Chapter 38
The others are already sitting in the circle: Clara, straight-backed and perky, rigid grin on her lips, Leyla inspecting her nails, Katarina picking at the ends of her ponytail, and Pernilla, folded up and closed off.
I take my seat.
The rain is whipping against the windows, the patter stronger in here than it was in the hallway. Martina smacks the light switch on the wall, bathing the room in artificial light.
“Well, aren’t we all so cozy in here.” She makes it sound like a threat.
Martina slowly sits down in the one empty chair, looking around the circle.
“You know, weather like this can actually be helpful to bring emotions to the surface,” Martina begins. “I know it might feel a little bit scary, but whether we like it or not, our feelings are influenced by the world around us. A storm can be a chance to let loose. Let our feelings fly free.”
She leans forward in her chair, tilting her head so that her braid slides sensually down the side of her neck. Her necklace is dangling freely over her clasped hands, glinting in the light.
“Who would like to start?” she asks.
At first, no one speaks.
All that can be heard is the sound of the rain, and the wind.
For a second, I’m struck, absurdly, by the thought that this is all the set of a play. That we are performing for her pleasure. It feels like we’ve been gathered in here, neatly cordoned off, pushed together in a tight space with our emotions running high so that it might culminate in an explosion.
It all feels inevitable, somehow. Like I’m being cut off at every exit, neatly and on purpose.
I’m never going to leave this place.
My hair is standing on end. I tell myself I’m overreacting, that it’s all going to be fine.
Tomorrow, I’m going to wake up in my shitty apartment, sore and tired from the drive, and this is all going to feel like a dream I had long ago, a failed endeavor that exhausted and frightened me but doesn’t anymore, because I’ll be safe.
But that idea is hard to trust, at this point.
Somehow, some part of me believes that I was always meant to end up here.
“Katarina.” Martina speaks her name like a command, and Katarina sits up in her chair, her hands folded neatly on her lap.
“Yes?” Her voice is bright. Too chipper to sound real.
“How are you feeling right now?”
“I feel good.” Katarina pulls her mouth into a tentative smile, but her eyes flicker toward the windows.
“I slept well,” she adds.
Martina looks at her without speaking, and Katarina continues, voice faltering slightly.
“And, well, of course I’m excited to start talking about … well, about my issues.”
She looks around the circle.
“I look forward to hearing what you think I should do. I like getting feedback. It’s so easy to get stuck in your own head otherwise.”
“Stop that,” Martina snaps, and Katarina flinches.
“Stop … stop what?” Katarina is hunched over, as though trying to make herself as small as possible.
“Stop trying to please me,” Martina orders her. “Stop acting the way you think I want you to act.”
“I’m not,” Katarina whispers.
Martina laughs. It’s not a kind laugh; it’s the laugh of a delighted child pushing a pin through a still-wriggling butterfly.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Katarina sounds helpless, and I feel it echoing in me.
Stuck. We’re all stuck here. There is nothing we can do.
“That’s your problem,” Martina says. There is no feigned softness left now; the facade has fallen.
She turns, and says:
“Clara,” with sudden warmth.
“Yes?” Clara snaps to attention.
“How are you feeling right now?”
“About Katarina?” Clara asks.
Martina smirks.
“No,” she says. “Not yet. About everything. About the weather. About the breakfast.”
“Bad,” Clara answers immediately. “It’s cold. I’m uncomfortable. I barely slept last night. I’m worried about the storm. And I’m irritated with Katarina.”
Martins turns to Katarina, eyebrows ever so slightly raised.
“See? Clara is frustrated. She is uncomfortable. I think everyone is. You had to eat a cold, stale breakfast. It’s damp, and rainy, and dark. Of course you’re unhappy with it. So why can’t you just say so?”
Katarina is visibly shrinking in her chair. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“No!” Martina explodes, her voice bouncing of the walls and seeming to multiply. “No, don’t apologize! Stop apologizing! Have you ever stood up for yourself in your life?”
“Yes.” Katarina’s lower lip is quivering. “No, I mean.”
Martina slowly leans back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. All the while, she’s staring at Katarina.
“Tell me how you feel right now.” She makes it sound like a test. Like a challenge.
As though this is her final chance, and there will be a price to pay if she gives the wrong answer.
“I feel…” Katarina whispers. “I feel … sad.”
“Sad?” Martina repeats. “Really?”
Katarina is staring down at her lap.
“No,” Martina snaps. “You feel angry. At me. For doing this to you. For putting you on the spot.”
“I’m not mad at you.” Katarina is speaking very quietly. “You’re trying to help me.”
“Like your parents tried to help you?” Martina raises her eyebrows.
Katarina looks up. There is a flash of some intensely felt emotion in her eyes but only for a fraction of a second.
“I’m sad,” she repeats, voice slightly stronger now.
Martina looks around.
“Do we think she’s sad?”
“No,” Clara jumps in again, hungry and eager. “She’s angry. She just doesn’t want to admit it.”
“Why do you think that is?” Martina asks Clara.
“She’s worried we won’t like her.” There is something sharp and raw in Clara’s face. Excitement, tinged with fear. Like she’s smelling blood.
Yesterday, she was the prey; today, she gets to be the predator.
This is all wrong. Someone has to put a stop to this.
“She wants to be liked so badly.” Clara says the last word so forcefully I see spit flying from her lips.
“She wants us to think she’s all sweet, and nice, and caring—and she’s scared of being anything else, or saying anything that might offend someone, so instead she just does nothing. She never acts. She only reacts.”
“No, I don’t,” Katarina protests.
Clara draws a deep breath, as if to keep going, but then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Leyla putting her hand on Clara’s arm and shaking her head, and Clara deflates.
Martina doesn’t catch it. She’s turned back to Katarina.
“Now how do you feel?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” Katarina mumbles.
“Really?” Martina asks. “How do you feel about Clara? About what she just said?”
Katarina chances a glance up at Clara.
“I guess she’s just saying how … she feels.” She swallows audibly. “What she thinks. That doesn’t make it true. But maybe it feels true to her.”
Martina is sitting very, very still. Her back is straight, her hands clamped down at the sides of the chair.
The lamp in the corner is casting her shadow to the left, long and spindly, climbing up the wall. It’s quivering in the light, as though it might start moving of its own accord.
“Okay,” she finally says, nodding slowly. “Okay.”
She turns away from Katarina, looking at the rest of us.
“Katarina’s parents told her she should be grateful to have a bed when she was eight years old,” she says. “Isn’t that funny?”
No one moves.
Martina gives a high, pearly laugh. The kind of laugh that belongs at a cotillion, or a polo match; rich and distant.
“See, when Katarina was a little girl, and when she was bad,” Dr. Martina begins, her voice now low, conspiratorial, as though she’s sharing a juicy piece of gossip, “her parents would make her sleep on the floor. They told her that she shouldn’t take anything for granted.
Not even a bed. So when she didn’t do her homework, or when she didn’t complete her chores, she had to sleep on the floor. Not even on the rug. Can you imagine?”
Martina laughs again. She slaps her knee.
“Isn’t that the funniest thing you’ve ever heard?”
Katarina is looking at Martina. Her eyes are open so wide I can see all around her iris.
Something in me snaps. It feels like I’ve suddenly woken up.
“That’s not fucking funny,” I say. Somehow, my voice sounds calm and controlled, even though that is the last thing I feel.
Martina turns to me.
“Well, of course it’s funny, Isobel,” she coos. “Just picture it. Little Katarina, curled up on the floor, crying because she was cold. All she had to do was not talk back so much! It’s all just so silly.”
“Stop it!” I raise my voice, but she’s still talking, now turning to Pernilla, who looks on in equal parts horror and fascination.
“When she was a teenager, Katarina’s mom and dad would do weekly weigh-ins for her,” Martina keeps going, in a hushed tone. “And if she had gained weight, they wouldn’t let her have dinner until the next week. Once…” She leans in even farther.
“Once, Katarina snuck down and ate the leftovers out of the trash. She was crying into the garbage, she was so scared of getting caught. Isn’t that absolutely mad?” Her eyes are sparkling.
“Don’t tell them about that.” Katarina’s voice has turned into a low growl.
“Stop it, Martina!” I’m nearly yelling now, but Martina just keeps going, raising her voice until it’s louder than the rain, louder than anything, until it’s the only thing that exists in the world.
“Katarina still has dinner with her parents once a week. And about a month ago, they decided to send her here to have her fixed. They’re upset, you see, that Katarina isn’t married yet.
So they sent her here to have her taken care of, like she’s a broken toy.
Isn’t that just the funniest thing you’ve ever heard? ”
Martina throws her head back and laughs, and Katarina catapults out of her chair.
“SHUT UP!” she screams at the top of her lungs. “JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
Martina’s laugh cuts off, as though someone’s pushed a button.
Katarina is standing over her, panting, her cheeks red, her chest working like bellows, and she has one hand raised, shaking, in the air.
I don’t know if she’s straining to hit Martina, or straining not to.
“There,” Martina says softly. “There it is.”
Katarina is crying soundlessly, swallowing in giant gulps of air.
“You’re angry,” Martina states plainly. “Say it. Say that you are angry.”
There’s hunger in her eyes, in her grasping hands, a sort of horrible anticipation.
“You hate me,” she breathes. “Come on. Admit it.”
Katarina slowly lowers her hand.
And then she shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “I don’t.”
For a long, vibrating moment, Martina looks at Katarina. Something passes between them.
Then Martina sighs.
“Okay.” She stands up, disgust radiating from her. “Fine.”
Katarina flinches, but Martina just walks right past her, to the door.
“I think we’ll be skipping the break today,” she tosses out over her shoulder. “I’ll go tell Anna and Belinda to bring us some tea and treats.”
She closes the door behind her with a bang.