The Devil's Sanctuary by Marie Hermanson

and was just about to settle down when he noticed he was being watched. The people around the pool—all men, he now realized—had turned toward him and were watching him with curiosity.
    Daniel remained standing. Had he done something wrong? Was he behaving in a way that Max wouldn’t? Maybe Max never came to the pool at all?
    He sank slowly onto the chair, made himself comfortable in a half-reclining position, and started to read. He glanced over the edge of the book. The others were still looking at him.
    The men who had been playing cards had gotten up and were standing close together and talking as they glanced in his direction. One of them, a skinny man in ridiculously tight bathing trunks, left the group and was heading calmly over the lawn toward him.
    The man stopped beside Daniel’s chair and looked down at him. He was standing so close that Daniel could make out the shape of his genitals under the tight nylon, as well as the ribs that stood out under his dry, hairless skin.
    Daniel put the book down and looked up at him questioningly. The man stayed silent. He can see I’m not Max, Daniel thought. He wasn’t sure if he should carry on pretending or admit that the man was right and confess everything. The latter would undoubtedly be easiest.
    “I think you took the wrong chair,” the man said.
    Daniel looked at the chairs around the pool, and at the ones that had been moved onto the grass. They all looked exactly the same as his.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I thought this one looked like it was free.”
    The man said nothing but started to rub one shoulder nervously. It looked like he was giving himself a massage.
    “I can put it back,” Daniel said amiably.
    Still the man said nothing. His rubbing had changed into a sort of gentle patting of his shoulder and arm. It looked like he was trying to calm himself the way you’d calm a startled horse. Daniel didn’t imagine the man was one of the burned-out executives Max had mentioned.
    He carried the chair back over to the pool and put it down by the edge.
    “Okay?” he asked.
    The skinny man was rubbing his shoulder and the back of his neck faster and faster.
    His friend pointed at one of the paving slabs. His body was covered with a thick steel-gray pelt, and on one finger he had an eye-catching ring with a dark red stone.
    “There,” the man said.
    Daniel couldn’t see anything special about where the man was pointing.
    The man gestured vaguely toward the chair with his hand as if he were brushing breadcrumbs in the air, then pointed his finger again toward the paving stone.
    Daniel moved the chair to where the man was pointing. The skinny man stopped rubbing himself and everyone around the pool seemed to exhale.
    The men sat down and started to talk to each other, ignoring Daniel. The others went back to sunbathing.
    The change in the atmosphere was so tangible that only now did Daniel realize just how tense it had been. As if a big carnivore had gone away and the birds had started twittering again.
    He didn’t dare take another chair, so he went and sat on his towel, leaned against a tree trunk, and picked up his book. The sun was warm and it felt good to be clean shaven with cropped hair.
    A tall, slightly crooked older man in a linen suit appeared by the pool. He strolled around purposefully as if he were a landowner surveying his estate, nodding right and left. The patients sat up and responded.
    “Good morning, Doctor Fischer,” the voices from the sun chairs echoed.
    “Good morning, my friends. Good morning, good morning,” the doctor replied.
    He stopped in front of Daniel and looked down at him.
    “Good morning, Max.”
    Daniel put his hand up to shade the sun, but before he had time to reply the doctor had moved on.
    At about one o’clock the pool area started to become less crowded. Daniel heard a few people talking about lunch. He was feeling hungry as well. Where did everyone eat lunch at the clinic? Surely not in the fancy restaurant