Simone stares out the window of the underground train. She is still sweating after leaving the empty flat and running to the station.
She ought to have taken a cab, but she tells herself that nothing has happened; she always worries unnecessarily.
A man opposite her fusses with a newspaper. From the reflection in the window she can see that he glances at her from time to time.
“Hey,” says the man. His voice is irritatingly insistent.
She ignores him, looking out the window.
“Hello-o?” says the man.
She realises he has no intention of giving up until he has her attention.
“Hey, don’t you hear me? I’m talking to you!” the man persists.
Simone turns to him. “I can hear you perfectly well,” she says calmly.
“Why don’t you answer me, then?” he asks.
“I’m answering you now.”
He blinks a couple of times, and here it comes. “You’re a woman, aren’t you?”
“Is that all you want to know?” she asks, turning back to the window.
He moves across to sit beside her. “Wait, listen to this. I had a woman, and my woman, my woman—”
Simone feels a few drops of spittle spatter her cheek.
“She was like Elizabeth Taylor,” he goes on. “You know who she was?” He lays two fingers on her arm, confidentially. “Do you know who Elizabeth Taylor was?”
“Yes,” says Simone impatiently. “Of course I do.”
He leans back, satisfied with her answer. “She was always finding some new man,” he whines. “Wanting better and better all the time, diamond rings and presents and necklaces.”
The train slows down and Simone sees that they’ve arrived in Tensta.
“This is my stop. I need to get off,” she says. She stands up.
“I bet you do,” the man says, placing himself in her way. “Come on, give me a little hug. I just want a little hug.”
Stiffly, through clenched teeth, she excuses herself and moves his arm away. She feels his hand on her butt, but at the same moment the train stops and the man loses his balance and falls back against the seat.
“Whore,” he says calmly, as she moves away.
She steps off the train, runs out of the station, over a Plexiglas-covered bridge, and down the steps. In the middle of the square, inside the shopping centre, there’s a huge board, a directory, and a floor plan that lists all the different shops. Breathing heavily, Simone goes through it until she finds Tensta Tattoos. It’s at the far end of the mall. Simone heads in the direction of the escalator.
In her mind’s eye, she imagines a circle of kids surrounding a boy lying on the ground. She pushes her way through the crowd and realises that it’s Benjamin, bleeding endlessly from some tacky unfinished tattoo.
She takes the escalator two steps at a time, reaching the top quickly. Stepping off, she catches sight of an odd movement at the other end of the centre, in a deserted area where the shops are all vacant. It looks as if someone is hanging over the barrier.
She sets off in that direction, and as she gets closer she can see clearly what is happening: two boys are holding another child, a little girl, over the second-floor barrier. It’s a fall to the lower level of at least thirty feet. A tall figure is walking nearby, flapping his arms as if he were warming himself at a grill.
The girl is clearly terrified, but the other children appear calm as they dangle her over the edge.
“What are you doing?” Simone yells as she walks towards them. She wants to break into a run, but she’s afraid if she startles them they will lose their grip.
The boys have spotted Simone and pretend to let the girl go. Both the girl and Simone scream, but the boys hold on and pull her up slowly. One of them gives Simone a strange smile before they run away. Only the taller boy remains behind. The girl curls up into a ball next to the barrier, sobbing. Simone stops, her heart racing, and crouches beside her.
“Are you all right?”
The girl just shakes her head.
“We need to go and find a security guard,” Simone says.
The girl shakes her head again. Her whole body is trembling. The tall, plump boy is just standing there watching them. He is dressed in a dark padded jacket and black sunglasses.
“Who are you?” Simone asks him.
Instead of replying, he takes a pack of cards out of his pocket and begins to flick through them, cutting and shuffling.
“Who are you?” Simone repeats, more loudly this time. “Are those boys your friends?”
His expression doesn’t change.
“Why didn’t you do something? They could have killed her.”
Simone can feel the adrenaline still surging through her system, the rapid pulse at her temples, the pounding in her chest. “I asked you a question. Why didn’t you do something?” She stares hard at him.
He still doesn’t reply.
“Idiot!” she screams.
The boy begins to move away slowly, but when she takes a step towards him as if to prevent his escape he stumbles, dropping his cards on the floor. He mutters something to himself and slinks toward the escalator.
Simone turns to take care of the little girl, but she has disappeared. Simone runs back along the upper walkway, past the dark and empty shops, but she doesn’t spot the girl or either of the boys. Suddenly she realises she’s come to a stop outside the tattoo shop; the windows are covered in an opaque laminated film, with a picture of Fenrir the wolf, applied so sloppily it is creased and buckled.
She pushes open the door and enters, but the place seems to be empty. The walls are covered with pictures of tattoos. She looks around and is just about to leave when she hears a high, anxious voice. “Nicky? Where are you? Say something.”
A black curtain opens and a girl comes out with a cell phone pressed to her ear. Her upper body is naked. A few small drops of blood are trickling down her throat. Her expression is concentrated, worried.
“Nicky,” the girl says into the phone. “What’s happened?”
Her breasts are covered in goose bumps, but she doesn’t seem aware that she’s half naked.
“Can I ask you something?” Simone says.
The girl leaves the shop and starts to run. Simone is following her towards the door when she hears a familiar voice come from behind.
“Aida?”
She turns to see that it’s Benjamin.
“Mum, what are you doing here? Where’s Nicky?” he asks.
“Who?”
“Aida’s little brother. He’s retarded. Did you see him out there?”
“No, I—”
“He’s big, and he’s wearing black sunglasses.”
Simone walks slowly back inside the tattoo shop and sits down.
Aida comes back with the boy Simone chased. They stop outside the door, and Simone can see him nodding at everything Aida says, then wiping his nose. The girl comes in, shielding her breasts with one hand, walks past Simone and Benjamin without looking at them, and disappears behind the curtain. Simone just manages to see that her neck is red because she has had a dark red rose tattooed next to a small Star of David.
“What’s going on?” asks Benjamin.
“I was looking for you. Then I saw some boys—they must have been sick; they were holding a little girl over the barrier. Aida’s brother was just standing there and—”
“Did you say anything to them?”
“They stopped when I got to them, but they seemed to find the whole thing funny.”
Benjamin looks very upset; his cheeks flush red, and his eyes dart all over the place, searching, as if he wants to run away.
“I don’t like you hanging around here,” says Simone.
“I can do what I want,” he replies.
“You’re too young to—”
“Just leave it,” he says, his voice low.
“Why? Were you thinking of getting a tattoo as well?”
“No.”
“They’re horrible, these tattoos on necks and faces—”
“Mum.”
“They’re ugly.”
“Aida can hear what you’re saying.”
“I don’t care what—”
“Would you go outside, please?” Benjamin says sharply.
She looks at him. The tone doesn’t sound right coming from him, but she knows that she and Erik sound exactly like that more and more these days.
“You’re coming home with me,” she says calmly.
“I’ll come if you go outside first,” he says.
Simone leaves the shop and sees Nicky standing by the dark window, his arms folded over his chest. She goes over to him, tries to look pleasant, and points to his Pokémon cards.
“Everybody likes Pikachu best,” she says.
He nods to himself.
“Although I prefer Mew,” she goes on.
“Mew learns things,” he says carefully.
“Sorry I yelled at you.”
“They can’t do anything about Wailord, nobody can deal with him, he’s the biggest,” he goes on.
“Is he the biggest of all?”
“Yes,” the boy says seriously.
She picks up a card he’s dropped. “Who’s this?”
Benjamin comes out, his eyes shining.
“Arceus,” replies Nicky, placing the card on top of the pack.
“He looks nice,” says Simone.
Nicky beams at her.
“Let’s go,” Benjamin says, his voice muted.
“’Bye then,” says Simone, with a smile.
“Byebyetakecare,” Nicky replies mechanically.
Benjamin walks alongside his mother in silence.
“We’ll take a taxi,” she announces as they approach the underground station. “I’m sick of the underground.”
“Okay,” says Benjamin, turning away.
“Hang on,” she says.
She’s spotted one of the boys who threatened the girl. He’s standing by the barrier in the station, and he seems to be waiting for something. She can feel Benjamin trying to pull her away.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
“Come on, let’s go, you said we were going to take a taxi.”
“I just need to have a word with him.”
“Mum, just leave it,” begs Benjamin.
His face is pale and anxious and he remains where he is as she resolutely goes over to the boy.
She sticks her hand out and turns the boy to face her. He is only about thirteen years old, but instead of being afraid or surprised, he smiles scornfully at her, as if she’s just fallen into his trap.
“You’re coming with me to the security guard,” she says firmly.
“What did you say, you old cow?”
“I saw you—”
“Shut it!” the boy hisses. “Unless you shut your mouth, we’ll fuck you as a punishment.”
Simone is so stunned she doesn’t know what to say. The boy spits on the ground in front of her, jumps over the barrier, and disappears down the passageway.
Simone is shaken; she goes back outside to Benjamin.
“What did he say?” he asks.
“Nothing,” she says.
They walk to the taxi stand and settle down in the back seat of a cab. As they pull away from the shopping centre, Simone tells him about the call from his school.
“Aida wanted me to be with her when she got her tattoo altered,” says Benjamin quietly.
“That was kind of you.”
They travel in silence.
“Did you call Nicky an idiot?” asks Benjamin.
“I said the wrong thing. I’m the one who’s an idiot.”
“But how could you?”
“I do the wrong thing sometimes, Benjamin,” she says, subdued.
From the Tranberg bridge, Simone looks down at Stora Essingen. The ice has not formed, but the water looks slow and pale.
“It looks as if Dad and I are going to separate,” she says.
“What? But why?”
“It’s not because of you.”
“I asked you why.”
“There’s no real answer,” she begins. “Your dad … it’s hard to explain. Even when you really love someone—and I really love your father—it can all just come to an end.” Her voice falters. “You don’t think that when you first meet, when you have a child … But after a while, if the lies pile up … I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“I don’t want to get involved.”
“Sorry I—”
“Just leave it!” he snaps.