The Asylum (9 page)

‘Well, you told me about it,’ says Jan. ‘Are you here on your own?’

Lilian shakes her head. ‘I was with some friends, but they went home when the Bohemos started playing.’ She nods in the direction of the band. ‘Sensitive ears.’

‘Friends from work?’ says Jan.

‘Friends from work – now who would that be?’ Lilian snorts and has another drink. ‘Marie-Louise, maybe?’

‘Does she never come here?’

‘No chance – Marie-Louise stays at home.’

‘Does she have children?’

‘No, just her husband and the dog. But then she’s everybody’s second mum, isn’t she? She’s like a mum to all the kids, and to us. Fantastic … I don’t think she’s ever had a nasty thought in her entire life.’

Jan doesn’t want to give any thought to what other people might think. ‘So what about Andreas, then?’ he says. ‘Does he go out?’

‘Andreas? Not much. He’s got a house and a garden to look after, and a little wife. They’re like a couple of pensioners.’

‘OK,’ says Jan. ‘But Hanna comes here, doesn’t she?’

‘Sometimes.’ Lilian looks down at the table. ‘Hanna’s the one I get on best with at work; you could say she’s my friend.’

There is a brief silence. The music has stopped; the Bohemos seem to have packed up for the night.

‘So Hanna is a good person?’

‘Of course,’ Lilian says quickly. ‘She’s a nice girl. She’s only twenty-six … young and a bit crazy.’

‘What do you mean, a bit crazy?’

‘In all kinds of ways. She might seem quiet and reserved, but she has a very exciting private life.’

‘With different men, you mean?’

Lilian presses her lips together. ‘I don’t gossip.’

‘But she does come here sometimes?’ says Jan. ‘To Bill’s Bar?’

‘She comes with me sometimes, but she prefers the Medina Palace.’

‘The Medina Palace?’

‘The big night club here in town. It’s almost as luxurious as St Patricia’s.’

‘You think St Patricia’s is luxurious?’

‘Absolutely – it’s a luxury hotel.’

Jan looks at her with a blank expression; he doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Lilian quickly goes on: ‘Listen … Every room at St Psycho’s costs four thousand per night. Four thousand kronor! Those who are in there don’t have to pay, of course, but that’s what it costs the taxpayer. Doctors, guards, cameras, medication … it all costs money. The patients don’t know how well off they are.’

‘And you and I work there … next door to the luxury hotel.’

‘We do indeed,’ says Lilian. ‘Let’s drink to that!’

Jan carries on chatting to her for another fifteen minutes or so, then stretches and fakes a little yawn. ‘Time for me to head home, I think.’

‘One last beer?’ says Lilian, with a slow wink.

Jan shakes his head. ‘Not tonight.’

Starting to party now would be a big mistake; he will be taking on extra responsibilities next week. On Thursday he will have a timetabled evening shift at the pre-school; for the first time he will be completely alone with the children.

12

‘SO HOW ARE
you feeling, Jan?’ asks Marie-Louise. ‘Would you like to tell us?’

‘Of course … but there isn’t much to say, really. I feel fine.’

‘Is that all? No problems fitting in with the team?’

‘No.’ Jan looks around the table at Andreas, Hanna and Lilian. ‘No problems at all.’

‘We’re all very pleased to hear that, Jan.’

Monday’s feelgood meeting for the staff takes place before the children begin to arrive.

This is Jan’s first time. They are all looking at him, the new boy, but he finds it difficult to relax and talk at the same time.

‘This is an important job,’ he says. ‘I’m well aware of that.’

They stop staring, and a few minutes later the feelgood meeting is over. Thank goodness.

Just before story time, Jan finds a sign of life from Alice Rami. Perhaps.

Little Josefine is helping him. She was one of the children who tormented the mouse in the forest, but Jan is trying to forget that incident, along with Leo’s unsettling words about his father. And today Josefine is just like any other little girl: she is playing with a doll when Jan comes to fetch a book.

‘Is there any particular story you’d like to hear today, Josefine?’

She looks up and nods, several times. ‘The one about the lady who makes animals!’

Jan looks at her. ‘What’s it called?’

‘
The Animal Lady
!’

Jan has never heard of it, but Josefine goes straight over to the book boxes, rummages through them and pulls out a thin white book, about the size of an LP record. She’s right; the title is
The Animal Lady
.

‘OK. Fine.’

The book is similar to all the others in the box, but there is no author’s name, and the picture below the title is barely visible; it is just a faint pencil drawing of a small island and a slender lighthouse. It looks as if it is handmade; when Jan looks more closely he can see that someone has cut the pages and stuck them together with ordinary sticky tape.

He flicks through it. The text is written on the right-hand page. On the left-hand page there are pencil drawings, but like the one on the cover they are so faint they are hardly visible.

Jan is curious; he wants to read
The Animal Lady
. ‘Come along, everyone!’ he shouts. ‘Story time!’

The children settle down among the cushions.

Jan sits down on the chair in front of them and holds up the book. ‘Today we’re going to read about an animal lady.’

‘What does that mean?’ Matilda asks.

Jan looks to Josefine for help, but none is forthcoming.

‘Well … let’s see.’ He opens the book and begins to read:

Once upon a time there was a lady who knew how to make animals, and her name was Maria Blanker. Maria was very lonely. She had moved to a little island right in the middle of the sea, with a lighthouse that never flashed its bright light. She was living on the island in a little house made of driftwood
.

Apparently someone lived in the lighthouse too. There was a name on the mail box: THE GREAT MR ZYLIZYLON. Maria could hear heavy footsteps echoing through the lighthouse
every
night as someone with big feet stomped up and down the stairs
.

Maria wanted to be polite, and had knocked on the door of the lighthouse several times when she first arrived on the island, but she was actually quite pleased that no one opened the door
.

Jan stops for a moment; he seems to think he recognizes the name Maria Blanker. But where from?

And the word
Zylizylon
sounds medical. Perhaps it’s some kind of medication?

He looks at the drawing. It shows a little cottage with a tall lighthouse in the background. The house is pale grey, like driftwood bleached by the sun. The lighthouse is as slender as a matchstick.

‘Don’t stop!’ shouts Josefine.

So Jan carries on:

The lighthouse never flashed its bright light because the ships didn’t need it any more. There were tracks laid out all over the sea these days, so the ships never drifted off course. But there were no tracks near the lighthouse. Maria never saw any ships, and she felt even more lonely
.

There were no animals on the island. Maria didn’t like making them any more
.

The next picture shows the inside of the cottage: a bare room containing only a table and a chair. A skinny woman with spiky hair and a wide mouth is sitting on the chair, the drooping corners of her mouth protruding like black twigs.

Instead Maria grew carrots and potatoes in the back garden. She drank taminal tea and looked for pretty pebbles on the shore. She still felt lonely, but she never knocked on the door of the lighthouse again. She didn’t want to meet Mr Zylizylon, because the sound of his heavy footsteps on the stairs grew louder and louder every day
.

The third drawing shows the thin, grey figure of the animal lady standing in front of the closed iron door of the lighthouse. The picture is so blurred that it is impossible to make out her face. Is she unhappy, or perhaps afraid?

At night Maria dreamed of all the animals she used to make when she was young and happy. People liked to watch her make them; they used to clap when the animals appeared from inside her clothes
.

But the animals had got bigger and bigger, stranger and stranger. Maria had been unable to control them. In the end she had been too frightened to make them any more
.

The fourth drawing is dark. The animal lady is sleeping in a narrow bed, like a grey shadow. Above her other shadows crawl and writhe around each other as they emerge from a dark tunnel in the wall.

The atmosphere in the drawing is menacing; Jan turns the page and carries on reading:

Then one day something happened that had never happened before. While Maria was gathering pebbles down on the shore, she suddenly saw a ship on the horizon. It seemed to be coming closer, the waves nudging it nearer to the island. Maria realized it had come off track
.

When the ship had almost reached the island, the animal lady saw that it was a ferry full of children. All the children were wearing blue helmets, and they had big cushions attached to their backs and tummies
.

‘I want a cushion on my tummy!’ shouts Mattias.

‘What’s a horizon?’ asks Matilda.

‘It’s where the earth ends,’ Jan says. He turns the book around – this page isn’t scary – and shows them the thin line beyond the ferry. He points to it. ‘This is what the horizon looks like. Although it’s just an illusion really; the earth doesn’t end there, it’s as round
as
a beach ball. You know that, don’t you? So the earth never ends, it just carries on until it comes back behind you …’

The children stare at him in silence. Jan sees that he has got himself all tied up in knots, so he carries on reading:

Eventually the ferry ran aground on the island. There was a horrible screeching, grating noise as it drifted on to the rocks. The children jumped ashore, but Maria was too scared to show herself. She had gone into her little house, locked the door and made herself a pot of really strong taminal tea. She could hear cheerful cries outside, but she drank her tea and didn’t open the door
.

This picture shows Maria cowering behind closed curtains; they have a chequered pattern which makes Jan think of the barred windows at the hospital. She is pouring hot tea, steaming and bubbling, into a big cup which is all the colours of the rainbow. But what is taminal tea?

‘
Hello?’ a girl’s voice shouted. Cautiously Maria peeped out, but the girl wasn’t standing outside her door
.

She was standing by the lighthouse
.

And the lighthouse door was open
.

For the first time since Maria came to the island, the Great Mr Zylizylon had opened the door of his big tower!

‘
Hello? My name is Amelia … is anyone home?
’

This time the drawing shows what Maria could see through her window: a little girl in a thin dress standing in front of the black door of the lighthouse. But one thing distinguishes the girl from the other children, Jan notices. She is not wearing a helmet, and there are no cushions attached to her body.

The children are as quiet as mice. The atmosphere in the room is thick with anticipation.

Jan turns the page.

Through the window Maria watched as little Amelia walked up the steps to the door of the lighthouse
.

‘
Hello?’ she called again
.

She took one more step; she was almost inside now
.

Then Maria did something without even thinking about it. She raised her hand, closed her eyes, and quickly made a guardian animal
.

Jan was expecting the children to ask what a guardian animal is – he doesn’t know either – but no one speaks.

Maria could give anyone at all a guardian animal, but unfortunately she never knew what they were going to look like. So when Maria opened her eyes she saw that Amelia was being hugged by something that looked like a big frog. A yellow frog with long, hairy legs
.

‘
Amelia!’ shouted the frog. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages!
’

The guardian animal gave Amelia another hug and quickly drew her away from the door
.

Maria let out a long breath. She went and opened the door of her little house, just as the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard from inside the lighthouse
.

‘
Come inside!’ she shouted, pulling Amelia into her house. The guardian animal remained outside
.

Jan turns the page, ready to read on. He scans the first sentence:
They heard a loud roar, and at long last the Great Mr Zylizylon came out of the lighthouse …
But before he actually reads it out loud he notices the drawing on the left-hand page, and closes his mouth.

This drawing is clearer than the others, with long, firm pencil strokes. It shows Mr Zylizylon stepping out into the daylight.

Mr Zylizylon is a monster. He is broad and hairy, and he has a leash around his thick neck. It is made of severed human hands. The monster has raised his arms and opened his wide mouth, ready to fall on the guardian animal, which is cowering on the ground in terror.

The children are waiting for Jan to carry on reading.

He opens his mouth. ‘Then …’ He tries to think fast. ‘Then Maria the animal lady and her new friend Amelia went down to the ferry and all the children sailed away from the island. And Maria lived happily ever after in peace and quiet.’

He closes the book. ‘The end!’

But Josefine straightens up. ‘That’s not how it ends!’ she shouts. ‘The monster eats up—’

‘That’s how it ended today,’ Jan breaks in. ‘And now it’s time we had our fruit.’

The children start to get up, but Josefine looks disappointed. Jan keeps the book tucked firmly under his left arm as he hands out bananas with his right hand; when everyone is eating he slips away to the cloakroom and puts the book in his bag.

He wants to read the ending on his own. He’s just borrowing it, he’s not stealing it.