The Unit

“At the moment I’m involved in a completely safe psychological investigation to do with cooperation and trust and that kind of thing,” he said.

Then he told us about the time he took part in an experiment with a new kind of medication for depression and chronic exhaustion, and ended up so lively and talkative that they had to bring in extra staff working around the clock just to socialize and chat with him-or rather listen to him, since he was babbling nonstop-and to keep an eye on him so that he didn’t overexert himself or disturb his neighbors too much. He had been seized by an uncontrollable urge to make things and to renovate, and took the opportunity to convert his kitchenette and part of the living room into a proper little kitchen.

“I didn’t get much written at that time-I was way too restless and desperate for company-but I had a really good time,” he ended his story.

Majken had been in the unit for four years, Alice for four months. Majken had, among other things, donated eggs for stem-cell research, one kidney, and the auditory bone from her right ear. As she was now deaf in that ear, she always wanted people to be on her left, she explained.

“And in a few weeks,” she went on, “I’m going in to donate my pancreas to a student nurse with four kids. So I guess this will be my last welcome party.”

She was moving her spoon around in her dessert, a distracted movement, it seemed to me-as if she didn’t mind, as if it didn’t bother her, as if it were completely okay. All of a sudden I felt completely powerless. Majken stirred and stirred with her spoon and I followed her hand and the spoon with my eyes, and with every rotation it felt as if the air in the big room were becoming thi

“Darling, you get used to it. Don’t you, Alice?”

I couldn’t see Alice. My field of vision had shrunk. I could only see Majken’s hand resting on mine. Alice said something, she was talking, reassuring me, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying because her voice was surging and fading, growing in turn stronger and weaker as if she were speaking in a strong wind, and only odd words were getting through. I opened my mouth, tried to say that I couldn’t hear her properly, but there wasn’t enough air. I couldn’t get my breath. I couldn’t focus. The dark flickering mist grew more dense and became a dark veil, a curtain. I could hardly see at all, and it felt as if the chair and the floor were about to give way beneath me, as if I were being sucked down into a hole. But then Alice was there too, stroking my arm with her hand, and now I could hear her. She was saying:

“It’s okay, darling, it’s okay…”

And Joha

“There now… Take a deep breath. There. And breathe out slowly. Good. And again, Dorrit, nice and calm. That’s it, there now…”

We sat like that for quite a while: Majken holding my hand, Alice stroking my forearm and Joha

There was entertainment. There was dancing. A rock band played. I danced with Joha

It grew late. Elsa and I were standing at the bar, each with a pear drink. They served only nonalcoholic beverages, and if you didn’t want a soda there was only orange juice and a pear drink to choose from.

“Would you like to meet up tomorrow morning and have breakfast together?” I asked.

“Would you like to have breakfast tomorrow and then spend the next four days together?” Elsa asked.

As new arrivals we had four consecutive free days, Sunday to Wednesday. It was so we could make ourselves at home in the unit before the compulsory health check; after that we would be allocated to appropriate humane experiments or begin to donate. We were being given a gentle start. And when Elsa mentioned spending the next four days together I felt-to my surprise-an enormous sense of relief, and it made me realize that I was afraid of those four free days. It made me realize that for the first time in my adult life, I was afraid of being alone. So I accepted her invitation. No, I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to be alone in a building without windows, where there wasn’t a living thing to fix your gaze on, not a thing to stop me from thinking about the fact that I would never again experience the feeling that flooded through me that morning in March each year when I opened my door and saw the first crocus of the year in bloom on my lawn. Or the first scilla or the first hepatica or the first scented violet. Or when I saw the cranes, trumpeting as they flew over in wide skeins on their way north to Lake Hornborga. And I didn’t want to think about Nils and our times together, his hands on my body, his kisses, his penis, his words telling me how much I meant to him. Above all I didn’t want to think about Jock, about the fact that we would never again run together in the forest or by the sea. Or take our walk along the tractor route to Ellström’s farm to buy fresh eggs and vegetables for me and a pig’s heart for him. I needed to erect a barrier of new experiences, a buffer zone between there and here, between then and now, before I had the courage to be alone with my thoughts again.