started at the police academy and was doing really well and felt happy about everything until she failed the academy driving test.”
And yet she wasn’t entirely normal, thought Carl. Hadn’t he heard how her promiscuous behavior at the academy had become a burden? That she was legendary for being an easy lay?
“But she didn’t have a total relapse back to ‘hell’ when she was kicked out? She seemed more stable, right?” he asked.
“She found a good office job at Station City, don’t you remember?” said Assad, interrupting his train of thought. Carl had totally forgotten that he was there.
“At that point she becomes ‘deaf’ to your dad, I can see.” Carl pointed at 2007. “I think we can work out the rest of her phrases, but perhaps Gordon has already done that?”
Mona nodded. “Her appointment in 2008 with Department Q made her stronger, and now she’s almost mocking her dad. ‘Laughter stopped?’ and even more pronounced in 2009, ‘Get lost, shit!’”
“I don’t know if you remember, but the following year she suddenly came to work dressed as Yrsa, and managed to pull it off for several days. In fact, she was so good at mimicking someone else that she had us completely fooled. Was it just an act to tease us, or do you interpret that as a relapse, Mona?”
It was the first time in years he had spoken to her directly by name. It sounded strangely unfamiliar in his mouth. It almost felt intimidating. Far too intimate. What the hell was going on? “But don’t you remember that you two had just had a squabble, Carl?” asked Assad. “She reacted as if you’d bullied her.”
“I didn’t, did I?”