Free Grace by Linn Ullmann Page A

too. Sleep was possible tonight, Johan thought, and he squeezed her hand. Sleep. Peace. You’re my best friend, Mai.
    And just as sleep was enfolding him in its great black cloak, Mai sat up and switched on the lamp. Johan’s eyes snapped open. “What’s the matter?” he whispered. “I thought we were sleeping.”
    “We’re not sleeping,” she said. “Anyway, I’m not.”
    “What’s the matter, Mai?”
    “Johan, what you’re asking me to do is against the law!”
    “What?” Johan rubbed his eyes.
    “What you’re asking me to do. What you’ve asked me several times to do.”
    “Oh, that,” he whispered.
    “It’s against the law.”
    “What damn law?”
    “Norwegian law. It’s against everything the Medical Association of this country stands for, don’t you see that?”
    Johan was wide awake now. “And what about your own law, Mai?”
    She thumped a fist on the comforter and looked at him. “My own law doesn’t count, dammit. Do you realize that you’re asking me to commit a crime?”
    Johan’s eyes filled with tears. He hadn’t expected this. “Well, we’ll just have to go to Holland,” he said softly. “Or Belgium, someplace where it’s not a crime. And then we’ll have to bide our time in some hotel room until this cadaver is rotten enough for you to agree, with the law’s blessing— because that’s what matters to you, isn’t it?—to give me a
legal
injection.” He had to stop for breath. Then he said softly, “I thought you wouldn’t do it because . . . I thought you had personal reasons. I never thought about the
legal
aspect. I was thinking of this as a personal act, Mai, an agreement between two old friends, an act of mercy, that’s all.”
    “I know,” Mai said.
    “You’re the one who took Charley to the vet to be put to sleep. You didn’t balk at that.”
    “No.”
    “Woof, woof,” he murmured.
    She smiled.
    “Oh, what the hell,” Johan said, as if to put an end to the conversation. “Maybe I’ll come through this. That’s what I mean to do, you know.”
    Mai was not listening. She didn’t even notice when he tapped her arm.
    “Mai?” he whispered. “Where are you? Come back.”
    She seized his hand. “Would you like to know why this is so difficult for me, Johan?”
    “I thought we were sleeping,” he said, shaking his head.
    There were tears in her eyes. “I think it’s monstrous to force a person to go on living against his will. I think it’s monstrous that people who are mortally ill and in great pain cannot be given help to die when they choose—if they ask for it, I mean. You talk about dignity. There is no dignity, Johan. People who are dying, old or sick or both, are reduced to helpless infants—first by nature, then by the hospitals. Is that what they mean by respect for human life? I can’t see that happen to you. I won’t. It goes against everything that is good and beautiful and true.”
    Johan stared at the comforter. “That’s right,” he said.
    “You ask me to help you, and I will, Johan. I will. You’re my husband, and I would give you anything, even this. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid that my courage will fail me because it’s you. Because you’re my best friend. Because I don’t want to see you die, even if life, for you, becomes nothing but pain. And I am scared of the consequences for me.”
    She’s going too far, he thought. I don’t want this, not like this.
    He said, “Yes, but it might not come to that, Mai. I’m feeling pretty good, actually. I think I’m on the mend.”
    Mai clasped his hand between her two. She snuggled up close to him and kissed his lips. “My darling Johan.”
    Johan cleared his throat. “I don’t think we should get too carried away, either. Here I am now, lying right next to you, alive and kicking.” He got out of bed and started to jump up and down in the white light of the bedside lamps. “See? Alive and kicking!” He waved his arms about as he jumped. “From now on, just