Stefan's Renaissance

[ingebjorg9]

This is a piece I wrote after I saw "The Secret", the final episode in the first series of Wallander.

**Spoiler alert!!!**  Towards the end of the episode Stefan shoots himself because of the dark secret he's been carrying and its consequences.  I found this quite upsetting, not least because he's my favourite character.  Because I wasn't ready to say goodbye to him yet, I wrote this story, which creates an alternative reality in which he doesn't die, and actually has to come to terms with what's happened in his life.

I had the gun to my head and I was waiting for the resolve to pull the trigger.  You see, I didn’t shoot him.  He shot me, but I didn’t return the favour.  And when I crawled out of that animal’s hole, Roffe, that even bigger animal followed in my tracks.  He fired the gun, then came to screw with my head.

 

But I couldn’t expect them to believe that.  They’d already put me on leave.  My life was in ruins and Roffe was the final nail in the coffin.  His presence and the things he said to me brought the whole damn thing flooding back to me in excruciating detail.  I wanted to kill that pig so much, but he was right.  I’m not a killer.  I messed up that as well as everything else, not that anyone would believe me.  Once they found my blood at the scene that would be it.  Goodbye job.  Goodbye purpose.  Goodbye everything.  I wanted to go.

So I sat in the chair, but it was taking me all the courage I could find to actually pull the trigger on myself.  I mean, if you give up on yourself, who else will hold out for you?  I guess I hadn’t actually given up at that point. My finger failed to pull the trigger then, just like it had done before.

Then I heard a bang at the window that made me jump and look up.  Suddenly she was in the room.  I had never seen her before in my life.

“Put the gun down, yes?” she said in an even voice.

“No,” I croaked.  “I want out.”

“Please put the gun down,” she repeated.  “Let me help you.”

“How the hell can you help me?” I cried.  “You’ve got no idea.”

“I know.  But please don’t do it yet.  Talk to me.  Please.”

And I was so exhausted, no distance left to run, no gas in the tank.  I let the gun slip from my fingers then, because it was easier not to fight, just talk to her.  She quickly and quietly picked up the gun and emptied it of bullets, as if perhaps she had done this before.  The sound of them hitting the floor didn’t even make me jump.

And I told her the whole sordid tale of my life right down to that moment.  I had absolutely no idea who she was or how she had ended up in my house, but she was there and it was so easy just to let everything finally spill out and to feel her stroke my hair back from my face and lay a gentle but firm hand on my shoulder as she crouched next to me.

When I was done, she got a towel and wiped the sweat from my face.  My eyes were almost closed but she held my face in her hands.

“Look at me,” she said.  “I’m going to get you help.  Nobody should go through what you’ve been through.  I can get you help and…”

“I don’t need a shrink,” I mumbled.  “I just need someone to listen to me for once.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.  I can make sure you get that.  Someone who can help you sort out the mess.”

I didn’t have the strength to argue.  She helped me on to my feet and we shuffled into the bathroom, where she dressed my bullet wound and washed my face.  I felt like a very small child again.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” she said.  We shuffled to the bedroom.  She put a clean T-shirt on me, took the belt from my jeans and pulled the quilt over me as I lay down.

“I’m going to call for some medical help,” I heard her say, as she cleared the room of sharp objects, bootlaces and empty bottles.  “With a wound like that you should be in the hospital.”

“Are you a doctor?” I asked, thinking about how she had tended my shoulder, how she had talked me down.  She knew what she was doing.

“No, a nurse.  It’s a good thing I stopped here.  I was just looking for directions.”

I wasn’t sure how a good a thing it was.  But I felt weak, sleepy.  It was hard to care any more.  Maybe she would find the photo in the living room.  But did it matter?  She already knew all about me.  Maybe I wouldn’t wake up.  Maybe this was all a nightmare.

I fell asleep.

 

 

When I woke, Linda was standing over me, shaking my shoulder.  My head was killing me and I was once again stone cold sober.

“Don’t!” I lashed out at her: she was shaking my injured shoulder.  “Stop it!”

“What have you done?” she gasped at me.  “What the hell?  How could you even think of killing yourself?”

She knew.  Damn.

I looked at her.  I felt helpless.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean…” I croaked.

“Didn’t mean to kill yourself?  Didn’t mean to hurt me?  Did you even stop and think about how I would feel or how Kurt would feel, or about any of us?”

Hell mend me.  I hated then what I’d done to her.  I covered my face with my hands because I knew I was going to cry.  I just wanted her to leave.  I didn’t want her to see me sob like a little kid.

“Linda, I’m sorry…” was all that made it out of my mouth before the searing tears began to escape.

“Stefan,” she whispered, hugging me.  “It’s all right.  I found the photo.  I think I understand what’s been happening to you.”  She was crying too: I could feel wet drips trickling through my hair.

“He was here.  Roffe was here,” I gasped.  “Tried to get me to give him the photo.  He said he’d clear everything up for me, but that photo is my proof.  It’s how I know it was all real, it really happened…”

Linda suddenly stood bolt upright.

“Roffe?  I knew it.  The son of a …”

We were interrupted, as a couple of ambulance men charged into the room with a trolley.

“Stefan?  You’re going to be all right.  We’re taking you to hospital.”

“No!”  I struggled.  I did not want to go hospital.  “I’m fine, I need to stay here.”

“Stefan, go with them,” Linda said wearily.  “Just let them do their job.”

I looked at her again as they wheeled me out.  Her face was wet and strained.  I’d seen her upset before.  But not this upset.  And not because of me.  Hell mend me.

 

 

I never found out who my mystery nurse was. I’m told she came to hospital once when I was sleeping and stood at the door, looking in at me.  We never met again while I was awake.  I will never forget how she stroked my hair as I talked that night.

My shoulder healed eventually, after I was on antibiotics for a fortnight.  Then they tried to work out how to fix my head and I got a psychiatrist that I didn’t want.

“I don’t need a shrink!” I screamed at him, feeling the familiar creeping rage rising into my throat.  The shrink didn’t seem to mind my outburst.  I was expecting him to analyse me and give me “insights”. Instead, he sat and I talked.  He was very quiet and still as I told him about the abuse.  It felt strange to be open about the secret.  My secret.  I have hung on to this heavy weight for most of my life.  It felt weird to let some of it go.  I thought I would kill me to talk to the shrink about it, but as it happened it didn’t.

When I looked up, he was looking at me intently.  I saw empathy and acceptance on his face.  It took me by surprise and then I didn’t know what more to say.

“Stefan, what you’ve been going through is common for people who suffered abuse in childhood.”

“Huh…” I mumbled, smiling a bitter little smile.  All the same, it was a relief not to feel like a freak.

“Will I ever feel… normal?” I ventured reluctantly.

“Your experiences will always be a part of you.  Nobody can change the past.  But you can change your future, and we can help.  You can get back on an even keel again in time.”

Good enough, I thought.  Kurt had thought I was burnt out.  I was never burnt out.  I needed him to know that.

 

 

While I was in hospital, Roffe finally got what was coming to him, the molesting scum.  I heard that Nyberg and Svartman worked out that the wound on Johannes’s head was from a bolt inside the elusive van that Roffe said he’d borrowed from Rhunberg’s brother.  I heard that Linda tracked down the van and found Roffe about to give his girlfriend’s little boy the same treatment he gave Johannes.  I heard Kurt had to talk her out of shooting the scumbag.

I’ve never been as sick as I was when I heard what Roffe had almost done to yet another boy.  It was all I could do to walk back to my room on shaking legs, with the world spinning around me.  The doctor gave me Valium and I slept it off.

Then Linda came to visit me.

Sitting in an easy chair in my hospital room she looked pale, but happier than before.  I sat looking at her, wondering that she had managed to nail the predator who nearly destroyed my life.

“It was for you, you know,” she said quietly.

I nodded.  “I know.”

“Look Stefan,” she was gazing at her hands.  “I know it didn’t work out with us.”

I gave her a sad smile and she continued: “But I’m your friend, whatever happens, and I love you.”

I held her hand for a while after that, it was good to hear.  I will never forgive myself for hurting her.  I will probably never have a better friend.

 

 

They left a respectful length of time before calling me back into the station for interviews.  I dreaded the probing, the interrogation, the knowledge that they now knew all about me and the fact that they could take away the thing that has given my life meaning.

In the end, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  I got a slap on the wrist and a total dressing down from Holgersson’s boss.  But because of my “extenuating circumstances” they were going to be lenient and I could come back to work once I “felt up to it”, provided I promised to keep up my therapy.  They thought they were being kind.  I hated them to the pit of my stomach, the patronising SOBs.

A few weeks later I went back to work.  I went into the station early.  I didn’t want everyone seeing me come in and making a huge fuss about it.  Walking down the familiar corridors I felt like I had been away a long time.

Typically, Kurt was in his office already.  This annoyed me: I had wanted to be there before him so I could work out what I was going to say to him.  When he saw me come in he beckoned me into his office.  I entered silently, feeling and looking dour.

Kurt looked up from his desk and caught my eye.

“Sit down Stefan,” he said in a quiet voice.  I sat obediently, challenging him with my stare.

“Remember the last time you were in here?”

“Hmm.”

“You tried to ask me for help, but I didn’t want to listen to you.  I should have let you speak to me then and it would have saved us both a lot of grief.  I’m sorry.”

I nodded, still staying silent.  Kurt looked more gloomy than I had seen him in a long time.  He seemed very weary.  He met my gaze again.

“Stefan, you have been one of my best officers and I should have recognised that a lot sooner.  I thought you had failed us, when really we failed you.  I’m sorry I got it wrong.”

I nodded again.

“How many people know… about me?”  I had to ask.

“Only those who needed to know.  It’s not common knowledge.  Everyone else thinks you’ve been off sick.”

I sighed, then gave Kurt a slightly ironic smile.

“I guess I have been sick.  But I’m back now.  I can handle things.”

“Good.  And if you need to you can come and speak to me, okay?”  He patted my shoulder in the slightly awkward way blokes do when they’re talking to someone about stuff like this.

“Yeah.”

“Well, you’d better get out there.  There’s a hell of a lot of paperwork we’ve been saving for you.”

I turned to look at him incredulously, but he was laughing to himself

“Oh, ha ha!” I snarked back and turned to leave.  It was like old times.

“Stefan?”  I glanced back at him.  “It’s good to have you back.”

I nodded acknowledgement and went to my desk.

 

 

With hindsight, I can see that many people have given me a second chance.  I could easily not be here now, without my mysterious Good Samaritan, without Linda and yes, without Kurt and the shrinks and doctors and all those people who seem to think that it’s better for me still to be here.  And because they gave me a second chance, I have to give myself a second chance.  This is the hardest thing of all.

I wouldn’t say I’m a completely reborn man.  I hate that swine Roffe for what he did to me, and always will.  I would kick his head in if I ever saw him again.  I still get angry; I still sail close to the wind sometimes.  I still have no patience with people who screw me around.  I still wish Linda would come back to me, even though she never will. We’ll forevermore be friends and nothing more.

I spend a lot of time walking on the beach now, and looking at the sea.  It helps me think.  I got back in touch with Levi.  He has a new friend now, but they like to play football on the beach and sometimes I join them.  Levi looks up to me.  He says he wants to be a policeman too.  I’ve told him to concentrate on football.  It’s less likely to screw up your life.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.  I hope I have the strength to survive.  I hope I get the chance to outgrow everything Roffe and his twisted friends did all those years ago.  I want justice, not just for me but for all the people we deal with and every day I live my life instead of freaking out is another finger up to him and his twisted kind.

Just maybe my life hasn’t been a total failure after all.