8
The Hall Institution, Södertälje, Sweden
May 31
It was finally time, now the shit was about to be kicked out.
Unlike Larry and Sergio Ludwig was not the least bit nervous, but I guess it's hard to nervous when you don´t care.
A few hours after the lights went out Ludwig lit a small flashlight he managed to keep despite several searches. He took down the poster that sat between Hopper and Crewdson and spread it out on the bed. The metallic rose was now completely green.
He removed the cover on the TV and lifted the boards and put them upside down. He picked apart the metal bits which had stuck together his watch every time he left the carpentry shop.
He put everything up systematically on the floor with one eye on the rose. He removed the brackets on the bed, screwed off the short legs of the stool. He put everything neatly on the floor, all the pieces belonging to the cluster on the metallic rose. He studied the rose a few minutes. Looked at the parts lying on the floor.
He started.
After a few hours, everything was dismantled in the cell, the bed frame was just a few planks at a lumber yard, the TV was disassembled, and the table and the stool lay in a pile.
His drawing was correct.
It was the most peculiar bolt cutter he had ever seen.
The metal was hopefully strong enough and the brackets from the bed and the legs of the stool gave him the power he needed.
He took the blanket from the duvet cover and the sheet from the mattress. The seams of the mattress went up when he ripped out all the strips he had torn the last few months. He tied them together into a twenty-meter long snake. Of the pieces that were left he made a small rope of five meters.
He looked out the window.
A spotlight shone on the yard.
Ludwig was on the second floor of the C building. A fence with barbed wire was twenty meters from the cell. Ten meters from the fence stood a seven meter high wall.
Ludwig looked through the window of his door into the corridor. There was only darkness.
He put his head against the door. Heard no steps. The warders had retired. The laid-back night round hung in front of a TV in the staff room. He turned around. Looked at the grid window.
Before he committed his crime he had been a lawful person except that he downloaded a few songs, a few movies, a few terabytes of TV shows from the internet. In his youth he had shoplifted some Jenka-gum at the local tobacco shop, which he at that time was quite proud of.
We used to joke that it was the little excitement the upper middle class kids could afford.
But never something like what he did last year.
Never, never ever.
The opinion was not shared by all but there was still a silent consensus that where Ludwig came from, they reasoned that kind of shit was reserved for morons from the poor immigrant suburbs. It was white trash who went on caravan holiday and desperate refugee children who had no choice, who chose that career.
Now he stood in the doorway for another great crime.
He looked across the yard and thought. The zombie-life of the Institution was a charade he did not have the energy to maintain.
He slid around like a stone face on the day but they who were locked up in his hall knew his nights.
The warders knew what was happening in his cell. But Ludwig refused to talk to the psychologist about it. Not a word more than the usual lies that he knew would get him out of the room and back to the carpentry.
The pain was his.
No one else in the world could feel it.
He did not share it with anyone.
He held it within him like a mother carrying her child. But just as a child the pain grew. The recent attacks were early labor. If he did not escape from prison, he would implode.
Without hesitation he proceeded.
He took it gently so that he would not bend the metal on the bolt cutter. The grille on the window gave way after a few minutes. It took another hour before he got rid of the entire grid. He used the sharp portions of the metal pieces to cut a large square on the screen.
He pushed gently on the window and got it up in one corner. He could slowly push the square from top to bottom so that it did not fall to the ground. His head just got through the hole.
The summer night´s balmy heat wafted towards his face and hair. Crickets and fresh air. No warders came his way while he cut out the rest of the window.
He hitched a knot on the writing desk with the short rope and threw it down on the ground. He threw the bolt cutter down on the sheet. Climbed down. He crouched down in the darkness.
No sirens.
He heard no steps coming towards him.
He ran crouching up against the fence. Cut a hole. Ran back to the C house wall where he was more protected. Wanted to be as little as possible at the wall and fence.
He tied the bolt cutter on one end of the sheet.
Waited. Listened.
The only sound still was the crickets and the light breeze in the trees outside the wall.
He took no risks. He waited for the right time.
When he was sure he ran through the hole in the fence. He used the bolt cutter like an anchor at one end of the sheet. Threw over the wall.
He pulled gently to see if it got stuck in the wall's edge.
It did not.
He threw the sheet again. Pulled even more cautious. He pulled it harder.
The anchor was stuck in the bottom of the wall on the other side.
He climbed the wall with the help of the sheet. Threw a quick glance across the courtyard and prison. Still, he was undetected.
He drew the anchor on the side of the prison wall and climbed down into freedom instead of jumping at the risk of getting hurt.
When he reached five feet outside he heard a siren go off.
Power spotlights lit up the yard.
After a few more meters a spotlight was directed on the field he ran over. 200 meters ahead was a large forest.
He thought of the breathing. Thought about the running stride. He could not do more than run. After half a minute, he reached the edge of the forest.
Ludwig heard dogs being set loose from the gates of Hall and the bark came closer. He quickly climbed up a tree.
Took off his clothes and hung on the branches.
Climbed down.
Despite the balmy summer night heat it was cold without clothes. Without blinking, he rolled down in a mud pool and anointed himself in the mud in an effort not to smell.
He ran further into the woods.
After a while he stopped and listened. It seemed as if the dogs stayed by the clothes.
He ran forward towards his mother's summer house. Under the steps there was a package of ten thousand kronor that the journalist put there. He took it up with the key in the pot next to the stairs and unlocked.
In a dresser in his room was an old cell phone he left several summers ago. He washed and pulled on some old clothes that he had at the house and crashed on the sofa.
Although he tried not to think about it the remorse gnawed him, the fact that he had to mix his mother in even though she could easily argue good faith. She knew, after all, nothing about the fact that he was going to use the summer house.
He had not hesitated for a second to take the help of a friend but it was not an option. Ever since he met his girlfriend Ella a few years back, he had begun to drift away from his friends. He had stopped to call on weekdays, they too. When he met Ella at a party and then moved in with her a few weeks later he stopped answering when they called. He thought it was nice to get rid of them. He was rather alone than with those who did not want to be with him. They were selfish pigs that left him if it was more fun elsewhere. He never understood why, maybe it was because he could be absent from time to time, he preferred other worlds. He went into them when he wanted to escape reality. But he was tired of being number two. Three. Four.
With Ella, he wanted to experience
the world as it was, with her.
Ludwig left the summer house with the money and the cell phone after only fifteen minutes. There was a lake a few hundred yards away, near was an abandoned cottage where an old car stood. He went there and broke in by kicking up the rotten wood of the front door.
The sunrise was near.
It was three o'clock in the morning. He waited for the police to arrive at the mother's summer house. He knew that the prison opened all the letters that were sent in and out of the institution. However, the main purpose was to look for objects. He did not think they had any system to record flight plans and other suspicious activities. But he wanted to be on the safe side. He waited half an hour.
The police did not show up. Ludwig walked out to the car that he and Ella had run rally with several times a few years ago. No one knew who owned the cottage or the car. The keys were in the ignition and there was some soup9 left in the tank from when they drove last year. The old car started as dutifully as a Kalashnikov.
He drove south on the highway in the direction of Malmö.
The only time he stopped was to refuel at a gas station outside Skärblacka. He bought a pasta salad and a Coke to stay awake. He ate in the car in the parking lot which was deserted. The salad was dry but the Coke made him perk up.
He reached Malmö at 9 in the morning. Next to a few bikes at the central station he dumped the car and walked into a kiosk. He bought a prepaid phone card, plugged it into the phone and threw the old one. The notes that the journalist left at the summer house was newly printed and straight. He fed the ticket machine with two hundred kronor, and bought a ticket for the train to Copenhagen.
From Copenhagen he took the bus to Rödby, from Rödby boat to Puttgarten, from there bus via Lübeck to Berlin. He took the complicated road to avoid flying where passport was mandatory. Moreover, it was significantly more risky (he also disliked flying, last trip was to the United States with Ella with constant air pits and anxious cries in the cabin).
When he got to the bus terminal in Berlin, he ran into the bathroom. The booths had short doors, which he liked. He had to pee up ´til the point of insanity because he refused to go on the bus toilet, which he thought was too small. Ever since he was little, he had had claustrophobia. He had fought against it several times but always got to surrender.
When Ella was with him, stood outside, he had no problem with tight spaces. Unless she was with he avoided them. He did not believe anyone would help him if he was locked up.
When he was finished, he took out the little bag the journalist put money in. Among the bills he saw the carton with Imovane tablets which he brought with him from the C-House. He hated pills and he refused to eat them since a few years back but Imovane was the exception. The pills evoked the memory of the psychologists and the legal drug industry. They had forced benzodiazepines on him which he put under the tongue and tossed in a trash can in the dining room.
But Imovane was vital.
He had four pills left, which was equal to two nights. He almost always took a double dose. He blocked all thoughts of what would happen if they ran out.
The train to Berlin stopped at Pariser Platz. Ludwig got off and bought a coffee at Starbucks to stay awake even though he did not drink.
To kill time he exchanged money and went into a few shops, he bought deodorant, boxers, socks, T-shirts and two pairs of pants. He put everything in a shoulder bag which he bought in a mall. He washed away the stench from his armpits in a public toilet, which smelled of piss. He stroked on deo, tore off the price tag on a T-shirt and pulled on.
He went to Berlin Hauptbahnhof. While he waited for the train, he stopped at one of the terminal monitors to watch a newscast, just in case he had been put on an international wanted list, which was highly unlikely. Just as he thought the newscast mentioned nothing.
He got on the train to Vienna.
As the train passed through Leipzig Ludwig had been on toilet for over half an hour. It was crowded as on airplane toilet but he had no choice. He sat on the toilet seat with his pants on and saw that damn monkey in front of him with Ella.
The ape laughed and rubbed his hand over Ella's cheek as if Ludwig was not there.
Ludwig clenched his fist.
Knuckles whitened.
He felt his nails press against his palm.
His whole body was shaking.
He heard someone knock on the door. The train of thought broke. He held his breath.
A female voice, soft and gentle, could be heard through the door.
”Entschuldigen Sie mich, geehrten Sir, Leute warten.”
Ludwig waited a few seconds, then the same voice said.
”Excuse me, sir, people are waiting.”
Ludwig got a cold sweat. He tried to collect himself. After a while he replied.
”Okay, sorry, I'll be right out.”
He heard nothing back. He flushed for the sake of it. Splashed water on his face. Wiped his eyes.
He pushed the door open with an apologetic smile, he smiled with his mouth but not with his eyes. The train host and the cursed elderly couple who wanted to enter looked at him without saying anything. He went back to his compartment.
He allowed himself to exhale. Sweden was a bigger sound and 100 miles away. He let the feeling sink in, never to return to Sweden.
Because of what had happened the return was inconceivable, unthinkable for him to want.
As he relaxed he felt it buckled in the chest. Through the window a large plain spread out. He pictured himself that he was in a desolate winter landscape by the artist Friedrich. Like the man in the painting he had with his last strength, tossed aside the crutches and settled down to pray, even though he was far from religious.
Ella had always mocked him because he loved the German and English landscape paintings, but they gave him peace. A peace that he could not explain.
He was as lonely as the man in Friedrich´s painting.
He knew it and felt it with his whole body. But according to Ludwig, there were no options, no anything.
Ella was the only one he had.
He had always thought it was a miracle that he met her. He was always awkward with girls. When he met new girls he would always scratch his hair, become embarrassed and nervous, even though he had no reason. Now and then he would look at her when she danced, talked, baked bread in the kitchen and ask himself how it was that she loved him.
Ludwig felt he had no control. Emotions welled within him and took over. When he encountered problems in the past, before Ella, he had used his logical tools: Boolean algebra, propositional logic, systems criticism, syllogisms, Occam's razor. He was always thinking logically, evaluating alternatives calmly. The methods were many and had in common that they were guided by reason. Now the feelings ruled even if it was difficult for him to accept it.
He took out the phone and picked up the email response he had received from August. Hopefully he could work to get rid of the anxiety. On paper August's library was the perfect hiding place.
He had recognized the cipher immediately which August had posted in the ad. It was the famous cipher from one of the first crypto books in history, Steganographia, written by the Abbot of Sponheim, Johannes Trithemius who lived in the 1400s.
August's response came after a few days and was short: