The Faces Read online

  It’s raining in all the streets

  and in my heart as well.

  I traveled so far through the world

  and yet I found no peace.

  Poetry was the only thing she had had to herself at home, since it was unknown territory for Gitte, just like classical music, which sounded like noise to her ears. She closed her eyes but quickly opened them again because the children were dancing behind her eyelids and they had to be protected from the terror of the world. Why had she made a policeman a sex murderer in her book? You shouldn’t pick a fight with the enforcers of the law because you never knew when you might need them. The nurses were whispering much too loudly. It sounded like a kettle of water about to boil. One sentence tore itself loose and entered her ear as if it came from her pillow.

  ‘Is she ever ugly in person! You wouldn’t think so if you’d only seen her picture.

  She felt the blood shoot up to her cheeks. She no longer belonged to herself. No matter where she sought refuge, people had unashamedly formed an image of her over which she had no control. If you find your name on others’ lips, Rilke wrote someplace, then take another. She moved her fingers over her face, as if to assure herself that they hadn’t taken it away from her when she was unconscious and unable to watch out for it. Her skin was cold and dry, and the blisters on her lips were starting to burst, secreting a clear fluid that slowly ran down her chin. She was dreadfully thirsty, but even more she craved a cigarette. She realized how bereft of possessions she was. No cigarettes, no money, no clothes, no lipstick, comb, or toothbrush. Gert wouldn’t bring her any of those things, because he got sick whenever he set foot in a hospital. Once he was supposed to visit his mother when she was in the hospital, but he fainted on his way up the stairs. The smell of a hospital made him nauseated and unable to breathe. She carefully turned over on her other side, and the clear laughter of a young girl resounded in her other ear.

  ‘We’ve asked a number of important women,’ said an ironic voice, which had discovered that she had sneaked into those ranks the way you sneak over a national border with a passport expired long ago. She wasn’t important and it wasn’t her fault that grown people read her book. She cautiously lifted her head and moved her hand over the pillow; the voice had come from inside it, and there must be a reasonable explanation for this. Through the pillowcase she got hold of a hard round object as big as a five-kroner coin. That must be a loudspeaker; more angry than scared, she sat up in bed.

  ‘Nurse,’ she said sharply, not caring if she woke up the others. ‘Come and take away this loudspeaker – I’ve found it.’

  One of the nurses rushed over to her.

  ‘Shh,’ she whispered, ‘what are you talking about?’

  She held up the pillow in front of her.

  ‘The loudspeaker,’ she repeated, ‘take it out.’

  ‘There isn’t any loudspeaker,’ said the girl calmly. ‘You still have the poison in your body, that’s all.’

  ‘Take a look at this.’

  She examined the pillow, her frantic hands trying to find the round object again, but now it had vanished. She felt uncertain.

  ‘The poison,’ she said, ‘when will it be gone?’

  ‘In a couple of days,’ said the girl very kindly. ‘And in the meantime you should just stay calm, or else they’ll put you in the locked ward.’

  The nurse went over and pulled the curtains open. A gray light poured into the room, and there was movement in the other beds around her. Something furry poked out over the comforter next to her, and a woman with a donkey head sat up and stared at her with moist animal eyes that were completely bloodshot.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Mrs Hansen. What’s your name?’

  Frightened, she turned away without answering. Another donkey head was lying on that side, staring at her. She turned onto her back and looked up at the ceiling while her mind was convulsed with terror. She knew that there were institutions filled with deformed and monstrous human creatures who were kept hidden from the world, and who lived and died without anyone other than the hospital personnel ever seeing them. Had they brought her to that kind of place? She thought about the expression ‘the locked ward’ and longed to go there without having any idea what the term meant: a different place, another reality, where it might be possible to exist. For the time being she would have to pretend nothing was wrong, the way you did when confronting people with a harelip or bad breath. That was the most tactful.

  ‘It’s time for some hot chocolate.’

  It was the nurse. Her face was like a childish sketch absentmindedly scribbled in the margin of a composition book. The girl tried to fill it out from within, the way you stick your fingers into a glove to see whether it might fit. She was trying to live up to the world’s expectations of how young girls ought to look, and her round eyes were full of good will and the fear of doing something wrong.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, holding up a white bathrobe. ‘You look like you could use something to drink.’

  She allowed herself to be led to a table on the other side of the room. The animal-like women were sitting around it, but one of them had a human face, and it was just as cheap and ready-made as Gitte’s. She was wearing a hospital gown like the others, and she was about to light a cigarette. Lise felt it would help her to smoke. It would clear her thoughts, and that’s what she needed, above all else.

  ‘Could I possibly borrow a cigarette?’ she asked, pointing at the pack on the table.

  The woman shoved the pack over to her without answering. Turning to the others, she said:

  ‘It’s the same old story with the new ones. They borrow a bunch of cigarettes and you never see them again. They don’t have any money either, and before you know it, they’re written out of here.’

  Written out! she thought unhappily. That was what they said about her because she hadn’t published anything in two years.

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ she promised meekly. ‘I have plenty of money at home.’

  She lit the cigarette with a lighter on the table and inhaled deeply. A pleasant dizziness came over her, and she smiled cautiously at the human face.

  ‘Where’s your bed?’ she asked, making conversation.

  ‘Right behind yours. We can whisper to each other through the partition. That’s what I did with the woman before you.’

  A smile crept like a worm across her mouth, then afterwards it looked as if she had never smiled.

  ‘What are you going to do this afternoon?’ asked one of the donkeys.

  ‘Lie on my bed and read. What else is there to do in this boring dump?’

  She would have to get used to this jargon, the way a child has to when she joins a new class. She would have to get used to the donkeys with the female bodies and the woman who wasn’t a donkey, but whom she feared more than the others for some reason.

  A new nurse with a tired, worn-out face came over and took her by the arm.

  ‘Time for you to go back to bed,’ she said. ‘And you aren’t allowed to smoke yet, I forgot to tell you that.’

  Obediently she let herself be led over to the bed and turned over the pillow before she lay down. A little while later she saw the other woman go over to her bed behind the partition with a magazine in her hand. A sharp whisper sounded in her ear:

  ‘We’ve found out what kind of person you are. When you’re going to write a book, you go around looking at all kinds of other books written by people who know their stuff. You steal a sentence from every book and put them together like a puzzle, and then you make people think that you’ve written every sentence yourself.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’

  Wild with rage she jumped out of bed, ran behind the partition and over to the vicious woman, who was lying in a relaxed position on her bed, pretending to read.

  ‘That’s a lie,’ she repeated, stamping the floor with her bare foot. ‘I’ve never plagiarized anything. That’s a rumor started by jealous people.’

  The woman put down her magazine and stared at her with eyes as astonished and inhuman as the eyes of a teddy bear.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she exclaimed. ‘I haven’t said a word to you since you borrowed that cigarette.’

  Lise was on her in one bound, just like when the children used to tease her on the playground. She dug her nails into the woman’s face and watched with furious satisfaction as the blood trickled out of two long gouges.

  The woman screamed and tried to cover her face with her hands. The nurse came running and pulled Lise away by force.

  ‘What in the world is going on?’ she said heatedly. ‘Why are you attacking Mrs Halvorsen this way? Get back to your bed and I’ll see that you’re taken to the locked ward right away. This ward is only for peaceful patients.’

  She was breathing hard and she let herself be led back to her bed without resistance. That witch had just gotten what she deserved. Whatever was in store for her in the locked ward, it couldn’t be worse than this.

  ‘Are there donkeys in there too?’ she said caustically.

  The nurse left her without replying. She lay there with her heart pounding hard and stared up at the ceiling. Once she had actually stolen a sentence from one of Grimms’ Fairy Tales and used it in a different context in one of her children’s books. The thought of it had always filled her with shame and the fear of discovery. Now, while her thoughts fled in all directions, she felt that everybody knew about it, and the little feathers had turned into five chickens, as in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale. She had been mercilessly unmasked, and there was no more peace in the world.

  ‘Come on, it’s time for you to see the doctor.’

  She stuck her feet into the clumsy slippers that the girl put down for her, let herself be wrapped up in the bathrobe and led down the long corridor and into a room with a door that said: Examination Room. A woman in a white smock was sitting at a desk and leafing through some papers.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said curtly and pointed at a chair.

  The doctor regarded her for a moment in silence. Her face was fragile and glass-like, as if a sneeze from six feet away might make it break into a thousand pieces that could never be put back together again. It must have taken all of the doctor’s concentration to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s wrong to scratch another patient in the face?’ she said slowly.

  ‘Wrong?’ exclaimed Lise, startled. ‘If you only knew what she said to me!’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Something about a cigarette,’ Lise lied. ‘She loaned me one and said that she’d never get it back again.’

  ‘I see.’ The woman played with a penknife absentmindedly. ‘The only thing you’re going to get out of this is that now you’ll be taken to the locked ward. You’re too undisciplined to stay here.’

  ‘I won’t mind at all,’ she said defiantly. ‘At least she won’t be there.’

  The doctor stood up and went over to the door.

  ‘Stay here,’ she said imperiously, ‘while I call the nurse.’

  In a little while the young girl with the unfinished face came in and said with hypocritical cheerfulness: ‘Come along, Mrs Mundus, you’re going to be moved now.’

  She took her big jangling key ring and opened the door at the end of the corridor. Lise looked down another hallway where the beds were so close together that it would be difficult to walk past them.

  ‘Anyone here?’ called the girl. ‘Here I come with a new patient.’

  From the distance a shape came toward them with light steps, as if she were walking on rubber soles. Before she had reached her, Lise heard the door behind her lock. Then she screamed and held her hands to her mouth while her eyes stung as if from the heat of a burning spotlight.

  She was standing face to face with Gitte.

  7

  ‘Stop screaming like that!’

  Gitte tried to take her by the arm, but she pressed herself against the locked door with her arms spread wide, as if she were pinned to it.

  ‘Gitte,’ she said, ‘why are you here? I didn’t know you were a nurse.’

  ‘My name’s not Gitte. I’m Miss Poulsen.’

  Lise stared at the close-set eyes beneath the eyebrows that had grown together, at the stubby nose and the wide mouth with its hungry expression. She felt as if her blood were turning to ice in her veins and her heart tumbled around inside her like a bird that wants out of its cage.

  ‘Come on now.’

  Another nurse had appeared and they grabbed her by the arms and tried to haul her away from the door.

  ‘No!’ she yelled and tore herself loose. ‘I’ll walk myself.’

  She had never been able to stand having Gitte touch her.

  She walked between them as if under arrest, and her legs were shaking. Formless shapes wandered around in the hallway, and one of them, an old woman, stood in their way and cautiously touched her bathrobe.

  ‘Manfred,’ she whimpered, ‘have you come to take me away?’

  ‘Get out of the way,’ said Gitte. ‘This isn’t Manfred.’

  I’m with the insane, she thought, and her will to survive shot up inside her like a clear flame. It was a matter of preserving her sanity, then they couldn’t seriously harm her in any way. She lay down on the bed they showed her and let them fasten the belt around her waist. It cut into her flesh and was so tight that she could only turn over with difficulty. They walked away from her bed, and she heard them laughing.

  ‘That’s that,’ said Gitte. ‘Now it’s the next one’s turn.’

  She saw them disappear around the corner at the end of the hallway, and a few minutes later they came back, dragging a very old, totally naked woman between them. The woman was screaming.

  ‘Not yet,’ she shouted. ‘It’s not my turn yet. I don’t want to be drowned.’

  They laughed and continued dragging her through a door. The patients who were wandering back and forth through the room didn’t seem to notice the incident, as if it were a perfectly ordinary event.

  ‘What are you doing to her?’ yelled Lise. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘It’s our way of solving the problem of the old people,’ said Gitte’s voice close to her ear. ‘Didn’t you recognize her? It’s the deaf woman from the basement apartment. There aren’t enough nursing homes, and somebody has to take care of the social problems.’

  The voice was coming from her pillow, and she proceeded to examine it and wasn’t surprised when she found a speaker there too, inside the pillowcase. She held onto it tightly and tried to pull off the pillowcase. She had to have proof. She wanted to show it to Dr Jørgensen, because he didn’t know what kinds of crimes were being committed here.

  ‘We always take the oldest one,’ said the voice cheerfully. ‘Someday it will be your turn.’

  A short fat woman with madness shining in her watery eyes came over and let her fingers glide over Lise’s face, and she let go of the pillow and screamed in terror. She screamed as though she’d never stop, and the two executioners rushed over to her.

  ‘Let’s get her out to the bathroom,’ said the one she didn’t know. ‘There’s obviously nothing else to do.’

  The words increased her terror, but she stopped screaming as they pushed her bed out through the same door where the old woman had vanished. She closed her eyes and heard them laugh as if they were enjoying themselves immensely.

  ‘So,’ said Gitte, ‘now she’s finally here.’

  She heard the door close and slowly she opened her eyes. She was alone in a huge bathroom, only dimly lit by a narrow window high up on the wall. In the middle stood a deep, old-fashioned bathtub with rust in the bottom and lion’s-claw feet. There was a multitude of pipes running along the walls at various heights, and there were two gratings as well – one high up and the other close to the floor. The screens on the gratings were covered with a thick layer of dust. She felt relieved to be alone and tried with all her might to think about the world outside. It was run by a well-organized system, and there were numerous offices filled with people who saw to it that the laws were administered. She would see that the world found out what monstrous crimes were taking place here. She would write to the Minister of Justice and tell him they ought to investigate the situation immediately. She put her thumb between the belt and her gown and carefully turned over. Then she heard the rumbling in the pipes just like at home and a voice said:

  ‘Put your hand over your mouth, you’ve got bad breath.’

  She put her hand to her mouth and the sweat poured out over her whole body.

  It was Gert’s voice; he must be somewhere behind the pipes. She remembered what the man in the basement had said: ‘They’re out to drive her crazy.’ But why? she thought. What was the plan?

  ‘She does what they tell her to do.’ That was Gert again. ‘I think she’s learning.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Gitte disconsolately. ‘Then she would have learned it at home. I did what I could. Look over here, Lise.’

  She turned her head and stared at the floor grating. Behind it she saw Gitte’s face pressed against the screen.

  ‘If you had understood the new times,’ she said gently, ‘you would have liked me. That was all I wanted. Then you never would have come here.’