The chief practitioner attempted to appear indulgent, but this stopped immediately when she stepped toward him and slapped him in the face, causing the other two doctors to move back in their chairs.
When she walked past the medical secretary’s desk in the corridor, the woman just managed to tell her that there was an Assad on the line asking to speak with her.
Rose swung around. “Oh, is he, now!” she screamed. “Well, you can tell him to go to hell and make sure he tells the rest of them to leave me in peace.”
It hurt, but those who had betrayed her and pried into her life were no longer part of her world.
Fifty minutes later, Rose was on her way to where the taxis waited in front of Glostrup Hospital. She could sense that she was too drowsy for this because the medicine she still had in her body made everything seem like it was happening in slow motion and affected her sense of distance.
She felt that if she threw up she would fall over and not be able to get up again, so she squeezed her throat with her free hand, which strangely enough seemed to help.
But the situation was bad. From a rational point of view, she would probably never function normally again, so everything was fucked up, to say the least. Why not just get it over with? She had saved enough pills over the past few years to commit suicide. Just one glass of water and a few gulps and all these horrible thoughts would follow her to her grave.
She gave the driver a five-hundred-kroner tip, which made her feel momentarily happy. And walking up the stairs to her apartment, she thought about a poor crippled beggar with really deformed legs whom she had seen at the Cathedral Square in Barcelona. As she was leaving this world anyway, wouldn’t it be a good idea if all her worldly possessions were distributed among unfortunate people like him? Not that she had much to give, but what if instead of ruining her organs with sleeping pills, she slit her wrists instead? She could leave a note stating that she wished to donate all her organs, and then call an ambulance while bleeding to death. How long should she wait to call the ambulance before losing consciousness if she didn’t want to run the risk of them arriving in time to save her? That was the question.
She unlocked her apartment door, feeling confused about all these possibilities and obligations, and was immediately hit by the walls covered in her own writing: “YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE.” You do not belong here.
The words hit her like a sledgehammer. Who was talking to whom? Was it her cursing her father, or was it him cursing her?
Rose let her travel bag fall on the floor and held a hand to her chest. A pressure from inside was pushing her tongue up against her palate, blocking her throat. The choking feeling was so strong that her heart was beating like a pneumatic drill to oxygenate her body. With eyes wide-open, she looked around the apartment, realizing how she had been stabbed in the back. Candle drippers had been put on her chandeliers. Clean tablecloths on the tables. Scrapbooks containing her Department Q cases had been stacked in a completely regular pile on the chest of drawers under the mirror. Chairs were suddenly upright. Sticky and sugary marks had been wiped off her stereo, floors, and carpets.
She clenched her fists, gasping for breath. No one should enter another person’s home and decide what was normal and how the person living there ought to behave within her own four walls. Her dirty laundry, unwashed dishes, rubbish and papers on the floor, and complete powerlessness were all hers and hers alone. And no one should mess with it.
How the hell was she supposed to function in this clinically purged and violated home?
Rose stepped backward away from this poison, all the way out onto the walkway, where she leaned up against the railing and let her tears pour forth.
When her legs began to feel numb, she went over to her neighbor’s door. In the years Rose had lived here, a sort of connection had been established between them. Not a friendship as such, but more like a mother-daughter relationship, which unlike anything Rose had experienced entailed a certain feeling of security and confidentiality. Even though it had been a while, the way she was feeling made her sure it was the right thing to do to ring the doorbell.
Unaware of how long she had been waiting outside her neighbor’s door without anyone answering, she was suddenly aware of one of her other neighbors walking directly toward her.
“Are you looking for Zimmermann, Rose?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know where you’ve been lately, but I’m sorry to say that Rigmor is dead.” She hesitated for a moment. “She was murdered, Rose. It was three weeks ago today. Didn’t you know? You’re with the police, after all.”
Rose stared up at the sky. Toward the eternally unknowable. She momentarily disappeared from the world, and when she returned it was as if the world disappeared from her.
“Yes, it’s terrible,” said the woman. “Really terrible. And then that young girl who was killed in a hit-and-run just around the corner earlier today. But maybe you didn’t know that either?”
29
Thursday, May 26th, 2016
Assad was looking down in the dumps when Carl found him rolling up his prayer rug on the basement floor of the claustrophobic office.
“You look sad, Assad. What’s up?” he asked.
“Up where, Carl? Why do you ask?” He shook his head. “I called the hospital to ask how Rose is doing and I heard her screaming and shouting in the background that I should go to hell and that we should leave her alone.”
“Heard?”
“Yes, she obviously knew that it was me on the other end. I just wanted to ask when we could visit her. She must have walked past as I called.”
Carl patted his mate on the shoulder. He hadn’t deserved to hear that.
“Well, I guess we’re going to have to respect that, Assad. If it makes Rose feel worse that we contact her, we’re not doing her any favors by trying.”
Assad hung his head. He was feeling terrible. There was no doubt that he was very fond of Rose. Now Carl would have to try to lift his spirits. This wasn’t helping anyone.
“Has Assad told you what she shouted at him?”
Gordon’s face said it all. So he had.
“It’s my fault that she’s reacting like this,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have pried in her notebooks.”
“She’ll come around, Gordon. We’ve been through similar with Rose before.”
“I doubt it.”
So did Carl, but he said, “Come on, Gordon, you did what you needed to do. Unlike me. I should’ve asked her before we went looking around her apartment and handed your notes over to the psychiatrists. That was unprofessional.”
“If you’d asked her first, she would’ve just said no!”