The Sanatorium(109)

Elin tenses. She doesn’t like Cecile’s tone. The unnatural coherence, the discipline of her words . . . it feels wrong.

“That’s when our marriage started crumbling. Michel left eight months later. He said it was because I’d changed, but I knew it was because I was damaged. He wanted someone whole, someone who functioned properly.”

“You should have told me,” Lucas says. “You should have told me all this.”

But it’s as if Cecile can’t hear him. She carries on, relentless. “That’s when you called, told me about your plans for the sanatorium, asked me to be a part of it.” She gives a grim nod. “I knew that was my chance to confront Daniel, make him acknowledge what he’d done.”

“You spoke to him?” Lucas shifts position on the lounger. Blood is trickling down his face, running from his eyebrow to his cheek, but he doesn’t reach up to wipe it away. His focus is on Cecile.

Cecile moves closer, right beside him. Her posture would almost be casual, if it weren’t for the knife in her hand. “Yes. A few weeks after I came back. I told him you’d asked me to work for you, wanted to know if he was okay with it.”

“What did he say?”

“That he was fine with it. There was nothing. Not even a flicker.” Cecile’s eyes darken. “You know, I used to wonder whether he ever thought about it. If what he’d done had eaten him up over the years, that when he closed his eyes at night, he remembered me, but seeing him then, I knew he didn’t. I knew he’d never be held accountable, not even by himself. He’d swept it aside, maybe even convinced himself that I’d wanted it, or maybe he didn’t even remember.” She hesitates. “Either way, he’d reduced me. Compartmentalized me. Just like the doctors did here. The doctors who were trusted to make people better.”

Cecile turns to face Elin. “You see, that’s where you’re wrong, about this not being about the sanatorium, what happened here. This place, its secrets . . . they were the final straw.” Her gaze flicks back to Lucas. “You tell her, Lucas. Tell her the truth about this place.”





89





Lucas’s voice is low, still slightly garbled. “Before the build started, Margot contacted us, asking questions about one of her relatives. Margot had found out from a clinic in Germany that she’d been transferred here, to the sanatorium. We searched, couldn’t find anything in the official files. I said we’d look into it.”

“Margot contacted you directly?” Elin clenches her hands together then releases. Her fingers are freezing now, numb at the tips.

“Yes. We looked as she’d asked, found something in a cupboard in one of the old wards. A box. You could tell it hadn’t been opened for years. Inside, I found documents, photographs, patient files. Diaries. All women. I started reading, and I realized that these patients . . . they didn’t have TB. That wasn’t what they came to the sanatorium for.”

Elin absorbs what he’s said, feels a horrible sense of inevitability about what’s coming next.

“The patients were referred from the clinic in Germany. While they were here, they participated in trials. It started off as experimentation for new treatments, then it seemed to”—his voice falters—“escalate. The more we dug, the more we found. Photographs, records, but you could tell from the images, the notes, that they weren’t experiments anymore. They’d become something else.”

“It was abuse.” Cecile’s voice is barely audible. “The age-old abuse of power; it was an exploitation of vulnerable women.” She meets Elin’s gaze. “The women had nothing clinically wrong with them. They were sent to the clinic in Germany by their fathers, husbands, doctors, under the guise of a medical condition, but often it was simply because their behavior went against the status quo. Of what was acceptable for women at the time. They had too many ideas, were too outspoken. It wasn’t uncommon.” She turns her face to the floor, disgust marring her features. “Some of them, the unlucky few, were transferred here.”

Nodding, Elin keeps her voice level. “So why didn’t you bring the files to light right away?”

“Lucas said the negative press would affect the hotel. All he wanted was to carry on with the build.” Cecile grimaces. “Daniel had the same reaction when we told him. ‘It’s in the past. Forget it.’”

“Cecile, that’s not fair.” Lucas tries to sit up. “If people knew what had happened, there would have been an investigation, it would have affected the plans for the hotel.”

“Nothing was going to stop you, was it? The hotel, it was all that mattered.” She glances at Elin. “Lucas and Daniel already knew about the grave in the photograph, that there were more. It got flagged during the survey of the site. Lucas chose to ignore it. Carry on. Another bribe. Another person choosing to look the other way.”

Lucas winces as he shifts position. “I didn’t see why something that happened so long ago should affect what this place had the potential to become.”

“But that’s it, Lucas. Can’t you see? The point is, it’s still happening. Every abuse of power, every rape, every harassment. It’s still happening.” Cecile crouches down next to him, her face close, only inches from his. “It’s too easy, isn’t it? To turn the other cheek. Ignore the consequences. Even worse, we’re complicit in it. Not just men, it’s women too.”