Iefke

Iefke is a fellow patient and group member on the PAAZ whose story is told through brief, revealing encounters with Emma. She first appears as someone attentive to other patients’ distress; later, she discloses the shame she feels about her self-harm scars and cautiously tests whether she can be seen without hiding them. Her choice to wear shorts to the gym does not resolve that shame, but marks a deliberate step toward living less entirely under its control.

Identity and Introduction

Iefke is among the patients Emma encounters during her stay on the PAAZ. After Emma returns from a physical examination and says she must go to hospital for checks because of side effects, Iefke and Linda look at her with concern and ask what has happened and whether she is all right. The exchange presents Iefke first through an ordinary act of attention: she notices Emma’s condition and asks for an explanation rather than leaving her alone with it.

She also shares the communal spaces and routines of the ward. One evening, she approaches Emma in the lounge, where Emma has been sitting with her depression, a puzzle, and her mood-recording forms. Iefke says she has wanted to thank Emma for something she said earlier. The precise words and circumstances are not recalled, but Iefke’s return to the subject makes clear that Emma’s support mattered to her. Her thanks turns the ward’s shared life into more than simple proximity: patients can notice one another’s efforts and carry them forward.

Encounters with Emma

Iefke’s conversations with Emma show her trying to understand experiences that are unfamiliar or difficult to discuss. When she notices Emma’s mood forms, she asks what they are and how they work, reasoning that the numbers represent days and that Emma must mark how she feels each day. Emma confirms this, though she is uncomfortable at being observed. The scene conveys both Iefke’s curiosity and Emma’s impulse to protect a private record of her mental state, even from someone who is also a patient.

Iefke is also present when Emma talks about hallucinations. Emma explains that the distress lies not only in what appears, but in the repeated shock of having to work out what is real and the fear that the experience may happen again. Iefke responds by wondering whether ordinary perceptual mistakes, such as misjudging a stair, would count as hallucinations too. Her question brings the discussion into familiar experience without erasing the difference Emma has described. It also shows Iefke participating in the group’s attempt to make sense of mental distress rather than treating it as an abstract clinical topic.

Shame, Scars, and a Visible Choice

A more vulnerable exchange begins when Iefke sits beside Emma and realizes that Emma has noticed her legs. She pulls them back, apologizes for having thought she was alone, and explains that she would otherwise have put on long trousers. She has never shown the scars to anyone, she says, and cannot believe she inflicted them on herself. Although therapy has helped her no longer regard herself as inherently disgusting, she feels that the result has left her body genuinely repellent. Her account holds two truths together: her view of herself has shifted, yet the visible consequences of self-harm remain a source of distress.

Iefke connects that shame to the clothing she feels able to wear. She says she cannot put on shorts, a dress, or a skirt because people might be frightened by her legs or think she is dangerous, and asks whether that means her body is sick. The scars shape not only how she sees herself but how she imagines other people will see her. Emma’s gentle question about whether Iefke herself finds them ugly does not settle the matter; Iefke’s answer makes clear how strongly she anticipates social judgment.

Later, Iefke appears in shorts before gym. She explains that she thought they would be exercising and decided she should try wearing them sometime, so she might as well try there. The scene places her decision in a public ward setting, with other patients and staff nearby, rather than presenting it as a private declaration of recovery. Emma and the others hold their breath as Michiel looks at the stripes on Iefke’s legs. The change is concrete but limited: Iefke has not said that she feels comfortable or that she has stopped fearing others’ reactions; she has chosen to appear despite that fear.

Conflict and Mutual Support

Iefke can also express anger directly. On the terrace, she wraps her coat tightly around herself and asks Emma whether she has heard about Michiel. When Emma says she has seen him, Iefke responds that he ought to be thrown off the PAAZ, even off the roof. The exchange establishes the force of her disapproval, but does not explain its cause; her hostility should not be mistaken for a fully described conflict.

In another ward conversation, Emma speaks on Iefke’s behalf, saying that Iefke has an appointment with the doctor, will not be late again, and that the others will help her. Leny responds approvingly. The moment shows Iefke’s practical need for support being met collectively, while also indicating that she is expected to attend an appointment and has previously been late. Set beside her decision to wear shorts, the scene makes support tangible: it can mean helping someone follow through on a task as well as making room for a difficult disclosure.

Narrative Significance

Iefke’s appearances give the ward’s community a reciprocal dimension. She notices Emma’s medical distress, thanks her for earlier words of support, asks questions when Emma describes hallucinations, and in turn entrusts Emma with a painful account of her scars. The novel does not make Iefke’s vulnerability a simple instrument for Emma’s development: her shame, her fears about being seen as dangerous, her anger, and her effort to try different clothing remain specific to her own experience.

Her story is presented through small acts rather than a complete account of her history. A pair of mood forms, a guarded posture, a disclosure, and shorts worn to the gym carry the visible movement available in the evidence: from protecting herself against another person’s gaze toward testing what it might mean to be seen. The attempt remains tentative, but its uncertainty is part of its significance.