The Unit. Part 5

"What's the meaning of life?" asked Arnold, my psychologist.

For the third time in the week after Majken's final donation I was sitting in the armchair in his office. The first time had been an emergency. Henrietta had followed me to my apartment, where I had locked myself in and sunk down with my back against the door. She had stood outside listening to me-as if it weren't enough that someone was sitting in a control tower (or wherever it was that they sat) both watching and listening. This person was evidently in contact with Henrietta via a mobile phone or some other kind of transmitter, because I could hear her talking quietly to someone.

She said "Yes" and "Yes, d.i.c.k's here" and "Ready, yes" and "Just say the word" and shortly afterward she had unlocked the door and opened it carefully. The door opened outward and I fell slowly backward, apathetically. Then d.i.c.k had come to help and they had more or less carried me to Arnold, whom I hardly knew. At that point I had seen him only twice, and we hadn't touched on anything particularly difficult, but had mostly kept to the surface of my emotional life. But now I was deposited in his armchair in a state where I was completely powerless and defenseless. All my suppressed fear, rage and grief had floated up to the surface and was lying there waiting; all he had to do was help himself, or at least that's how it seemed to me-as if he were lapping up my feelings with his big, rough, psychologist's tongue. And he had succeeded in getting me to talk about death, about when someone dies or disappears, like Majken, like Siv, like my parents and other people I had known who no longer existed.

Afterward I had actually felt better, it didn't feel as if he had taken something away from me at all; on the contrary, it felt as if he was there for me. I wasn't completely sure that this was actually true, for real, but the main thing was that it felt that way.

And so this time, a week to the day after Majken's final donation, he thought we should talk about life.

"The meaning of life?" I said. "That's a difficult question. I don't think I can answer it."

"Try," said Arnold.

"Do you mean my life, what's the meaning of my life? Or do you mean life in general?"

"You're free to interpret the question as you wish."

Normally, if I'd been out in the community, that would have put me on the defensive. Experience told me that whenever a doctor or a psychologist or a boss or a teacher or a policeman or a journalist says you are free to interpret a question as you wish, that usually means you are being tested in some way. If you interpret the question like this and respond like that, then you are seen as belonging to a particular category, and if instead you interpret it like that and respond like this, then you belong to a different category.

But here in the unit, I thought, it didn't really matter how you interpreted questions. There was only one category here after all, and however I might choose to respond, that was the category I belonged to. I didn't need to try to work out how I ought to respond, but could relax and answer however I wanted. I could allow myself to babble and ramble and feel my way, roughly the way I did when I wrote.

"I suppose I used to believe that my life belonged to me," I rambled. "Something that was entirely at my disposal, something no one else had any claim on, or the right to have an opinion on. But I've changed my mind. I don't own my life at all, it's other people who own it."

"Who?" asked Arnold.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Those who have the power, I suppose."

"And who are they?"

"Our rulers, of course."

"And who are our rulers?"

"Well," I said. "We don't really know. The state or industry or capitalism. Or the ma.s.s media. Or all four. Or are industry and capitalism the same thing? Anyway: those who safeguard growth and democracy and welfare, they're the ones who own my life. They own everyone's life. And life is capital. A capital that is to be divided fairly among the people in a way that promotes reproduction and growth, welfare and democracy. I am only a steward, taking care of my vital organs."

"But is that your own opinion, Dorrit?"

"Certainly. Or-maybe not entirely. But I'm working on it."

"Why?"

"To get through this, of course. I live for the capital, that's a fact, isn't it? And the best I can do with this fact is to like the situation. To believe it's meaningful. Otherwise I can't believe it's meaningful to die for it."

"Is it important to you to feel it's meaningful to die for what you call 'the capital'?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because otherwise I would feel powerless, which essentially I am, but I can cope with that as long as it doesn't feel that way too. I'm here now, aren't I? I live here and I'm going to die here. I live and die so that the gross national product will increase, and if I didn't regard that as meaningful, then my existence here would be unbearable."

"And you want to have a bearable existence?"

"Doesn't everyone?" I asked.

Arnold didn't reply. His lack of response provoked me, and I said acrimoniously: "Perhaps that's the meaning of life. Perhaps that's the answer to your question: the meaning of life is that it should be bearable. Are you satisfied with that answer?"

"You're angry," he said-I couldn't work out whether it was a question or a statement.

"Of course I'm b.l.o.o.d.y angry!" I said. "Wouldn't you be?"

"Yes," he said, "I probably would be."

He didn't say any more about it. And he didn't ask any more questions about the meaning of life, so I didn't say anything either, and we sat there without speaking for quite a long time, almost a whole minute I think, and all the time I was very angry, so angry that tears came to my eyes. But I didn't cry, even if there was something in my throat that had tied itself in a knot and was stuck there throbbing and burning. I was what I used to call "politically angry," and above all I was feeling boundlessly sorry for myself.

In the end Arnold said: "Do you know who received Majken's pancreas?"

I had to clear my throat before I was able to reply: "No. Or rather yes: a nurse with four children."

Arnold leaned over to one side, picked up a folder from the little table next to his armchair, opened the folder and took out a photograph. He was just about to pa.s.s it over to me when he stopped himself: "Of course it isn't only this person who's got their life back thanks to Majken. Her heart has probably gone to someone, her lungs to someone else, her kidney-I a.s.sume she only had one left-to someone else again, and her liver too. And a great deal of other material will have been removed and stored in our organ and tissue banks. A single brain-dead body can save the lives of up to eight people. The removal and transplantation of these other organs and tissues is a bonus, you could say, when a specific organ, in this case the pancreas, from a specific donor with the right blood type and other criteria goes to a specific recipient in a planned and carefully prepared transplant. And this"-he leaned forward again and pa.s.sed me the photograph-"is the specific recipient of Majken's pancreas."

He leaned back in his chair.

The photo in my hand showed a woman with four children of preschool age, two of whom were twins. The woman looked old and tired, her face unhealthily bloated and worn.

"She's on her own with the children," Arnold explained. "Her partner-the children's father-died in an accident two years ago. She has no brothers or sisters, and her elderly mother has some kind of dementia and needs constant care. The picture is comparatively recent; the oldest child will soon be six, the twins have just turned four, and the little one wasn't even born when the father was killed. The woman has type 1 diabetes, so it isn't something self-inflicted, and-I don't know all the medical details, but the pancreas has two functions. It produces normal insulin, as you perhaps know, and it also produces another fluid that helps to break down food. The production of insulin has never worked normally for this patient, and some time ago the secondary function of the pancreas also stopped working. Therefore the digestive process does not work properly either. She can neither eat nor drink normally, but lives on a nutritional drip. Since you don't have children you perhaps can't imagine what it must be like to look after four children on your own, while worrying about a senile parent and at the same time dragging round an IV stand, giving yourself injections and taking medication, under constant medical supervision."

I could actually imagine all that very clearly, and I would have loved to be in her shoes. I would have gladly swapped places with this sick, worn down, fairly ugly woman, old before her time. I missed my mother; it wouldn't have mattered how confused and helpless she got, just as long as she had been around to grow old, just as long as she'd lived. And I would have happily lived, sick and exhausted and constantly worried with four small children and an IV stand. Because that was at least a life, even if it was sure to be h.e.l.l. I would have liked a h.e.l.l, just as long as it was a life.

But then Arnold said: "And the most important point: without the transplant she wouldn't have had long to live. It would have been a matter of months, a year at best. Now, however, she has a very good chance of seeing her children grow up. She might not live long enough to have grandchildren, but she will probably have time to fulfill her role as a parent. And that is thanks to the pancreas from a person who had no one to live for."

I said nothing. Just looked at the picture. The eldest child, the six-year-old, was wearing gla.s.ses and smiling at the camera. It was a big, innocent, open-mouthed smile; there were gaps where milk teeth had fallen out. The twins looked a little more serious; they were sitting on either side of the six-year-old, but were leaning their heads toward each other as if there were an invisible magnet between them. The smallest child was on its mother's knee, waving a chubby hand in the air-perhaps he or she was waving at the camera-but was looking up at the mother's face. Its expression was steady, secure. Full of trust. The woman was smiling wearily at the camera, her head tilted slightly to one side.

I looked at the photograph for a long time. There was something about the eldest child in particular that got me; something about her-I thought it was a girl-her open smile, something in her eyes behind the gla.s.ses, a kind of self-confidence, the sense that everything would be okay, the kind of spiritual strength that we only have at that time, when we are five, six, perhaps seven, or which is at its peak then at least; from then on it is destroyed, bit by bit, until it remains only in the form of shards and fragments.

Arnold cleared his throat. "What do you think about when you look at that picture?"

"Is it a girl, the eldest child?"

He looked at me, then picked up the folder, opened it, flicked through the papers, read, looked up: "Yes," he said. "It is." Then he was silent for a moment; he seemed to hesitate, but added: "Why do you ask?"

"I would have liked a girl," I replied, and my voice was-involuntarily-so quiet that I wasn't sure if Arnold had heard what I said.

He didn't comment, nor did he ask me to repeat it.

My hour was over. I took a last look at the six-year-old, then handed the photograph back to Arnold, got up and went toward the door. With my hand resting on the handle, I turned back and asked: "Did Majken get to see that picture?"

"Yes, of course."

"Does she-the recipient, the woman-know anything about Majken?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Arnold spread his hands. "That's the way things are done. It would be unethical."

I nodded. "Of course," I said. Then I said good-bye and thanked him, pressed down the door handle, opened the door and left.

8.

As long as Majken's exhibition was still up I visited the gallery every day, standing for a long time in front of the paintings; I often went along the dark corridor and into the sacred, cavelike room with the dripping water hollowing out the stone. It became something of a ritual, it became like visiting a gravestone, honoring Majken's memory.

When the exhibition eventually came to an end and everything was taken down, I went to see the director of the gallery to ask if I could possibly have the small picture of the deformed fetus. That was fine, he said, just some formalities to be dealt with first, some papers to be signed by him and Petra Runhede and me, but a few days later I was able to collect the picture from the office inside the gallery. I took it home and hung it on the wall above my desk, where the fetus grinned scornfully at me, its eyes unseeing, or writhed in agony-or both. "To be or not to be ..."

Then I took the handwritten pages out of the plastic folder where they had been lying upside down since the day Majken made her final donation. I switched on the computer, and there in my new and definitely very expensive desk chair, with support for my lower back, my shoulders and my arms, I finished the short story about the woman who gave birth to a deformed child. It ended with the death of the child three days after it was born, whereupon life went back to normal; no questions remained, no "if," apart from the fact that the woman had about five years left to become needed.

In the middle of March, six new dispensable individuals arrived in the unit. There was another welcome party with dinner, entertainment and dancing. I made some new friends, both among those who had just arrived and among the older residents, and my relations.h.i.+p with those who were already my friends deepened. I hadn't had so many friends, such a wide social circle, since I was in my twenties.

I spent most of my time with Elsa; we talked about childhood memories, and gossiped endlessly about what became of this or that old school friend, some former teacher, or others who lived in the little community where we grew up.

I also grew very close to Alice. She was easygoing and funny, without being superficial. She was beginning to look and sound more and more like a man, a short man with small hands, a broad bottom and ample b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but the planes of her face were becoming more angular, she had graying stubble (when she couldn't be bothered to shave), and a dark, booming laugh. She seemed to be taking it all very cheerfully. "Better to be both s.e.xes at once than dead!" she would say if anyone felt sorry for her or sympathetically asked how she was feeling. And I think she meant it. I think she really did prefer to be living as both a man and a woman than not to be living at all.

I wrote intensively for five hours every morning. Then I had lunch in the Terrace restaurant, after which I relaxed for an hour or two, either by going swimming or for a sauna with Elsa or Alice or both or someone else, or I took a walk in the winter garden or lay on the lawn gazing at the sky and the clouds, or sat down on a bench to read or just enjoy the greenery, the scents, the birdsong and the warmth. Once a week I went to see Arnold or the ma.s.seur. From time to time I treated myself to a pedicure, ma.s.sage and manicure, and I regularly visited the hair salon to have my hair trimmed and colored. I got myself some new clothes: expensive silk s.h.i.+rts, linen pants, jackets in different colors and styles. Expensive Italian shoes. Jewelry.

Every afternoon at two o'clock I took part in the scientific fitness and strength training tests. It was completely safe, apart from the fact that I ended up with periost.i.tis and suffered from a lack of vitamins and minerals (this was one of the things they were measuring), felt dizzy and overexercised, with aching muscles and extreme fatigue, and had to be careful to eat and sleep a lot in order to cope. But I wasn't complaining, quite the opposite, as long as I was partic.i.p.ating in this particular test I was safe from operations and donations, I didn't even have to give blood or plasma-thanks to my fatigue. I came to love this exhaustion, as if it were a loyal friend or even a guardian angel. During my first two months in the unit most of the people I knew donated at least part of some organ or tissue: Erik, the animator, donated a section of his liver, Alice the cornea from one eye, plus eggs for the production of stem cells (paradoxically, her ovaries were still functioning), Elsa also donated eggs as well as skin, Lena a kidney, Johannes a little bit of the small intestine-this was something new that had hardly ever been tried before. And Vanja, who was with Erik, went in to donate her heart and lungs, and of course didn't come back. Erik was devastated.

Our everyday life in the reserve bank unit really revolved around scientific humane experiments. That was what we were mainly used for, in reality. They tried to keep us alive as long as possible, in fact, and some individuals who were very fit had lived in the unit for six or seven years before they were taken in for their final donation. Those who are dispensable const.i.tute a reserve, and those who are needed and are seriously ill are first of all given organs produced from their own stem cells, and if that doesn't work, they go on a waiting list for organs from younger people who are p.r.o.nounced brain-dead after an accident. They don't use the dispensable until it is obvious that no other method and no other material is available for a particular patient with a serious illness, or in those cases where it is extremely urgent. This whole thing-"this whole free-range pig farm" as Elsa angrily called it-is in other words significantly more humane than I could have imagined at first.

9.

It was another new month, April this time. It was Sat.u.r.day morning, and nine new dispensable individuals were expected. One of them was to have Majken's room, I had heard. I was sitting in my pajamas and robe on the sofa in the lounge, drinking my morning coffee and reading a book when she arrived, accompanied by d.i.c.k and Henrietta.

She was very tall and fine-limbed, strikingly feminine in her stance and her movements; she had the palest skin, black, s.h.i.+ny, shoulder-length hair, almost unbelievably red lips and big, watchful eyes. Henrietta was carrying her two suitcases, d.i.c.k her thick, bulky winter coat. I thought it must either be unusually cold for April out there, or she felt the cold a great deal. Or perhaps the coat meant something special to her. Because here in the unit there is no need for winter clothes, and she must have known that; it's one of the positive things they highlight in the information packet. My own peacoat and the heavy winter boots I had been wearing when I arrived two months ago were still in the top part of my closet, and I hadn't given them a thought until now.

When d.i.c.k caught sight of me he introduced us. Her name was Vivi. I got up, tightened the belt of my robe and went over to shake hands. Her hand felt cold and slightly clammy. I looked up at her face and saw her terrified expression. I said: "If there's anything you're not sure about, or if you just need to talk to someone, or if you simply don't want to be alone, then I'm here on the sofa or in my apartment for the next few hours. It says Dorrit Weger on the door. Don't hesitate, you mustn't think you'll be disturbing me, because you won't."

"Okay," she muttered, then she and d.i.c.k and Henrietta carried on through the lounge, past the laundry and the kitchen, and disappeared out of sight into the hallway.

The same evening, during dinner at the welcome party, I sat with Vivi, Erik, and Alice, which wasn't exactly the best combination in the world: Vivi, tense, introverted and terrified, Alice with one cloudy unseeing eye, stubble, a deep voice and her Adam's apple bobbing up and down when she came out with her loud laugh, and as if that weren't enough: Erik, who was so deeply depressed after the loss of Vanja that he could barely speak or eat. He sat there, alternately stammering or completely silent, poking at the food on his plate. Fortunately Alice was in a good mood as usual, exuding warmth and confidence, and gradually Vivi seemed to relax a little.

When dinner and the entertainment were over I took her to the bar, where we tried out different colorful drinks with umbrellas in them, tasting of fruit and sweets. The bartender was new; he had arrived the previous month, and he was now showing what he could do. I ordered a banana and lime drink that was served in a c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s. It was called a Green Banana and was a cold, yellowish green in color; the umbrella had green and yellow stripes and there was a slice of lime perched on the side of the gla.s.s. The drink was cloyingly sweet and sharply fresh at the same time; the sharpness balanced the sweetness and vice versa. It was delicious. Vivi chose Raspberry Rock, which consisted of freshly squeezed orange juice mixed with raspberry juice, with frozen raspberries in it. The umbrella was red, blue and orange, and there was a frosting of blue sugar around the rim of the gla.s.s.

"Food coloring?" I guessed, but Vivi tasted the frosting with the tip of her tongue and shook her head.

"Blueberries," she said.

She didn't say any more after that, she just sipped slowly, in silence. A raspberry kept b.u.mping against her top lip. I didn't know what to say, so I just gave her a little smile and smoothed down an invisible crease in my dress, which I had put on for the first time since arriving at the unit. It made me feel elegant and s.e.xy, but a bit unsure of myself at the same time. So we were standing there, Vivi shy or scared or both, me unsure about my outfit and about my self-appointed role as supporter, when Elsa turned up, cheerful and sweaty from dancing, and exclaimed: "Oh, what fantastic drinks! If there's alcohol in them the evening will be perfect!"

"Unfortunately not," replied Vivi, looking amused-for the first time I saw her smile.

I introduced her to Elsa, they shook hands and immediately started chatting. They seemed to like each other straightaway. I felt relieved. Elsa ordered a Black Night, and it really was black. It was served in a tall, narrow gla.s.s with a black-and-red-striped straw, and something red, perhaps a candy, at the bottom. She bent over the gla.s.s, and as she placed the straw between her lips and took the first careful little drink, Vivi and I stood on either side watching her reaction. She let go of the straw, swallowed, looked thoughtful.

"Not bad," she said. "Strange, but delicious. Recommended."

Vivi put her half-finished orange and raspberry drink to one side and ordered a Black Night. And I probably would have done the same if Johannes hadn't just elbowed his way through the crowd to us. After a friendly but brief nod to Elsa and Vivi, he turned to me, took my hand, and said: "Dorrit, you look lovely tonight," at which point he bent forward and kissed my hand.

"May I have the pleasure of a dance?" he asked.

I accepted, and without a word we sailed out onto the dance floor.

It was a rock ballad. The singer in the band had a hoa.r.s.e voice. Johannes led; I followed, the hem of my dress brus.h.i.+ng my calves. He was holding me around the waist, I had one hand on his shoulder, the other in his hand. Our joined hands formed a point, the prow of a s.h.i.+p; he was port, I was starboard. When I closed my eyes he was Nils.

10.

We left the party together and walked slowly through the winter garden. I liked to take this diversion late in the evening or at night, when everything was still and quiet, the artificial dew glistening on the greenery, the air full of different fragrances. I liked to remember Majken here in this stillness and among these scents.

Johannes had his arm around my shoulders, and when we reached the patio with the fountain and the marble benches, he said: "Shall we sit for a little while?"

We sat down on the cool, slightly damp marble and peered up past the branches of the palms and through the gla.s.s dome to the night sky. It was full of stars.

"There's Ursa Minor and the North Star," said Johannes.

"Where?" I had never been particularly good at constellations. I could just about make out the Dipper.

Johannes pointed, describing Ursa Minor as a smaller version of the Dipper, and then I saw it in the angle between two palm leaves.

"And the North Star is the big one there right at the front, the one that's s.h.i.+ning so brightly. It's always in the north," he went on, and showed me the easiest way to find it: it's along the line between the two stars right at the back of the Dipper.

"But how can that be?" I asked. "How can it always be in the same direction? We're spinning around, after all."