Simone sits in the office of the gallery, taking in the large self-portrait of the artist Sim Shulman posing in a black ninja costume, a sword raised high above his head, when the phone in her bag begins to buzz.
“Simone Bark,” she answers, forcing the sadness out of her voice.
“Hello, it’s Siv Sturesson from Edsberg School,” says an older woman.
“Oh,” says Simone hesitantly. “Yes?”
“I’m just calling to see how Benjamin is.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“He’s not in school today,” says the woman, “and he hasn’t called in sick. We always get in touch with the parents in cases like this.”
“Right,” says Simone. “I’ll call home and check. Both Benjamin and his father were still there this morning when I left. I’ll get back to you.”
She rings off and immediately calls the apartment. It isn’t like Benjamin to oversleep or flout the rules.
Nobody picks up at home. Erik is supposed to have the morning off. A fresh fear sinks its claws into her, before it occurs to her that Erik is probably lying there snoring with his mouth open, knocked out by his beloved pills, while Benjamin is listening to loud music. She tries Benjamin’s phone; no reply. She leaves a short message, then tries Erik’s mobile, but of course it’s switched off.
She calls out to her assistant at the art gallery. “Yiva, I have to go home. I’ll be back soon.”
Her assistant peers out of the office, a thick file in her hand, and calls out, with a smile, “Kiss-kiss!”
But Simone is too stressed to return their running joke. Throwing her coat around her shoulders, she picks up her bag and almost runs to the underground station.
There is a particular silence outside the door of an empty house. As soon as Simone puts her key in the lock, she knows no one is in.
The skates lie forgotten on the floor, but Benjamin’s backpack, shoes, and jacket are gone, as are Erik’s overcoat and scarf. The Puma bag containing Benjamin’s medication is in his room. She hopes this means Erik has given Benjamin his injection.
Simone glances around the room, thinking it is a bit sad that he has taken down his Harry Potter poster and put almost all his toys in a box in the cupboard. He was suddenly in a hurry to grow up when he met Aida.
It occurs to Simone that perhaps Benjamin is with her now.
Benjamin is only fourteen, Aida is seventeen; he claims they’re just friends, but it’s obvious that she’s his girlfriend. Has he even told her he has a blood disorder? Does she know that the slightest blow could cost him his life if he hasn’t taken his medication properly?
She sits down and buries her face in her hands, trying to stop all the terrifying thoughts. Simone can’t help worrying about her son. In her mind’s eye she has always seen Benjamin being hit in the face by a basketball during break time or imagined a spontaneous bleed suddenly starting inside his head: a dark bead expanding like a star, trickling along all the convolutions of his brain.
She is overcome by an almost unbearable feeling of shame when she remembers the way she lost patience with Benjamin because he wouldn’t walk. He was two years old and still crawling everywhere. She would scold him and then tease him when he cried. Said he looked like a baby. Benjamin would try to walk, take a few steps, but then the terrible pain would force him to lie down again.
They didn’t know then that he had a blood disorder, that the blood vessels in his joints burst when he stood up.
Once Benjamin had been diagnosed with von Willebrand’s disease, it was Erik who took over the care the condition demanded, not Simone. It was Erik who gently moved Benjamin’s joints back and forth after the night’s immobility, in order to reduce the risk of internal bleeding; Erik who carried out the complex injections, where the needle absolutely must not penetrate the muscle but must be emptied carefully and slowly beneath the skin. The technique was far more painful than a normal injection. For the first few years, Benjamin would sit with his face pressed against his father’s stomach, weeping silently as the needle went in. These days he went on eating his breakfast without looking, just offering his arm to Erik, who swabbed it, administered the injection, and put on a dressing.
The factor preparation that helped Benjamin’s blood to coagulate was called Haemate. Simone thought it sounded like a Greek goddess of revenge. It was a horrible and unsatisfactory drug that was delivered in the form of a yellow, freeze-dried, granular powder, which had to be measured, dissolved, mixed, and warmed into the correct dosage before it could be administered. Haemate greatly increased the risk of blood clots, and they lived in constant hope that something better would come along. But with the Haemate, a high dose of desmopressin, and Cyklo-kapron in a nasal spray to prevent bleeds in the mucous membrane, Benjamin was relatively safe.
She could still remember when they had received his laminated alert card from the Emergency Blood Service, adorned with Benjamin’s birthday photo: his laughing four-year-old face beneath the message:
I have von Willebrand’s disease. If anything happens to me, please call the Emergency Blood Service immediately: 040-33-10-10.
Since meeting Aida, Benjamin always wears his mobile phone hanging around his neck from a black strap with skulls on it. They text each other far into the night, and Benjamin still has the phone around his neck when Erik or Simone wakes him up in the morning.
Simone searches carefully among all the papers and magazines on Benjamin’s desk. Then she opens a drawer and moves aside a book about World War II, unearthing a scrap of paper with the imprint of a pair of lips pressed upon it in black lipstick and a telephone number below. She hurries into the kitchen and punches in the number, waits while the line rings, and is throwing a stinking sponge into the waste bin when someone finally picks up.
A faint, croaking voice, breathing heavily.
“Hello,” says Simone. “I’m sorry to disturb you. My name is Simone Bark. I’m Benjamin’s mother. I was wondering if—”
The voice, which seems to belong to a woman, hisses that she doesn’t know any Benjamin and this must be a wrong number.
“Wait, please,” says Simone, trying to sound calm. “Aida and my son usually hang out together. I was hoping you might know where they could be. I really need to get hold of Benjamin.”
“Ten … ten—”
“I’m sorry, I can’t make out what you’re saying.”
“Ten … sta.”
“Tensta? Aida’s in Tensta?”
“Yes. That bloody … tattoo.”
Simone thinks she can hear an oxygen machine working slowly, a rhythmic hissing noise in the background.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Tattoo?” she pleads.
The woman snaps something and ends the call. Simone sits there staring at the telephone, decides to ring the woman back, then suddenly understands what she meant. She quickly calls information and gets the address of a tattoo parlour in the shopping centre in Tensta. Simone’s entire body shudders as she pictures Benjamin at this very moment succumbing to temptation, allowing his skin to be pierced for a tattoo; the blood begins to flow and cannot coagulate.