The Hypnotist

The boy’s eyes gleam behind the half-closed lids.

“Josef, I want you to try and remember what happened yesterday. It started just like an ordinary Monday, but in the evening someone comes to the house.”

The boy is silent.

“Now you’re going to tell me what’s happening,” says Erik.

The boy responds with the faintest of nods.

“You’re sitting in your room? Is that what you’re doing? Are you listening to music?”

There is no reply. His mouth moves, asking, seeking.

“Your mum was at home when you got back from school,” says Erik.

He nods.

“Do you know why? Is it because Lisa has a temperature?”

The boy nods and moistens his lips.

“What do you do when you get home from school, Josef?”

The boy whispers something.

“I can’t hear,” Erik urges gently. “I want you to speak so I can hear you.”

The boy’s lips move again, and Erik leans forward.

“Like fire, just like fire,” Josef mumbles. “I’m trying to blink. I go into the kitchen, but it isn’t right; there’s a crackling noise between the chairs and a bright red fire is spreading across the floor.”

“Where is the fire coming from?” asks Erik.

“I don’t remember. Something happened before …” He falls silent again.

“Go back a little, before the fire in the kitchen,” says Erik.

“There’s someone there,” says the boy. “I can hear someone knocking at the door.”

“The outside door?”

“I don’t know.” The boy’s face suddenly grows tense, he whimpers anxiously, and his lower teeth are exposed in a strange grimace.

“There’s no danger now,” Erik says. “There’s no danger, Josef, you’re safe here, you’re calm, you feel no anxiety. You are simply watching what is happening; you are not there. You can see it all from a safe distance, and it isn’t dangerous at all.”

“The feet are pale blue,” the boy whispers.

“What did you say?”

“Someone’s knocking at the door,” the boy says, slurring his words. “I open it but there’s no one there; I can’t see anyone there. But the knocking keeps coming. Someone’s playing a trick on me.” The patient is breathing more rapidly, his stomach moving jerkily.

“What happens now?” asks Erik.

“I go into the kitchen to get a sandwich.”

“You eat a sandwich?”

“But now the knocking starts again, the noise is coming from Lisa’s room. The door is open a little. I can see that her lamp is on. I carefully push the door open with the knife and look in. She’s on her bed. She has her glasses on, but her eyes are shut and she’s panting. Her face is white. Her arms and legs are totally stiff. Then she throws her head back so her throat is stretched right out, and she starts to kick the bottom of the bed with her feet. She just keeps kicking, faster and faster. I tell her to stop, but she keeps kicking, harder. I yell at her but the knife has already started to stab and Mum rushes in and pulls at me and I spin around and the knife moves forward; it just pours out of me; I need to get more knives, I’m afraid to stop, I have to keep going, it’s impossible to stop. Mum is crawling across the kitchen floor, it’s all red, I have to try the knives on everything, on me, on the furniture, on the walls; I hit and stab and then suddenly I’m really tired and I lie down. I don’t know what’s happening, my body hurts inside and I’m thirsty, but I just can’t move.”

Erik stays with the boy, down there in the bright water, their legs moving gently. He follows the wall of rock with his eyes, further and further down, endlessly, the water gradually turning darker, blue fading to blue-grey and then, temptingly, to black.

“You had seen,” asks Erik, hearing his own voice tremble, “you had seen your father earlier?”

“Yes, down at the football pitch,” Josef replies.

He falls silent, looks unsure, stares straight ahead with his sleeping eyes.

Erik sees that the boy’s pulse rate is increasing and realises that his blood pressure is dropping at the same time.

“I want you to sink deeper now,” Erik says softly. “You’re sinking, you’re feeling calmer, better, and—”

“Not Mum?” asks the boy, in a feeble voice.

Erik risks a guess. “Josef, tell me, did you see your older sister, Evelyn, as well?”

He observes the boy’s face, aware that, if he’s wrong, the conjecture can create a rift in the hypnosis. But he feels he must take the leap, because if the patient’s condition begins to deteriorate again he will have to stop completely.

“What happened when you saw Evelyn?” he asks.

“I should never have gone out there.”

“Was that yesterday?”

“She was hiding in the cottage,” the boy whispers, smiling.

“What cottage?”

“Auntie Sonja’s,” he says.

“Tell me what happens at the cottage.”

“I just stand there. Evelyn isn’t pleased. I know what she’s thinking,” he mumbles. “I’m just a dog to her. I’m not worth anything …”

The smile is gone. Tears stream from Josef’s eyes, and his mouth is trembling.

“Is that what Evelyn says to you?”

“I don’t want to, I don’t have to, I don’t want to,” whimpers Josef.