26
“Whenever water appears in dreams or fantasies, it symbolizes feelings — particularly feelings of grief and depression. And I must say, Mia, that never in my life have I seen such a huge collection of water photos. I have absolutely no doubt that Niklas is one deeply unhappy young man.”
My mother-in-law’s on the phone, all worked up. Yesterday she joined Facebook, and since then she’s been going through the photo albums Niklas posted.
Since Frederik’s well enough to be left home by himself now, his parents no longer come over as often. Yet every day when Vibeke’s name shows up on my phone display, I can’t help but groan a little before I take the call.
“It’s an art project he did last winter with Mathias,” I say.
“But why did he pick water as the theme for the project?”
“It wasn’t him who—”
“Or if he wasn’t the one who picked the theme, why did he take on this particular project, when other people had decided it’d be about water?”
“Can’t you just look at the pictures as some beautiful photos where he’s simply practicing how—”
“Mia, you’re going to have to trust me on this one. It’s no coincidence that he threw himself into a project that happens to involve water. Young people today have thousands of other options. There’s a reason for everything — even if you may not want to admit it. I’m actually studying for a certificate in this, you know.”
I stare down at the pension papers I was about to dig into. What are the rules for withdrawing some of your pension funds before they mature? The tax consequences?
“Water can also represent trauma,” she continues. “A sense of entrapment while experiencing volatile emotions, for instance hate or feelings of inadequacy. Quite often, water symbols can be traced back to a parent who makes it impossible for a child to express his feelings.”
“Vibeke. Can’t you ever let it rest?”
“There might be some primordial situation, perhaps several years in the past, in which the child was overpowered by the parents. He felt surrounded — as if it was water threatening to drown him. A new crisis could actualize the repressed emotions.”
“So just to be perfectly clear: you think I’m to blame for this.”
“Oh, not at all, Mia! I’m only saying how one usually …”
• • •
After the conversation’s over, I gaze out of our big new windows at the apartment block opposite. Beyond it’s the sky and more apartment blocks, while behind me looms the large earthwork that’s supposed to dampen the freeway’s continual drone.
Though I completely disagreed with my mother-in-law on the phone, and though I still consider her psychological “expertise” an utter fraud, her description of my relation to Niklas couldn’t be more accurate. He feels I suffocate him — exactly like water that’s drowning him. And he feels that way no matter how much distance I keep, how much room I give him. I retreat farther and farther, making hardly any demands on him with respect to his father’s illness, and still he feels stifled. Where will it end? Do I have to disappear completely before he can feel free?
For almost four years now, without naming it directly, Vibeke’s been circling around the night I had a breakdown after throwing Frederik out. The night that I was sure I was embarking on a happy new life, but that instead made it clear I couldn’t manage without him.
I remember how Niklas was then. It’s only a few years ago, but he wasn’t that big, just thirteen. He was wearing his orange hip-hop hoodie when he came to see me in the hospital. Frederik was there too. Who was I that night? Niklas’s thin fair hand in mine, his pale face. How could I have? That wasn’t me, was it? Hardly the “real” Mia. Was it because Frederik and I have always been “meant for each other,” like he said? Was it because, dream as I might about slipping free from his grasp, in truth I’m nothing without my unfaithful, criminal, brain-damaged husband?
I struggle to concentrate on the documents in front of me, deciding as I do that tonight I’ll google the combination of water, symbol, and psychoanalysis, perhaps neurology too.
Someone opens the front door of the apartment. Just a few months ago, I could distinguish between Frederik’s and Niklas’s footsteps, but lately they’ve started to sound the same.
“Niklas, is that you?”
No reply. Small steps, small heavy steps; he’s lugging something large into the apartment, my stifled unhappy son.
“Niklas?”
Frederik enters the living room. He’s bearing an enormous wooden box and smiling broadly. “See what I got from Sergei?”
“What?”
“Rabbits!”
“Rabbits?”
“Sergei and Tonya raise rabbits in their apartment. They breed them and sell them. They earn more than seven hundred crowns a month. And he’s given me five rabbits because we’ve gotten to be such good friends. So then we can also—”
“You want to breed rabbits, here in the apartment?”
“Sergei says it’s easy and fun, and I’d really like to start pulling my weight around here. Abdul and Nasira from down on the third floor, they’ve got an allotment garden and raise almost all their own vegetables. One can really save a great deal of money.”
“I don’t want you keeping rabbits here, not under any circumstances.”
“But Sergei and Tonya—”
“I don’t want it! Period! End. Of. Story. There’s no need to discuss it.”
“You can’t just—”
“It’s not going to happen!”
“You can’t just decide! I’m allowed to have rabbits if I want!”
“It doesn’t help to yell.”
“But how can you—”
“Frederik, here I was thinking that soon you could have the car keys again, and the password to go online, maybe even a credit card. But you’re certainly not as well as I was hoping.”
“I’m not—”
“Frederik.”
“Everyone else is raising something! Why can’t I? We don’t have any money!”
I let myself fall against the back of my chair and shut my eyes. “I’m just going to have to let go of this,” I say. “I really thought you’d made more progress.”
He stomps off to his room and slams the door. A few minutes later he comes out and, not saying a word, gets the box with the rabbits, hauls it into his room, and slams the door again. A little while later it’s the front door that slams, so violently the whole apartment echoes. He’s headed back to his new friends.
We’ve only been living in Farum Midtpunkt for two weeks, and already it’s as if Frederik’s lived here for years. He’s joined a bunch of people on welfare or disability who hang out on the lawns and in the other common areas all day long. Unconcerned and unself-conscious, he’s told them his whole life story and all his favorite jokes. He eats lunch with Sergei and goes fishing with him, sits at home with Abdul and Nasira or Khayyat and Sheza, drinking tea and watching Al Jazeera. Every day he comes home with new stories about our neighbors and their kids and grandkids, and already we’ve been invited to two big weddings.
Back to the pension papers. Now I can’t concentrate. I try calling Bernard, but he’s in a meeting.
• • •
Both Niklas and Frederik are eating at friends’ tonight, but it actually suits me just fine to eat alone. I’m beat. Besides everything that’s going on here with the three of us, I’ve taken a summer job working for Helena’s sister at her shop in Ordrup, spending almost every day of vacation selling fabrics and household knickknacks.
At ten thirty, Niklas lets himself into the apartment, and for the first time in eons he comes into where I am without being prompted. It’s just a couple of minutes before the killer’ll be revealed on the British crime series that I’m kicking back in front of, but I turn off the TV immediately.