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comes what’s called the induction,” says Erik. “I insert a kind of hidden command into what I say and get the patient to imagine places and simple events. I suggest a walk in his thoughts, farther and farther away, until his need to control the situation almost disappears. It’s a little bit like when you’re reading a book and it gets so exciting that you’re no longer aware of the fact that you’re sitting reading.”
    “I understand.”
    “If you lift the patient’s hand like this and then let go, the hand should stay where it is, in the air, cataleptic, when the induction is over,” Erik explains. “After the induction I count backwards and deepen the hypnosis further. I usually count, but others have the patient visualize a grey scale, in order to dissolve the boundaries in his mind. What is actually taking place on a practical level is that the fear, or the critical way of thinking that is blocking certain memories, is put out of action.”
    “Will you be able to hypnotize him?”
    “If he doesn’t resist.”
    “What happens then?” asks Joona. “What happens if he does resist?”
    Erik studies the boy through the window in the door, trying to read the boy’s face, his receptiveness.
    “It’s difficult to say what I’ll get out of him. It could be of very variable relevance,” he says.
    “I’m not after a witness statement. I just want a hint, a clue, something to go on.”
    “So all you want me to look for is the person who did this to them?”
    “A name or a place would be good, some kind of connection.”
    “I have no idea how this is going to go,” says Erik, taking a deep breath.

Chapter 17
tuesday, december 8 : morning
     
     
    Joona goes into the recovery room with Erik, sits on a chair in the corner, slips off his shoes, and leans back. Erik dims the light, pulls up a metal stool, and sits down next to the bed. Carefully he begins to explain to the boy that he wants to hypnotize him in order to help him understand what happened yesterday.
    “Josef, I’m going to be sitting here the whole time,” says Erik calmly. “There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. You can feel completely safe. I’m here for your sake. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to say, and you can bring the hypnosis to an end whenever you want to.”
    Only now, his heart pounding, does Erik begin to realize how much he has longed to do this. He must try to curb his enthusiasm. The pace of events must not be forced or hurried along. It must be filled with stillness; it must be allowed to slow down and be experienced at its own gentle tempo.
    He immediately feels how receptive Josef is; his injured face grows heavier, the features fill out, and his mouth relaxes. It’s as if the boy intuitively clings to the security Erik conveys. It’s easy to get the boy into a state of deep relaxation; the body has already been at rest and seems to long for more.
    When Erik begins the induction, it is as if he never stopped practising hypnosis; his voice is close, calm, and matter-of-fact, and the words come so easily they pour out, suffused with monotonous warmth and a somnolent, falling cadence.
    “Josef, if you’d like to . . . think of a summer’s day,” says Erik. “Everything is pleasant and wonderful. You are lying in the bottom of a little wooden boat, bobbing gently. You can hear the lapping of the water, and you are gazing up at little white clouds drifting across the blue sky.”
    The boy responds so well that Erik wonders if he ought to slow things down a little bit. Difficult events can increase sensitivity when it comes to hypnosis. Inner stress can function like an engine in reverse: the braking action happens unexpectedly fast and the rev count very quickly drops to zero.
    “I’m going to start counting backwards now, and with each number you hear you will relax a little more. You will feel yourself being filled with great calm; you will be aware of how pleasant everything around