The Unit. Part 11

"Sit down," said Birthmark, closing the door then checking the handle to make sure it was locked. I presumed this was a reflex action, just like when I had tried the window.

I sat down on the chair, he sat on the bed. I threw him a venomous look-at least I hoped it was venomous-and wondered whether I should tell him that the birthmark on his upper lip did nothing for him at all, that he would be doing himself-and those around him-a favor if he had it removed.

He smiled, a serious smile, then said: "Don't worry, Dorrit. I have no intention of trying to get you to talk to me about your feelings and experiences. I just wanted to get away from cameras and microphones-this room is a free zone, where the staff can come to relax, knowing that n.o.body is sitting and studying what we do and what we say. The reason I wanted to come in here with you was to give you this."

Out of a pocket in his short green jacket he took a small plastic card, which he handed over to me. It had the unit's logo on the front and a black magnetic strip on the back. It looked like a credit or debit card.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked.

"I ..." he began, but then he stopped, looked away, out of the window-a streetlamp was just coming on out there, and an orange glow blended with the ever-deepening blue twilight. He cleared his throat, started again: "I presume that you, like other dispensable individuals, have already lost everything once. And now it's happening to you again. And I feel ... well, I can't just stand and watch. Yes, you are dispensable, and no doubt you could have avoided that situation if you had just made enough of an effort. But you're also a human being. And now you've succeeded in getting pregnant as well, and if that had happened just a year ago you wouldn't even have ended up in here. And whatever happens, you ought to have the right, in the name of democracy, to your own offspring-both you and Johannes Alby ought to have had that right."

Birthmark paused, cleared his throat.

"This," he went on, pointing to the plastic card in my hand, "is a key card. It opens all staff areas and all the rooms and areas that are locked to residents at night. And above all, it opens all exits."

What exits? was my first thought. I stared at the card. The idea of trying to get out, away, escape from here had never crossed my mind. Not even during the very early days when I had missed Jock so much, not even a couple of hours ago when I had tugged at the window, not even when I discovered shortly afterward that the room had no cameras, not even when I watched the wild duck flying away through the trees. Not even when I had felt Johannes's pulse and at the same time realized that he no longer existed.

Birthmark continued: "I didn't send your application form through the internal post. Instead I actually took the liberty of putting it in the shredder. To give you time. Time to think this over. You can always fill out a new one; it's never too late. But if you don't, and instead agree to give birth to the child so that it can be adopted, then you will have seven or eight months with no experiments or any kind of interference that would put your health or that of your child at risk. And during that time you can think things over, you can plan an escape, and you can carry it out."

He paused again, as if to give me the chance to say something. But I didn't know what to say; I only knew what I absolutely must not say, which was that he ought to have that unnaturally perfect birthmark removed. After a silence he said: "The card is personal. It's a duplicate of my own key card. When, or if-it's your decision, of course, I only want to give you the chance-when or if you use the card, then you swipe it through the reader at the edge of the doors in question. This one, for example."

He got up from the bed, took the card from me, went over to the door and swiped the card through a reader mounted in the edge of the door frame, so discreetly placed that you would never have noticed it if you didn't know exactly what you were looking for and where to look. A small opening in the door frame silently appeared, revealing a keypad. Birthmark punched in a code at lightning speed, and the door gave a barely audible click click. He pushed down the door handle, opened the door an inch or so and immediately closed it again. He walked over to the bed and gave the card back to me.

"Right," I said. "So where do I find these doors, then? I've never seen any-apart from this one just now. And how do I know which of them are exits and which just lead to staff areas?"

"All the doors of this kind in the large communal areas, for example the square and the Atrium Walkway and the big party room, lead to stairwells. In these stairwells are identical doors leading to break rooms, staff rooms, changing rooms, was.h.i.+ng facilities and so on. Those you need to avoid, obviously. All you have to do is take the staircase down to the main door. And you haven't seen these doors because you've never looked for ways out, have you? You've never looked for escape routes, never even given it a thought. You've never had the motivation."

I gave an embarra.s.sed snort and muttered: "Are you a mind reader or something?"

"No, I'm not a mind reader. But I've done my training and I know what psychological methods and power games they use to control the dispensable residents. I know how it works, how they make sure you have no motivation to escape. But if you do manage to get motivated, if you really do want to survive, then you will find those exit doors. I know it sounds crazy, but that's just how the human psyche works: we generally see what we are prepared for, what we expect to see."

"But what then?" I said. "If I do decide I want to survive and I manage to get out without being discovered. Where do you imagine I could go? Without money. Without anywhere to live. Without friends. How would I manage? Where would I give birth to my child? How would I support it?"

"I don't know," said Birthmark. "But you'll think of something. If you have the courage and strength to get out of here, then I'm sure you also have the courage and strength to do what's necessary for yourself and your child once you're out. You're strong. I know you'll cope."

I'd heard that before; I'd heard it until I was completely sick of it. People had often told me I was strong, and I regarded it as something dismissive rather than a compliment-or whatever it was meant to be. Because I knew, and I know, that there are no strong people. All people are weak. Some are certainly more independent than others, but that doesn't mean they're strong.

But strong or not: I was holding a key in my hand, and, I thought, perhaps it will act as a subst.i.tute for strength.

We were silent for a long time, both Birthmark and I. The room grew dark, at least as dark as it can be in a room with snow and streetlamps glowing outside. I could still see Birthmark's face. I could still see his birthmark.

"The code," he said at last, "is 98 44. I want you to memorize it, don't write it down anywhere, don't tell anyone about it. Don't tell anyone about this conversation either. Ever. Whatever you decide to do, or not do. Wherever you end up in the world."

I nodded to show that I had understood, then said perfectly calmly: "I don't know what to say. You're taking an enormous risk, perhaps even putting yourself in danger. What if I happen to drop the card? What if I'm suddenly taken ill or have an accident and they have to cut my clothes off and they spot the card? It wouldn't take many minutes to trace it back to you. And then you'd be up s.h.i.+t's creek."

"Yes, I would," he admitted. "That's one of the reasons why I'm begging you to be careful. It's for my sake as well as yours. Learn the code by heart. Never take the card out so it's exposed to the cameras, and never take it out or look at it in a way that could make anyone curious or suspicious. Be silent, quick, and discreet. If anything beyond your control should happen, well, that's the way it is, that's fate. I would never blame you for that."

I fingered the card, turning it this way and that. Then I pushed it into my pocket.

"Did you say 98 44?" I asked.

"Yep!" he said with a smile. "And if you forget the code ..."

"I won't," I said.

"Good," said Birthmark. "Now go home and rest. And by the way-my condolences on your loss."

This last comment was made with a different sort of sincere tone than the professional one, a tone of voice that sounded genuinely honest.

Together we left the break room; the cold neon light in the supposedly underground corridor stabbed at my eyes. Shooting pain seared up into my head, and my eyes began to run. Dazzled and with tears in my eyes I thanked Birthmark for the helpful conversation he had found the time to have with me. Then I left the surgical department, my eyes still running, came out into the green culvert, took the first elevator up to the Atrium Walkway, then changed to elevator H.

When I reached H3 I hurried through the lounge to my apartment, into the bedroom, where I sank down on the bed, my cheek against the pillow, my legs drawn up in the fetal position, my arms around my knees. Eyes tight shut.

25.

When I woke up it was because I was freezing. I was so cold I was shaking. It was night, the clock on the bedside table showed 2:18. I got up and felt the radiator; it was warm, almost hot. I went over to the other end of the room where there was a thermometer hanging on the wall. It was showing seventy-five degrees; so the fact that I was freezing had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

This is the delayed reaction, I thought-and was amazed at how the human brain works: you can be at the mercy of your emotions to the extent that your teeth are literally chattering, while at the same time in another part of your brain you can calmly work out "here comes the delayed reaction." And as if that weren't enough, you can sit there being amazed at how the brain works.

I had fallen asleep with my clothes on; I put my robe on over my clothes, turned up the collar and pulled it tightly around my body, knotting the belt around my waist. But that wasn't enough, I was still frozen, I was so cold I felt sick. s.h.i.+vering, I pulled out a chair and placed it in front of the closet, climbed up and opened the cabinet above the closet, took out my old peacoat-100 percent wool-and put that on as well. Then I went into the living room and through to the kitchenette to make myself a cup of tea with warm milk and honey.

I curled up on the sofa, my hands wrapped around the warm mug. I sat cross-legged, with a blanket over my legs. The steaming drink smelled of bergamot and milk, and I raised the mug to my lips, taking big, deep gulps as I gazed at my blurred gray-green reflection in the blank television screen. I looked like an apparition. Or like an old American Indian. I thought I looked like the ghost of Sitting Bull in the lotus position.

I didn't get any more sleep that night. It turned into a kind of vigil, but without a body to watch over, during which I did nothing and thought nothing-I didn't even think about Johannes, or about our child, growing in my stomach, or about the key card in my pocket. I just sat there and drank my tea, and when I'd finished it I sat there with the empty mug in my hands.

Gradually I became aware that the room had grown light. The clock on the DVD player showed six, then seven, then eight, then nine. Just after nine I heard a series of loud rapping noises; I jumped, looked around me. What the h.e.l.l is he doing? I thought.

"What are you doing, Johannes?" I asked. But when three more loud knocks echoed through the room I understood someone was knocking on the door, and I remembered that I had spent the night alone, that Johannes wasn't there, and I realized that despite everything I had been in a kind of slumber with my eyes open, somewhere on the s.h.i.+fting border between sleep and wakefulness. I realized that and yet I believed, for a fraction of a second, that since Johannes wasn't there with me then it must be him knocking on the door, wanting to come in to say good morning. But as I said, that was only for a fraction of a second, the idea simply flickered through my mind, and then I was right back in reality, where Johannes no longer existed, and I tried to get up, but it was as if the lower half of my body had suddenly become incredibly large and heavy, and I had to gather myself and drag myself off the sofa as the knocking started again, louder this time, and in three series of three knocks each, and when I at last got to my feet I felt dizzy and had to lean over and support myself on the coffee table for several seconds, black dots spinning before my eyes. And the knocking went on and on, nonstop, six, seven, eight, nine impatient knocks.

"I'm coming!" I shouted, then finally managed to straighten up, shrug off the peacoat, which now felt clumsy, and open the door.

Outside stood Petra Runhede, her head tilted slightly to one side, gazing sympathetically into my eyes as she said, her voice respectfully muted: "May I come in?" I come in?"

At this point three things happened simultaneously. The first was that I took a step to one side to allow Petra to go past me into the apartment. The second was that my emotions woke up, just as I took that step to one side they woke up, and they woke up like a cat, going from a deep sleep to full awareness in no time at all, and the emotion I felt was a searing hatred toward this polite woman with her artificial intimacy, her professional empathy. And at the precise moment when I took a step to one side and my hatred came to life, nausea welled up inside me, like a volcano.

"Excuse me," I managed to blurt out before I rushed into the bathroom with my hand to my mouth, slammed the door and lifted the toilet seat. And with the vomiting came the crying, a howling, gulping sobbing that hurt my throat and filled my nose. I stood there for a good while, bent over the toilet bowl with tears and snot pouring out of the orifices in my face and cold sweat pouring out of all the pores in my skin.

When it was all over, I blew my nose several times. Flushed the toilet. Got to my feet with difficulty; I had a new kind of soreness in my lower back, stiff and yet porous at the same time, as if I were crumbling just there at the base of my spine, and I had to hold onto myself, press one hand against my back as I grabbed hold of the sink with the other and pulled myself to my feet. Then I turned on the cold water, washed my hands, cupping them under the stream, leaned forward cautiously, bathed my face with the cold water, lapped at the water, rinsed my mouth. Then I straightened up once more, panting with pain and with one hand pressed to my back again, and brushed my teeth, but very quickly and only at the front of my mouth so that I wouldn't risk making myself gag again when the toothbrush went farther in. I spat and rinsed quickly, turned off the faucet, dried my mouth and face with a towel. I stood there, contemplating my reflection above the sink: my skin grayish white, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, nose swollen, cheeks puffy, hair standing on end, clothes creased and sweaty beneath the dressing gown, which had fallen open. I smoothed down my hair and ran my hands over my clothes in a vain attempt to smooth them down as well. As my hand pa.s.sed over the right-hand pocket of my pants I felt the rectangular key card through the fabric and I thought, There it is, there's my secret. I didn't think, There's my way out, my ticket to freedom, to survival, to a life with my child; I just thought, There's my secret. Then I pulled my dressing gown around me and knotted the belt at my waist.

Petra had made coffee and two cheese sandwiches. I sat down at the table and allowed her to pour me coffee and place the plate of sandwiches in front of me.

"Do you mind if I sit down opposite you?" she asked, almost submissively, and I had the urge to answer yes, I do mind, you can go out into the hallway and wait there until I call you and then you can come in and clear the table and wash the dishes and then you can discreetly disappear again. But of course I didn't say that, I just shook my head and made a feeble gesture toward the chair on the other side of the table. She pulled out the chair and sat down on it, sat there without saying anything for a long time, while I drank the coffee and took small bites from one of the sandwiches and chewed slowly.

My newly awakened hatred was now under control. It was lying beneath the surface, awake but resting. It had woken like a cat and it was resting like a cat: with its eyes half closed and its ears acting like periscopes, picking up the slightest movement, the slightest hiss, whisper or sigh.

When I had slowly forced one of the sandwiches down, Petra cleared her throat. I ignored her, looking down into my coffee cup before picking it up and drinking the last drops.

"Dorrit," she said in that quiet, intimate voice that was her signature. "I am sorry. Really. I'm sorry about everything."

"Everything?" I glanced at her, skeptically, before putting the cup down.

"Everything you're going through," she clarified. "And everything you've been been through. I think that those of you who are dispensable are often subjected to an unnecessary amount of suffering. You're not criminals, after all, you haven't done any harm to anyone or anything. You have simply lived your lives, without thinking too much about the future or the world around you, it has to be said, but on the other hand you have often lived on very little money and for the most part you haven't made a great deal of fuss. Presumably you all had neighbors who didn't even notice you existed, and very few of you have actually been a burden to society-I know you haven't. And you have all lived in a headwind, a social headwind. Then you end up here, and things are often really good during the time you have ..." through. I think that those of you who are dispensable are often subjected to an unnecessary amount of suffering. You're not criminals, after all, you haven't done any harm to anyone or anything. You have simply lived your lives, without thinking too much about the future or the world around you, it has to be said, but on the other hand you have often lived on very little money and for the most part you haven't made a great deal of fuss. Presumably you all had neighbors who didn't even notice you existed, and very few of you have actually been a burden to society-I know you haven't. And you have all lived in a headwind, a social headwind. Then you end up here, and things are often really good during the time you have ..."

She broke off.

"... left," I supplied, whereupon a dark red flush flooded her face. She cleared her throat again and went on: "But sometimes some of you are struck by tragedies. Like what you're going through now. I wish you didn't have to suffer like this. I wish there was another solution. That there could be a different policy, one less driven by economic considerations, one that was a little ..."-she fell silent, leaned across the table, glanced covertly at me, then went on in a quiet voice-"... one that was more of a planned economy planned economy, in fact."

I raised my eyebrows. What in the world was she talking about? What was she up to?

She stopped talking. The flush was still visible on her cheeks, just a little more faint than when it had appeared, and there was something gla.s.sy about her eyes, a kind of feverish eagerness, as if she were sharing secret desires with me, forbidden values.

But there are no forbidden values. Anyone who lives in a democracy has the right to wish for whatever they want, and to express any views and feelings whatsoever, as long as these do not offend, threaten or persecute. And if there did perchance happen to be any limitation to this right, then Petra, director of the Second Reserve Bank Unit for Biological Material, would hardly have been sitting there expressing her views in my bugged room. Besides which I knew perfectly well, from my own experience, how sensitive the microphones were and how crystal clear the sound quality was. But Petra obviously wasn't aware that I knew, because she went on, in a whisper now: "I would like to see a more ... socialist-oriented policy, one where not everyone has to be profitable all the time."

She really was very good. I didn't understand what she was trying to achieve with all this, but she was certainly good. If it hadn't been for the surveillance and for the fact that she was the director of the unit, I'm sure I would have believed her. But as I didn't, I said: "Stop talking c.r.a.p, Petra. Tell me why you're here."

She gave me a hurt look, then replied in her submissive voice: "I just wanted to see how you were."

"Right. Thank you so much."

"And to let you know that you're being given a week's sick leave."

"Very kind of you," I said.

"And then I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask you to decide-when you feel up to it-what you're going to do. How you want things to be. Whether you ..."-she cleared her throat again-"... whether you want to donate the fetus or carry it to full term and-"

"I intend to give birth to my child," I interrupted her.

She laughed out loud, relieved, and said that was fantastic, before adding: "Then I'll let Amanda Jonstorp know. You'll have a series of regular checks and ultrasound scans and amniotic fluid samples and all the other tests. And when-or if-we know that everything is as it should be with the child, you can decide on a suitable time for a C-section. And I'll get in touch with the Adoption Commission. I can tell you, Dorrit, that in cases like this-which are very rare, for obvious reasons-the adoptive parents are more or less handpicked. There will be very, very thorough investigations before they decide who will be considered as parents for the child you are carrying."

"Surely that's always the case," I said, and it was more of a statement than a question, because I knew perfectly well how thoroughly those who applied for permission to adopt were investigated. On those occasions when I myself had applied I had been rejected for a whole range of reasons, from my low and uncertain income to the lack of suitable male role models in my social network. The last time I had applied I had also been deemed too old.

It struck me now that if I had been granted permission to adopt and had managed to sc.r.a.pe together the necessary funds for all the fees and possible journeys involved, then I might well have ended up with a child that a dispensable woman had given birth to and been forced to give up.

Petra didn't reply to my question, which was more of a statement, but placed her hands on her knees and made a move to get up. But then she stopped: "By the way. Is there anything I can do for you, Dorrit? Is there anything you need?"

"Yes," I replied, and I was surprised at my own quick thinking. "If they haven't already emptied Johannes's room, I'd like access to it before they do. There are things in there that belong to me."

This was only an excuse, of course; in fact I just wanted to be there for a while, alone, and Petra seemed to understand that, because she said: "I'll arrange it. I'll also make sure the surveillance unit doesn't monitor Johannes's apartment while you're there."

"Why?" I said.

She sighed mournfully. "Because in my opinion you have the right to be completely on your own for a while."

What did she want? Either she was expecting me to return the favor somehow, or she thought I would be eternally grateful and thus particularly cooperative and pliant. Or she really did have a bad conscience, felt genuinely guilty about her part in this whole luxury slaughterhouse-which was one of Elsa's descriptions of the place.

And I suppose Petra was only a human being after all. She probably had children of her own and a man or woman of her own with whom she shared the children. Or perhaps she'd also lost a partner at some point-perhaps she'd lost the man or woman she shared her children with. Or perhaps she'd actually lost a child.

I never found out how things stood in that respect, I didn't ask, of course, and actually I didn't want to know what her reasons or motives were, but I was very keen to keep my distance from this undoubtedly very gifted individual. She obviously had considerable talent as an actress-even if she overplayed things slightly sometimes; she could have done with honing her exaggerated sincerity and her sympathy-perhaps she was a former wannabe actress who had chosen security and normality over her youthful dream. Such people are, in my experience, rarely entirely kindly disposed toward those who have chosen to follow their youthful dream-like me. They despise our almost childish sensitivity, still intact after all these years, and our unwillingness-or inability-to compromise and fit in. They call us bohemians, oddb.a.l.l.s, aliens or divas. They envy those of us who achieve some success, and rub their hands with glee when they see the rest slowly going under.

No, I had no desire whatsoever to get close to Petra, to ask personal questions or even to pretend to believe that her goodwill was genuine. I said: "There is absolutely no need to switch off the surveillance cameras, from my point of view; it would give me no pleasure whatsoever. I have no intention of doing anything that would be better unseen or unheard. And in any case I have no way of checking whether the surveillance is switched off or not, so it makes no difference."

But she didn't give up: "Irrespective of what you believe or think or feel might give you pleasure, I will personally ensure that the apartment is blocked to the cameras between ..."

She looked at her watch, then glanced up at me: "Is two hours enough?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Let's say three," she said. "Shall we say between one and four this afternoon?"

I nodded.

"Okay, so you have free access to room 3, section F2 between thirteen hundred hours and sixteen hundred hours today."

"Thank you," I said.

"During that time the surveillance will be switched off."

"Whatever you say," I said.

She got up and came around the table on her way to the door. As she was pa.s.sing me, she stopped and pressed her hand lightly on my shoulder.

"And let me know," she said, "if there's anything else I can do for you."

Then she removed her hand and left.

26.

The only sound was a faint humming from the air-conditioning. No sounds penetrated from outside, the silence was compact-like in a padded cell, where any risk of an echo or other sound effects has been removed. I had never experienced this kind of silence in Johannes's apartment before-or any other apartment in the unit, for that matter.

I had closed the door behind me, turned the bolt, and was now standing with my back to the door, looking at Johannes's living room and the wall he had built around his kitchenette. If I had placed my hands on my back I would have touched the door, I was standing so close to it. You might have thought I was afraid of something in the room, you might have thought I was afraid to go in, that I was unsure whether I really wanted to be there, or whether I ought to be there. But it wasn't that. I wasn't afraid, or uncertain, just slow; perhaps it was the stillness in the room that was making me that way.

On the dining table stood two empty coffee mugs, a bread basket containing a forgotten slice of whole-grain bread, and two plates with crumbs; one of the plates had on it a half-eaten sandwich with a s.h.i.+ny slice of cheese, the edges turning upward. The remains of yesterday's breakfast. The half-sandwich was mine; I had been hungry, much hungrier than I usually was in the mornings-perhaps it was the knowledge of the child in my stomach that made me suddenly think I needed to eat more than usual. But when I started my third sandwich I had realized I couldn't finish it.

"Do you want half of this?" I'd asked.

Johannes had shaken his head and said: "No thanks, darling, I'm full."