would be made available to poor students during her absence. She consulted a lawyer regarding her investments. She dined almost nightly with Agatha and her family. She canceled her subscriptions to the scholarly periodicals. The golden watch presented an unexpected problem, because of course her clothes had no pockets suitable for such a heavy ugly thing, nor was she sufficiently unsentimental to leave it behind; eventually she decided to have a chain made and wear it around her neck, where it beat against her heart.
She visited her subjects and made arrangements for their future. The Andresen girl she transferred into Dr. Ekstein’s care; the girl’s pale and fainting neurasthenic despair might, she hoped, respond well to Ekstein’s gruff cheerfulness. The Fussel boy she bequeathed to Dr. Naumann, who might find his frequent sexual rages interesting. With a satisfying stroke of her pen, she split the von Meer twins—who suffered from cobwebbed and romantic nightmares—sending one girl to Dr. Ekstein and the other to Dr. Lenkman. An excellent idea, as they only encouraged each other’s hysteria. She wondered why she hadn’t done it years ago! The Countess Romsdal had nothing at all wrong with her, in Liv’s opinion, other than being too rich and too idle and too self-obsessed; so she thought Dr. Seidel might as well humor her. She gave Wilhelm and the near-catatonic Olanden boy to Dr. Bergman. She sent sweet little Bernarda, who was scared of candles and shadows and windows and her husband, to a rest cure in the mountains. As for Maggfrid . . .
Maggfrid came crashing into her office, late in the afternoon. He never understood to knock. The shock made her spill ink on her writing desk. He was in tears. “Doctor—you’re leaving?”
She put down her pen and sighed. “Maggfrid, I told you I was leaving last week. And the week before that.”
“They told me you were leaving.”
“I told you I was leaving. Don’t you remember?”
He stood there dumbly for a moment, then hurried over and began to mop at her desk with his sleeve. She put her hand on his arm to stop him.
He was nearly a giant. His huge hands were scarred from a multitude of small accidents—he didn’t have the sense to look after himself properly. Someone who didn’t know him might have found him terrifying—in fact, he was gentle and as loyal as a dog. Maggfrid was her first subject and, in a manner of speaking, her oldest friend.
Maggfrid’s condition was congenital. His own blood had betrayed him. Sterile, he was the last of a line of imbeciles. Liv had found him sweeping the stone floors of the Institute in Tuborrhen, where she herself had spent some years in a high white-walled room, in a fragile state, after the death of her mother. He’d been kind to her then. Later, when she was stronger, he’d been happy to be her test subject; he was always simple and eager to please. He would answer questions for hours with his brow furrowed with effort. He bore even the more intrusive physical examinations without complaint. There were three ugly scars across his bald head, and a burn from a faulty electroplate, but he didn’t mind. She couldn’t heal him—she had quickly realized he was beyond mending—but he’d provided subject matter for a number of successful monographs, and in return she’d found him work sweeping the floors of August Hall.
“Doctor—”
“You’ll be fine, Maggfrid. You hardly need me anymore.”
He began mopping up the ink again. “Maggfrid, no . . .”
She couldn’t stop him. She watched him work. He scrubbed with intense determination. It occurred to her that she could get up, walk away, lock the office behind her, and he might remain standing there, implacably scrubbing in the darkness. It was a sad thought.
Besides, she might need a bodyguard; she would need someone to carry her bags. It was even possible that fresh air, adventure, new scenery would do him good. It was certainly what she needed.
She put a hand on his arm again. “Maggfrid: Have you ever wanted to travel?”
It took nearly a minute for his big pale face to break into a grin; and then he lifted her from behind her desk and spun her like a child, until the room was a blur and she laughed and told him to let her down.
She spent her very last day at the Faculty on the banks of the river. She sat next to Agatha on an outstretched blanket. They fed the swans and discussed