Slowly I swirled the frothy cappuccino in my mug, the warmth a welcome contrast to the crisp Växjö morning. Steam danced in tendrils above the surface, momentarily obscuring my reflection on the big windows in the front of the Espresso House in the back of the train station.
I wasn’t looking for my own image anyway.
My gaze was fixed on the worn notebook spread open before me. The rhythmic scrape of my pen scratched out indecipherable symbols; old habit since college years and a psychologists’ shorthand for a world of anxieties and unravelling minds.
But this was not about psychology or anxieties this was about puzzles and mysteries far more captivated than marital woes and work angst.
I felt the bitter taste of my working as a psychologist era almost drowning me. I swallowed hard and put them fast aside. More important things to deal with. A tapestry woven from stolen pastries and a barefoot wanderer.
I wrote exactly that: ‘a barefoot wanderer.’ Then I left some space and added. ‘Former employee the robber.’
Former employees always have something to complain about their former employers. For Christ sake, even I can think a couple of former employers of mine who were real shit and I have often used them as an example of a shitty employer and toxic work environment. Add to that Bo’s reputation as a rude and cheap man.
Sorry, but that does make a bitter former employee.
There was something there I was missing and I had a strange sting in the back of my mind that this missing piece had something to do with the girl’s nose. Damn, I hate it when thing turn into women’s …cosmetics because doesn’t matter what I say or what I think in the end I always sound conventional whilst I’m proud to absolutely nothing like that.
Still, why a twelve year old want to have a cosmetic surgery and she has her mother in her side. I mean, she’s twelve. They can wait till she becomes eighteen. Fine, fine…sixteen. But twelve? Barely out of the primary school.
How old was the boy? I had never asked. Can I call Bo? Should I call Bo? Would Lucas know. No reason. Then again he probably does.
“Hello Lucas,” I tried to be calm and keep it calm. “Oh hello there. How are you?” The only Swede I know who makes small talk. “Fine, fine…” “No more big nose? Right?” Here we are again. “No more big nose. However I have a question about the robbery,” I tried to sound casual. “Which of all.” Lucas answered losing any humour. “Carpenter’s house.” “right, right… you know with those robberies lately I’m a bit touchy with the word.” I nodded but he couldn’t see me, so I asked again.
“There was a boy involved, wasn’t it? A former employee or something. Do you remember how old was he?” I asked everything at ones hoping to avoid questions and explanations.
Lucas hesitated but only for a moment, “sixteen, seventeen, something like that. Why you ask?” “Nothing really, just curious. Thank you Lucas, have a good day and good luck with your robberies.” And ended the call without giving him the chance to say anything more.
Next call to Karl. “Time to have your afternoon cigarette. Give me fifteen minutes till I get there.” I also ended this call without waiting for an answer.
Karl had described Bo as a rude man adding that was the common opinion about him in the town. What I had in front of me was a very sad and a very angry man. A man who tried to protect his family from an invader and after defeating him he was not able to punish him. Not even in the most rightful and legal way. And that upset and angered him; sadden him all at the same time. A hurt man, not a rude man.
“My house with my wife, my daughter and my son present…” he murmured angrily lighting another cigarette. I had too many question but no courage to ask them.
“My poor daughter was so sad and scared,” he said returning to the stool for one more time. “The poor thing was shaking all the time and crying saying again and again ‘don’t don’t …don’t’” He nervously stood up again and walked toward the workbench.
He moved around a couple of tools but obviously he was not able to concentrate in any task so he gave up and returned to the stool opposite of me and in front of our coffee cups. We both remained silent for a few minutes.
“Your daughter plastic surgery, is it serious?” I asked innocently. “Her nose,” he said and I nodded. “I was against it in the beginning,” he continued. “But then my wife dragged me to a psychologist or something and he said that it was important for her confidence. She had been bullied at school and all that and I understood. I hate bullies. So I said yes.” And after a small pause he added with a small voice, “girls and all that. You know.”
“I suspect that there is a boy somewhere in this story but both, wife and daughter say no and I have to believe them. But I don’t.”
Suddenly he looked at me, “no shit, with this and that we forgot your kitchen,” he said totally changing attitude to the point I thought he might even show a smile. Thankfully I was quick. “I didn’t see something I like so let me check some magazines and I will come back to you, perhaps next time we can meet in my place so you can take your measurements…” I let the sentence not finished but I could see pound signs in his eyes, reminding me the greedy rumour.
“Fine, fine,” he answered quickly. “After all the boys are coming soon and we need to clean the place before starting the new project. Not a big one so I will have plenty of time to make yours in between.” Greedy again.
I nearly run out of the place and just in time because while closing the door two young men came from the small road, obviously Bo’s assistances. I murmured something like “good morning,” without expecting an answer and I walked fast towards my neighbourhood.
I was excited and scared at the same time. So the story of the running in the dark bare foot girl and the robbery were somehow connected. But how? The girl obviously was one common element but that was not enough. Something was still missing.
I was thinking to go home but then I decided that I needed a coffee. A good coffee without the accompanied anger and saddens. Espresso house in the train station.
There are actually two coffee shops of the known Swedish chain in Växjö. One in the central road, Storgatan and one in the train station. At least these are the tow ones I know. Average coffees, average sandwiches, almost good bans, good croissant, not so good carrot cakes.
The one in Storgatan, understandably, was the busiest one having people, even cuing, all around all around the day. The one in the train station was far more relaxed and that’s why I liked it more.
So twenty minutes later and three bus stops in between, I was sitting in one of the tables with a cappuccino, a croissant, my notebook and a pen in front of. Telephone still in my pocket. I wasn’t going to call Karl yet, I needed to put everything in order in my mind first and my notebook always helps.
A few minutes passed with Bo Ahlqvist, the carpenter moving around, collecting tools from the floor or the workbenches and put them in their right place in toolboxes, in draws or on shelves while I was pretending looking at magazine photos of kitchens.
Okay, fine I saw a couple I liked and I stopped and had a better look but then my brain returned to reason I was here and how urgent it was to find a way to start a conversation with the man.
After a few minutes he gave me the chance. After filling his cup with fresh coffee from the still on coffee-machine, he lit another cigarette and came and sat to the a small stool by the table I had put my coffee and the magazines.
“Retired, right?” He asked. “Retired and bored,” I answered and funny thing, I actually meant it. He smiled. “I look forward for the day I will retire and I promise you I will be happy to be bored.” I could feel what he meant. Carpentering is not the easiest work in the world.
“You seem busy,” I aid to say something. “Really busy, I’m not the only one around here specializing in kitchens and bathrooms but it seems that people like my work. Some construction companies as well. Good money these construction companies,” he added while inhaling smoke from his cigarette. “Steady jobs as well.” I nodded my understanding.
“But,” he was obviously in a talking mood and I was going to listen till he gives me the chance to make the magic questions. “But that means I need hands and hands is one thing I find hard to find. Young people don’t care for carpentering, young people care for Instagram and tic-tac.” “TikTok,” I corrected him mechanically. “Right. TikTok,” he said looking at the door.
“You know, they make videos with their telephones even in here, holding tools and everything. We both laughed.
“And then,” I got my chance or at least I felt that I did. “You never know who you really hire.” I said with a sad voice and I continued. “I had once an employ in my company that proved a scum. Not only he was stealing but after I kicked him out he tried to approach some of my customers.” True story, only it was a she, but I felt that a ‘he’ served better in this conversation.
“That,” he murmured and a thick dark cloud covered his eyes and it was not a smoke cloud from his cigarette. “The little bastard,” he stood up with an explosion that sent sawdust everywhere. “The little bastard came to my house and threatened me and my family.” The words were coming hard between his tighten teeth.
“Do you believe that?” he looked at me and I nodded silently. “He came to my house with his gang and threatened me. Who? ME!” He was almost shouting. “I put food on his table for over a year and he decided to rob me. And he even thought I wasn’t going to recognize him hiding under that ski mask, the little bastard.”
“But my son took care of the little bastard and I was going to sue him and lock him in for the rest for his damn life if it wasn’t my wife and daughter that begged me not.” Gradually and mentioning his wife and daughter had made his voice down a few decibels and now he looked more sad than angry.
He sat back down to the stool and lit another cigarette. “My wife knows his mother, a widow, a loser husband died from drinking too much and my daughter knows his sister. Best friends at school she said. I felt that I had to feel sorry for him. They made me feel that have to feel sorry for him.” A drop of anger returned.
We both remained silent for a bit. “This should have never happened. They should have let me go after the little bastard. And my wife with my daughter have bigger issues to deal with.” His sadness had returned.
“My daughter needs an operation,” he said and I didn’t know what to say. “Nothing serious,” he said seen the expression in my face. “A sort of plastic surgery my wife things it I critical for the little one’s self-confidence. You know how girls get like with their looks. She thinks she has a big nose!”
It was one of those spring Växjö mornings when the mist clings stubbornly over the trees leaving a damp chill in its wake when I decided to visit the carpenter’s workshop; not very far from the cul-de-sac I live. The place looked silent from outside even though I was sure that Bo Ahlqvist was inside, I had made sure of that with a call the evening before, expressing my will for a renewed kitchen cupboards and the need to see him beforehand. I pulled the heavy metal door under the sign ‘Bo Ahlqvist & son’ and I felt that its groan echoed loudly in the quiet of the eerie morning.
Pushing through I was met with a scene that made me take a deep breath. Tools lay scattered across the hard cement floor like fallen soldiers. Drawers open, spewing sawdust everywhere. Funny things the thoughts that come in mind when you see a picture like this. Robbery was flashing like an alarm light while loud sirens were ringing.
Oddly, the only thing ringing was the big electric clock on the far wall and the only lighting was coming from a heavy man’s lighter.
Presuming that this was Bo Ahlqvist, the carpenter, I said ‘good morning’ with a thin smile. In my call the evening before I had already asked if he speaks English and he had answered, “good.” Which doesn’t say much while says a lot. I was going to find out soon.
My instinct kicked first, “are you alright?” I asked looking around the scattered tools and open draws. He looked at me somehow surprised and answered, “yeah, why not?” A rasped, gravelly voice. I looked again around without saying anything.
“That? We had an installation last night, no time to sort out everything and the boys were tired when we came back.” The gravelly tone again. Might be the cigarette he had just lit. Damn I wanted one but the face of my cardiologist crossed in front of my eyes and it changed my mind immediately.
“So, my kitchen…” I started saying and he just stood there unmoved, smoking his cigarette and watching me quietly.
Ideally he should sit down and confess all his crimes, eyes full of tears and pointing me at the responsible for the robbery in his house. Ideally is not this world so no confessions and no crimes pointing, just a hard look and me thinking that this might have been all a mistake.
“Well,” I started again, I’m not really sure what I want, I just feel I need a change and I came here to see if you have any ideas for something …perhaps more rustic…” I was improvising and I’m really bad in improvising.
“I know your house.” He said after some silence. “All the houses around there are just the same. I made some work to one of your neighbours a few months before.” Okay, his English wasn’t so bad. That’s positive, right?
“I have some magazines here, if you care to look,” he said pointing at a pile of magazines and books in the edge of a long and obviously used a lot workbench.
Not really knowing what to do next I moved towards the workbench and the magazines. “Do you want coffee?” He asked and he moved towards the other side where I could see a small kitchenette. “No thanks,” I answered fast. “Just had my morning bit of caffeine and insulin.”
When I’m nervous I make stupid jokes but and to my true surprise he understood and he found it funny because he laughed. A clear even though still rasped, laugh.
I looked at him and suddenly he didn’t look the big angry man he projected when I first entered his workshop. He looked an ordinary hard working family man with a big belly. He shouldn’t smoke though but I didn’t say anything. “Sit here,” he said again pointing at a chair next to a small table just in front the kitchenette. “Sit and take your time, we don’t have anything urgent this morning so the boys will be late after what a full day, yesterday.” I looked at the chair and the table and I felt that the jeans I was wearing needed washing anyway. So I sat.
Karl had been really busy with his physiotherapy coming back home always depressed and not in the mood for anything. Even his cigarettes breaks became dull. So I pretended to be also busy the few times I saw him walking towards the parking lot and checking my balcony for company.
Ruby on the other side was anything but depressed. For some reason, obviously a cat reason, she thought that I was there for one and only mission, to entertain her. Oddly she has this idea most of the time but lately she has become more determined and catwise stubborn and while I consider myself the king of my desk chair she’s insisting to use it as a bed for quick naps every time I dare stand and move out of the room.
Another mystery in the long queues of mysteries that surrounds me lately. How the hell does she know when I’m planning to get up and move out of the room and how the hell she manages to go past me without me seeing her and jump to my chair? To be or not to be, that’s kind of mystery.
So, here it is me king of the chair and current prince of the sofa sitting in the sitting room and sigh deeply while letting morning paper lay crumpled on the floor. Whilst trying with my very poor Swedish and Google translate to make sense of the headlines, I could hear in my mind Lucas laughing and Karl yelling … a big pointy nose!
Truth said I had barely managed to understand the one main headline and that with a lot of help from what I had ready early this morning online. There were no news with the robberies in the centre and police had absolutely no information about them. Yet it seems that another one hit, and it was another public services office with a lot of computers and gadgets.
Still it was not these robberies that stark screamed in my mind. The robbery in the house in the edge of the town the same time the bare feet girl run in the dark. With all the laugh and mockery we never talked about that nether with Karl or with Lucas making me wandering if it was intentional. The not talking to me. Ugh, I hate it when I get paranoid.
“Robberies, Ruby,” I muttered looking at Ruby. She returned the look in a very Clint Eastwood way, ‘are you talking to me, punk?’ Jesus I’m losing it. Was my next thought. I started talking to the cat. Retirement is far less peaceful than anticipated and life in the isolation of the small town suburbs doesn’t help much. However my mind was buzzing with questions and the whole robbery returned. At least the parts Lucas felt like telling us and the parts Karl didn’t investigate.
“Motive and opportunity,” I murmured still looking at Ruby lying still on her cushion. “From what Karl said, if I remember well, a group of individuals with masks and knives invaded a house near here, early in the evening and while the family was inside. They demanded money and jewels threatening their lives. It seems that father and son decided to do something in answer so they attacked the invaders and they wounded one of them while they were running out of the house surprised by the reaction.” Ruby didn’t move.
“And it was Karl a few days later that said that the victim wasn’t exactly well-liked. Greedy, rude some might say. That exactly how Karl had put it,” and I was sure that his reference to some might say that some was himself and his queen wife.
If I remember well they had some works made in their apartment so perhaps it was carpenter works and the victim of the robbery the man who had come to do it. That will also excuse the ‘greedy’ sketching of the man.
“I think that needs further investigation from my part. What do you think Ruby?” I asked and Ruby purred, seemingly pleased with the prospect of further investigation, her emerald eyes gleaming with a hint of mischief. Perhaps retirement isn’t so dull after all.
On my way back home, Ruby was waiting for me behind the door, on her back belly up with all four paws stretched. Laughing. Hysterically!
I was sure the damn cat was laughing and her meows translated into: “A big pointy nose!” I totally ignored her. I went to the kitchen for a glass of whoever I could find and escape from her laugh but she did follow me. She also followed me in the balcony, in the sitting room, in my study, in the toilet the monster. “A big pointy nose, a big pointy nose…” was everywhere around me and after ruby even the doors, the chairs and the books started laughing at me.
The mighty psychologist, the I-know-all. All the scenarios I had thought, all the implications and the mysteries had drawn by …a big pointy nose. What a triumph for the mystery-solve man. The great detective.
Summer Växjö
And the more I was thinking about it, the more humiliated I felt from my own arrogance and … a big pointy nose. And of course Karl would had called Lucas and when I started thinking about the natural politeness young generations in Sweden had grown into, my telephone rang and the Lucas number flashed on the screen.
“Hello…” “Inspector Jacques Clouseau?” “Is this the famous Swedish humour, Lucas?” “Of course not, it has French …delicacy.” Lucas answered back before bursting into a hysterical laugh.
Fine, it hurt, I admit it! But the same time coming from young Lucas it also made it funny. So after a bit I started laughing as well.
“Thank god we didn’t arrest anybody for suspicions,” Lucas said. “Suspicions of expanding pointy nose?” I couldn’t hold myself and now we were both in hysterics. “It was pointing things,” Lucas added and another wave of laugh overwhelmed us both.
It took us a bit but in the end we stopped laughing. “You know I have to report it,” Lucas said. “Where to?” I asked more out of reflection than curiosity. “My boss, still open case, remember?” “Make sure to point him the right direction…” I said and I couldn’t hold myself from another wave of loud laughs. “Oh man, I’m still at the office and everybody is staring…” Lucas said between laughs and with that we ended our conversation.
And of course now I thought it was funny, Ruby was ignoring me proving for one more time how evil cats are.
In spite Ruby’s mean attitude I tried to keep my good mood and Inspector Clouseau’s spirit alive until I had a nice coffee and a cheese and ham sandwich. Neither helped much so I decided to go for a small walk and perhaps forget everything with a big pointy nose.
Next day didn’t improve my mood and I was not early in the mood to meet or even hear from Karl since I was sure that the joke had already spread though the entire cul-de-sac communications engine. I wasn’t even in the mood to step out, I was sure if Feta saw me she would burst into hysterical laughs. And Ruby, I could deal with, Feta …hmmm… definitely not!
And the morning left and early at noon the telephone rang and I was sure that Karl laughing was going to be on the other side.
“Hi,” Karl said. “Lucas talked with his boss but she said perhaps we let it for now but keep an eye on the situation, it might be something else behind the nose.” Karl never for small talk and obviously he was not making a joke. “A cautious woman,” I said. “A Swedish police woman,” Karl corrected me. “What Lucas thinks?” “After talking with his boss and seen her view, he’s also suggesting to keep an eye on the situation until we are sure.” “Keep an eye, eh!” “Right.”
There was silence for a bit.
“After all…” “What?” “After all it was her uncle’s next door, the house that was robed, the same time if you remember…” “WHAT?” My sound of my voice increased some decibels. “The robbery that didn’t go well for either sides, the robbers or the father?” “The father is Ms big nose uncle?” “And she lives next door?” “One house really…”
Ruby was staring at me and I was staring at the grey clouds gathering far in the horizon. “We are back, babe!” I said and got up to make a grill cheese toast.
Contrary to what a lot of people believe, psychologists don’t read minds; neither profile everybody two minutes after saying hello. And even though overconfident of their theoretical knowledge they often make assumptions, most of the time they make mistakes proving in practice that first impressions are not always correct.
Coming to me now, there are many reason I studied psychology when I did, some of them I understand, some of them I understood later, some I’ll never even be aware of and the same applies for the reasons I stopped practising psychology when I did.
Växjö Park
One motive I think I do get is my urge to protect, to make up the feeling of neglect and the physical torment I lived from my mother on my childhood. That’s why when I did practice, -long lost in the past, I tried to help the most valuable elements of our society, kids with social problems.
So the description of teenage problems in combination with the crying girl running barefoot in the evening triggered all those well hidden feeling and I’m afraid my face betrayed me because Madonna’s mother stopped for a minute looked at me and said: “oh, you heard.”
“Who hasn’t?” was the only thing to come out of my mouth. “Who hasn’t indeed,” she said nibbling the last bit of her toast.
“She scared us all,” she added. “And of course my daughter had t be there…” she let the rest unfinished like I knew what she was going to say. I didn’t so I looked at her waiting. “It was a pyjama party… we used to do this kind of things when I was a teenager and obviously the trend is still here.” I nodded; it was on when I was a teenager as well, prehistoric ages with dinosaurs and other animals.
“Stupid things…” She continued without saying anything I wanted to hear. “And Frida with things as they are at her home, she shouldn’t take it so personally…” “What things?” I dared ask but she didn’t hear me. “I mean people have all shapes of noses…” What are we talking about now? “There are people with small noses, round ones or pointy and there are some with big pointy ones.” “Cyrano…” I whispered but she heard me. “Not the pizza place…!” She squealed giggling. Who said anything about a pizza place? I was talking about Cyrano de Bergerac and his big pointy nose. “Never mind,” I said with a nod, so what about the nose?”
“Frida has a big pointy nose!” And? I asked with my eyes. “The girls mentioned it and when she started getting angry they made it worst like only girls of that age know how to do it.” She suddenly looked sad. “And of course my so perfect daughter had to lead the ridicule or Frida’s nose.” I didn’t say anything.
“You know, I was bullied back in school because I was a fuller kid. No, no who am I joking? I was a fat teenager and kids used to make jokes at me. I was the fat jokes of my classroom and I hated every single moment of it. And now my daughter leads…”
I passed a tissue from my jacket’s pocket. Always prepared, a lesson I learned in my college years and for a psychologist that means always carry a packet of tissues.
“I hate bulling,” she said again. “What about Frida?” “Oh yes, Frida has a big pointy nose.” She said like stating a historic fact. “A really big one. Like her father. There should be a natural law you know, only boys should inherit father’s big nose…” I had no comment.
“And?” I tried to milk a bit more. “And she got angry, she left the house bare foot and she headed for her house without saying a word.” While saying that she looked at her telephone. “I’m late. I have to go now. I man now. Nice talking to you… Bye…” and she left just like that.
Looking at her walking fast outside a felt a laugh vulcanoing straight from my stomach up and fast. A couple sitting on my left side looked at me currishly for spoiling their silence but …gosh, it was all about a big nose! All the drama, all the excitement, all the mystery and of course my fears came down to a big nose. Cyrano should definitely feel proud for this moment. Without any hesitation I called Karl. “Mystery solved.” I said to him when he picked up. “Which one?” “Then one with the twelve year-old barefoot girl.” “What was it?” “A big pointy nose!” and another wave of laugh made the couple to give the look and Karl to say something in Swedish I didn’t understand.
Karl wasn’t feeling well for the last couple of days and with all this fear of the pandemic floating all around, he decided to limit himself between bedroom and sitting room, over the sofa and under the very observing eye of the ‘queen’. I called twice but the only thing he could report -apart from pains everywhere- was the latest news of the dysfunctional love lives of an idiotic assembly in a reality show he was watching. I suppose for some people watching stupid reality shows is rather therapeutic; numbs all pains and thoughts.
So I decided to go for a walk. A walk that eventually led to the centre of Växjö and a chance to pick my magazine from the kiosk; also marvellous opportunity to combine a good cappuccino with history. Anything to keep my mind busy and numb simultaneously …just like Karl’s reality shows. And a history magazine does work, at least for me.
Växjö, Storgatan
There are two types of magazines I buy, international politics and history, with my preference in history magazines. This love to history in general and history magazines in particular is the reason I often felt regrets and really sorry for my poor …Swedish skills. And even though it sounds lame, I know, age has become an obstacle to many things including my ability to learn a new language, however familiarly close this language might be to another one I suppose to speak.
Nevertheless, here I was …again, walking on Storgatan next to all these definitely very inviting shop-windows, not noticing a thing but blindly moving towards the yellow windowed Pressbyrån shop. Entering the shop and seeing the welcome, smiling and familiar face of the small woman behind the stand, definitely changed my mood, at least a bit and surely for the better.
Less than twenty minutes later I was comfortably sitting in Espresso House cafe in Storgatan, a cappuccino, a croissant and an issue of History Today in front of me with a special about Romans burning Jerusalem. Actually it was an article about Victorian London that attracted my attention but not for long. A piece on child poverty in Dickensian era didn’t do well with my recently awaken memories that soon after the first couple of paragraphs flood again my mind, joined by pictures of a barefoot twelve years-old and slowly increased my inside already slowly boiling irritation with the subject.
Usually self-pity and regrets over a cappuccino would follow but… but before moving from anger to self-pity a voice on my right made me turn. The voice said something in Swedish …I think I definitely didn’t recognize but her face looked so familiar. “Can I…” she asked again this time definitely in English and let her sentence unfinished pointing at the chair in front of me. “Of course, of course,” I murmured pulling my plate, magazine and coffee closer to me.
Suddenly looking around I realized that the last few minutes the place had packed with young people, obviously coming out from the areas’ schools. When schooldays finish obviously cafe-days begin. I smiled with the thought and my new coffee companion obviously thought I was smiling at her. “I never thank you for your Christmas cookies. The girls absolutely loved them.” and that connected the dots making me wonder if I was at the entrance of the dementia circus or I should get lotto soon. She was my downstairs neighbour. The single mother with the girls; one of them the infamous Madonna! The person Karl ad I were talking about just a couple of days before.
She was obviously strangling to say something but school English don’t always help in small talk. The same time I was still so surprise with the coincidence and unable to say anything beyond… “Christmas time is for Christmas cookies and I love baking and traditions.” Good job man, you just won the award of the master small-talker! Thankfully she just smiled.
She had her coffee on the side and a toast in front of her and started eating it with small bites, slowly chewing every single one of them.
It is definitely moments like this you start wondering about your IQ. Here I was with the person I wanted to see for days and ask some very specific questions and the only thing I could think of was that she was chewing very slowly her toast. Seen me staring at her she smiled again.
“So, how are the girls?” I manage to ask after a bit. “They are fine, I’m going to pick them from school soon. Well the younger one, the older likes to come home with her friends. She doesn’t like me picking her from school. She’s a big girl now…” she said everything one breathe. I smiled and took a zip from my coffee.
“They are doing well, school I mean…” I was still trying to find a way to ask the question. “They try, but the younger one needs a bit of help and constant watching. She likes school but she also likes thousands of other things, some of them more important than homework, at least for her.” She answered with a wide smile on her face. obviously little Madonna was her pride.
“They have many friends…” I said leaving the sentence intentionally unfinished and waiting for her to give me opening. “More than I like,” she answered with a worrying look in her eyes.
“Especially the older one, I think I cannot control her anymore, new friends all the time and secrets and since she got a telephone is just messages… At least i still control the computer but she’s twelve, can you control a teenager?” I just nodded without saying anything.
“I used to say everything to my mother. I mean everything. Now, I am afraid that I am the last one to know. At least the young one still plays with Barbies…” Another unfinished sentence and I kept nodding. “And then it was this story with Frida the other day.” “Frida?” I asked hearing my heart drumming. “Frida, the girl they saw running and crying late at night…” Boom, boom, boom. That was my heart!
Perhaps it was a coincidence or one of those novice pranks but on my way to take over one of my too-often Saturday evening sifts I was handed a file with a small blue sticker on the top, the number of a room. A number I will never forget. Room 423. This past trauma carries a number.
Room 423 was an “introduction” room for new patients while evaluated and assigned to the ‘right’ doctor and therapy. I was supposed to be part of the evaluation that evening. Still insecure with my ‘magic’ abilities and following protocol I went first to the common room to study the file despite the disapproving looks from some of the colleagues who obviously expected me to run for either room 423, for help or a corner to cry. I wouldn’t be the first one to follow the novice pattern.
It took a quick look to the summarized background to remember the story from the newspapers’ headlines. A drunk and violent husband enters the apartment drunk and in rage screaming. Picks a knife from the kitchen and heads towards the bedroom to ‘punish’ a wife who hadn’t be standing by the door to greet him. The wife hides in the daughter’s room under the covers holding the twelve years-old kid in her arms. The man enters the room shaking the knife and in an instinctive defensive move, probably to protect the daughter, the mother picks a metal bedside lamb and when he bends to get closer she hits him hard on the head. And she hits him again and again and again until blood and …brain mater is all over the mattress, her face, her hands, the lamb and the twelve year-old girl.
Read the file from top to the end three times, I had two really bad hospital cups of coffee while I could do with a water-glass of vodka and a few cigarettes before deciding or better, finding the courage to enter room 423 and the silent world of dispirit pain, fear and rage. The girl had been there already for three days and despite any effect she had refuse to come from under the bed. She stayed there curled like a baby, bare foot, wearing the same pyjamas she wore the night of the incident, -little Paddington bears carrying a small suitcase and dark blood spots. Every effort to change her clothes or at least wash her hands and face had ended in a violent outbreak with screams, tears and nurses with a few bruises. The smell coming from under the bed unbearable.
Christmas 2022 – Main-street Växjö
And nothing had ever prepared me for those eyes. Contagious sorrow and raving fear and anger. I suppose some get used of it after years working in institutes and clinics like this one but I was fresh out of the college boat and I had no kids of my own. My only experience with kids was my own childhood years and that was a deep dysfunctional memory itself. So I did the next best thing my instinct told me to do, I lay down on the floor, my eyes leveling hers and say nothing. I could feel other eyes looking at me from the small window at the door but I made no motion of acknowledging them. Still, I could sense stares and smiles.
Odd thing, when you are in situations like this you always think of yourself, self-pity overwhelms every other feeling and I after realized it with a sudden shake of my head I tried to push it away resulting a look of fear from the eyes stating me form the dark corner under the bed.
I noticed that between me and her were a lot of bread or biscuit crumbs on the floor, even broken pieces of crisps. There were also some paper cups twisted and thrown to other side. Somewhere inside me I felt strangely reassured, at least she had something to eat and something to drink. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? No professor or instructor voice answered. I was alone with her and all her fears so I decided to follow my own sad advice, stay there quiet as long as you can.
All this time she was there motionless, staring at me with those big wide-open eyes. I did stay long, till I felt pains on my back and the urgent need to stand up. The moment I moved my arm under me -trying to push the rest of my body up, I heard her: “please, don’t go.” And I didn’t.
I don’t know how long I had been there, and I wasn’t sure if the teasing smiles were still watching behind the small window of the door for the room 423 but I remained there, laying on the floor and looking at the bare foot girl curled like a baby under the bed still wearing the same pyjamas she wore the night of the incident, little Paddington bears carrying a small suitcase and dark blood spots, crying silently. After a bit I started silently crying and I didn’t know if I was crying for the little girl or for my lost childhood which was always present and soon after we both fell asleep, tears still rolling from our chicks to the cold floor of a mental institution in the edges of humanity’s understanding and willing to accept.
Morning came and the sudden and violent push on my shoulder woke me up. The first thing I saw straight in front of my face was a dirty mop and a dark green bucket. Then a voice followed. “Wakey-wakey sleepy beauty, time for me to clean the room.” And the mop moved from my sight let me see the thick moustached face of a really fat man. “The girl gone, time for you to follow,” he said while wiping the floor in front of my laid down body.
They never let me close to that girl again; I suppose I was not evaluated good enough to evaluate her. Her evolution was not the one I would have wished. Thankfully psychology has evaluated since then and nowadays they know how to deal with such traumas. Unfortunately back then experts limited themselves into saying …this is life or only god, which was much worst.
However the eyes of the twelve year-old bare foot girl eyes in the room 423, stayed with me forever. One of my deepest scars from those nightmarish years that obviously found me decades later all the way to Växjö.
My life had been a fabric of insecure tomorrows since adolescence and the death of the only person who could give me any sense of security, my father, made it worst at the time. A straight-A student, everybody -except me saw my schooling life – educational and social – rapidly declining after my father’s death and it took a stupid arrest for a major stupidity to wake me up.
Alone with the dedicated help of a fast aging grandmother and the constant absence of a mother, I climbed my way back, often fighting with teeth and nails. I worked for a furniture factory through the last years of secondary school and after getting a lucky scholarship, I worked for a beverage factory and a moving company through my college years. That I ended up earning two degrees which still counts as a miracle that even I find difficult to believe.
Autumn view of Växjö lake
And while both my diplomas guaranteed a dignify and respectful career I was attracted into professional avenues that offered challenges, more money, definitely more insecurity and much less use of my training and education. In my late thirties I had established an international career with a title too long for my personal taste to memorize, but I kept building and investing for more and more.
The status was great, the pay not so much if you think that I had no personal or romantic life that included a rented house with rented furniture, and the only sign of doing something for myself was the fulfilling of a childhood dream by buying a Porsche 911, 1970s model, red colour, as a Porsche 911 …should be. I was a man with a mission, albeit a mindless one but back in eighties and nineties this was called success and I was a successful man.
And then I was not healthy. A two weeks forced vacation in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of my arms the first few days, shown that success is something relative and health can become a distractive element creating new challenges that contradict former ones.
The bedridden hospital life -however temporal, guides you into thoughts and regrets you avoided in the past. I was greatly successful professionally and deeply unsuccessful in nearly everything else. I had no life and that was a fact. No romance at all, superficially and meaningless socializing with self-centred and narcissists yuppies. Apart from hardly salvaging a childhood friendship and barely keeping a distant -that reached continents, relationship with my grandmother, my life seemed on a leash from my career and on a lease from a very diabetic heart.
Since my teenage years and my father’s death I had constructed a non-stop working and challenges confronted regime to the point of physical exhaustion for …what? I didn’t know. I still don’t. Perhaps a parental approval that was destine to never come.
Suddenly my past and the pathways I followed for various reasons plus the torturous presence of an absent mother with dark problems gave me nightmares I never had before and sadly followed me for the rest of my life especially when I’m under stress. My therapist called it deep depression but I hate etiquettes so I called it as it is, another night with nightmares.
But my nightmares had deeper roots than the need of parenthood approval and the deep traumas a seriously troublesome mother had left, it also had to do with a personal past and the reasons that led me as far as possible from what I had studied and loved.
Having to battle every single moment to get over obstacles all my life, when I got the scholarship for a higher education it came as a present from gods and the ultimate gift to the …orphan, as my grandmother often used to call me, but it also came with a strange weight for me. According to my grandmother and everybody around me back then, I had to study something that would bring food on the table for the rest of my life, preferable dentist or architect since I was good in drawing things. I thought really hard about it and got a lot of advice from anybody willing to give one but the best came from my young aunt. “Listen,” she said, “it is your future we are talking about so instead of thinking about the food you are going to bring on the table of the house you don’t have yet why don’t you think what you would like to do for the rest of your life, what would make you happy or at least content when you doing it and in balance with yourself when you return home to put that damn food on the table.”
It might sound a bit confusing, after all my aunt was just a few years older than me, but it made sense at the time and brought from inside me something I’ve been searching, reading and talking about for long time, something that back in mid-seventies sounded like a gap between astrology, witchcraft and voodoo, plainly named …psychology. Even my absent for years mother offered to give me advice and reasoning on why I should never go for psychology. I suppose she also had some very personal reasons she wanted me to avoid the certain path but after a long talk with my grandmother that in the end brought her full support, I packed my bag for a university a bit far away to study something I wanted without really knowing, but …loved.
Three years later, working the late shift in a beer factory and spending all my sleeping time into the college’s library, I came out with a bachelor’s in psychology charming my way into a master degree in juvenile criminology and working another one in art, just to add in my grandmother’s worries for the food on my table and my mother’s fears for my childhood memories. Eventually I found my way to a Ph.D. but before that I had to spend some time in practice and practice in clinical psychology means medical centres, university clinics and public mental institutions. I tried all of them but it was the mental institutions that draw the deepest scars.
Funny thing, while studying they let you believe that you are some kind of psycho-fairy, ready to magically help everybody, but when you actually get into practice you realize that you are nothing more than a carrier of others’ darkest secrets that eventually become your demons, torture your psychic day and night and the only institution you might stare is …the abyss. Short time after, the collective pain of those scars became the reason for me to abandon a half finished Ph.D. and a career that might or might not have brought food on my table and look for challenges in a different professional region, as I mentioned in the beginning, that would eventually lead me into a… hospital bed. And one of the deepest scars from that period was a twelve year old bare foot girl crying day and night under her bed.
Cul-de-sac, Växjö! 