"And after he had lain his hand on mine. With joyful mien, whence I was comforted, He led me in among the secret things."
– Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto III
[trans. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]
"'I'm not a sheet. I am a REAL ghost. BOO… BOO… You're supposed to be scared?' "But I'm not."
– National teatern," Kaldolmaroch kalsipper
'Swedish rock/performance group
5 November
Morgan's feet were freezing. The cold spell had arrived at about the same time as the submarine foundered, and it had only gotten worse during the past week. He loved his old cowboy boots but he couldn't fit thick socks in them. And anyway, there was a hole in one sole. Sure he could get some Chinese takeout for a hundred but he'd rather be cold.
It was nine-thirty in the morning and he was on his way home from the subway. He had been to the junkyard in Ulvsunda to see if they needed a hand, maybe make a couple of hundred, but business was bad. No winter boots this year either. He had had a cup of coffee with the guys in the office, which was overflowing with spare parts, catalogs, and pinup calendars, then headed to the subway.
Larry emerged from between the high-rises and, as usual, looked like he had just received a death sentence.
"Hey there, old man," Morgan yelled.
Larry nodded curtly, as if he had known from the moment he woke up this morning that Morgan would be standing here, then walked over to him.
"Hi. How's it going?"
"My toes are freezing, my car's at the junkyard, I have no work, and I'm on my way home to have a bowl of instant soup. How about you?"
Larry walked on in the direction of Bjornsonsgatan, taking the path through the park.
"Thought I'd visit Herbert in the hospital. Coming?"
"Has his mind cleared up?"
"No, he's like he was before, I think."
"Then I'll pass. That kind of stuff gets me down. Last time he thought I was his mother, wanted me to tell him a story."
"And did you?"
"Sure. I told him the one about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But no. I'm not in the mood today."
They kept walking. When Morgan saw that Larry was wearing a pair of thick gloves he realized his own hands were freezing and he pushed them-with some difficulty-into the narrow pockets of his denim jacket. The underpass where Jocke had disappeared came into view.
Maybe as a way to avoid talking about that Larry said:
"Did you see the paper this morning? Now Falldin is saying that the Russians have nuclear weapons onboard."
"What did he think they had? Slingshots?"
"No, but… it's been there for a week now. What if it had blown up?"
"Don't worry about it. Those Russians know their stuff."
"You know I'm not a Communist."
"And I am?"
"Let's put it this way: who'd you vote for in the last election? The Liberals?"
"That doesn't mean I've pledged allegiance to Moscow."
They had been through this before. Now they took up the old routine in order not to see, not to have to think about it as they approached the underpass. But even so their voices died away as they walked under the bridge and came to a halt. Both of them had the impression it was the other guy who had stopped first. They looked at the piles of leaves that had turned into piles of snow, and that had taken on shapes that made them uneasy. Larry shook his head.
"What the hell do you do, you know?"
Morgan pushed his hands deeper into his pockets, stomping his feet to keep warm.
"Gosta's the only one who can do anything."
They both looked in the direction of Gosta's apartment. There were no curtains; the windowpane was streaked with dirt.
Larry held out a packet of cigarettes. Morgan took one, then Larry, who lit them both. They stood there smoking, contemplating the snowdrifts. After a while their thoughts were interrupted by the sound of children's voices.
A group of children carrying skates and helmets came streaming out of the school, led by a man with a military air. The children walked at intervals of a few meters from each other, almost in step. They passed Morgan and Larry. Morgan nodded at a kid he recognized from his building.
"Going off to war?"
The kid shook his head, was about to say something, but kept on marching, afraid of falling out of step. They kept on going toward the hospital; they were probably having a field trip of some sort. Morgan ground the cigarette under his foot, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted:
"Airborne attack! Take cover!"
Larry chuckled, extinguishing his cigarette.
"Jesus Christ. I didn't think that kind of teacher even existed anymore; the kind who wants even the coats to hang at attention. Are you going to come along?"
"No, not up for it today. But you run along. If you hurry you'll be able to fall in step with the rest."
"See you later."
"Will do."
They parted in the underpass. Larry left at a slow pace in the same direction as the children, and Morgan walked up the stairs. Now his entire body was freezing. Soup out of a packet wasn't so bad, particularly if you put a dash of milk in it.
Oskar was walking with his teacher. He needed to talk to someone and his teacher was the only one he could think of. Even so he would have switched groups given the chance. Jonny and Micke normally never chose the walking group when they had field trips, but they had today. They had whispered about something this morning, looking at him.
So Oskar walked with his teacher, not sure himself if it was for protection or because he needed to talk to a grown-up.
He had been going steady with Eli for five days now. They met every evening, outside. Oskar always told his mom he was going out to see Johan.
Yesterday evening Eli had come in through his window again. They had lain awake for a long time, told each other stories that started where the other person stopped. Then they had fallen asleep with their arms around each other and in the morning Eli was gone.
In his pocket, next to the old, well-thumbed, worn one there was now a new note that he had found on his desk this morning as he was getting ready to go to school.
I MUST BE GONE AND LIVE, OR STAY AND DIE. YOURS, ELI.
He knew it was a quote from Romeo and Juliet. Eli had told him that what she wrote in her first note came from there and Oskar had checked out the book from the school library. He liked it quite a bit, even though there were a lot of words he didn't understand. Her vestal livery is but sick and green. Did Eli understand all those words?
Jonny, Micke, and the girls were walking twenty meters behind Oskar and the teacher. They passed China Park where some daycare kids were sledding, their sharp cries slicing through the air. Oskar kicked at a clump of snow, lowered his voice and said:
"Marie-Louise?"
"Yes?"
"How do you know when you're in love?"
"Oh, I…"
His teacher pushed her hands into the pockets of her duffel coat and cast a glance at the sky. Oskar wondered if she was thinking of that guy that had come and waited for her at the school a few times. Oskar had not liked the look of him. He looked creepy.
"It depends on who you are, but… I would say that it's when you know… or at least when you really believe that this is the person you always want to be with."
"You mean, when you feel you can't live without that person."
"Yes, exactly. Two who can't live without the other… isn't that what love is?"
"Like Romeo and Juliet'.'
"Yes, and the bigger the obstacles… have you seen it?"
"Read it."
His teacher looked at him and gave him a smile that Oskar had always liked before but that he right now found a little disconcerting. He said quickly,
"What if it's two guys?"
"Then that's friendship. That's also a form of love. Or if you mean… well, two guys can also love each other in that way."
"How do they do it?"
His teacher lowered her voice.
"Well, not that there's anything wrong with it, but… if you want to talk more about it we'll have to come back to it another time."
They walked a few paces in silence, arrived at the hill that led down to Kvarnviken Bay. Ghost Hill. His teacher drew the smell of pine forest deep into her lungs. Then she said:
"You form a covenant with someone, a union. Regardless of whether you're a boy or a girl you form a covenant saying that… that it's you and that person. Something just between the two of you."
Oskar nodded. He heard the girls' voices getting closer. Soon they would come and claim the teacher's attention. That's what normally happened. He was walking so close to his teacher that their coats touched, and he said:
"Can you be… both girl and boy at the same time? Or neither?"
"No, not people. There are some kinds of animals that…"
Michelle ran up to them and shouted in her squeaky voice: "Miss! Jonny put snow down my back!"
They were halfway down the hill. Shortly thereafter all the girls were there and told her what Jonny and Micke had done.
Oskar slowed down, fell back a few paces. He turned around. Jonny and Micke were at the top of the hill. They waved to Oskar, who didn't wave back. Instead he reached for a big branch on the side of the path, stripping the small twigs off it as he walked.
He passed the reputedly haunted house that gave the hill its name. A giant warehouse with walls of corrugated iron that looked completely out of place among the small trees. On the wall that faced the hill someone had sprayed in large letters:
CAN WE HAVE YOUR MOPED?
The girls and the teacher played tag, running down the path along the water. He was not planning to catch up to them. He knew Jonny and Micke were behind him. He gripped his stick more tightly, kept going.
It was nice out today. The ice had formed several days ago and now it was thick enough that the skating group could go out on it, led by Mr. Avila. When Jonny and Micke said they wanted to join the walking group, Oskar had seriously thought about rushing home to grab his skates, switchir five days now. They met every evening, outside. Oskar always told his mom he was going out to see Johan.
Yesterday evening Eli had come in through his window again. They had lain awake for a long time, told each other stories that started where the other person stopped. Then they had fallen asleep with their arms around each other and in the morning Eli was gone.
In his pocket, next to the old, well-thumbed, worn one there was now a new note that he had found on his desk this morning as he was getting ready to go to school.
I MUST BE GONE AND LIVE, OR STAY AND DIE. YOURS, ELI.
He knew it was a quote from Romeo and Juliet. Eli had told him that what she wrote in her first note came from there and Oskar had checked out the book from the school library. He liked it quite a bit, even though there were a lot of words he didn't understand. Her vestal livery is but sick and green. "
Then they were on the ice. There was nothing for him to brace his feet against. They dragged him backwards, toward the sauna bathing hole. His heels made double tracks in the snow. In between them he dragged the stick, drawing a shallower line in the middle.
Far away on the ice he saw tiny moving figures. He screamed. Screamed for help.
"Holler away. Maybe they'll come in time to pull you out."
The open water gaped darkly only a few steps away. Oskar tensed all the muscles he could muster and flung himself to the side, twisting with a sudden wrenching motion. Micke lost his grip. Oskar dangled from Jonny's arms and swung the stick against his shin; it almost bounced out of his hand when wood met leg.
"Oww, damn!"
Jonny let go of him and Oskar fell to the ice. He got up at the edge of the hole in the ice, holding the stick in both hands. Jonny grabbed his shin.
"Fucking idiot. Now I'll fucking…"
Jonny approached him slowly, probably not daring to run because he was afraid of falling into the water himself if he pushed Oskar like that. He pointed at the stick.
"Put that down or I'll kill you. Get it?"
Oskar clenched his teeth. When Jonny was a little more than an arm's length away, Oscar swung the stick against his shoulder. Jonny ducked and Oskar felt a mute thwack in his hands when the heavy end of the stick struck Jonny square on the ear. He fell to the side like a bowling pin, landing outstretched on the ice, howling.
Micke, who had been a couple of steps behind Jonny, now started to back up, holding his hands in front of him.
"What the hell… we were just having some fun… didn't think…"
Oskar walked toward him, swinging the stick from side to side through the air with a low growl. Micke turned and ran back to shore. Oskar stopped and lowered his stick.
Jonny lay curled up on his side with his hand pressed against his ear. Blood was trickling out between his fingers. Oskar wanted to apologize. He hadn't meant to hurt him so bad. He crouched down next to Jonny, steadying himself on the stick, and he was about to say "sorry" but before he had a chance, he saw Jonny.
He was so small, curled up into a fetal position, whimpering "ow-owowow" while a thin trickle of blood ran down inside the collar of his coat. He was slowly turning his head back and forth.
Oskar looked at him in wonder.
That tiny bleeding bundle on the ice would not be able to do anything to him. Couldn't hit him or tease him. Couldn't even defend itself.
I could whack him a few more times and then it's all over.
Oskar stood up, leaned on the stick. The rush was ebbing away, replaced by a feeling of nausea that welled up from deep inside his stomach. What had he done? Jonny must be really hurt to be bleeding like that. What if he bled to death? Oskar sat down on the ice again, pulled off one shoe and removed his wool sock. He crawled over to Jonny on his knees, poked the hand that he was holding to his ear, and pushed the wool sock into it.
"Here. Take this."
Jonny grabbed the sock and pressed it to his wounded ear. Oskar looked up over the ice. He saw a person on skates approaching. A grown-up.
Shrill screams from far away. Children, screaming in panic. A single high, penetrating shriek that was joined by others after a few seconds. The person who had been on his way over, stopped. Stood motionless for a second, then turned and skated back.
Oskar was still kneeling beside Jonny, felt the snow melting, dampening his knees. Jonny had his eyes shut, whimpering from between clenched teeth. Oskar lowered his face closer to his.
"Can you walk?"
Jonny opened his mouth to say something and a yellow- and white-colored liquid gushed out from between his lips, coloring the snow. A little landed on one of Oskar's hands. He looked at the slimy drops that quivered on the back of his hands and became really scared. He dropped the stick and ran toward land to get some help.
The children's screams from next to the hospital had increased in volume. He ran toward them.
Mr. Avila, Fernando Cristobal de Reyes y Avila, enjoyed ice skating. Yes. One of the things he most appreciated about Sweden was the long winters. He had participated in the Vasa cross-country ski race for ten consecutive
years now, and whenever the waters of the outer archipelago froze solid he drove out to Graddo Island on the weekends in order to skate out as far toward Soderarm as the ice cover allowed.
It was three years ago since the archipelago had frozen last, but an early winter such as this one gave him hope. Of course Graddo Island would be crawling with skating enthusiasts if the waters froze, but that was in the daytime. Mr. Avila preferred to skate at night.
With all due respect to the Vasa Race, it did make one feel like one of a thousand ants in a colony that had suddenly decided to emigrate. It was quite different to be on the open ice, alone in the moonlight. Fernando Avila was only a lukewarm Catholic, but even he could feel in those moments that God was near.
The rhythmic scrape of the metal blades, the moonlight that gave the ice a leaden gleam, above him the stars vaulted in their infinity, the cold wind streaming over his face, eternity and depth and space in all directions. Life could not be bigger.
A little boy was tugging on his pant leg.
"Teacher, I have to pee."
Avila woke from his skating dreams and looked around, pointed to some trees by the shore that grew out over the water; the bare network of branches fell like a shielding curtain toward the ice.
"You can pee there."
The boy squinted at the trees.
"On the ice?"
"Yes? What is wrong with that? Makes new ice. Yellow."
The boy looked at him as if he were crazy, but skated off toward the trees.
Avila looked around and made sure none of the older ones had wandered too far. With a few quick strokes he took off to get an overview of the situation. Counted the children. Yes. Nine, plus the one who was peeing. Ten.
He turned the other way and looked in toward Kvarnviken, stopped.
Something was happening down there. A group of bodies approaching something that had to be an opening in the ice, the spot marked by small straggly trees. While he stood still, watching, the group broke up. He saw that one of them was holding a stick.
The stick was swung and one boy fell down. He heard a howl. Turning around, he checked his own group one last time, then set off swiftly toward the figures by the hole. One of them was now running toward land.
That was when he heard the scream.
The piercing scream of a child from his group. The snow spurted up around his blades as he made an abrupt halt. He had managed to ascertain that the kids by the hole were older. Maybe Oskar. Older boys. They would manage. His charges were younger.
The scream increased in intensity and when he turned and skated toward it he heard more voices join in.
Cojones!
Something happened in the exact moment when he was not there. Dear God, let the ice not have given way. He skated as fast as he could, the snow whirling around his blades as he sprinted toward the source of the scream. He saw now that many children had gathered, were standing and screaming hysterically in a choir of sorts, and more were on their way. He also saw that an adult was moving down toward the ice from up by the hospital.
With a few final strong pushes he arrived next to the children, and stopped so hard a fine ice-dust sprayed over the children's jackets. He did not understand. All the children were gathered next to the network of branches, looking down toward the ice, and shrieking.
He skated closer.
"What is it?"
One of the children pointed down toward the ice, to a lump that was frozen into it. It looked like a brown, frozen clump of grass with a red line on one side. Or a run-over hedgehog. He leaned down toward the clump and saw that it was a head. A human head frozen into the ice so that only the top of the head and forehead were visible.
The boy he had sent off to pee here was sitting on the ice a few meters away, sobbing.
"I-I-I ra-a-an into it."
Avila straightened up.
"Get away! Everyone goes back onto land nowl"
The children seemed as if they were also frozen in place in the ice; the little ones kept crying. He took out his whistle and blew into it sharply,
twice. The screams stopped. He took a few pushes to position himself behind the children in order to herd them toward the shore. The children went. Only a fifth grader stayed where he was, leaning down toward the clump, full of curiosity.
"You too!"
Avila gestured to him with his hand, indicating he should come over. Once they were on land he said to the woman who had come down from the hospital, "Call the police. An ambulance. There is a body frozen into the ice."
The woman ran back up to the hospital. Avila counted the children on land, saw that one was missing. The boy who had run into the head was still sitting on the ice with his face in his hands. Avila glided out to him and lifted him up by his armpits. The boy turned around and put his arms around Avila, who lifted the boy as gently as if he were a fragile package and carried him to shore.
Can I talk to him?"
"He can't actually talk…"
"No, but he understands what is said to him."
"I would think so but…"
"Just for a little while."
Through the fog that clouded his vision Hakan saw a man in dark clothes pull up a chair and sit down next to his bed. He could not make out the man's features, but there was probably a serious expression on his face.
The last few days Hakan had been floating in and out of a red cloud scored through with lines as thin as hairs. He knew that they had anesthetized him a couple of times, operated on him. This was the first day he was fully conscious, but he did not know how many days had passed since he first came here.
Earlier this morning Hakan had been exploring his new face with the fingers on his feeling hand. A rubberlike bandage covered his whole face, but from what little he was able to make out after painfully exploring the contours protruding under the bandage with his fingertips, he concluded he no longer had a face.
Hakan Bengtsson no longer existed. All that was left of him was an unidentified body in a hospital bed. They would of course be able to connect him with the other murders, but not to his earlier or present life. Not to Eli.
"How are you feeling?"
Oh, very well, officer, thank you. Couldn't he better. It feels as if someone has applied burning napalm to my face but other than that I can't complain.
"Yes, I understand that you can't speak, but perhaps you can nod if you hear what I am saying? Can you nod?"
Ican, but I don't want to.
The man next to his bed sighed.
"You tried to kill yourself by doing this, so clearly you are not completely… gone. Is it hard for you to raise your head? Can you lift your hand if you hear me? Can you lift your hand?"
Hakan disconnected himself from all thoughts of the policeman and instead started to think about the place in Dante's Hell, Limbo, where all the great souls from Earth without knowledge of Christ went after death. Tried to imagine the place in detail.
"We would like to know who you are, you see."
Which circle did Dante himself go to after death…
The policeman pulled his chair even closer.
"We'll find that out, you know. Sooner or later. You could save us some legwork by communicating with us now."
No one misses me. No one knows me. Go ahead, try.
A nurse came in. "There's a telephone call for you."
The policemanman stood up, walked over to the door. Before he walked out he turned around.
"I'll be back."
Hakan's thoughts now returned to more significant matters. Which circle was he destined for? The circle of child murderers? That was the seventh circle. On the other hand, maybe the first circle. Those who sinned for love's sake. Then, of course, the sodomites had their own circle. The most reasonable thing would be to assume you went to the circle that represented your worst crime. Therefore: if you had committed an absolutely terrible crime you could thereafter sin away all you liked with
the crimes punished in higher circles. It couldn't get worse. Like murderers in the USA who were sentenced to three hundred years in prison.
The different circles whirled in their spiral patterns. The funnel of Hell. Cerberus with his tail. Hakan imagined the violent men, the bitter women, the proud ones in their boiling pots, in their fire rain, wandering among them, looking for their place.
One thing he was completely sure of. He would never end up in the lowest circle. The one where Lucifer himself chewed on Judas and Brutus, standing in a sea of ice. The circle of traitors.
The door opened again, with that strange, sucking sound. The policeman sat down next to the bed.
"Hello again. It seems like they've found another one, down by the lake in Blackeberg. Same rope, in any case."
No!
Hakan's body flinched involuntarily when the policeman said Blackeberg. The policeman nodded. "Apparently you can hear me. That's good. We can assume you live in the western suburbs then. Where? Racksta? Vallingby? Blackeberg?"
The memory of how he had disposed of the man down by the hospital raced through his head. He had been sloppy. He had screwed up.
"OK, then I am going to leave you alone. You can think about if you want to cooperate. It'll be easier that way. Don't you think?"
The policeman stood up and left. In his place a nurse came in and sat down in the chair, keeping watch.
Hakan started to toss his head from side to side, in denial. His hand went out and started to tug on the tube to the respirator. The nurse quickly jumped up and tore his hand away.
"We'll have to tie you up. One more time and we'll tie you up. Understood? If you don't want to live that's your business but as long as you're here our job is to keep you alive. Regardless of what you have or haven't done. Got it? And we will do what we have to in order to get through this even if it means putting restraints on you. Do you hear me? Everything will be better for you if you cooperate."
Cooperate. Cooperate. Suddenly everyone wants to cooperate. I am no longer a person. I am a project. Oh my God. Eli, Eli. Help me.
Oskar heard his mom's voice as soon as he was in the stairwell. She was talking to someone on the phone, and she sounded angry. Jonny's mom? He stopped outside the door and listened.
"They're going to call me and ask me what I've done wrong… oh yes, they will, and what do I say? Sorry, but you see, my boy doesn't have a father and that… but live up to it then… no, you haven't… I think you should talk to him about this."
Oskar unlocked the door and stepped into the hall. His mom said, "That's him now" into the receiver and turned to Oskar.
"They called from school and I… you'll have to talk to your dad about this because I…" She talked into the receiver again. "Now you can… I am calm… it's easy for you to say, sitting out there…"
Oskar went into his room, lay down on his bed and put his hands over his face. It felt like his heart was beating in his head.
When he'd reached the hospital he had initially thought that all the people running around had something to do with Jonny. But it had turned out that wasn't it. Today he had seen a dead person for the first time in his life.
His mom opened the door to his room. Oskar removed his hands from his head.
"Your father wants to talk to you."
Oskar held the receiver to his ear and heard a distant voice reciting the names of lighthouses and wind strength, wind direction. He waited with the receiver to his ear without saying anything. His mom frowned and looked questioningly at him. Oskar put his hand over the earpiece and whispered: "the marine weather report."
His mom opened her mouth as if to say something, but only came out with a sigh and let her hands drop. She walked out into the kitchen. Oskar sat down on the chair in the hall and listened to the marine weather report along with his dad.
He knew his dad would remain distracted by what was said on the radio if Oskar tried to start a conversation now. The sea report was holy. Those times he was at his dad's, all activity in the house came to a stop at 16:45 and his dad sat down next to the radio while staring absently out over the fields, as if to check that what they were saying on the radio was true.
It was a long time since his dad had been at sea, but old habits died hard.
Almagrundet northwest eight, toward evening turning to the west. Good visibility. The Aland Sea and Archipelago area northwest ten, toward evening warning for gale-force winds. Good visibility.
There. The most important part of it was over.
"Hi Dad."
"Oh, it's you. Hi there. We're going to have gale-force winds here toward evening."
"Yeah, I heard."
"Hm. How are things?"
"Good."
"You know, your mom just told me about this thing with Jonny. That doesn't sound so good."
"No, I guess not."
"He got a concussion."
"Yeah, he threw up."
"That's a common side effect. Harry… yes, you've met him… he took the lead weight in the side of the head once and he… well, he lay there on deck and was sick as a calf after that."
"Was he OK?"
"Sure he was… well, he died last spring. But that wasn't anything to do with that. No. He got better real fast."
"Good."
"And we'll have to hope the same goes for this boy, too."
"Yes."
The voice on the radio kept reciting names of various sea regions: Bottenviken and all the rest. A couple of times he had sat at his dad's place with an atlas in front of him and followed all the lighthouses as they were named. For a while he knew all the places by heart, in order, but he had since forgotten them. His dad cleared his throat.
"Yes, your mom and I were talking about it… if you wanted to come out and see me this weekend."
"Mmmm."
"So we could talk more about this and about… everything."
"This weekend?"
"Yes, if you feel like it."
"I guess so. But I have a little… what about Saturday?"
"Or Friday night."
"No, but… Saturday. Morning."
"That sounds good. I'll take an eider duck out of the freezer."
Oskar pressed the mouthpiece closer and whispered: "Preferably without shot."
His dad laughed.
Last fall when Oskar had been out at his place he had broken a tooth on some shot left in a sea bird that they had eaten. He had told his mom it was a stone in a potato. Sea bird was Oskar's favorite food, but his mom thought it was "terribly cruel" to shoot such defenceless birds. If she knew he had broken a tooth on the instrument of murder itself it might lead to a moratorium on eating that kind of food altogether.
"I'll check extra carefully," his dad said.
"Is the moped running?"
"Yes, why?"
"No, I was just thinking."
"I see. Well, there's a fair amount of snow so we can probably make a round."
"Good."
"OK, I'll see you on Saturday. You'll take the ten o'clock bus."
"Yes."
"I'll come meet you. With the moped. The car is not completely functional."
"OK, great. Are you going to talk more to Mom?"
"Uh… no… you can tell her our plans, right?"
"Uh-huh. See you."
"That you will. Bye."
Oskar put the phone down. Sat there for a little while and imagined how it was going to be. Taking the moped out for a ride. That was fun. Oskar would strap on the mini-skis and they attached a rope to the moped carrier with a stick at the other end. Oskar held the tow rope with both hands and then he motored around the village like a snowborne waterskier. This as well as duck with rowanberry jelly. And only one night away from Eli.
He went to his room and packed up his workout gear, plus his knife, since he wasn't coming home before meeting Eli. He had a plan. When he was standing in the hall putting his coat on his mom came out of the kitchen and dried her floury hands on the apron. "So? What did he say?"
"I'm going to his place on Saturday."
"Fine, but what about the other thing?"
"I have to go work out now."
"He didn't say anything else?"
"Ye-es, but I have to go now."
"Where?"
"The pool."
"What pool?"
"The one next to our school. The little one."
"What are you doing there?"
"Working out. I'll be back around half past eight. Or nine. I'm meeting Johan afterwards."
His mom looked dismayed, didn't know what to do with her floury hands and stuck them both in the big pocket on the front of the apron.
"Yes, I see. Be careful. Don't trip on the side of the pool or anything. Do you have your hat with you?" Yes, yes.
"Well, put it on. When you've been in the water, because it's cold out and when your hair is wet and…"
Oskar took a step forward, kissed her lightly on the cheek and said: "good-bye," and left. When he came out of the front door to the building he glanced up at his window. His mom was standing there, with her hands still pushed into the big apron pocket. Oskar waved. His mom slowly lifted up a hand and waved back.
He cried half the way to the pool.
The gang stood assembled in the stairwell outside Gosta's door. Lacke, Virginia, Morgan, Larry, Karlsson. No one wanted to be the one to ring the doorbell, since this seemed to give the person who rang the responsibility to declare the reason for their visit. Even out in the stairwell you got
a whiff of Gosta. Urine. Morgan poked Karlsson in the side and mumbled something. Karlsson lifted the earmuffs he wore instead of a hat and asked: "What?"
"I said, don't you think you can take those off for once? Makes you look like an idiot."
"That's your opinion."
But he removed the earmuffs, put them in the coat pocket and said:
"It'll have to be you, Larry. You're the one who saw it."
Larry sighed and rang the doorbell. An angry yowl from inside and then a soft thud as something landed on the floor. Larry cleared his throat. He didn't like this. Felt like a cop with the whole gang behind him; the only thing missing was the cocked pistols. Shuffled steps came from inside the apartment, then a voice.
"Are you alright, sweetheart?"
The door opened. A wave of urine-stench washed over Larry's face and he struggled for breath. Gosta was standing in the doorway, dressed in a worn shirt, vest, and tie. An orange- and white-striped cat was curled up under one arm.
"Yes?"
"Hi, Gosta. How's it going?"
Gosta's eyes roamed over their faces. He was pretty drunk. Fine.
"So, we're all here because… do you know what's happened?"
"No."
"Well, you see, they've found Jocke. Today."
"I see. Oh. Yes."
"And then… you know…"
Larry turned his head, seeking support from his delegation. The only thing he got was an encouraging gesture from Morgan. Larry couldn't handle standing out here like some official representative, presenting his ultimatum. There was only one way, however much he didn't like it. He asked: "Can we come in?"
He had anticipated some kind of resistance. Gosta was hardly used to five people dropping by to see him like this. But Gosta simply nodded and backed up a few steps in the hall to let them in.
Larry hesitated for a moment; the smell emanating from inside the
apartment was unbelievable. It hovered in the air like viscous matter. During this moment of hesitation Lacke took a step inside, followed by Virginia. Lacke scratched the cat-still in Gosta's arms-behind the ears.
"Nice cat. What's its name?"
"It's a she. Thisbe."
"Nice name. Do you have a Pyramus as well?"
"No."
One by one they glided in through the door, tried to breathe through their mouths. After a minute everyone gave up the attempt to keep the stench at bay, relaxed, and got used to it. Cats were shooed out of the couch and armchair, a few chairs were carried out from the kitchen, vodka, grape tonic, and glasses appeared on the table, and after a few minutes of chitchat about cats and the weather Gosta said:
"So, they found Jocke."
Larry downed the last of his drink. His task felt easier with the warmth of the alcohol in his stomach. He poured himself a new glass and said, "Yes, down by the hospital. His body was frozen into the ice."
"In the ice?"
"Yes. Damned circus down there today. I was down there to see Herbert, don't know if you know him, anyway… when I came out there were cops everywhere and an ambulance and after a while the fire truck came."
"There was a fire?"
"No, but they had to hack him out of the ice. Well, at that point I didn't know it was him but then when they got him up on land I recognized the clothes, because the face… there had been ice all around it, so you couldn't… but the clothes…"
Gosta waved his hand in the air as if he was petting a big, invisible dog.
"Wait a minute now… so he drowned?… I mean, I don't understand…" Larry sipped his drink, wiped his hand over his mouth.
"No, that was what the cops thought at first too. At first. From what I understand. They were mostly standing around up there with their arms folded and the ambulance guys were all busy with some kid who turned up bleeding from his head, so there was…"
Gosta petted the invisible dog even more energetically, or he was
trying to push it away. A little of his drink splashed out of his glass and landed on the rug.
"Hang on a minute… now I can't… bleeding from his head?"
Morgan put down the cat he had been holding on his lap, and brushed off his pants.
"That had nothing to do with it. Come on now, Larry."
"Yes, but then when they got him up on land. And I saw that it was him. And then you also saw that there was a rope like this, see. Tied up. And there were some kind of stones wrapped up in the rope like that. That got the cops going. Started talking into their radios and cordoning off the area with tape and shooing people away and all that. Got really interested all of a sudden. So that… well, turns out someone must have tried to dump his body there, pure and simple."
Gosta leaned back in the couch, holding his hand over his eyes. Virginia, who was sitting between him and Lacke, patted his knee. Morgan filled his glass and said: "The thing is they found Jocke, right? Want some tonic with that? Here. They found Jocke and now they know he was murdered. And that kind of changes things, don't you think?"
Karlsson cleared his throat, and said in a commanding tone:
"In the Swedish judicial system there's something called…"
"You shut up," Morgan interrupted. "Is it alright if I smoke?"
Gosta nodded feebly. While Morgan was taking out his cigarette and lighter Lacke leaned over in the sofa so he could look Gosta in the eye.
"Gosta. You saw what happened. That story should be told."
"Be told. How?"
"By going to the police and telling them what you saw. That's all."
"No… No.'
The room got quiet.
Lacke sighed, poured himself half a glass of vodka and a little dash of tonic, took a big gulp, and closed his eyes as the burning cloud filled his stomach. He didn't want to force him.
Back at the Chinese restaurant Karlsson had ranted about the duty of a witness and legal responsibility but however much Lacke wanted the person who had done this to be caught he had no intention of sending the cops to a friend like some squealer.
A gray-speckled cat pushed its head against his shins. He picked it up into his lap and stroked it absently. What does it matter? Jocke was dead, he knew that now for sure. What did the rest matter, anyway?
Morgan got up, walked over to the window with the glass in his hand.
"Was this where you were standing? When you saw it?"… yes.
Morgan nodded, sipped the drink.
"Yes, I get it. You can see everything from here. Great place, actually. Nice view. Yes, I mean apart from… great view."
A tear ran quietly down Lacke's cheek. Virginia took his hand and squeezed it. Lacke took another big gulp to burn away the pain that was tearing at his chest.
Larry, who for a time had been watching the cats moving around the room in senseless patterns, drummed his fingers against his glass and said:
"What if we simply tipped them off? About the location, I mean. Maybe they can find some fingerprints and… whatever else it is they find."
Karlsson smiled.
"And how do we say we got this information? That we just know it? They're going to be pretty interested in how… in who we got this information from."
"We could make an anonymous call. Just to get the information out there."
Gosta mumbled something from the couch. Virginia leaned her head in toward him.
"What did you say?"
Gosta spoke in a very small voice as he stared into his drink.
"Please forgive me. But I'm too scared. I can't."
Morgan turned back from the window, held his arm out.
"That's how it is, then. Nothing more to talk about." He gave Karlsson a sharp look. "We'll have to think of an alternative. Do it some other way. Maybe make a sketch, call, whatever. We'll think of something."
He walked over to Gosta and nudged his foot with his own.
"Hey you, now. Pull yourself together. We'll take care of this thing anyway. Take it easy. Gosta? Can you hear me? We'll take care of this. Cheers!"
He stretched out his glass, clinked it against Gosta's and took a sip. "We'll fix this thing. Won't we?"
He had left the others outside the gymnasium and started to head home when he heard her voice coming from the school.
"Psst. Oskar!"
Footsteps on stairs and she emerged from the shadows. She had been sitting there, waiting. Then she heard him say good-bye to the others and how they answered as if he was a completely normal person.
The workout session had been good. He wasn't as weak as he had thought, was able to do more than a couple of the guys who had been there several times before. And his concern that Mr. Avila would interrogate him about what had happened out there on the ice today turned out to be unfounded. Mr. Avila had simply asked: "Do you want to talk about it?" and when Oskar shook his head they left it at that.
The gym was another world, separate from school. Mr. Avila was less severe and the other guys left him alone. Micke hadn't been there, of course. Was Micke scared of him now? The thought was enough to make his head spin.
He walked over to meet Eli.
"Hi."
"Hey."
Without saying anything about it they had switched their words of greeting. Eli was wearing a checkered shirt that was much too big for her and she looked… shriveled again. Her skin was dry and her face thinner. Even yesterday Oskar had seen the first white hairs and tonight there were many more.
When she was healthy Oskar thought she was the cutest girl he had seen. But the way she looked right now she was… you couldn't compare her to anyone. No one looked like that. Dwarves, maybe. But dwarves weren't thin like that… nothing was. He was grateful she hadn't appeared in front of the others.
"How's it going?" he asked. "So so."
"Want to do something?"
"Of course."
They walked home side by side. Oskar had a plan. They were going to enter into a pact together. If they entered into a pact together, Eli would become healthy. A magical thought, inspired by the books he had read. But magic… surely there was a little magic in the world. The people who denied the existence of magic, they were the ones that it went badly for.
They walked into the yard. He touched Eli's shoulder.
"Should we check the garbage room?"
"OK."
They walked in through Eli's front door and Oskar unlocked the door to the basement.
"Don't you have a basement key?" he asked.
"I don't think so."
It was pitch black in the basement entrance. The door slammed shut behind them with a heavy sound. They stood still, side by side, breathing. Oskar whispered:
"Eli, you know what? Today… Jonny and Micke tried to throw me into the water. Into a hole in the ice."
"No! You-"
"Wait. Do you know what I did? I had a stick, a big stick. I hit Jonny in the head with it so he started to bleed. He got a concussion, went to the hospital. I never ended up in the water. I… beat him."
Quiet for a few moments. Then Eli said:
"Oskar."
"Yes."
"Yippee."
Oskar stretched his hand to the light switch; he wanted to see her face. Turned it on. She was staring straight into his eyes and he saw her pupils. For a few moments before they got used to the light they looked like those crystals they talked about in physics class, what were they called… elliptical.
Like a lizard. No. Cats. Cats.
Eli blinked. Her pupils were normal again.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. Come on…"
Oskar walked over to the bulk item trash room and opened the door. The bag was almost full, hadn't been emptied for a while. Eli squeezed in beside him and they rummaged through the trash. Oskar found a bag with empty bottles that you could get a deposit back on. Eli found a plastic sword, waved it around, said:
"Should we check the one next door?"
"No, Tommy and those guys might be there."
"Who are they?"
"Oh, some older guys who use a basement storage unit… they hang out there in the evening."
"Are there a lot of them?"
"No, three. Most of the time it's just Tommy."
"And they're dangerous?"
Oskar shrugged. "Let's check it out, then."
They walked out through Oskar's building into the next basement corridor, all the way into Tommy's building. As Oskar stood there with a key in his hand, about to unlock the last door, he hesitated. If they were in there? If they caught sight of Eli? If they… it could turn into something he wasn't able to handle. Eli held the plastic sword in front of her. "What is it?"
"Nothing."
He unlocked the door. As soon as they walked into the corridor he heard music coming from the storage unit. As he turned to her he whispered: "They're here! Come on."
Eli stopped, sniffed.
"What's that smell?"
Oskar checked to make sure that nothing was moving around at the other end of the corridor, then sniffed the air. Couldn't smell anything except the usual basement air. Eli said, "Paint, glue." Oscar sniffed again. He couldn't smell it but he knew what it had to be. When he turned back to Eli to get her to follow him he saw that she was doing something with the lock.
"Come on. What are you doing?" I m just…
As Oskar was unlocking the door to the next basement corridor, their path of retreat, the door fell shut behind them. It didn't make the normal
sound. No click, just a metallic clunk. On the way back to their basement he told Eli about glue-sniffing; how crazy those guys could get when they did that.
He felt safe again in his own basement. He knelt down and started to count the bottles in the bag. Fourteen beer bottles and a liquor bottle with no deposit value.
When he looked up to report this to Eli she was standing in front of him with the plastic sword held up as if about to attack. Used to sudden blows as he was, he flinched a little. But Eli mumbled something and lowered the sword against his shoulder and said, with as deep a voice as she could muster:
"I herewith dub you, Jonny's conqueror, knight of Blackeberg and all surrounding areas like Vallingby… um…"
"Racksta."
"Racksta."
"Maybe Angby?"
"Angby maybe."
Eli tapped him lightly on the shoulder for each new area. Oskar took his knife out of the bag, held it out, and proclaimed that he was the Knight of Angby Maybe. Wanted Eli to be the Beautiful Maiden he would rescue from the Dragon.
But Eli was a terrible monster who ate beautiful maidens for lunch and she was the one he would have to fight. Oskar left the knife in his sheath as they fought, shouted, and ran around in the corridors. In the middle of their game they heard a scrape in the lock to the basement doors.
They quickly piled into a food cellar where they hardly had room to sit hip against hip, and breathed quickly and quietly. They heard a man's voice.
"What are you doing down here?"
Oskar and Eli held their breath as the man waited, listening. Then he said: "Damn kids" and left. They stayed in the food cellar until they were sure the man had gone, then they crawled out, leaned against the wooden wall, giggling. After a while Eli stretched out on the concrete floor and stared up at the ceiling.
Oskar touched her foot.
"Are you tired?"
"Yes. Tired."
Oskar pulled his knife out of the sheath, looked at it. It was heavy, beautiful. He carefully pressed his pointed finger against the tip, then removed it. A small red dot. He pressed again, harder. When he took his finger away a pearl-shaped drop of blood came out. But this wasn't the way to do it.
"Eli? Do you want to do something?"
She was still staring up at the ceiling.
"What?"
"Do you want to… enter into a pact with me?"
"Yes."
If she had asked him "how?" he would maybe have told her what he was thinking before he did it. But she simply said "yes." She wanted to do it, whatever it was. Oskar swallowed hard, gripped the knife so the edge was resting against the palm of his hand, shut his eyes, and pulled the blade out of his hand. A stinging, smarting pain. He caught his breath.
Did I do this?
He opened his eyes, opened his hand. Yes. A thin trickle of blood was revealed in his palm. The blood pushed out slowly, not as he had thought in a thin line but as a string of pearls that he stared at with fascination as they merged into a thicker, uneven mass.
Eli lifted her head.
"What are you doing?"
Oskar was still holding his hand in front of his face, staring at it, and said:
"It's easy, Eli, it wasn't even…"
He held his bleeding hand toward her. Her eyes widened. She shook her head violently while she crawled backward, away from his hand.
"No, Oskar…"
"What is it?"
"Oskar, no."
"It almost doesn't hurt at all."
Eli stopped backing up, staring at his hand while she kept shaking her head. Oskar was holding the knife by the blade in his other hand, held it out to her handle first.
"You only have to prick yourself in a finger or something. Then we'll mix our blood. And then we have our pact."
Eli did not take the knife. Oskar put it down on the floor so he could catch a drop of blood that fell from his wound.
"Come on. Don't you want to?"
"Oskar… we can't. You would be infected, you-"
"It doesn't feel like that, it…"
A ghost flew into Eli's face, distorting it into something so different from the girl he knew that he completely forgot about catching the blood that dropped from his hand. She now looked like the monster they had recently pretended that she was and Oskar jumped back while the pain in his hand intensified.
"Eli, what…"
She sat up, pulled her legs under her, crouched on all fours, and stared straight at his bleeding hand, took a step closer toward it. Stopped, clenched her teeth, and got out a gruff: "Leave!"
Tears of fear welled up in Oskar's eyes. "Eli, stop it. Stop playing. Stop it."
Eli crawled a bit closer, stopped again. She forced her body to contort itself so her head was lowered to the ground and screamed:
"Go! Or you'll die!"
Oskar got up, took a few steps back. His feet hit against the bag of bottles so it fell over, with a clinking sound. He flattened himself against the wall while Eli crawled over to the little smear of blood that had fallen from his hand.
Another bottle fell over and broke against the concrete floor while Oskar stood pressed against the wall and stared at Eli, who stretched out her tongue and licked the dirty concrete, whisked her tongue around on the place where blood had fallen.
A bottle clinked softly and stopped moving. Eli licked and licked the floor. When she lifted her face to him there was a gray smear of dirt on the tip of her nose. "Go… please… leave."
Then the ghost flew into her face again, but before it had time to take over she got up and ran down the corridor, opened the door to her stairwell, and disappeared.
Oskar stood there with the damaged hand tightly wrapped. Blood was starting to well out around the edges. He opened it, looked at the cut. It had gone deeper than he had intended, but it wasn't dangerous, he thought. Some blood was already starting to congeal.
He looked at the by-now pale splotch on the floor. Then he gingerly licked a little of the blood on his palm, spit it out.
Night lights.
Tomorrow they would operate on his mouth and throat, probably in the hopes that something would come out. His tongue was still there. He could move it around in the sealed cavity of his mouth, tickle his upper jaw with it. Maybe he would be able to talk again even though his lips were gone. But he did not intend to talk again.
A woman, he didn't know if she was from the police or a nurse, sat in the corner a few meters away, reading a book and keeping an eye on him.
They allot so much of their resources when a nobody decides his life is over?
He realized that he was valuable, that he meant a lot to them. Probably they were digging around in old records right now, cases they hoped to be able to solve with him as the perpetrator. A policeman had been in yesterday to take his fingerprints. He had not made any resistance. It didn't matter.
It was possible that the fingerprints would link him to the murders in both Vaxjo and Norrkoping. He tried to remember how he had proceeded there, if he had left fingerprints or other traces. Probably.
The only thing that worried him was that by way of these events people could track down Eli.
People…
They had put notes in his mailbox, threatened him.
Someone who worked at the post office and who lived in the area had tipped off the other neighbors about what kind of mail, what kind of videos he received.
It took about a month before he was fired from his job at the school. You couldn't have someone like that working with children. He had walked away willingly, even though he could probably have brought it up with the union.
He hadn't actually done anything at the school; he wasn't that stupid.
The campaign against him had increased in strength and finally one night someone had thrown a firebomb through his living room window. He had fled out onto the lawn in only his underpants, stood there and watched his life burn to the ground.
The crime investigation dragged on in time and therefore he didn't get the insurance money. With his meager savings he had taken the train, rented a room in Vaxjo. That's where he started working on trying to die.
He drank himself down to the level where he used whatever was at hand. Aco acne-solution, T-Rod denatured alcohol. He stole wine-making kits and Turbo yeast from hardware stores and drank everything before it was ready.
He was outside as much as possible. In some way he wanted "the people" to see him die, day for day.
In his drunken stupor he became careless, fondled young boys, got beaten up, ended up at the police station. Once he sat in jail for three days and puked his guts out. Was released. Kept drinking.
One evening when Hakan was sitting on a bench next to a playground with a bottle of half-yeasted wine in a plastic bag, Eli came and sat down beside him. In his drunkenness Hakan had almost immediately put a hand on Eli's thigh. Eli had let it stay there, taken Hakan's head between her hands, turned it toward her, and said: "You are going to be with me."
Hakan had mumbled something about how he couldn't afford such a beauty right now but when his finances allowed…
Eli had moved his hand from her thigh, leaned down, and taken his wine bottle, poured it out and said: "You don't understand. You're going to stop drinking now. You are going to be with me. You are going to help me. I need you. And I'm going to help you." Then Eli had held out her hand, Hakan had taken it, and they had walked away together.
He had stopped drinking and entered into Eli's service.
Eli had given him money to buy some clothes and to rent another apartment. He had done everything without wondering whether Eli was
"evil" or "good" or anything else. Eli was beautiful and Eli had given him back his dignity. And in rare moments… tenderness.
The pages rustled when the night guard turned them in the book she was reading. Probably a dime store novel. In Plato's republic the "Guards" were supposed to be the most highly educated among the people. But this was Sweden, 1981, and they were probably reading Jan Guillou.
The man in the water, the man whose corpse he had sunk. That had been clumsy of him, of course. He should have done as Eli said and buried him. But nothing about the man would be traced back to Eli. The bite mark in his neck would be regarded as unusual, but they would think the blood had been washed away by the water. The man's clothes were…
Her top!
Eli's top, the one Hakan had found on the man's body when he first came to take care of it. He should have taken it home with him, burned it, anything.
Instead he had tucked it inside the man's coat. How would they interpret that? A child's top, spotted with blood. Was there a risk that someone had seen this shirt on Eli? Someone who would recognize it? If it were displayed in the paper, for example? Someone Eli had met before, someone who…
Oskar. The boy next door.
Hakan's body twisted restlessly in the bed. The guard put her book down and looked at him.
"Don't do anything stupid."
Eli crossed Bjornsonsgatan, continued into the courtyard between the nine-story buildings, two monolithic lighthouses towering over the crouching three-story buildings scattered around. No one was outside, but there was light coming from the gymnasium and Eli slithered up the fire escape ladder, looked in.
Music was blaring out of a small tape player. Middle-aged women
were jumping around in time to the music so the wooden floor shook. Eli curled up in the metal grating of the stairs, leaned her chin on her knees, and took in the scene.
Several of the women were overweight and their massive breasts were bouncing like cheery bowling balls under their T-shirts. The women jumped and skipped, lifting their knees so the flesh trembled in their too-tight workout pants. They moved in a circle, clapped their hands, jumped again. All the while the music kept going. Warm, oxygenated blood streaming through thirsty muscles.
But there were too many of them.
Eli jumped down from the fire escape, landed softly on the frozen ground underneath, continued around the back of the gym, and stopped outside the swimming pool.
The large frosted windows projected rectangles of light onto the snow cover. Over each large window there was a smaller, narrow window made of regular glass. Eli jumped up and hung from the edge of the roof with her hands, looked in. No one was inside. The surface of the pool glittered in the glow of the halogen lights. A few balls were floating in the middle.
Swim. Splash. Play.
Eli swayed back and forth, a dark pendulum. Looked at the balls, saw them flying through the air, thrown up again, laughter and screams and splashing water. Eli relaxed her hold on the edge of the roof, fell down, and consciously let herself land so hard that it hurt, then kept going over the school yard to the path through the park, stopping under a high tree hanging over the path. It was dark. No one around. Eli looked up into the top of the tree, along five six meters of smooth tree trunk. Kicked off her shoes. Thought herself new hands, new feet.
It hardly hurt at all anymore, just felt like a tingling, an electric current through her fingers and toes as they thinned out, took on a new shape. The bones crackled in her hands as they stretched out, shot out through the melting skin of the fingertips and made long, curved claws. Same thing with her toes.
Eli jumped a couple of meters up onto the trunk of the tree, dug in her claws, and climbed up to a thick branch that hung out over the path. Curled the claws on her feet around the branch and sat without moving.
A shooting sensation in her teeth as Eli thought them sharp. The enamel bulged out, was sharpened by an invisible file, became sharp. Eli carefully bit herself in her lower lip, a crescent-shaped row of needles that almost punctured the skin. Now only the wait.
It was close to ten and the temperature in the room was approaching the unbearable. Two bottles of vodka had already been consumed, a new one had been taken out, and everyone agreed that Gosta was one hell of a guy and his kindness wouldn't count for nothing.
Only Virginia had been taking it easy, since she had to get up and work the next day. She also seemed to be the only one who was affected by the air in the room. The already damp smell of cat piss and stale air was now mixed with smoke, alcohol fumes, and the perspiration of six bodies.
Lacke and Gosta were still sitting on either side of her on the couch, now only half conscious. Gosta was petting a cat on his lap, a cat who was wall-eyed, something which had caused Morgan to have such fits of laughter that he had hit his head on the table and then had a shot of pure alcohol in order to dull the pain.
Lacke wasn't saying much. He mostly sat staring straight ahead, his eyes glazed over with haziness, then mist and fog. His lips moved soundlessly from time to time as if he were conversing with a ghost.
Virginia got up and walked over to the window. "Is it OK if I open this?"
Gosta shook his head.
"The cats… can… jump out."
"But I'll stand here and keep watch."
Gosta kept shaking his head mechanically and Virginia opened the window. Air! She greedily took a couple of lungfuls of fresh air and immediately felt better. Lacke, who had been starting to slip sideways in the couch since Virginia's support was no longer available, straightened up and said out loud:
"A friend! A real… friend!"
A mumble of agreement from around the room. Everyone knew he was talking about Jocke. Lacke stared into the empty glass in his hand and continued:
"You have one friend… who never lets you down. And that is worth everything. Do you hear that? Everything. And you have to get that me and Jocke were… like this!"
He made his hand into a tight fist, shook it in front of his face.
"And nothing can replace that. Nothing! You're all sitting here yammering about 'what a damn good guy' and all that but you… you're all empty. Hollow. I have nothing now that Jocke… is gone. Nothing. So don't talk about loss with me, don't talk about…"
Virginia stood next to the window, listening. She walked up to Lacke in order to remind him of her existence. Crouched down next to his knee and tried to catch his eye and said: "Lacke."
"No! Don't come here and… 'Lacke, Lacke'… this is just the way it is. You don't get it. You're… cold. You go downtown and pick up some damn truck driver or whatever, take him home, and let him screw you when you get down. That's what you do. Damn… trucking caravan is what you have going on. But a friend… a friend…"
Virginia stood up with tears in her eyes, slapped Lacke, and ran out of the apartment. Lacke lost his balance in the couch and hit Gosta in the shoulder. Gosta mumbled: "The window… the window."
Morgan closed it and said: "Well done, Lacke. That was a good one. You probably won't see any more of her."
Lacke stood up and walked with unsteady legs over to Morgan, who cast an eye out the window. "What the hell, I didn't mean to…"
"No, of course not. Go tell her instead."
Morgan nodded down at the ground where Virginia had just come out of the front door of the building, and was walking rapidly with a lowered gaze toward the park. Lacke heard what he had said. His last words to her stuck inside his head like an echo. Did I say that? He turned on his heel and hurried to the door.
"I just have to…"
Morgan nodded. "Hurry up. And give her my regards."
Lacke threw himself down the stairs as fast as his trembling legs could carry him. The speckle-patterned stairs were nothing but a shimmer before his eyes and the banister slid so quickly through his hand it started to sting from the heat of the friction. He tripped on a landing, fell, and hit his elbow hard. The arm filled with heat and became sort of paralyzed. He got up and stumbled on down the stairs. He was rushing to help save a life. His own.
Virginia walked away from the building, down to the park, and did not turn around.
Her body was wracked with sobs, half-running as if to outrun the tears. But they followed her, forced themselves into her eyes, and fell in big drops down her cheeks. Her heels cut through the snow, clicking against the asphalt of the path, and she wound her arms around herself, hugging herself.
There was no one to be seen so she gave in freely to her sobs as she made her way home, pressed her arms against her stomach; the pain lodged in there like an ill-tempered fetus.
Let a person in and he hurts you.
There was a reason why she kept her relationships brief. Don't let them in. Once they're inside they have more potential to hurt you. Comfort yourself. You can live with the anguish as long as it only involves yourself. As long as there is no hope.
But with Lacke she had held out hope. That something would slowly grow up between them. And in the end. One day. What? He accepted her food and her warmth but in reality she meant nothing to him.
She walked huddled-up along the path, doubled over with sorrow. Her back was stooped and it was as if a demon sat there whispering terrible things in her ear.
Never again. Nothing.
Just as she was starting to imagine what this demon looked like, it landed on top of her.
A heavy weight struck her in the back and she fell helplessly to the side. Her cheek met snow and the film of tears was transformed into ice. The weight remained.
For one second she really believed it was the sorrow-demon who had taken a physical form and thrown itself on top of her. Then she felt the
searing pain in her throat as sharp teeth penetrated the skin. She managed to get back on her feet, spinning around and trying to get rid of the thing that was on top of her.
There was something chewing on her neck, her throat; a stream of blood ran down between her breasts. She screamed at the top of her lungs and tried to shake off the creature on her back, kept screaming as she fell again onto the snow.
Until something hard was laid over her mouth. A hand.
Against her cheek there were claws digging into the soft flesh… all the way in until they reached the cheekbone.
The teeth stopped chewing and she heard a sound like the one you make with a straw as you suck up the dregs in the glass. Liquid flowed over one eye and she didn't know if it was tears or blood.
When Lacke came out of the apartment building Virginia was nothing more than a dark shape moving down the path toward Arvid Mornes. His chest was hurting from sprinting down the stairs and his elbow sent waves of pain toward the shoulder. In spite of all this, he ran. He ran as fast as he could. His head was starting to clear in the cool air, and fear of losing her drove him on.
When he reached the bend in the path where "Jocke's path"-as he had started to call it-met "Virginia's path" he stopped, drew as much air into his lungs as he could in order to shout out her name. She was walking up ahead only fifty meters away.
Just as he was about to call out her name he saw a shadow fall from a tree above Virginia, land on her, and knock her to the ground. His scream turned into a hiss, and he sped up. He wanted to shout something but there was not enough air to both run and shout.
He ran.
In front of him Virginia got to her feet with a large lump on her back, spun around like a crazed hunchback, and fell down again.
He had no plan, no thoughts. Nothing except this: to get to Virginia and get rid of whatever that was on her back. She lay in the snow next to the path with that black mass crawling on her.
When he reached her he directed all of his force into a kick at the black thing. His foot made contact with something hard and he heard a sharp crack, as when ice breaks up. The black thing was thrown from Virginia's back and landed in the snow next to her.
Virginia lay completely still; there were dark stains on the white ground. The black thing sat up.
A child.
Lacke stood there staring into the prettiest little child's face imaginable, framed by a veil of black hair. A pair of enormous dark eyes met his.
The child got up on all fours, cat-like, preparing to lunge. The face changed as the child drew back its lips and Lacke could see the rows of sharp teeth glow in the dark.
They remained like this for a few panting breaths, the child on all fours, and Lacke could now see that its fingers were claws, sharply defined against the snow.
Then a grimace of pain contorted the child's face, she got up on two legs and ran off in the direction of the school with long rapid steps. A few seconds later she reached the shadows and was gone.
Lacke stood where he was and blinked away the sweat running into his eyes. Then he threw himself down next to Virginia. He saw the wound. Her whole throat was ripped up. Dark strands of blood ran all the way up into her hair, down her back. He stripped off his jacket, pulled off the sweater he was wearing underneath, bunched it up into a ball, and pressed it against the wound.
"Virginia! Virginia! My darling, beloved…"
At last he was able to get the words out.
Saturday 7 November
On his way to Dad's house. Every bend in the road familiar; he had taken this route… how many times? Alone, maybe only ten or twelve, with his mom maybe another thirty, at least. His mom and dad had divorced when he was four, but Oskar and his mom had kept coming out on weekends and holidays.
The last three years he had been allowed to take the bus by himself. This time his mom hadn't even come with him to the Tekniska Hogskolan stop where the buses left. He was a big boy now, had his own book of prepaid tickets to the subway in his wallet.
Actually the main reason he had the wallet was to have a place to keep the prepaid tickets but now there was also twenty kronor to buy sweets and such, as well as the notes from Eli.
Oskar fiddled with the Band-Aid on his palm. He didn't want to see her anymore. She was scary. What happened in the basement was-
She showed her true face.
– there was something in her, something that was… Pure Horror. Everything you were supposed to watch out for. Heights, fire, shards of glass, snakes. Everything that his mom tried so hard to keep him safe from.
Maybe that was why he hadn't wanted Eli and his mom to meet. His mom would have recognized it, forbidden him to get near it. Near Eli.
The bus exited the freeway and turned down toward Spillersboda. This was the only bus that went to Radmanso Island. That was why it had to wind its way up and down all the roads-in order to drive through as many settlements as possible. The bus drove past the mountainous landscape of piled timber at the Spillersboda Sawmill, made a sharp turn and almost slid on its back down toward the pier.
He had not waited for Eli Friday evening.
Instead he had taken the Snow Racer and gone by himself to Ghost Hill. His mom had protested since he had stayed home from school that day with a cold, but he said he felt better.
He walked through China Park with the Snow Racer on his back. The sledding hill started a hundred meters past the last park lights, a hundred meters of dark forest. The snow crunched under his feet. There was a soft soughing from the forest, like breathing. The moonlight filtered through the trees and the ground between them turned into a woven tapestry of shadows where figures without faces waited, swaying to and fro.
He reached the place where the path started to bear down strongly toward Kvarnviken Bay, and climbed onto his Snow Racer. The Ghost House was a black wall next to the hill, a reprimand: You are not allowed to be here in the dark. This is our place now. If you want to play here, you'll have to play with us.
At the bottom of the hill he could see the occasional light shining
from the Kvarnviken boat club. Oskar inched himself forward a few centimeters, the incline took over, and the Snow Racer started to glide. He squeezed the steering wheel, wanted to close his eyes but didn't dare to because then he could veer off the road and down the steep slope toward the Ghost House.
He shot down the hill, a projectile of nerves and tensed muscles. Faster, faster. Formless, snow-covered arms stretched out from the Ghost House, grabbing for his hat, brushing against his cheek.
Maybe it was only a sudden gust of wind but at the very bottom of the hill he drove into a viscous, transparent, filmy barrier stretched out over the path that tried to stop him. But his speed was too great.
The Snow Racer drove into the filmy barrier and it glued itself onto his face and body, was stretched until it burst, and then he was through.
The lights were glittering over Kvarnviken Bay. He sat on his Snow Racer and stared out over the spot where he had knocked down Jonny yesterday morning. Turned around. The Ghost House was an ugly shack of sheet metal.
He pulled the Snow Racer up the hill again. Slid down. Up again. Down again. Couldn't stop. And he went on. Went on until his face was a mask of ice.
Then he walked home.
He had only slept four or five hours, afraid that Eli was going to come. Of what he would be forced to say, to do if she did that. Push her away. Therefore he fell asleep on the bus to Norrtalje and didn't wake up until they were there. On the Radmanso bus he had kept himself awake, made a game out of trying to remember as much as possible along the way.
Soon there will be a yellow house with a windmill on the lawn.
A yellow house with a snowy windmill on the lawn passed by outside the window. And so on. In Spillersboda a girl got on the bus. Oskar gripped the back of the seat in front of him. She looked a little like Eli. Of course it wasn't her. The girl sat down a few seats in front of him. He looked at her neck.
What's wrong with her?
The thought had come to him even as he was in the cellar gathering the bottles together and wiping the blood away with a piece of cloth from the garbage: that Eli was a vampire. That explained a lot of things.
That she was never out in the daytime.
That she could see in the dark; he had come to understand that she could.
Plus a lot of other things: the way she talked, the cube, her flexibility, things that of course could have a natural explanation… but then there was also the way that she had licked his blood from the floor, and what really made him shiver was when he thought about the:
"Can I come in? Say that I can come in."
That she had needed an invitation to come into his room, to his bed. And he had invited her in. A vampire. A being that lived off other peoples' blood. Eli. There was not one person who he could tell. No one would believe him. And if someone did believe him, what would happen?
Oskar imagined a caravan of men walking through Blackeberg, in through the covered entrance where he and Eli had hugged, with sharpened stakes in their hands. He was afraid of Eli now, didn't want to see her anymore, but he didn't want that.
Three quarters of an hour after he had boarded the bus in Norrtalje he arrived in Sodersvik. He pulled on the string and the bell rang up front by the driver. The bus pulled over right in front of the store and he had to wait for an old lady, whom he recognized but didn't know the name of, to get off.
His dad was standing below the stairs, nodded and said "hum" to the old lady. Oskar climbed off the bus, stood still for a second in front of his dad. This last week things had happened that had made Oskar feel bigger. Not adult. But bigger, at any rate. All that fell away as he stood in front of his father.
His mom claimed his dad was childlike, in a bad way. Immature, couldn't handle responsibility. Oh, she said some nice things about him too, but that was what she always came back to. The immaturity.
For Oskar, his dad was the very image of an adult as he now stretched out his broad arms and Oskar fell into them.
His dad smelled different from all the people in the city. In his torn Helly Hansen vest fixed with Velcro there was always the same mixture of
wood, paint, metal, and above all, oil. These were the smells but Oskar didn't think of them in that way. It was all simply "Dad's smell." He loved it and drew a deep breath through his nose as he pressed his face against his dad's chest.
"Well hey there."
"Hi Dad."
"Your trip go OK?"
"No, we ran into an elk."
"Oh no. That must have been something."
"Just joking."
"I see. I see. But you know, I remember a time…"
As they walked toward the store, Dad started telling a story about how once a truck he was driving had collided with an elk. Oskar had heard the story before and looked around, humming from time to time.
The Sodervik store looked as trashy as ever. Signs and streamers that had been allowed to stay up in anticipation of next summer made the whole store look like an oversized ice cream stand. The large tent behind the store, where they sold garden tools, soil, outdoor furniture, and such, was tied up for the season.
In summer the population of Sodervik increased four-fold. The whole area down toward Norrtaljeviken Bay, Lagaro, was an unruly conglomeration of summer houses, and even though the mailboxes down toward Lagaro were hung in double rows of thirty, the mailman almost never had to go there at this time of year. No people, no mail.
Just as they reached the moped his dad finished the story with the elk.
"… and then I had to hit him with a crowbar that I had for opening drawers and that kind of thing. Right between the eyes. He twitched like this and… yes. No, it wasn't so nice."
"No, of course not."
Oskar jumped up on the trailer, pulling his legs in under him. His dad dug around in a pocket on the vest and pulled out a cap.
"Here. It'll get cold around your ears."
"No, I have one."
Oskar took out his own cap and put it on. Dad put the other one away.
"What about you? It'll get cold around your ears."
Dad laughed.
"No, I'm used to it."
Of course Oskar knew that; he was just teasing. He couldn't remember ever seeing his dad in a wool cap. If it got really cold and windy he put on a kind of bearskin hat with ear flaps that he called his "inheritance," but that was the limit.
His dad kick-started the moped and it roared like an electric chain saw. He shouted something about the idling and put it in first. The moped jumped forward, almost causing Oskar to fall backwards; his dad yelled something about the gears and then they were off.
Second, third gear. The moped flew through the town. Oskar sat with his legs crossed in the clattering trailer. He felt like a king of the world and would have been able to keep going like this forever.
A physician had explained it to him. The fumes he had inhaled had burned away his vocal chords and he would probably never be able to speak normally again. A new operation would be able to give him a rudimentary ability to produce vowels, but since even his tongue and lips were badly injured there would have to be additional operations to enable the possibility of uttering consonants.
As a former Swedish teacher Hakan could not help but be fascinated at the thought: to create speech by surgical means.
He knew quite a bit about phonemes and the smallest components of language, common across many cultures. He had never reflected much over the actual tools of production-the roof of the mouth, lips, tongue, vocal chords-in this way. To coax speech from this shapeless raw material with a scalpel.
But it was meaningless anyway. He did not intend to speak. In addition, he suspected that the doctor was talking that way for a special reason. He was considered suicide-prone. Therefore it was important to imprint him with a linear sense of time. To recreate the feeling of life as a project, a dream of future conquests.
He didn't buy it.
If Eli needed him he could consider living. Otherwise he could not. Nothing indicated that Eli needed him.
But how would Eli be able to contact him in this place?
From the tree tops outside his window he sensed that he was high up. And furthermore, he was well-guarded. In addition to the doctors and nurses there was always at least one policeman nearby. Eli could not reach him and he could not reach Eli. The thought of escaping, of getting in touch with Eli one last time had gone through his head. But how?
The throat operation had made him capable of breathing on his own again. He no longer had to be attached to a respirator. But he could not get down food in the normal way (even this would be repaired, the doctor had assured him). The feeding tube dangled constantly at the edge of his vision. If he pulled it out an alarm would go off somewhere, and anyway he couldn't see very well. To escape was basically unthinkable.
A plastic surgeon had taken the opportunity to transplant a piece of skin from his back to his eyelid so he could shut his eye.
He shut his eye.
The door to his room opened. It was time again. He recognized the voice. The same man as before.
"Well, well," said the man. "They tell me there won't be any talking in the near future. That's too bad. But I have this stubborn thought that we could still manage to communicate with each other, you and me, if you're up for it."
Hakan tried to remember what Plato said in The Republic about murderers and violent offenders, what you were supposed to do with them.
"I see you can shut your eye now. That's good. You know what? I'll try to make this a little more concrete for you. Because it struck me that maybe you don't believe we're going to identify you. But we will. I'm sure you remember you had a wristwatch. Luckily it was an older watch with the manufacturer's initials, serial number, and everything. We're going to trace it within a couple of days, in one way or another. A week maybe. And there are other things.
"We'll find you, that's a certainty.
"So… Max. I don't know why I want to call you Max, it is entirely provisional. Max? You maybe want to help us out a little here. Otherwise we'll have to take a picture of you and send it to the papers and… well, you see. It will be… complicated. Much easier if you talk… or something… with me now.
"You had a piece of paper with the Morse code in your pocket. Do you know the Morse code? Because in that case we can talk by tapping."
Hakan opened his eye, looked in the direction of the two dark spots in the white, blurry oval that was the man's face. The man clearly chose to interpret this as an invitation. He continued.
"This man in the water. It wasn't you who killed him, was it? The pathologists say that the bite marks in his neck were probably made by a child. And now we've had a report that I unfortunately can't give any details of, but… I think you are protecting someone. Is this correct? Lift your hand if this is correct."
Hakan shut his eye. The policeman sighed.
"OK, then we'll let the machine keep working. Is there anything else you would like to tell me before I go?"
The man was about to get up when Hakan lifted one hand. The policeman sat down again. Hakan lifted the hand higher. And waved.
Good-bye.
The policeman let out a snorting sound, got up, and left.
Virginia's injuries had not been life-threatening. On Friday afternoon she was discharged from the hospital with fourteen stitches and a large bandage on her neck, a smaller one on her cheek. She had refused Lacke's offer to stay with her, live with her, until she felt better.
She had gone to bed Friday evening convinced that she would get up and go to work Saturday morning. Couldn't afford to stay home.
It had been hard to fall asleep. Memories of the attack kept returning, and she couldn't get settled. Thought she saw black lumps emerge out of the shadows of her room and fall down on her as she lay in bed with her eyes wide open. Her wound itched under the bandage on her throat. Around two o'clock in the morning she got hungry, went out into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator.
Her stomach had felt empty, but as she stood there and looked at all the food, there was nothing she felt she wanted. From habit, she had still taken out the bread, butter, cheese, and milk and set them on the kitchen table.
She made herself a cheese sandwich and poured milk into a glass. Then she sat at the table and looked at the white liquid in the glass, the brown piece of bread with its yellow slice of cheese. It looked revolting. She didn't want it. She threw it out, pouring the milk down the drain. There was a half-full bottle of white wine in the fridge. She poured out a glass, brought it to her lips. But when she smelled the wine she lost interest.
With a feeling of failure she poured herself a glass of water from the tap. She hesitated as she brought it to her mouth. Surely you could always drink water?… Yes. She could drink the water. But it tasted… stale. As if everything good in the water had been removed and only left the flat dregs.
She went back to bed, shifting restlessly for a few more hours then finally falling asleep.
When she woke up it was half past ten. She threw herself out of bed, pulled on some clothes in the dimly lit bedroom. Good heavens. She should have been at the store at eight. Why hadn't they called?
Oh, but wait. She had heard the phone ring. It had rung in her last dream before she woke up, then stopped. If they hadn't called she would still be sleeping. She buttoned her blouse and walked over to the window, pulled up the blinds.
The light struck her face like a physical blow. She staggered backward, away from the window, and dropped the cords to the blinds. They slipped down again with a clattering sound, stopping at a crooked angle. She sat down on the bed. A single beam of sunlight came in through the window, shining on her naked foot.
A thousand pinpricks.
As if her skin were being twisted in two directions at once.
What is this?
She moved her foot away, pulled on her socks. Moved her foot back into the sunlight. Better. Only a hundred pinpricks. She stood up to go to work then sat down again.
Some kind of… shock.
The sensation when she pulled up the blinds had been ghastly. As if the light were heavy matter flung at her body, pushing her away. It had been the worst in the eyes. Two strong thumbs pressing on them, threatening to gouge them out of her head. They were still stinging.
She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, took her sunglasses out of the bathroom cabinet and put them on.
Hunger raged in her body but all she had to do was think of the contents of the refrigerator and pantry to make all thoughts of eating breakfast disappear. And anyway she had no time. She was almost three hours late.
She went out, locked the door, and walked down the stairs as fast as she could. Her body was weak. Maybe it was a mistake to go to work today. Well, the store would only be open four more hours and it was now the Saturday customers started to come in.
She was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she did not hesitate before opening the front door of the building.
The light was there again.
Her eyes hurt despite the sunglasses, boiling water was poured over her hands and face. She gave a little scream. Pulled her hands into her coat, bent her face to the ground and ran. She could not protect her neck and scalp and they stung like they were on fire. Luckily it was not far to the store.
When she was safely inside, the stinging and pain quickly lifted. Most of the store windows were covered in advertising and protective plastic film so that the sunlight wouldn't affect the goods. She took off her sunglasses. It hurt a little, but that could be because a little bit of sunlight came in the spaces between the advertising posters. She put her sunglasses in her pocket and walked out to the office.
Lennart, the store manager and her boss, was there filling out forms, but he looked up when she came in. She had expected some kind of reprimand but he simply said: "Hi, how's it going."
"Oh… fine."
"Shouldn't you be at home getting some rest?"
"No, I thought…"
"You didn't need to, you know. Lotten will fill in for you today. I tried to call you earlier, but when you didn't pick up…"
"Isn't there anything for me to do, then?"
"Check with Berit in the meat department. And Virginia…"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry about what happened. I don't know exactly how to say it, but… I feel badly about it. And I completely understand if you need to take it easy for a while."
Virginia couldn't get her head around it. Lennart was not the kind of person who looked kindly on sick leave, or for that matter, any kind of problem that other people might have. And to hear him extend his personal sympathies was something completely new. She must look pretty terrible with her swollen cheek and her bandages.
Virginia said: "Thanks. I'll think it over," and went to the meat department.
She looped over past the checkout registers in order to say hi to Lot-ten. Five people were lined up at her register and Virginia thought she should open another one after all. But the question was if Lennart even wanted her to sit at a checkout register looking as she did.
When she walked into the light from the horrible window behind the checkout registers it got like that again. Her face tightened, her eyes ached. It wasn't as bad as the direct sunlight out on the street, but it was bad enough. She would not be able to sit there.
Lotten caught sight of her, waved in between two customers.
"Hi, I read… How are you doing?"
Virginia held up her hand, wiggled it from side to side: so so.
Read?
She nabbed the Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter, took them with her over to the meat department, quickly eyed the first page news. Nothing there. That would have been a reach.
The meat department was at the very back of the store, beside the milk products, strategically planned so that you had to walk through the whole store in order to get there. Virginia stopped next to the shelves with canned food. She was trembling with hunger. She looked carefully at all the cans.
Crushed tomatoes, mushrooms, mussels, tuna, ravioli, Bullen's beer sausage, pea soup… no. She felt nothing but revulsion.
Berit saw her from the meat counter, waved. As soon as Virginia had come around the back of the counter Berit hugged her, and carefully touched the bandage on her cheek.
"Ugh. Poor you."
"Oh, it's…"
Fine?
She retreated to the little storage room behind the meat counter. If she let Berit get started she would be subject to a long harangue about people's suffering in general and the evils of today's society in particular.
Virginia sat down on a chair between the scales and the door to the freezer room. It was an area of only a few square meters but it was the most comfortable place in the store. No sunlight. She flipped through the papers and found a small article in the Dagens Nyheter domestic news section. She read:
Woman attacked in Blackeberg
A fifty-year-old woman unknown. The police are now was attacked and assaulted investigating a possible con-Thursday night in the Stock- nection to other violent inci-holm suburb of Blackeberg. A dents in the western suburbs passerby intervened and the during the past few weeks. The perpetrator, a young woman, fifty-year-old woman's injuries immediately fled the scene, were described as minor. The motive of the assault is
Virginia lowered the paper. So strange to read about yourself in that way. "Fifty-year-old woman," "passerby" "minor injuries." Everything that was concealed by those words.
"Possible connection?" Yes, Lacke was convinced that she had been attacked by the same child who killed Jocke. He had had to bite his tongue not to say this at the hospital, some time on Friday morning, to the female police officer and the doctor who examined her wounds.
He was planning to talk to the police, but wanted to inform Gosta first, thought Gosta would see the whole thing from a new perspective now that even Virginia had been involved.
She heard a rustling sound and looked around. It took a few seconds before she realized that it was the newspaper shaking in her own hands that was making the noise. She set the newspapers on the shelf above the white coats and went out to join Berit.
"Anything I can do?"
"Do you really think it's a good idea, hon?"
"Yes, it's better for me to be doing something."
"I see. You can portion out the shrimp, in that case. Five hundred gram bags. But shouldn't you?…"
Virginia shook her head and walked back to the storage room. She put on a white coat and hat, took a case of shrimp out of the freezer, pulled a plastic bag over her hand, and started to weigh them out. Dug around in the carton with the hand that had the plastic bag over it, portioned them out into bags, weighed them on the scales. A boring, mechanical job, and her right hand felt frozen already on her fourth bag. But she was doing something, and it gave her an opportunity to think.
That night at the hospital Lacke had said something really strange: that the child who attacked her had not been a human being. That it had had fangs and claws.
Virginia had dismissed this as a drunken hallucination.
She didn't remember much from the attack. But she could accept this: the thing that had jumped on top of her had been much too light to be an adult, almost too light to be a child, even. A very small child in that case. Five or six maybe. She recalled that she had stood up with the weight on her back. After that everything was black until she woke up in her apartment with all the guys except Gosta gathered around her.
She put a tie around a finished bag, took out the next one, dropped in a few handfuls. Four hundred and thirty grams. Seven more shrimp. Five hundred and ten.
Our treat.
She looked down at her hands, which were working independently of her brain. Hands. With long nails. Sharp teeth. What was that called? Lacke had said it out loud. A vampire. Virginia had laughed, carefully, so that the stitches in her cheek wouldn't come out. Lacke had not even smiled.
"You didn't see it."
"But Lacke… they don't really exist."
"No. But what was it then?"
"A child. Living out a strange twisted fantasy."
"Who grew out her nails? Filed her teeth down? I'd like to see the dentist who…"
"Lacke, it was dark. You were drunk, it-"
"It was, and I was. But I saw what I saw."
It burned and felt tight under the bandage on her cheek. She removed the plastic bag from her right hand, put her hand over the bandage. It was ice cold and that felt good. But she was weak; it felt as if her legs weren't going to carry her much longer.
She would finish this carton and then go home. This wasn't going to work. If she could rest over the weekend she would probably feel better on Monday. She put the plastic bag back on and started in on the work again with a spark of anger. Hated being sick.
A sharp pain in her index finger. Damn it. That's what happens if you don't concentrate. The shrimp were sharp when they were frozen and she had pricked her finger. She pulled off the plastic bag and looked at the finger. A smallish cut with a little blood welling out of it.
She automatically popped it into her mouth to suck the blood away.
A warm, healing, delicious spot radiating out from the place where her fingertip met her tongue, started to spread. She sucked harder on the finger. All good tastes concentrated into one filled her mouth. A shiver of well-being went through her body. She sucked and sucked, giving in to the pleasure until she realized what she was doing.
She pulled the finger out of her mouth, stared at it. It was shiny with saliva and the tiny amount of blood that now welled out was immediately thinned out by the wetness, like an overly diluted watercolor. She looked at the shrimp in the carton. Hundreds of pink bodies, covered with frost. And eyes. Black pinheads dispersed in the white and pink, an upside-down starry sky. Patterns, constellations started to dance in front of her eyes.
The world spun on its axis and something hit her in the back of the head. In front of her eyes there was a white surface with cobwebs in the corners. She understood that she was lying on the floor but had no strength to do anything about it.
In the distance she heard Berit's voice: "Oh my God… Virginia…"
Jonny liked to hang out with his older brother. At least when none of his sketchy buddies were around. Jimmy knew some guys from Racksta that
Jonny was pretty scared of. One evening a few years ago they had come by to talk to Jimmy, hanging around outside but without ringing the buzzer. When Jonny told them Jimmy wasn't home they asked him to deliver a message.
"Tell your brother that if he doesn't get us the dough by Monday we'll put his head in a vice… you know what that is?… OK… and turn it like this until the dough runs out of his ears. Can you tell him that? OK, great. Jonny's your name? Good-bye then, Jonny."
Jonny had delivered the message and Jimmy had simply nodded, said he knew. Then some money had disappeared from Mom's wallet and then there had been an angry scene.
Jimmy was not home as often nowadays. There was sort of no room for him anymore since their youngest little sister was born. Jonny already had two younger siblings and there weren't supposed to be any more. But then Mom had met some guy and… well… that's how it went.
At least Jonny and Jimmy had the same dad. He worked on an oil rig off the coast of Norway and not only had he started sending regular child support, he was also sending a little extra just to make up for before. Mom blessed him, and when she was drunk she had even cried over him a few times and said she would never again meet a man like that. So for the first time in as long as Jonny could remember a lack of money was not the constant topic of conversation.
Now they were sitting in the pizzeria on the main square in Blacke-berg. Jimmy had been home in the morning, argued a bit with Mom, and then he and Jonny had gone out. Jimmy heaped condiments on his pizza, folded it up, picked up the large roll with both hands, and started to eat. Jonny ate his pizza in the usual way, thinking that next time he ate pizza without Jimmy he would eat it like that.
Jimmy chewed, nodded his head at the bandage over Jonny's ear. "Looks like hell."
"Yes."
"Does it hurt?"
"It's OK."
"Mom said it's damaged for life. That you won't be able to hear anything."
"They don't know yet. Maybe it'll be alright."
"Hm. Let me get this straight. The guy just picked up some big branch and bashed it into your head."
"Mm."
"Damn. What are you going to do about it?"
"Don't know."
"Need any help?"
"… No."
"What? Me and a few of my pals can take him out."
Jonny pulled off a big piece with shrimp, his favorite, put it in his mouth and chewed. No. Better not drag Jimmy's friends into this, then it would get out of hand. Nonetheless Jonny smiled at the thought of how scared shitless Oskar would be if he appeared at his house with Jimmy and, say, those guys from Racksta. He shook his head.
Jimmy put his pizza roll down and looked seriously at Jonny.
"OK, but I'm just saying. One more thing, and then…"
He snapped his fingers hard, then made a fist.
"You're my brother and no little shit is going to come and… One more thing, then you can say whatever you like. Then I'm going after him. OK?"
Jimmy held out his fist across the table. Jonny also made a fist and bumped Jimmy's with it. It felt good. That there was someone who cared. Jimmy nodded.
"Good. I have something for you."
He bent down under the table, took out a plastic bag that he had been carrying all morning. He drew a thin photo album out of the bag. "Dad came by last week. He's grown a beard, almost didn't recognize him. He had this with him."
Jimmy held the album out to Jonny, who wiped his fingers on a napkin and opened it.
Pictures of children. Of Mom. Maybe ten years ago. And a man he recognized as his father. The man was pushing the kids on swings. In one picture he was wearing a much-too-small cowboy hat. Jimmy, maybe nine years old, was standing next to him with a plastic rifle in his hands and a grim expression. A little boy who had to be Jonny sat on the ground nearby and looked wide-eyed at them.
"He loaned me this till next time. He wants it back, said it was… yeah,
what the fuck was it… 'my most valuable possession,' I think he said. Thought it might interest you too."
Jonny nodded without looking up from the album. He had only met his dad two times since he left when Jonny was four. At home there was one picture of him, a pretty bad one where he was sitting around with some other people. This was something completely different. Here you could kind of construct a real image of him.
"One more thing. Don't show it to Mom. I think Dad kind of swiped it when he left and if she sees it… well, he wants it back, as I told you. Promise. Don't show Mom."
Still with his nose buried in the album, Jonny made a fist and held it out over the table. Jimmy laughed and then Jonny felt Jimmy's knuckles against his. Promise.
"Hey, you check it out later. Take the bag too."
Jimmy held out the bag and Jonny reluctantly folded up the album, put it in the bag. Jimmy was done with his pizza, leaned back in his chair, and patted his stomach.
"So. How are things on the chick front?"
The village flew by. Snow that was kicked up by the wheels of the moped trailer was sprayed back and peppered Oskar's cheeks. He gripped the towrope with both hands, shifted his weight to the side, swinging out of the snow cloud. There was a sharp scraping sound as the skis sliced through the loose snow. The outer ski nudged an orange reflector where the road split in two. He wobbled, then regained his balance.
The road down to Lagaro and the summer houses wasn't plowed. The moped left three deep tracks in the untouched snow cover, and five meters behind it came Oskar on skis, making two additional tracks. He drove zigzag over the moped tracks, stood on one ski like a trick skier, crouched down into a little ball of speed.
When his dad slowed down on the long hill heading down to the old steamship pier, Oskar was going faster than the moped and he was forced to brake a little in order not to let too much slack into the line, which would then result in a strong jerk when the hill leveled off and the moped picked up speed again.
The moped got all the way down to the pier and his dad switched down out of gear and stood on the brake. Oskar was still traveling at full throttle and for a short moment he thought about dropping the rope and keeping going… Out over the end of the pier, down into the black water. But he angled the mini-skis out, braked a couple of meters from the edge.
He stood panting for a while, looked out over the water. Thin sections of ice had started to form, bobbed up and down in the small waves by the shores. Maybe there was a chance of real ice this year. So you could walk across to Vato on the other side. Or did they keep a channel in to Nor-rtalje open? Oskar couldn't remember. It was several years since there had been ice like that.
When Oskar was out here in the summer he would fish for herring from this pier. Loose hooks on the line, a lure on the end. If he found a school he could end up with a couple of kilos if he had the patience, but mostly he ended up with ten or fifteen fish. That was enough for dinner for him and his dad; the smallest ones went to the cat.
Dad came up and stood behind him.
"That went well, it did."
"Mmm. But I went all the way through the snow a couple of times."
"True, the snow is a little loose. If we could pack it tighter, somehow. If we could… maybe take a particleboard and hitch it up, put some weight on it. You know, if you put the board and the weight down, then…"
"Should we do it?"
"No, it'd have to be tomorrow, at any rate. It's getting dark now. We'll have to get home and work on that bird a little if there's going to be any dinner."
"OK."
His dad looked out over the water, stood there quietly for a while.
"You know, I've been thinking about something."
"Yes?"
It was coming now. Mom had told Oskar that she let Dad know in no uncertain terms that he had to talk to him about what happened with Jonny. And actually Oskar wanted to talk about it. Dad was at a secure distance from it all, wouldn't interfere in any way. His dad cleared his throat, gathered himself. Breathed out. Looked over the water. Then he said: "Yes, I was thinking… do you have any ice skates?"
"No, none that fit me."
"No, no. No. Well, if we get ice this winter and it looks like… then it would be fun to have some, wouldn't it. I have some."
"They probably won't fit."
His dad snorted, a kind of chuckle.
"No, but… Osten's boy has some he's grown out of. Thirty-nines. What size do you wear?"
"Thirty-eight."
"Yes, but with woolen socks you'd… I'll ask him if you can have them."
"Great."
"Then it's settled. Good. Should we get going, then?"
Oskar nodded. Maybe it would come later. And the part about the skates was good. If they could manage it tomorrow then he could bring them back with him.
He walked on his mini-skis over to the end of the towrope, backed up until the line was taut, signaled his dad that he was ready. His dad started the moped. They had to go up the hill in first gear. The moped roared so that it frightened some crows out of the top of a pine tree.
Oskar glided slowly up the hill like he was going up a rope tow, stood straight with his legs pressed together. He wasn't thinking about anything except trying to keep his skis in the old tracks in order to avoid cutting through the snow layer to the ground. They made their way home as twilight was falling.
Lacke walked down the stairs from the main square with a box of Aladdin chocolates tucked inside the top of his pants. Didn't like to steal, but he had no money and he wanted to give Virginia something. Should have brought roses as well, but try swiping anything at a florist.
It was already dark and when he reached the bottom of the hill toward the school he hesitated. Looked around, scraped the snow with his foot, and uncovered a rock the size of a fist that he kicked loose and slipped in
his pocket, squeezing his hand around it. Not because he thought it would help against what he had seen but the stone's weight and cold offered a bit of comfort.
His asking around in the various apartment courtyards had not yielded any results other than guarded, suspicious looks from parents who were out building snowmen with their youngsters. Dirty old man.
It was only when he opened his mouth to talk to a woman who was beating rugs that he realized how unnatural his behavior must appear. The woman had paused in her task, turned to him with the stick in her hand like a weapon.
"Excuse me," Lacke said,"… yes, I was wondering… I'm looking for a child."
"Really?"
He heard himself how it sounded, and it made him even more unsure of himself. "Yes, she has… disappeared. I was wondering if someone had seen her around here."
"Is it your child?"
"No, but…"
Apart from a couple of teenagers, he had given up talking to people he didn't know. Or at least recognized. He bumped into some acquaintances, but they hadn't seen anything. Seek and thou shalt find, sure. But then you probably also had to know exactly what you were looking for.
He came down the path through the park leading to the school and glanced over at Jocke's underpass.
The news had made quite a splash in the papers yesterday, mostly because of the macabre way in which the body had been discovered. A murdered alcoholic was normally nothing noteworthy but there had been salacious interest in the children watching, the fire department who had to saw into the ice, etc. Next to the text there was a passport photo of Jocke in which he looked like a mass murderer, at the very least.
Lacke continued on past the Blackeberg school's dour brick facade, the wide high steps, like the entrance to the National Courts, or to hell. On the wall next to the lowest step someone had spray painted the words "Iron Maiden," whatever that meant. Maybe some group.
He walked past the parking lot, out onto Bjornsonsgatan. Normally he would have taken a short cut across the back of the school but there it was… dark. He could very easily imagine that creature curled up in the shadows. He looked up into the tops of the tall pine trees that bordered the path. A few dark clumps in among the branches. Probably bird nests.
It wasn't just what the creature looked like, it was also the way in which it attacked. He would maybe, maybe, have been able to accept the idea that the teeth and claws had some natural explanation, if it hadn't been for the jump from the tree. Before carrying Virginia back he had looked up at the tree. The branch that the creature had jumped from was maybe five meters above the ground.
To fall five meters onto someone's back-if you added "circus artist" to the other things to arrive at a "natural explanation," then maybe. But all things considered it was as improbable as what he had said to Virginia, which he now regretted.
Damn it…
He pulled the box of chocolates from his pants. Maybe his body heat had already melted the chocolates? He shook the box gently. No. It made a rattling sound. The chocolates had not run together. He continued along Bjornsonsgatan, past the ICA store.
CRUSHED TOMATOES. THREE CANS 5 KRONOR.
Six days ago.
Lacke's hand was still wrapped around the stone. He looked at the sign, could imagine Virginia's concentration in order to make the even, straight letters. Wouldn't she have stayed home to rest today? It would be just like her to stumble in to work before the blood even had a chance to congeal.
When he reached the front door of her building he looked up at her window. No light. Maybe she was with her daughter? Well, he had to at least go up and leave the chocolates on her door handle if she wasn't home. It was pitch black inside the stairwell. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
The child is here.
He stood frozen in place, then threw himself on the shining red button of the light switch, pushing it in with the back of the hand carrying the box of chocolates. The other hand squeezed tightly around the stone in his pocket.
A soft clonking from the relay in the cellar as the light was turned on. Nothing. Virginia's stairwell. Yellow vomit-patterned concrete stairs. Wood doors. He breathed deeply a few times and started up the steps.
Only now did he realize how tired he was. Virginia lived all the way up on the third floor, and his legs were dragging him up there, two lifeless planks attached to his hips. He was hoping Virginia was home, that she was feeling good, that he could sink down into her armchair and simply rest in the place he most wanted to be. He let go of the rock in his pocket and rang the bell. Waited a while. Rang it again.
He had started trying to balance the box of chocolates on the door handle when he heard creeping steps from within the apartment. He backed away from the door. On the inside, the steps came to a halt. She was standing next to the door, on the other side.
"Who is it?"
Never, ever had she asked this question before. You rang the bell, you heard her steps, swish swish, and then the door opened. Come in, come in. He cleared his throat. It s me.
Pause. Could he hear her breath or was it his imagination?
"What do you want?"
"I wanted to see how you were doing, that's all."
Another pause.
"I'm not feeling so good."
"Can I come in?"
He waited. Held the box of chocolates in front of him in both hands, feeling silly. A bang as she turned the first lock, the rustle of keys as she unlocked the dead bolt. Another rustle as she took the chain off the door. The door handle was pushed down and the door opened.
He involuntarily took half a step back, the small of his back hitting against the stair railing. Virginia was standing in the doorway. She looked like she was dying.
Besides the swollen cheek, her face was covered with tiny little boils and her eyes looked like she had the hangover of the century: a network of red lines in the whites and the pupils so tightly contracted they had almost disappeared. She nodded. "I look like hell."
"No, no. I only… I thought maybe… can I come in?"
"No. I don't have the energy."
"Have you been to the doctor?"
"I will. Tomorrow."
"Good. Well, I…"
He handed her the box of chocolates that he had been holding in
front of him the whole time like a shield. Virginia accepted it. "Thank
„ you.
"Virginia. Is there anything I can-?"
"No. It'll be alright. I just need some rest. Can't stand here any longer. We'll be in touch."
"Yes, I'll come by…"
Virginia closed the door.
"… tomorrow."
The rustling of locks and chains again. He stood there outside her door with his arms hanging by his sides. Walked up to the door and put his ear to it. He heard a cabinet opened, slow steps inside the apartment.
What should I do?
It was not his place to force her to do something she didn't want, but he would have preferred to bring her to the hospital now. Well. He would come back here tomorrow morning. If there was no improvement he would bring her in to the hospital whether she wanted to or not.
Lacke walked down the stairs, one step at a time. So tired. When he reached the last flight of stairs before the door to the outside, he sat down on the highest step and leaned his head in his hands.
/ am… responsible.
The light went off. The tendons in his neck tensed; he drew a ragged breath. Only the relay. On a timer. He sat on the steps in the dark, carefully taking the rock out of his pocket, resting it in both hands and staring out into the dark.
Come on, then, he thought. Come on.
Virginia closed the door on Lacke's pleading face, locked it, and put the chain on. Didn't want him to see her. Didn't want to see anyone. It had cost her a great effort to say those few words, to act according to some basic form of normality.
Her condition had deteriorated rapidly after she got home from the ICA store. Lotten had helped her home and in her dazed state she had simply put up with the pain of daylight on her face. Once she was home she had looked in the mirror and seen the hundreds of tiny blisters on her face and hands. Burn marks.
She had slept for a few hours, woken up when it got dark. Her hunger had then changed in nature, been transformed into anxiety. A school of hysterically wriggling little fish now filled her circulatory system. She could neither lie down, nor sit, nor stand. She walked around and around the apartment, scratched her body, took a cold shower to dampen the jumpy, tingling feeling. Nothing helped.
It defied description. It reminded her of when she was twenty-two and had been informed that her father had fallen from the roof of their summer cottage and broken his neck. That time she had also walked around and around as if there was not a single place on earth where her body could rest, where it didn't hurt.
Same thing now, except worse. The anxiety did not let up for a moment. It forced her around the apartment until she couldn't stand it any longer, until she sat down on a chair and banged her head into the kitchen table. In desperation she took two sleeping pills and washed them down with a couple of mouthfuls of wine that tasted like dishwater.
Normally one was all she needed to fall asleep as if she had been hit in the head. The only effect on her now was that she became intensely nauseated and after five minutes vomited green slime and both of the half-dissolved tablets.
She kept walking around, ripped a newspaper into tiny pieces, crawled on the floor and whimpered. She crawled into the kitchen, pushed the bottle of wine from the table so it fell to the ground and broke in front of her eyes.
She picked up one of the broken shards.
Didn't think. Just pressed it into the palm of her hand and the pain felt good, felt right. The school of fish in her body rushed toward the point of the pain and blood welled out. She pressed the palm to her mouth and licked it, and the anxiety gave way. She cried with relief while she punctured her hand in a new place and kept sucking. The taste of blood mingled with the taste of tears.
Curled up on the kitchen floor, with her hand pressed against her mouth, greedily sucking like a newborn child that finds its mother's breast for the first time, she felt-for the second time on this terrible day-calm.
About half an hour after she had stood up from the floor, swept the shards up from the floor, and put on a Band-Aid, the anxiety had started to return. That was when Lacke had rung the bell.
When she had sent him away and locked the door she walked out into the kitchen and put the box of chocolates in the pantry. She sat down on a kitchen chair and tried to understand. The anxiety would not let her. Soon it would force her to her feet again. The only thing she knew was that no one could be with her here. Particularly not Lacke. She would hurt him. The anxiety would drive her to it.
She had contracted some kind of disease. There were medicines for diseases.
Tomorrow she would consult a doctor, someone who could examine her and say that: Well, this was simply an attack of X. We'll have to put you on Y and Z for a couple of weeks. That'll clear it right up.
She walked to and fro in the apartment. It was starting to get unbearable again.
She hit her arms, her legs, but the small fish had come back to life and nothing helped. She knew what she had to do. She sobbed from fear of the pain but the actual sensation was so brief and the relief so great.
She walked out into the kitchen and got a sharp little fruit knife, went back out and sat down in the couch in the living room, rested the blade against the underside of her arm.
Only to get her through the night. Tomorrow she would seek help. It
was self-evident she couldn't keep going like this. Drink her own blood. Of course not. There would have to be a change. But for now…
The saliva rose up in her mouth, wet anticipation. She cut into herself. Deeply…
7 November [Evening]
Oskar cleared the table and his dad did the dishes. The eider duck had been delicious, of course. No shot. There was not much to wash off the plates. After they had eaten most of the bird and almost all of the potato they had sopped up the remains on their plates with white bread. That was the best part. Pour out gravy on the plate and sop it up with porous bits of white bread that half-dissolved in the gravy and then melted in your mouth.
His dad wasn't a great cook or anything, but three dishes-pytt-i-panna, fried herring, and roasted seabird-he made so often that he had mastered them. Tomorrow they would have pytt-i-panna made from the leftovers.
Oskar had spent the hours before dinner in his room. He had his own room at his dad's house that was bare compared to his room in town, but he liked it. In town he had posters and pictures, a lot of things; it was always changing.
This room never changed and that was exactly what he liked about it.
It looked the same now as when he was seven years old.
When he walked into the room, with its familiar damp smell that lingered in the air after a rapid heating job in anticipation of his visit, it was as if nothing had happened for… a long time.
Here were still the Donald Duck and Bamse comic books bought during the many summers of years past. He no longer read them when he was in town, but here he did. He knew the stories by heart but he read them again.
While the smells filtered in from the kitchen he lay on his bed and read an old issue of Donald Duck. Donald, his nephews, and Uncle Scrooge were traveling to a distant country where there was no money and the cap tops of the bottles containing Uncle Scrooge's calming tonic became the currency.
When he had finished reading he busied himself with the assortment of lures and sinkers that he kept in an old sewing kit his dad had given him. Tied a new line with loose hooks, five of them, and attached the lures for summertime herring fishing.
Then they ate, and when his dad was done with the dishes they played tic-tac-toe.
Oskar liked sitting like that with his dad; the graph paper on the thin table, their heads leaning over the page, close to each other. The fire crackled in the fireplace.
Oskar was crosses and his dad circles, as usual. His dad never let Oskar win purposely and so until a few years ago his dad had always won easily, even if Oskar got lucky now and again. But now it was more even. Maybe it had to do with him practicing so much with the Rubik's Cube.
The matches could go on over half the page, which was to Oskar's advantage. He was good at keeping in mind places with holes that could be filled if Dad did this or that, mask an offensive as a defense.
Tonight it was Oskar who won.
Three matches in a row had now been encircled and marked with an "O" in the middle. Only a little one, where Oskar had been thinking of something else, had a "P" on it. Oskar filled in a cross and got two open fours where his dad could only block one. His dad sighed and shook his head.
"Well, Oskar. Looks like I've met my match."
"Seems like it."
For the sake of the game, his dad blocked the one four and Oskar filled in the other. His dad closed one side of the four and Oskar put a fifth cross on the other side, drew a circle around the whole thing, and
wrote a neat "O." His dad scratched his beard and pulled out a new sheet of paper. Held his pen up.
"But this time I'm going to…"
"You can always dream. You start."
Four crosses and three circles into the match there was a knock at the front door. Shortly thereafter it opened and Oskar could hear thuds from someone stamping the snow off their feet.
"Hello, hello!"
Dad looked up from the paper, leaned back in the chair, and looked out into the hall. Oskar pinched his lips together.
No.
His dad nodded at the new arrival. "Come in."
"Thank you."
Soft thumps from someone walking through the hall with woolen socks on their feet. A moment later Janne came into the kitchen, said: "Oh I see. Well aren't you two having a cozy evening."
Dad gestured toward Oskar. "You've met my boy."
"Sure," Janne said. "Hi Oskar, how's it going?"
"Fine."
Until now. Go away.
Janne thudded over to the kitchen table; the woolen socks had slid down his heels and were fluttering out in front of his toes like deformed flippers. He pulled out a chair and sat down.
"I see you're playing tic-tac-toe."
"Yes, but the boy is too good for me. I can't beat him anymore."
"No. Been practicing in town? Do you dare play against me, then, Oskar?"
Oskar shook his head. Didn't even want to look at Janne, knew what he would see there. Watery eyes, a mouth pulled into a sheep-grin; yes, Janne looked like an old sheep and the blond curly hair only strengthened the impression. One of Dad's "friends" who was Oskar's enemy.
Janne rubbed his hands together, producing a sound like sandpaper, and in the backlight from the hall Oskar could see small flakes of skin fall
to the floor. Janne had some kind of skin disease that flared up in the summer that made his face look like a rotten blood orange.
"Well, well. It sure is cozy in here."
You always say that. Go away with your revolting face and your old stale words.
"Dad, aren't we going to keep playing?"
"Of course, but now that we have a guest…"
"Go on, play."
Janne leaned back in his chair and looked like he had all the time in the world. But Oskar knew he had lost the battle. It was over. Now it would turn out like always.
Most of all he wanted to scream, break something, most of all Janne, when Dad walked over to the pantry and brought out the bottle, picked up two shot glasses and put them on the table. Janne rubbed his hands so the flakes danced.
"Well, well. What have we here…"
Oskar looked down at the paper with its unfinished game.
He was going to put his cross there.
But there would be no more crosses tonight. No circles. Nothing.
There was a light gurgling sound as Dad poured out the shots. The delicate upside-down cone of glass was filled with transparent liquid. It was so little and fragile in Dad's hand. It almost disappeared.
And still it ruined everything. Everything.
Oskar crinkled up the unfinished game and put it in the woodstove. Dad made no protests. He and Janne had started talking about some acquaintance who had broken his leg. Went on to talk about other cases of broken bones that they had experienced or heard about, refilled their glasses.
Oskar stayed where he was in front of the stove, with the doors open, looking at the paper that burst into flames, blackened. Then he got the other games and put them in the fire as well.
Dad and Janne took the glasses and the bottle and moved to the living room. Dad said something to Oskar about '"come and talk a little" and Oskar said "later, maybe." He sat there in front of the stove and stared into the fire. The heat caressed his face. He got up, got the graph paper from the kitchen table, tore unused pages out of it and put them in the fire.
When the whole pad with cover and all was blackened he took the pencils and threw them into the fire as well.
There was something uncanny about the hospital at this time of night. Maud Carlberg sat in the reception and looked out over the almost empty entrance hall. The cafeteria and kiosk were closed; only the occasional person came through, like a ghost under this high ceiling.
Late at night like this she liked to imagine that it was she and only she who was guarding this enormous building that was Danderyd Hospital. It wasn't true, of course. If there was any kind of a problem she only had to push a button and a night guard would turn up within three minutes.
There was a game she liked to play to get these late-night hours to pass.
She thought of a profession, a place to live, and the basic outline of a person's background. Perhaps an illness. Then she applied all this in her mind to the next person who approached her at the desk. Often the result was… amusing.
For example, she could imagine a pilot who lived on Gotgatan and had two dogs that a neighbor took care of when the pilot was away on his or her flights. The neighbor was secretly in love with the pilot, whose biggest problem was that he or she saw little green men with red caps swimming around in the clouds when he or she was out flying.
OK. Then all she had to do was wait.
Maybe after a while a woman with a ravaged appearance turned up. A female pilot. Had been drinking too much on the sly from those tiny liquor bottles they give you on the planes, had seen the little green men, had been fired. Now she sat at home with her dogs all day. The neighbor was still in love with her, however.
Maud kept going like that.
Sometimes she lectured herself about her game, because it prevented her from taking people seriously. But she couldn't help herself. Right now she was waiting for a minister whose passion was expensive sports cars and who loved picking up hitchhikers with the motive of trying to convert them.
Man or woman? Old or young? How would someone like that look?
Maud rested her chin in her hands and looked toward the front doors. Not a lot of people tonight. Visiting hours were over and new patients who turned up with Saturday-night injuries-mostly alcohol-related in one way or another-were brought to the emergency room.
The revolving doors started to turn. The sports car minister, perhaps.
But no, this was one of those cases where she had to give up. It was a child. A waif-like little… girl, about ten or twelve years old. Maud started to imagine a chain of events that would eventually lead this child to become that minister, but quickly stopped herself. The girl looked unhappy.
She walked over to the large map of the hospital with the color-coded lines marking the routes you had to take to go to this or that place. Few adults could make sense of that map, so how would a child be able to?
Maud leaned forward and said in a low voice: "Can I help you?"
The girl turned to her and smiled shyly, went over to the reception. Her hair was wet, the occasional snowflake that had not yet melted shone white against the black. She didn't keep her gaze glued to the floor as children often did in a foreign environment. No, the dark sad eyes stared straight into Maud's as she walked over to the counter. A thought, as clear as though it were audible, flashed through Maud's head.
Ihave to give you something. But what?
In her mind, stupidly, she quickly went through the contents of her desk drawers. A pen? A balloon?
The child stopped in front of the counter. Only her neck and head reached over the top of it.
"Excuse me… I'm looking for my father."
"I see. Has he been admitted here?"
"Yes, although, I don't know for sure…"
Maud looked past her at the doors, looked quickly around the hall, and then fixed on the girl in front of her, who was not even wearing a jacket. Only a black knitted turtleneck where drops of water and snowflakes glittered in the light of the reception area.
"Are you all alone here, dear? At this hour?"
"Yes, I… just wanted to know if he is here."
"Let's see about that then, shall we? What's his name?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
The girl bent her head, seemed to be looking for something on the ground. When she straightened her head again the large dark eyes were wet with tears and her lower lip trembled.
"No, he… But he is here."
"But my dear…"
Maud felt as if something in her chest were breaking and tried to take refuge in action; she bent down and took out her roll of paper towels from the lowest desk drawer, pulled off a piece, and handed it over to the girl. At last she was able to give her something, if only a piece of paper.
The girl blew her nose, and dried her eyes in a very… adult way.
"Thank you."
"But then I don't know… so what's wrong with him?"
"He is… the police took him."
"But then you'd better turn to them."
"Yes, but they're keeping him here. Because he's sick."
"Well, what kind of illness does he have?"
"He… I just know that the police have him here. Where is he?"
"Probably on the top floor, but you can't go up there if you haven't… made an appointment with them ahead of time."
"I just wanted to know which window was his so I could… I don't know."
The girl started to cry again. Maud's throat got so tight it hurt. The girl wanted to know this so she could stand outside the hospital in the snow… and look up toward her father's window. Maud swallowed.
"I can call them if you like. I'm sure that you can-"
"No, it's fine. Now I know. Now I can… Thanks, thanks a lot."
The girl turned away and walked back to the revolving door.
My Lord, all these broken families.
The girl walked out the doors and Maud kept staring at the place where the girl had disappeared.
Something was wrong.
In her mind Maud went over what the girl had looked like, how she had moved. There was something that didn't match up, something you… It
took Maud half a minute to remember what it was. The girl had not been wearing any shoes.
Maud jumped up and ran to the doors. She was only allowed to leave the reception desk unattended under very special circumstances. She decided that this counted as one of them. She trotted through the revolving doors impatiently hurry hurry hurry and then out into the parking lot. The girl was nowhere in sight. What should she do? The social welfare people would have to be brought in; no one had checked to make sure there was someone to look after the girl. That was the only explanation. Who was her father?
Maud looked around the parking lot without finding the girl. She ran down one side of the hospital, in the direction of the subway. No girl. On her way back to the reception she tried to figure out who she should call, what she should do.
Oskar lay in bed, waiting for the Werewolf. He felt the inside of his chest churning with rage, despair. From the living room he heard his dad's and Janne's loud voices, mixed with music from the tape recorder. The Deep Brothers. Oskar could not actually make out the words but he knew the song by heart.
"We live in the country, and soon we realized
we're country fellas and then it hit us
We needed something for the barn
We sold the china, all nice and fine
and bought ourselves a great big swine…"
At this point the whole band started to imitate different farm animals. Normally he thought the Deep Brothers were funny. Now he hated them. Because they were part of this. Singing their idiotic songs for Dad and Janne while they got packed.
He knew exactly how it was going to go.
In an hour or so the bottle would be empty and Janne would go home.
Then Dad would pace up and down in the kitchen for a while, and finally decide he needed to talk to Oskar.
He would come into Oskar's room and he would no longer be Dad. Just an alcohol-stinking, clumsy mess, all sentimental and needy. Would want Oskar to get out of bed. Needed to talk for a while. About how he still loved Mom, how he loved Oskar, did Oskar love him back? Slurring about all the wrongs he had ever experienced, and in the worst case scenario get himself worked up, become angry.
He never got violent or anything. But what Oskar saw in his eyes at those times was the absolutely scariest thing he had ever seen. Then there was no trace of Dad left. Just a monster who had somehow crawled into his dad's body and taken control of it.
The person his dad became when he drank had no connection to the person he was when he was sober. And so it was comforting to think about Dad being a werewolf. That he in fact contained a whole other person in his body. Just as the moon brought out the wolf in a werewolf, so alcohol brought this creature out of his dad.
Oskar picked up a Bamse comic, tried to read but couldn't concentrate. He felt… forlorn. In an hour or so he would find himself alone with the Monster. And the only thing he could do was wait.
He threw the Bamse comic at the wall and got out of bed, went to get his wallet. One pack of prepaid subway tickets and two notes from Eli. He put Eli's notes side by side on the bed.
THEN WINDOW, LET DAY IN, AND LET LIFE OUT.
A heart.
SEE YOU TONIGHT. ELI.
And then the second.
I MUST BE GONE AND LIVE, OR STAY AND DIE. YOURS, ELI.
There are no vampires.
The night was a black cover over the window. Oskar shut his eyes and thought about the route to Stockholm, raced past the houses, the farms, the fields. Flew into the courtyard in Blackeberg, in through her window, and there she was.
He opened his eyes, stared at the black rectangle of the window. Out there.
The Deep Brothers had started a song about a bicycle that got a flat tire. Dad and Janne laughed much too loudly at something. Something fell over.
Which monster do you choose?
Oskar put Eli's notes back in his wallet and put his clothes on. Sneaked out into the hall and put on his shoes, his coat, and hat. He stood still in the hall a few seconds, listening to the sounds from the living room.
He turned to go, saw something, stopped.
On the shoe rack in the hall were his old rubber boots, the ones he had worn when he was four or five. They had been there as long as he could remember, even though there was no one who could use them. Next to them were his dad's enormous Tretorn boots, one of them with a patch on the heel like the kind you use to fix bicycle tires.
Why had he kept them?
Oskar knew why. Two people grew up out of the boots with their backs to him. His dad's broad back, and next to it Oskar's thin one. Os-kar's arm upstretched, his hand in Dad's. They walked in their boots up over a boulder, maybe on their way to pick raspberries.
He suppressed a sob, tears rising in his throat. He stretched out his hand to touch the small boots. A salvo of laughter came from the living room. Janne's voice, distorted. Probably imitating someone, he was good at that.
Oskar's fingers closed over the top of the boots. Yes. He didn't know why but it felt right. He carefully opened the front door, closed it behind him. The night was icy cold, the snow a sea of tiny diamonds in the moonlight.
He started to walk up to the main road, with the boots tightly clasped in his hands.
The guard was sleeping, a young policeman who had been brought in after the hospital staff had protested against having one of them constantly assigned to guard Hakan. The door was, however, secured with a coded lock. That was probably why he had dared to snooze.
Only a night lamp was on and Hakan was studying the blurry shadows on the ceiling the way a healthy man might lie in the grass looking at
clouds. He was looking for shapes, figures in the shadows. Didn't know if he would be able to read, but longed to do so.
Eli was gone and everything that had dominated his old life was coming back. He would get a long prison sentence and he would devote that time to read everything he had not yet read and also to reread everything he had promised himself to reread.
He was going over all the books by Selma Lagerlof when a scraping sound interrupted him. He listened. More scraping. It was coming from the window.
He turned his head as far as he could, looked in that direction. Against the dark sky there was a lighter oval, lit by the night lamp. A pale little blob appeared beside the oval, moving back and forth. A hand. Waving. The hand pulled along the window and that scraping, screeching sound came again.
Eli.
Hakan was grateful for the fact that he was not connected to an EKG machine as his heart began to race, fluttering like a bird in a net. He imagined his heart bursting out of his chest, crawling over the floor to the window.
Come in, my beloved, come in.
But the window was locked and even if it had been open his lips could not form the words that would allow Eli to enter the room. He could perhaps make a gesture that meant the same thing, but he had never really understood all that.
Can I?
Tentatively he pulled one leg down off the bed, then the other. Put both feet on the floor, tried to stand. His legs did not want to carry his weight after lying in bed for ten days. He steadied himself against the railing, was about to fall to one side.
The IV tube was stretched taut, tugging on the skin where it entered his body. Some kind of alarm was connected to the IV, a thin electric wire ran along the length of it. If he pulled the tube out at either end the alarm would go off. He moved his arm in the direction of the IV stand creating more slack, then turned to the window.
Have to.
The IV stand had wheels, the batteries to the alarm were screwed in a
little ways under the bag. He reached for the stand, grabbed hold of it. With the stand as support he stood up, slowly, slowly. The room swam around in front of his one eye as he took a tentative step, stopped, listened. The guard's breathing was still calm and regular.
He shuffled through the room at a snail's pace. As soon as one of the wheels squeaked he stopped and listened. Something told him this was the last time he would see Eli and he didn't intend to…
… blow it.
His body was as exhausted as after a marathon when he finally reached the window and pressed his eye against it so the gelatinous membrane on his face was plastered onto the glass and his skin started to burn again.
Only a few centimeters of double-paned glass separated his eye from his beloved. Eli moved her hand across the window as if to caress his deformed face. Hakan held his eye as close to Eli's as he could and still his sight was distorted: Eli's black eyes dissolved, became fuzzy.
He had assumed his tear canal had burned away like everything else, but this wasn't the case. Tears welled up in his eye and blinded him. The provisional eyelid could not blink them away and so he carefully wiped his eye with his uninjured hand while his body shook with silent sobs.
His hand fumbled for the window lock. Turned it. Snot ran out of the hole that had been his nose, dripping down onto the window sill as he opened the window.
Cold air rushed into the room. Only a matter of time before the guard woke up. Hakan reached his arm, his healthy hand, through the window toward Eli. Eli pulled herself up onto the window ledge, took his hand between hers and kissed it. Whispered: "Hello, my friend."
Hakan nodded slowly to let her know he could hear her. Took his hand out of Eli's and stroked her over the cheek. Her skin like frozen silk.
Everything came back.
He wasn't going to rot in some jail cell surrounded by meaningless letters. Harassed by other prisoners for having committed the-in their eyes-worst of all crimes. He would be with Eli. He would…
Eli leaned close to him, curled up on the windowsill.
"What do you want me to do?"
Hakan moved his hand from her cheek and pointed to his throat.
Eli shook her head.
"That would mean I'd have to kill you… after." Hakan took his hand from his throat, brought it back to Eli's face. Rested a finger for a moment on her lips. Then pulled it back. Pointed once more at his throat.
His breath came out in white clouds but he wasn't cold. After ten minutes Oskar had reached the store. The moon had followed him from his dad's house, played hide-and-seek behind the spruce tops. Oskar checked the time. Half past ten. He had seen on the bus schedule in the hall that the last bus from Norrtalje left around half past twelve.
He crossed the open space in front of the store, lit up by the lights of the gas pumps, walked out toward Kapellskarsvagen. He had never hitched a ride before and his mom would go crazy if she knew. Climbing into a complete stranger's car…
He walked faster, past a few lit-up houses. People were sitting in there having a good time. Kids sleeping in their beds without having to worry about their parents coming and waking them up to talk a lot of nonsense.
This is Dad's fault, not mine.
He looked down at the boots he was still carrying in his hands, threw them into the ditch, stopped. The boots came to rest there, two dark splotches against the snow in the moonlight.
Mom will never let me come out here again.
Dad would realize he was gone in maybe… one hour. Then he would go outside and look for him, shout out his name. Then he would call Mom. Would he? Probably. To see if Oskar had called her. Mom would realize Dad was drunk when he told her about Oskar being gone and then it would be…
Wait. Like this.
When he got to Norrtalje he would call his dad from a pay phone and tell him he had gone back to Stockholm, that he was going to spend the night at a friend's house and then go back to Mom's tomorrow morning and not say anything about it.
Then Dad would get his lesson without turning it into a catastrophe.
Great. And then…
Oskar walked down into the ditch and picked up the rubber boots, crumpled them up into his pockets, and kept walking along the road. Now everything was good. Now Oskar was the one who decided where he was going and the moon shone kindly down on him, lighting up his way. He lifted his hand in greeting and started to sing.
"Here comes Fritjof Andersson, it's snowing on his hat…"
Then he didn't know any more of the lyrics so he hummed instead.
After a couple hundred meters, a car came. He heard it from far away and slowed down, holding out a raised thumb. The car drove past him, stopped, and backed up. The door to the passenger side opened; there was a woman in the car, a little younger than Mom. Nothing to be afraid of.
"Hello. Where are you headed?"
"Stockholm. Well, Norrtalje."
"I'm also on my way to Norrtalje, so…"
Oskar leaned into the car.
"Oh my, do your mom and dad know you're here?"
"Yes, but Dad's car has broken down and… well…"
The woman looked at him, seemed to be thinking something over.
"OK, why don't you get in."
"Thanks."
Oskar slid into the seat, closed the door behind him. They drove off.
"Do you want to be dropped off at the bus stop?"
"Yes, please."
Oskar sat back in the seat, enjoying the warmth rising in his body, especially across his back. Must be one of those electric chairs. To think it was this easy. Lit-up houses flickered by.
Go on, sit there.
And with a song, with a game we go to Spain and… somewhere.
"Do you live in Stockholm?"
"Yes. In Blackeberg."
"Blackeberg… that's somewhere to the west, isn't it?"
"I think so. They call it the Western Suburbs, so it must be."
"I see. Is there something important waiting for you?"
"Yes."
"Must be something extra special for you to set off like this."
"Yes. It is."
It was cold in the room. His joints felt stiff after having rested so long in an uncomfortable position. The guard stretched and his joints creaked. He glanced at the hospital bed and was suddenly wide awake.
Gone… the cold… damn!
He got to his feet unsteadily, looked around. Thank God. The man had not escaped. But how the hell had he managed to get over to the window? And…
What is that?
The murderer stood leaning against the windowsill with a black lump on one shoulder. His naked backside was visible under the hospital gown. The guard took a step toward the window, stopped, caught his breath.
The lump was a head. A pair of dark eyes met his.
He fumbled for his weapon, realized he wasn't carrying one. For security reasons. The nearest weapon was kept in the safe out in the corridor. And anyway, this was just a child, he saw that now.
"You there! Keep absolutely still!"
He ran the three paces to the window and the child's head rose up from the man's throat.
At the same moment the guard reached them the child jumped from the windowsill and disappeared upward. The feet dangled for a moment in the upper corner of the window before they vanished.
Bare feet.
The guard stuck his head out the window, managed to catch sight of a body making its way across the roof, out of sight. The man by his side wheezed.
God almighty. Fuck it.
In the weak light he could see the man's shoulder and back were darkly stained. The man's head was hanging down and there was a fresh wound on his neck. Up on the roof he heard the light thuds of feet making their way across the sheet metal. He stood up, paralyzed.
Priorities. What were the priorities?
He could not remember. Save life first. Yes. But there were others who could… he ran to the door, punched in the combination and ran slip-sliding out into the corridor, shouting:
"Nurse! Nurse! Come here! This is an emergency!"
He ran to the fire stairs while the night nurse came out of her office, jogging in the direction of the room he had just left. When they passed each other she asked: "What is it?"
"Emergency. It's an… emergency. Get people in here, there's been a… murder."
The words didn't want to come. He had never experienced anything like this before. He had been assigned to this boring guard duty because he was inexperienced. Replaceable, so to speak. As he ran to the stairs he pulled out his radio and alerted the station, called for reinforcements.
The nurse tried to prepare for the worst: a body lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Hanging by a sheet from a hot water pipe. She had seen both.
When she walked into the room she saw only an empty bed. And something by the window. At first she thought it was a heap of clothes laid on the windowsill. Then she saw it was moving.
She rushed over to the window in order to stop him, but the man had gotten too far. He was already up on the windowsill, halfway out the window, when she started to run. She got there in time to catch a corner of his hospital gown before the man rolled his body off the sill, the IV pulling out of his arm. The sound of ripping fabric and then she stood there with a piece of blue cloth in her hand. After a couple of seconds she heard a distant, dull thud when the body hit the ground. Then the high-pitched alarm from the IV stand.
The taxi driver pulled around in front of the emergency room entrance. The older man in the back seat who, during the whole trip from Jakobsberg
had entertained him with his medical history of heart trouble, opened the door and remained seated, expectantly.
OK, OK.
The driver opened his door, walked around the side, and put out his arm to support the old man. Snow fell inside the collar of his jacket. The old one was about to take his arm but his gaze fixed on a point somewhere in the sky, and froze.
"Come on. I'll help you."
The old man pointed up. "What is that?"
The driver looked where he was pointing.
A person was standing on the roof of the hospital. A small person. With a bare chest, arms held tightly along the side.
Alert someone.
He should send out an alert via the radio. But he just stood there, unable to move. If he moved some kind of balance would be upset and the little person would fall.
There was a pain in his hand where the old one gripped him with claw-like fingers, digging his nails into his palm. But still he didn't move.
The snow fell into his eyes and he blinked. The person on the roof spread his or her arms, brought them up overhead. Something was suspended between the arms and the body, some kind of membrane… webbing. The old man pulled on his hand, got up out of the car, and stood next to him.
At the same time as the old man's shoulder touched his, the little person… the child… fell straight out. He gasped and the old one's fingers again dug into his hand. The child fell straight at them.
Instinctively they both ducked, putting their arms up over their heads.
Nothing happened.
When they looked up again the child was gone. The driver looked around, but all they could see around them was the falling snow in the glow of the street lamps. The old man drew a rattling breath.
"It was the angel of death. The angel of death. I will never leave this place alive."
7 November [Night]
Habba -Habba-soudd-soudd!"
The very vocal group of boys and girls had gotten on at Hotorget. They were maybe Tommy's age. Drunk. The guys howled from time to time, fell on top of the girls, and the girls laughed, beating them off. Then they sang again. The same song, over and over. Oskar looked at them in secret.
I'm never going to be like that.
Unfortunately. He would have liked to. It looked like fun. But Oskar would never manage to be like that, do what the guys did. One of them stood up on his seat and sang loudly: "A-Huleba-Huleba, A-ha-Huleba…"
An old man who was dozing in a handicapped seat at one end of the subway car shouted out: "Keep it down, will you? I'm trying to sleep."
One of the girls gave him the finger.
"You can sleep at home."
The whole gang laughed and started in on the song again. A few seats away there was a man reading a book. Oskar craned his neck so he could read the title, but could only see the name of the author: Goran Tun-strom. Nobody he had ever heard of.
In the nearest block of two-seaters facing each other there was an old
woman with a handbag on her lap. She was talking to herself in a low voice, gesturing to an invisible interlocutor.
He had never taken the subway this late before. Were these the same people who in the daytime sat quietly and stared in front of them, or read newspapers? Or was this a special group that only appeared at night?
The man with the book turned the page. Strangely enough Oskar had no book with him. Too bad. He would have wanted to be like that man, reading a book, oblivious to everything around him. But he only had his Walkman and the Cube. Had been planning to listen to the KISS tape he had gotten from Tommy, had tried it a little on the bus but got sick of it after only a couple of songs.
He took his Cube out of his bag. Three sides were solved. Only an insignificant amount needed to be done on the fourth. Eli and he had spent one evening working on it together, talked about how you could do it and since then Oskar had become better. He looked at all sides and tried to think up a strategy but couldn't get past thinking of Eli's face.
What will she look like?
He wasn't afraid. He was in a state of… yes… he could not be here, at this time, could not be doing what he was doing. It didn't exist. It wasn't him.
Idon't exist and no one can do anything to me.
He had called his dad from Norrtalje and his dad had cried on the phone. Said he would call for someone to go and pick up Oskar. It was the second time in his life Oskar heard his father cry. For a moment Oskar was about to give in. But when his dad had gotten worked up and started yelling about how he had to have his own life and be allowed to do as he damn well pleased in his own house, Oskar had hung up on him.
That was when it had really started, that feeling that he didn't really exist.
The group of boys and girls got off at Angbyplan. One of the guys turned around and shouted into the subway car:
"Sweet dreams, my… my…"
He couldn't think of the word and one of the girls pulled him back with her. Just before the doors closed he tore himself away and ran over to them, holding one open and shouting:
"… fellow passengers! Sweet dreams, my fellow passengers!"
He let go of the door and the subway car started to go. The reading man lowered his book and looked at the young people on the platform. Then he turned to Oskar and looked him in the eyes. And smiled. Oskar smiled back briefly, then pretended to turn his attention back to the Cube.
In his chest a feeling of having… passed muster. The man had looked at him and transmitted the thought, You're alright. What you're doing is good.
He didn't dare look up at the man anymore. He felt like the man knew. Oskar turned the Cube one click, then turned it back.
With the exception of Oskar, two people got off at Blackeberg, from other subway cars. An older guy he didn't recognize and then a rockabilly guy who appeared very drunk. The rockabilly guy walked up to the older guy and shouted:
"Hey man, spare a cigarette?"
"Sorry, don't smoke."
The rockabilly guy didn't appear to hear more than the negative, because he drew a ten kronor note from his pocket and waved it around. "I got ten! One stick is all I need, man."
The guy shook his head and walked away. The rockabilly guy stood still, swaying, and when Oskar walked past he lifted his head and said: "You!" But his eyes narrowed, he focused them on Oskar, and then he shook his head. "No. Nothing. Go in peace, brother."
Oskar kept going up the stairs, up into the subway station. Wondered if the rockabilly guy was planning to pee on the electric rail. The older guy went out through the exit doors. Except for the ticket collector in his booth, Oskar was alone in the station.
Everything was so different at night. The photo shop, florist, and clothing store in the station were dark. The ticket collector sat with his feet up on the counter, reading something. So quiet. The clock on the wall said a few minutes past two. He should be lying in bed now. Sleeping. Should at the very least be sleepy. But no. He was so tired his body felt hollow, but it was a hollowness filled with electricity. Not sleepiness.
A door down by the platform was thrown open and he heard the
rockabilly guy's voice from down there: "And bow down, you officers in your helmets and batons…"
Same song he had been singing. He chuckled and started to run. Ran out the doors, down the hill toward the school, past it and the parking lot. It had started to snow again and the large flakes squelched the heat in his face. He looked up as he was running. The moon was still there, peeking out between the houses.
Once he was in the courtyard he stopped, caught his breath. Almost all the windows were dark, but wasn't there a faint light coming from behind the blinds of Eli's apartment?
What will she look like?
He walked up the sloping yard, glancing at his own dark window. The normal Oskar was lying in there, sleeping. Oskar… pre-Eli. The one with the Pissball in his underpants. That was something he had done away with, didn't need any longer.
Oskar unlocked the door to his building and walked through the basement corridor over to hers, did not stop to see if the stain was still on the floor. Just walked past it. It didn't exist any longer. He had no mom, no dad, no earlier life, he was simply… here. He walked through the door, up the stairs.
Stood there on the landing, looking at the worn wooden door, the empty name plate. Behind that door.
He had imagined he was going to dash up the stairs, make a dive for the bell. Instead he sat down on the next to last step, next to the door.
What if she didn't want him to come?
After all, she was the one who had run away from him. She would maybe tell him to go away, that she wanted to be left alone, that she…
The basement storage room. Tommy's gang.
He could sleep there, on the couch. They weren't there at night, were they? Then he could see Eli tomorrow evening, like normal.
But it won't be like normal.
He stared at the doorbell. Things would not simply return to normal. Something big had to be done. Like running away, hitchhiking, making your way home in the middle of the night to show that it was… important. What he was scared of was not that maybe she was a creature who survived by drinking other people's blood. No-it was that she might push him away.
He rang the bell.
A shrill sound rang out inside the apartment, stopped abruptly when he let go of the button. He stood there, waiting. Rang it again, longer this time. Nothing. Not even a sound.
She wasn't home.
Oskar sat still on the step while disappointment sank like a stone to his stomach. And he suddenly felt so tired, so very tired. He got up slowly, walked down the stairs. Halfway down he had an idea. Stupid, but why not. Walked up to her door again and with short and long tones of the doorbell he spelled out her name in Morse code.
Short. Pause. Short, long, short, short. Pause. Short, short. E… L…I…
Waited. No sound from the other side. He turned to leave when he heard her voice.
"Oskar? Is that you?"
And so it was, after all; joy exploded inside his chest like a rocket blasting off through his mouth with an altogether too-loud:
"Yes!"
In order to have something to do, Maud Carlberg got herself a cup of coffee from the room behind the reception desk, sat down at the darkened counter. She should have finished her shift an hour ago but the police had asked her to wait.
A couple of men-not dressed like police officers-were painstakingly brushing a kind of powder onto the floor where the little girl had walked in her bare feet.
The policeman who had questioned her about what the girl had said, done, what she looked like, had not been friendly. The whole time Maud got the impression from the tone in his voice that she had done the wrong thing. But how could she have known?
Henrik, one of the security guards, whose shift often overlapped
with hers, came over to the reception desk and pointed at her cup of coffee.
"For me?"
"If you like."
Henrik picked up the cup, took a sip, and looked out into the hall. Apart from the men who were brushing the floor for prints there was also a uniformed policeman who was talking to a taxi driver.
"A lot of people tonight."
"I don't understand any of it. How did she get up there?"
"No idea. They're working on it. Looks like she climbed up the walls."
"But surely that's not possible."
"No."
Henrik took a bag of licorice boats out of his pocket and held them out to her. Maud shook her head and Henrik took three boats, put them in his mouth, and shrugged apologetically.
"I stopped smoking. Put on four kilos in two weeks." He made a face. "Christ. You should have seen him."
"Him… the murderer?"
"Yes. It had splattered… over the whole wall. And his face… shit. If I ever have to kill myself it'll be pills. Just think about the guys who do the autopsy. To have to-"
"Henrik."
"Yes?"
"Stop."
Eli was standing in the open door. Oskar was sitting on the step. In one hand he was squeezing the handle of the bag, like he was prepared to leave at any moment. Eli pushed a tendril of hair behind her ear. She looked completely healthy. A little girl, unsure of herself. She looked down at her hands, said in a low voice: "Are you coming?"
"Yes."
Eli nodded almost imperceptibly, fidgeting with her fingers. Oskar was still sitting on the step.
"Can I… come in?"
"Yes."
The devil flew into him. He said: "Say that I can come in."
Eli lifted her head, made an attempt to say something, but didn't. She started to close the door a little, stopped. Shifted her weight between her bare feet, then said:
"You can come in."
She turned and walked into the apartment, Oskar followed, closing the door behind him. He put the bag down in the hall, took off his jacket and hung it on the hat shelf with little hooks underneath where, he noted, nothing else was hanging.
Eli was standing in the door to the living room with her arms limp at her sides. She was wearing panties and a red T-shirt with the words iron maiden on it, over a picture of the skeleton monster they had on their albums. Oskar thought he recognized it. Had seen it in the trash room at some point. Was it the same one?
Eli was studying her dirty feet.
"Why did you say that?"
"You said it."
"Yes. Oskar…"
She hesitated. Oskar stayed in the same position, with his hand on the jacket he had just hung up. He looked at the jacket as he asked:
"Are you a vampire?"
She wrapped her arms around her body, slowly shook her head.
"I… live on blood. But I am not… that."
"What's the difference?"
She looked him in the eyes and said somewhat more forcefully:
"There's a very big difference."
Oskar saw her toes tense, relax, tense. Her naked legs were very thin, where the T-shirt stopped he could see the edge of a pair of white panties. He gestured to her. "Are you kind of… dead?"
She smiled for the first time since he had arrived.
"No. Can't you tell?"
"No, but… I mean… did you die once, a long time ago?"
"No, but I've lived for a long time."
"Are you old?"
"No. I'm only twelve. But I've been that for a long time."
"So you are old, inside. In your head."
"No, I'm not. That's the only thing I still think is strange. I don't understand it. Why I never… in a way… get any older than twelve."
Oskar thought about it, stroking the arm of his jacket.
"Maybe that's just it, though."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean… you can't understand why you're only twelve years old, because you are twelve years old."
Eli frowned. "Are you saying I'm stupid?"
"No, just a bit slow. Like kids are."
"I see. How are you doing with the Cube?"
Oskar snorted, met her gaze, and remembered that thing about her pupils. Now they looked normal but they had looked really strange before, hadn't they? But still… it was too much. Couldn't believe it.
"Eli. You're just making all this up, aren't you?"
Eli stroked the skeleton monster on her belly, let her hand stop right over the monster's gaping mouth.
"Do you still want to be blood brothers?"
Oskar took half a step back.
"No."
She looked up at him. Sad, almost accusing.
"Not like that. Don't you understand… that…"
She stopped. Oskar finished her sentence for her.
"That if you had wanted to kill me you would have done it a long time ago."
Eli nodded. Oskar took another half step back. How quickly could he get out the door? Should he leave the bag behind? Eli didn't seem to notice his anxiety, his impulse to flee. Oskar stayed put, his muscles tensed.
"Will I get… infected?"
Still looking down at the monster on her T-shirt, Eli shook her head. "I don't want to infect anyone. Least of all you."
"What is it then? This alliance."
She lifted her head to the point where she thought his face would be, saw that he was no longer there. Hesitated. Then walked up to him, took his head between her hands. Oskar let her do it. Eli looked… blank. Distant. But no hint of that face he had seen in the cellar. Her fingertips
brushed against his ears. A sense of calm welled up quietly inside of his body.
Let it happen.
No matter what.
Eli's face was twenty centimeters from his own. Her breath smelled funny, like the shed where his dad kept metal scraps and parts. Yes. She smelled… rusty. The tip of her finger stroked his ear. She whispered:
"I'm all alone. No one knows. Do you want to?" Yes.
She quickly brought her face up to his, sealed her lips over his upper lip, held it firm with a light, steady pressure. Her lips were warm and dry. Saliva started in his mouth and when he closed his own lips around her lower one it moistened it, softened. They carefully tasted each others' lips, let them glide over each other, and Oskar disappeared into a warm darkness that gradually lightened, became a large room, a large room in a castle with a table in the middle laden with food, and Oskar…
… runs up to the delicacies, starts to eat from the platters with his hands. Around him there are other children, big and small. Everyone eats from the table. At the far end of the table there is a… man?… woman…
… person wearing what has to be a wig. An enormous mane of hair covers the persons head. The person is holding a glass filled with a dark red liquid, comfortably reclining in the chair, sipping from the glass and nodding encouragingly to Oskar.
They eat and eat. Farther away, against a wall, Oskar can see people in poor clothes anxiously following the events at the table. He sees a woman with a brown shawl over her head and her hands clamped tight over her stomach and Oskar thinks, "Mama."
Then there is the ding of a glass and all attention is directed toward the man at the far end of the table. He stands up. Oskar is afraid of him. His mouth is small, thin, unnaturally red. His face is chalk white. Oskar feels saliva run out the corner of his mouth; a little flap of flesh has loosened from the inside of his cheek towards the front; he runs his tongue over it.
The man is holding up a suede bag. With an elegant motion he opens the hand holding the bag shut and then out roll two large white dice. It echoes in the large room when the two dice roll, come to a stop. The man takes up the dice in his hand, holds them out to Oskar and the other children.
The man opens his mouth to say something hut at that moment the little flap of flesh falls out ofOskar's mouth and.…
Eli's lips left his. She let go of his head, took a step back. Even though it scared him, Oskar tried to hold onto the image of the castle room again, but it was gone. Eli scrutinized him. Oskar rubbed his eyes, nodded.
"It really happened, didn't it?"
"Yes."
They stood there for a while, not saying anything. Then Eli said: "Do you want to come in?"
Oskar didn't reply. Eli pulled on her T-shirt, lifted her hands, let them fall.
"I'm never going to hurt you."
"I know that."
"What are you thinking about?"
"That T-shirt. Is it from the trash room?"
… yes.
"Have you washed it?"
Eli didn't answer.
"You're a little gross, you know that?"
"I can change, if you like."
"Good. Do that."
He had read about the man on the gurney, under the sheet. The Ritual Killer.
Benke Edwards had wheeled all sorts through these corridors, to cold storage. Men and women of all ages and sizes. Children. There was no particular gurney for children and few things made Benke feel as uncomfortable as seeing the empty spaces left over on the trolley when he was transporting the body of a child; the little figure under the white cover, pushed up against the headboard. The whole lower half empty, the sheet smooth. That flat sheet was death itself.
But now he was dealing with a grown man, and not only that, a celebrity.
He guided the gurney through the silent corridors. The only sound was the squeak of the rubber wheels against the linoleum floor. There were no colored markings on this floor. On the few occasions they ever had a visitor here they were always accompanied by a member of the staff.
Benke had waited outside the hospital while the police took photographs of the body. A few members of the press had been standing around with their cameras, outside the restricted area, taking pictures of the hospital with their powerful flashes. Tomorrow the pictures would be in the papers, complete with a dotted line showing how the man had fallen.
A celebrity.
The lump under the sheet gave no indication of any such thing. A lump of flesh like any other. He knew the man looked like a monster, that his body had exploded like a water balloon when he hit the ground, and he was thankful for the cover. Under the cover we are all alike.
Even so, many people were probably grateful that this particular lump of no-longer-living flesh was now being wheeled into cold storage, awaiting later transport to the crematorium when the police pathologists were done with it. The man had a wound in his throat that the police photographer had been particularly interested in getting on film.
But did it matter?
Benke saw himself as a philosopher of sorts. Probably came with the job. He had seen so much of what people really were, when you got down to it, and he had developed a theory and it was relatively uncomplicated.
"Everything is in the brain."
His voice echoed in the empty corridors as he stopped the gurney in front of the doors to the morgue, entered in the code, and opened the door.
Yes. Everything is in the brain. From the beginning. The body is simply a kind of service unit that that brain is forced to be burdened with in order to keep itself alive. But everything is there from the beginning, in the brain. And the only way to change someone like this man under the sheet would be to operate on the brain.
Or turn it off.
The lock that was programmed to keep the door open for ten seconds after the code had been entered had still not been repaired and Benke was
forced to hold the door open with one hand as he grabbed the head of the gurney with the other and guided it into the room. The trolley bumped against the door post and Benke swore.
If this had been the OR, it would have been fixed in five seconds flat.
Then he noticed something unusual.
On the sheet, to the left of and slightly underneath the raised area that was the man's face, there was a brownish stain. The door locked behind them as Benke bent down to take a closer look. The stain was slowly growing.
He's bleeding.
Benke was not one to be easily shaken. This kind of thing had been known to happen before. Probably an accumulation of blood in the skull that had been jolted and started to drain when the trolley hit the door post.
The stain on the sheet grew larger.
Benke went over to a first aid cabinet and took out surgical tape and gauze. He had always thought it was funny that there was one in a place like this, but of course the supplies were here in case a living person injured themselves, got their finger caught on a gurney or some such thing.
With his hand on the sheet slightly above the stain he steeled himself. He was, of course, not afraid of dead bodies but this one had looked pretty bad. And now Benke had to bandage him up. He was the one who would get in trouble if a bunch of blood spilled and messed up the floor in here.
So he swallowed, and folded the sheet down.
The man's face defied all description. Impossible to imagine how he had lived for a whole week with this face. Nothing there that looked even remotely human with the exception of an ear and an… eye.
Couldn't they have… taped it shut?
The eye was open. Of course. There was hardly any eyelid to close it. And the eye itself was so badly damaged it looked as if scar tissue had formed in the eyeball.
Benke tore himself away from the dead man's gaze and concentrated on the task at hand. The source of the stain looked to be that wound on his throat.
He heard a soft dripping sound and quickly looked around. Damn. He must be a little on edge after all. Another drip. That came from his
feet. He looked down. A drop of water had fallen from the gurney and landed on his shoe. Plop.
Water?
He examined the wound on the man's throat. The liquid had formed a small pool underneath it and was spilling out over the metal rim of the stretcher.
Plop.
He moved his foot. Another drop fell onto the tile floor.
Plip.
He stirred the pool of liquid with his index finger, then rubbed his finger and thumb together. It wasn't water. It was some slippery, transparent fluid. He smelled his hand. Nothing he recognized.
When he looked down at the white floor he saw a veritable puddle had formed down there. The liquid was not transparent after all; it had a pink tinge. It reminded him of when blood separates in transfusion bags. The stuff that is left over when the red blood cells sink to the bottom.
Plasma.
The man was bleeding plasma.
How that was possible was a question the experts would have to deal with tomorrow, or rather, later today. His job was simply to patch it so it didn't make a mess. Wanted to go home now. To crawl into bed beside his sleeping wife, read a few pages of The Abominable Man From Saffle, and then sleep.
Benke folded the gauze into a thick compress and pushed it up against the wound. How the hell was he supposed to secure it with tape? Even the rest of the man's throat and neck was so damaged as to offer almost no area of undamaged skin to attach the tape to. But what did he care. He wanted to go home now. He pulled off long strips of the adhesive, weaving them this way and that across the neck, an arrangement he would probably be criticized for later, but what the hell.
I'm a janitor, not a surgeon.
When the compress was in place he wiped off the stretcher and mopped the floor. Then he rolled the corpse into room four, rubbed his hands together. Mission accomplished. A job well done and a story to tell in the future. While he made a last check and turned off the light he was already working on his formulations.
You know that murderer who fell from the top floor? Well, I was in charge of him later and when I wheeled him down to the morgue I saw something strange…
He took the elevator up to his room, washed his hands thoroughly, changed, and threw his coat into the laundry on his way out. He walked down to the parking lot, got into his car, and smoked a single cigarette before he started the engine. After he stubbed it out in the ashtray- which really needed to be emptied-he turned the key in the ignition.
The car was resisting as it always did when it was cold or damp. It always started in the end, though. You only had to keep at it. As the wah-wah sound on the third attempt transformed into a hacking engine roar he suddenly thought of it.
It doesn't coagulate.
No. The stuff seeping out of the man's neck was not going to coagulate under the compress. It would soak through and then spill onto the floor… and when they opened the door in a few hours…
Shit!
He pulled the key out of the ignition, thrust it angrily into his pocket, got out of the car, and headed back to the hospital.
The living room was not as empty as the hall and the kitchen. Here there was a sofa, an armchair, and a large coffee table with a lot of little things on it. A lone floor lamp sent a soft yellow glow over the table. But that was all. No carpets, no pictures, no TV. Thick blankets had been draped over the windows.
It looks like a prison. A big prison cell.
Oskar whistled, tentatively. Yes. There was an echo, but not too much. Probably because of the blankets. He put his bag down next to the armchair. The click when the bottom of it landed on the hard cork flooring was amplified, sounded desolate.
He had started to look at the things on the table when Eli came out of
the next room, now wearing her too-big checkered shirt. Oskar waved his arm, indicating the living room.
"Are you two moving?"
"No. Why?"
"I was just thinking."
You two?
Why didn't he think of it before? Oskar let his gaze travel over the things on the table. Looked like toys, every last one of them. Old toys.
"That old man who was here before. That wasn't your dad, was it?"
"No."
"Was he also?…"
"No."
Oskar nodded. Looked around the room again. Hard to imagine anyone could live like this. Except if…
"Are you sort of… poor?"
Eli walked over to the table, picked up a box that looked like a black egg, and handed it to Oskar. He leaned over, held it under the lamp in order to see better.
The surface of the egg was rough and when Oskar looked more closely he saw hundreds of complex strands of gold thread. The egg was heavy, as if the whole thing was made of some kind of metal. Oskar turned it this way and that, looked at the gold threads embedded on the egg's surface. Eli stood next to Oskar. He smelled it again… the smell of rust.
"What's it worth, do you think?"
"Don't know. A lot?"
"There are only two of them in the world. If you had both of them you could sell them and buy yourself… a nuclear power plant, maybe."
"Nooo?…"
"Well, I don't know. What does a nuclear power plant cost? Fifty million?"
"I think it would cost… billions."
"Really? In that case I guess you couldn't."
"What would you do with a nuclear power plant?"
Eli laughed.
"Put it between your hands. Like this. Cup them. And then you let it roll back and forth."
Oskar did as Eli said. Rolled the egg gently back and forth in his cupped hands and felt the egg… crack, collapse between his palms. He gasped and removed the upper hand. The egg was now just a heap of hundreds… thousands of tiny slivers.
"Gosh, I'm sorry. I was careful, I-"
"Shhh. It's supposed to be like that. Make sure you don't drop any of it. Pour them out onto this."
Eli pointed to a piece of white paper on the table. Oskar held his breath as he gently let the glittering shards fall out of his hand. The individual pieces were smaller than drops of water and Oskar had to use his other hand to wipe his palm free of every last one.
"But it broke."
"Here. Look."
Eli pulled the lamp closer to the table, concentrated its dim light on the heap of metal slivers. Oskar leaned over and looked. One piece, no bigger than a tick, lay on its own to one side of the stack, and when he looked very closely he could see that it had indentations and notches on a few sides, almost microscopic light bulb-shaped protrusions on the other. He got it.
"It's a puzzle."
"Yes."
"But… can you put it together again?"
"I think so."
"It must take forever."
"Yes."
Oskar looked at more pieces that were spread out next to the pile. They looked to be identical to the first, but when he looked closer he saw there were subtle variations. The notches were not in exactly the same place; the protrusions were at another angle. He also saw a piece was all smooth sided, except for a gold border a hair's width across… A piece of the outside.
He slouched down into the armchair.
"It would drive me crazy."
"Think about the guy who made it."
Eli rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out so she looked like the
dwarf Dopey. Oskar laughed. Ha-ha. When he stopped the sound still vibrated in the walls. Desolate. Eli sat down on the couch and crossed her legs, looking at him with… anticipation. He looked away and looked at the table, and the toys that made a landscape of ruins.
Desolate.
All at once he felt tired in that way again. She wasn't "his girl," couldn't be that. She was… something else. There was a big distance between them that couldn't be… he shut his eyes, leaned back in the armchair, and the black behind his eyelids was the space that separated them.
He dozed off, gliding into a momentary dream.
The space between them was filled with ugly, sticky insects that flew at him and when they got closer he saw they had teeth. He waved his hand to get rid of them, and woke up. Eli was sitting on the couch watching him.
"Oskar. I'm a person, just like you. It's just that I have… a very unusual illness."
Oskar nodded.
A thought wanted to get out. Something. A context. He didn't catch hold of it. Dropped it. But then that other thought came out, the terrible, frightening one. That Eli was just pretending. That there was an ancient person inside of her, watching him, who knew everything, and was smiling at him, smiling in secret.
But that can't he.
In order to have something to do, he dug around in his bag for the Walkman, took out the tape that was in it, read the title KISS: Unmasked, turned it over, KISS: Destroyer, put it back.
I should go home.
Eli leaned forward.
"What's that?"
"This? It's a Walkman."
"Is it for… listening to music?"
"Yes."
She doesn't know anything. She's superintelligent hut she doesn't know anything. What does she do all day? Sleep, of course. Where does she keep the coffin? That's right. She never slept those times she came over. She simply lay there in my bed and waited for the sun to come up. I must begone…
"Can I try it?"
Oskar held it out to her. She took it and looked like she didn't know what to do with it, but then put the headphones on and looked inquiringly at him. Oskar pointed at the buttons.
"Press the one that says 'play'"
Eli read the top of the buttons, selected play. Oskar felt a calm settle over him. This was normal; playing your music for a friend. He wondered what Eli would think of KISS.
She pushed in the button, and even from his armchair Oskar could hear the whispery, noisy jangle of guitar, drums, and vocals. She had ended up in the middle of one of the heavier songs.
Eli's eyes opened wide, she screamed in pain, and Oskar was so shocked he was thrown back in the armchair. It tipped back, almost falling over while he watched Eli tear the headphones off so violently that the cables became detached, threw them down, pressed her hands against her ears, whimpering.
Oskar gaped, staring at the headphones that had hit the wall. He got to his feet, picked them up. Completely destroyed. Both of the cords had been torn out of the earpieces. He put them on the table and sank down into the armchair again.
Eli removed her hands from her ears.
"Sorry, I… it hurt so much."
"Don't worry about it."
"Was it expensive?"
"No."
Eli took down the highest moving box, reached into it, and fished out a couple of banknotes, holding them out to Oskar.
"Here."
He took them, counted them out. Three thousand kronor bills and two one hundreds. He felt something akin to fear, looked at the carton she had taken the money from, back at Eli, back at the money.
"I… it cost fifty kronor."
"Take it anyway."
"No, but, it… it was only the headphones that broke and they…"
"But you can have it. Please?"
Oskar hesitated, then crumpled the notes into his pants pocket while he mentally calculated their worth in advertising flyers. Around one year
of Saturdays, maybe… twenty-five thousand delivered flyers. One hundred and fifty hours. More. A fortune. The bills in his pocket rubbed uncomfortably against him.
"Thanks."
Eli nodded, picked something up off the table that looked like a knot of wires but that was probably a brain teaser. Oskar looked at her as she fiddled with the knots. Her neck bent, her long thin fingers that flew over the wires. He went over everything she had told him. Her dad, the aunt who lived in the city, the school she went to. Lies, all of it.
And where had she gotten the money from? Stolen?
He was so unaccustomed to the feeling he didn't even know what it was at first. It started like a kind of tingle in his head, continued into his body, then made a sharp, cold arc back from his stomach to his head. He was… angry. Not desperate or scared. Angry.
Because she had lied to him and then… and who had she stolen the money from anyway? From someone she had?… He crossed his arms over his stomach, leaned back.
"You kill people."
"Oskar…"
"If this is true then you must kill people. Take their money."
"I've been given the money."
"You're just lying. The whole time."
"It's true."
"What part is true? That you're lying?"
Eli put down the tangle of knots and looked at him with wounded eyes, threw her arms out. "What do you want me to do?"
"Prove it to me."
"Prove what?"
"That you are… who you say you are."
She looked at him for a long time. Then she shook her head.
"I don't want to."
"Why not."
"Guess."
Oskar sank deeper into the armchair. Felt the small wad of bills in his pocket. Saw the bundles of advertising flyers in his mind. That had arrived this morning. That had to be delivered before Tuesday. Gray fatigue
in his body. Tears in his head. Anger. "Guess." More games. More lies. Wanted to leave. To sleep.
The money. She gave me money so I would stay.
He got up out of the armchair, took out the crumpled bills from his pocket, laid everything except a hundred kronor note on the table. Put it back in his pocket and said: "I'm going home."
She leaned over, grabbed his wrist. "Stay. Please."
"Why? All you do is lie."
He tried to move away from her, but her grip on his wrist hardened.
"Let me go!"
"I'm not some freak from the circus!"
Oskar clenched his teeth, said calmly: "Let me go."
She did not let go. The cold arc of anger in Oskar's chest started to vibrate, sing, and he threw himself on top of her. Landed on top of her and pressed her backwards into the couch. She weighed almost nothing and he had her pinned up against the armrest, sat down on her chest while the arc bent, shook, made black dots in front of his eyes as he raised his arm and hit her in the face as hard as he could.
A sharp slapping sound bounced between the walls and her head jerked to the side, drops of saliva flew out of her mouth, and his hand burned. The arc cracked, fell to pieces, and his anger dissolved.
He sat on her chest, looked bewildered at her little head that lay turned in profile against the black leather of the couch as a flush bloomed on the cheek he had struck. She lay still, her eyes open. He rubbed his hands over his face.
"Sorry. Sorry. I…"
Suddenly she turned around, threw him off her chest, pushed him up against the back of the couch. He tried to get a grip on her shoulders, but missed, got ahold of her hips, and she landed with her belly right over his face. He threw her off, twisted around, and both of them tried to get ahold of the other.
They rolled around on the couch, wrestling. With tensed muscles and utter concentration. But with care, so that neither would hurt the other. They snaked around each other, bumped against the table.
Pieces of the black egg fell to the floor with the sound of raindrops on a metal roof.
He didn't bother going up to his room to get his coat. His shift was over.
This is my time off and this is something I'm doing for the sheer pleasure of it.
He could help himself to a spare pathologist's coat in the morgue if it was really… messy. The elevator came and he walked in, pushed the button for lower level two. What would he do in that case? Call the ER and see if someone could come down and sew him up? There was no protocol for this kind of situation.
Probably the bleeding, or whatever it was called, had already ended, but he had to make sure. Would not be able to sleep otherwise. Would lie there and hear the dripping.
He smiled to himself as he got out of the elevator. How many normal people would be prepared to take care of this kind of thing without batting an eye? Not many. He was pretty pleased with himself for… well, for doing his duty. Taking responsibility.
I'm not completely normal.
And he couldn't deny it: there was something in him that was actually hoping that… that the bleeding had continued, that he would have to call the ER, that there would be a hoopla. However much he wanted to go home and sleep. Because it would make a better story, that's why.
No, he was not completely normal. He had no problems with the corpses: organic machines with the brains turned off. But what could make him a little paranoid were all these corridors.
Simply the thought of this network of tunnels ten meters underground, the large rooms and offices in some kind of administrative department in Hell. So large. So quiet. So empty.
The corpses are a picture of health by comparison.
He punched in the code, automatically put his finger on the opener, which only answered with a helpless click. Pushed the door open manually and walked into the morgue, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves.
What was this?
The man he had left covered in a sheet now lay fully exposed. His penis was erect, pointing to one side. The sheet lay on the floor. Benke's smoke-damaged airways squeaked as he gasped for breath.
The man wasn't dead. No. He couldn't be dead… since he was moving.
Slowly, in an almost dream-like way, the man turned over on the gur-ney. His hands fumbled for something and Benke instinctively took a step back as one of them-it didn't even look like a hand-swept past his face. The man tried to get up, fell back onto the metal stretcher. The lone eye stared straight ahead without blinking.
A sound. The man was uttering a sound, heeeeeeeee…
Benke rubbed his face. Something had happened to his skin. His skin felt… he looked at his hand. Rubber gloves.
Behind his hand he saw the man make another attempt to get up.
What the hell do I do?
Again the man fell down onto the gurney with a moist boom. A few drops of that fluid splattered onto Benke's face. He tried to wipe it away with the rubber glove but only managed to smear it around.
He took up a corner of his shirt and wiped himself with it.
Ten stories. He fell ten stories.
OK, OK, you've got a situation here. Deal with it.
If the man wasn't dead, he was surely in the process of dying. Needed care.
"Eeeee…"
"I'm here. I'll help you. I'm going to bring you to the emergency room. Try to lie still, I will…"
Benke walked over and put his hands on the man's struggling body. The man's un-deformed hand shot out and grabbed Benke's wrist. Damn, he was strong. Benke had to use both hands to free himself from the man's grip.
The only thing at hand to put over the man to warm him was the standard-issue morgue sheet. Benke took three of them and spread them over the man, who was writhing like a worm on a hook, still making that sound. He leaned down over the man, calmer now since Benke had covered him with the sheets.
"I'll take you down to the emergency room, OK? Try to keep still."
He pushed the stretcher to the door and, despite the situation, he remembered that the door opener wasn't working. He walked over to the head of the gurney and opened the door, looked down at the man's head. Immediately wished he hadn't done so.
The mouth, which was not a mouth, was opening.
The half-healed wound tissue came apart with a sound like when you skin a fish; single strips of pink skin refused to tear, stretched out when the hole in the lower half of the face widened, kept widening.
"AAAAAA!"
The howl echoed through the empty corridors and Benke's heart was beating faster.
Keep still! Be quiet!
If he had had a hammer in his hand in that moment there would have been a great likelihood that he would have smashed it right into that revolting, quivering mass with that staring eye, those strips of skin over the mouth hole that now snapped like overstretched rubber bands, and Benke could see the man's teeth glow white in all that reddish brown fluid that was his face.
Benke walked back to the foot end of the gurney again, started to push it through the corridors, toward the elevator. He half-ran, afraid that the man was going to twist so much he fell off.
The corridors stretched out endlessly before him, like in a nightmare. Yes. It was like a nightmare. All thoughts of a "good story" were gone. He wanted to come up to the surface where there were other people, living people who could rescue him from this monster who was screaming on the gurney.
He reached the elevator and pressed the button that would get it to come, visualizing the route to the ER. Five minutes and he would be there.
Already up on the ground floor there would be other people who could help him. Two minutes and he would be back in real life.
Come on, damn you!
The man's healthy hand was waving.
Benke looked at it and closed his eyes, opened them again. The man was trying to say something, softly. He was indicating for Benke to come closer. He was clearly conscious.
Benke stepped next to the gurney, bent down over the man. "Yes, what is it?"
The hand suddenly grabbed hold of his neck, pulled his head down. Benke lost his balance, fell down over the man, the grip on his neck iron-hard as the hand pulled him down to that… hole.
He tried to grab hold of the metal bars at the top end of the stretcher in order to resist, but his head twisted to the side and his eyes ended up only a few centimeters from the wet compress on the man's neck.
"Let go of me, for…"
A finger pushed into his ear and he heard the bones in the ear canal crackle and give way as the finger forced itself in, further in. He kicked out with his legs and when his shin hit the metal bars under the gurney he finally screamed.
Then teeth clamped down on his cheek and the finger in his ear reached a point where it turned something off, something turned off and… he gave up.
The last thing he saw was how the wet compress in front of his eyes changed color and grew pink as the man chewed on his face.
The last thing he heard was a
pling
as the elevator arrived.
They lay next to each other on the couch, sweating, panting. Oskar was sore all over, exhausted. He yawned so wide his jaws cracked. Eli also yawned. Oskar turned his head to her.
"Give it up." Excuse me?
"You aren't really sleepy, are you?"
"No."
Oskar made an effort to keep his eyes open, was talking almost without moving his lips. Eli's face was starting to appear foggy, unreal.
"What do you do? To get blood."
Eli looked at him. For a long time. Then she seemed to make up her mind about something and Oskar saw how something moved inside her cheeks, lips, as if she was swirling her tongue around in there. Then she parted her lips, opened wide.
And he saw her teeth. She closed her mouth again.
Oskar turned away and looked up at the ceiling, where a thread of dusty cobwebs stretched down from the unused overhead light. He didn't even have the energy to be surprised. Oh. She was a vampire. But he already knew that.
"Are there a lot of you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know."
"No, I don't."
Oskar's gaze roamed the ceiling, trying to locate more cobwebs. Found two. Thought he saw a spider crawling on one of them. He blinked. Blinked again. Eyes full of sand. No spider.
"What do I call you, then? This thing that you are."
"Eli."
"Is that really your name?"
"Almost."
"What's your real name?"
A pause. Eli shifted away from him, against the back of the couch, turned around onto her side.
"Elias."
"But that's a… boy's name."
"Yes."
Oskar closed his eyes. Couldn't take any more. His eyelids had glued themselves shut onto his eyeballs. A black hole was growing, enveloping his whole body. There was a faint impression somewhere far away at the very back of his head that he should say something, do something. But he didn't have the energy.
The black hole exploded in slow motion. He was sucked forward, inward, turned a slow somersault in space, into sleep.
Far away he felt someone stroke his cheek. Didn't manage to articulate the thought that, because he felt it, it must be his own. But somewhere, on a planet far far away, someone gently stroked someone's cheek.
And that was good.
Then there were only stars.