I read to zombie-Jonas, but can barely hear what I am saying. My thoughts are elsewhere, far from Stuvskär and Igor and Rachel, who almost caught me red-handed stealing Fentanyl yesterday.
I think of Mum, of that text she sent.
Come home. I love you.
Poor, poor Mum.
She really did her best.
Even though many of her attempts to save me from myself are misguided, she did try, nobody can say that she didn’t.
I remember all the times she took me to church. Remember the stern looks from the elders and that crazy guy Stephen, who spoke in tongues and maintained the Final Judgement was nigh just because everyone uses credit cards these days.
More than anything I remember the pastor’s voice.
The way they sound exactly the same: the pastor and that voice in my head, the one that tells me how fucking useless I am.
That is probably no coincidence.
Anyway.
They did everything to make me a good Christian – it was children’s Bible school and Christian scouts and intercession and every other thing one can imagine. They sat on the floor in a ring around me praying for my soul.
I mean, how messed-up is that?
All it did was make me more anti. I even went through a phase when I was fourteen or fifteen when I really read up, just to be able to argue against Mum.
I explained that Christianity wasn’t Jesus’ creation at all, but that other guy’s, Paul’s, and that he – aside from being both Roman and Jewish and having actually persecuted loads of Christians – was a narrow-minded male chauvinist pig who sent a bunch of self-satisfied letters to Christian congregations around the world. Besides which he pretended that he was, like, best friends with Jesus, even though he wasn’t even a disciple.
And I was pretty cunning, because I used the congregation’s own methods on Mum when I quoted the Bible.
Mum cried and cried and said that I had the Devil in me. That my soul was lost.
That I was besmirched.
Yes, that was the word she used.
As if I was a piece of shat-on toilet paper.
I look at zombie-Jonas.
Where is his immortal soul?
His face is expressionless and his mouth half-open. The skin on his face is a bit shiny, as if he were sweating. His body lies motionless between the starched sheets and one lone drop of water glimmers on the long tube coming out of his nose.
Maybe he just ate, or whatever you want to call it when someone pumps grub straight down a tube into your stomach.
I think of Mum again.
She thinks it’s her fault that everything turned out the way it did, that I never finished high school and work for Igor. That it is because I didn’t grow up in a nice, Christian nuclear family in a semi-detached house in a good suburb.
That everything would have been different if only I’d been properly saved.
I wish I could explain to her it has nothing to do with any of that.
That everything is actually my fault.
Poor Mum – all her work in vain.
Sometimes I wonder if she’s had some secret guy. I almost hope she has, because the thought of her doing nothing but struggling and taking care of me all these years is almost unbearable.
Maybe she had something with her friend – that creepy American guy, Isaac – who came every birthday and Christmas and made me sit on his lap.
I didn’t dare protest, I basically just sat there while he stared at me with his moist eyes, as if he wanted to eat me up.
Or worse.
I only did it because Mum had made an effort – cooked and bought presents and the rest of it.
Because even if I had the Devil in me I was no monster.
Zombie-Jonas groans. A spasm goes through his body, his eyelids flutter a little and for a second I think he is about to wake up, but then he is still again.
I keep reading.
The protagonist is on his way to Spain to go fishing. Aside from the fact that he isn’t fucking, he seems to have a pretty decent life. He coasts around Europe, hangs out at various bars and meets cool people.
Jonas groans again, and this time I put the book down on the bedside table, get up and bend over him.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask, even though I know he can’t hear me.
He groans again and moves one hand. It trembles a bit as he reaches towards the bedside table.
‘Ahhhhrggg,’ he gargles.
I freeze in fear.
Is this one of the fits Rachel was talking about?
‘Uhhrrg.’
His body stiffens and it almost looks like he is reaching for something on the bedside table. A foamy strand of saliva falls out of the corner of his mouth and makes its way down his cheek.
But the only thing on the table is the vase with the red rose that has begun to droop a bit and the book that I just put down.
Does he want me to start reading again? Is that what he is trying to tell me?
‘Are you OK?’ I ask.
‘Gaahhh.’
He makes a fist, but the index finger is pointing straight out. It seems to be aiming for the bedside table, almost as if he is pointing towards it.
I look at the table but don’t understand.
On the end closest to the bed there are some scratches in the wood, as if Jonas had scratched the hard surface with his nails.
Poor bastard.
‘Wait here,’ I say and run out to get Rachel.
First I run to her room, because she has been sitting at her computer working all morning. I could hear the tapping from all the way out into the hallway.
But she isn’t there. The desk is neat and tidy and the laptop is closed on top of a stack of paper.
I run out into the hall and open the front door.
The warm summer air hits me like a wall. There is a scent of roses and honeysuckle and damp soil. Bumblebees buzz around the flower beds.
The flycatcher looks out of the bird house that is nailed to the wall. She has just fed her young and is on her way out to find new insects.
The male is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he is off looking for a new territory – they do that. While the female hunts food for the chicks all day. She does everything in her power for them.
I think of Mum, which immediately puts me in a bad mood.
Rachel is kneeling in front of the young rose bushes in the raised bed with pruning shears in her hand. She is wearing a scarf on her head and yellow gardening gloves on her hands. The skin on her shoulders is red, as if she burned herself slightly in the sun. Next to her is a wicker basket where she has put cut stems and dead branches.
Her smile disappears when she sees my eyes.
‘Something is wrong with Jonas,’ I manage.
Rachel leaps up, drops the shears and runs toward me. She takes the yellow gloves off and throws them to the ground. They end up in the grass like giant chanterelles.
‘Did he say anything?’ she pants and I sense fear in her eyes, fear and something else.
Hope, maybe?
‘No, he just sort of gargled.’
I follow Rachel as she runs into Jonas’s room, sinks down next to him and strokes his hair. The scarf has slid off her head and is hanging loose on her back.
‘Darling Jonas,’ she says. ‘Darling. How are you?’
‘Ahgg,’ Jonas says. ‘Uaahhgg.’
The body in the bed stiffens and then flexes, like a spring. There’s a jolt underneath the sheets and the metal bed gives off an alarming squeak.
‘Quick,’ Rachel says. ‘Give me the syringe and the vial on the shelf.’
I turn around and let my eyes wander across the shelves of plastic bags, nitrile exam gloves and medicine jars. And there, next to a stack of paper towels, is a syringe and needle packaged in plastic, next to a small glass vial.
I grab the needle and the vial and hand them to Rachel.
Rachel tears open the packaging, takes the syringe out, sticks the needle into the vial and withdraws some of the contents. Then she turns the needle upwards, flicks the syringe with her fingers and pushes out a drop of colourless fluid.
‘Help me turn him a bit,’ she says.
When I go up to Jonas I am so fucking scared I almost piss my pants, but at the same time I am determined to do what I can to help.
‘Here,’ she says. ‘Grab his shoulder and I’ll take his hip.’
With a joint effort we turn Jonas on his side.
Rachel pulls the sheet down and plunges the needle into one of his buttocks.
‘Aughh,’ Jonas gargles and his body goes taut under my grip. But seconds later he sighs deeply and relaxes. His shoulder softens under my grip, his head drops down towards the white cotton pillow and his facial expression relaxes.
Rachel sinks down onto the floor and ends up seated with her back to the bed. She lets out a quiet groan.
After a while she stands up, throws the syringe and the packaging in the bin and reaches for the scarf that has slid onto the floor.
‘Thank you,’ she says, with tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you, Samuel. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
I nod without saying anything, but feel my cheeks grow red from pride and embarrassment.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘I’ll make a cup of tea. He’ll sleep for a while now.’
*
We drink tea in silence in the yellow kitchen.
Outside clouds have gathered and the branches on the bushes bend in the wind.
It looks like rain.
Rachel seems sad and tired. The wrinkles around her eyes have deepened and she is slouched forward with her teacup resting between the palms of her hands.
Once again I am reminded of how much she looks like my mum. It’s not just her appearance, it is something about the look on her face.
She just looks so resigned.
‘Things will get easier when Olle comes home,’ she says. ‘Everything will be easier then.’
‘Where is he?’
She looks at me and seems surprised.
‘Didn’t I tell you? He is in Stockholm meeting with social services. That and a few other things. He will be back in a few days. But he has a novel to finish, so I don’t think we will see a whole lot of him.’
I stretch a little and my phone almost falls out of my pocket. I take it out and put it next to my cup of tea.
Rachel glances at the screen.
‘Can I see?’ she says and reaches for it.
Reluctantly I show her the background image in which Mum and I are standing in front of the pastor’s new red sports car.
‘Your mum?’
I nod.
Rachel looks at me and then at the picture.
‘You are alike,’ she says. ‘The same facial shape, the same . . .’
She goes quiet and stands up.
‘Hold on,’ she says and disappears towards Jonas’s room.
A while later she returns with a couple of photo albums under her arm. She sits down on one of the dainty chairs and begins to leaf through one of them.
Her face softens and the deep furrow in her forehead disappears when her gaze falls on a boy who might be about five years old. He is sitting in a toy car, wearing a Spider-Man shirt. His bare legs are pale and have red marks that could be mosquito bites.
‘I had one just like that,’ I say, leaning forward to see better.
Rachel’s scent of orange blossom and marzipan tickles my nose. My stomach tingles for some reason I can’t quite identify.
As if a bumblebee just woke up and was tumbling around in there.
‘The same toy car?’ she asks and smiles.
‘No, the Spider-Man shirt.’
‘Ah. He loved that stupid shirt. He kept wearing it for at least a year longer than he should have; it had holes in it. I felt embarrassed at nursery.’
Rachel laughs and turns the page.
Jonas smiles at me from a portrait. He looks to be seven or eight years old. His skin is tanned and his hair bleached at the tips.
He looks so different from the zombie that’s lying in the bed in the other room. It is almost impossible to grasp that it is the same person. Once again, I think that Jonas and I were probably pretty alike. That I could have been the one drooling in that bed, had life taken a different turn.
The thought makes the room move and I grab the table.
Rachel nods.
‘Look at the eyes,’ she says. ‘Do you see?’
I look at the eyes. At the thin, sun-bleached brows and at the eyelids that look slightly heavy, even though he is just a child.
And I do see it.
I see Rachel in his face.
‘You look alike,’ I whisper.
She moves closer to me so that I will be able to see better. Her arm rests right next to mine, so close that I can feel the warmth radiating from her skin.
The bumblebee in the pit of my stomach wakes up again and my crotch tingles.
‘We looked alike,’ she corrects. ‘After the accident, he . . . he has changed.’
Her face hardens and I have a sudden impulse to put my arm around her and comfort her, the way I do with Alexandra. At the same time I am aware of all the other stuff: the rounded breasts underneath her tank top, the curve of her thin neck and the outline of her clavicles under her skin.
So messed-up.
She could be my mum, for fuck’s sake.
‘What happened to him?’ I manage, even though my mouth feels as dry as the rocks baking in the sun outside.
‘Car accident. A hit-and-run. He wasn’t critically injured at all, but something happened at the hospital. Suddenly he took a turn for the worse. The doctors think it was oxygen deprivation or maybe a stroke.’
I don’t know what to say.
‘He had his whole life ahead of him,’ Rachel adds and blinks quickly several times.
Then she draws a deep breath.
‘And you?’
‘Me?’
I don’t understand what she means.
Rachel smiles and puts her hand on my arm.
My skin feels hot under her fingers, as if someone set it on fire. As if every single cell was aglow under her touch.
‘Yes, you, Samuel. How are things with your family? Are you close to your mum and dad?’
‘I . . .’
The words refuse to leave my mouth. They are pressing inside. Shy like waxwings or thrushes hiding in the canopy of a mountain ash.
I try again.
‘I . . . my dad is dead.’
Rachel’s eyes widen.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says and touches my arm again, just briefly this time, so that I sort of lose my train of thought.
‘And your mum?’
Rachel gives me a warm and encouraging look.
‘Mum is. She . . . I think she is disappointed in me.’
‘Why do you think that?’
Rachel sounds genuinely surprised.
‘Because . . . she . . . I was running with a bad crowd. And she . . . threw me out.’
Then I tell her.
It just happens. I’m not sure why.
Maybe because Rachel told me about Jonas.
Obviously, I don’t tell her anything about shoplifting or dealing. But I tell her about the church, about Alexandra and even that I am being followed by a scary guy called Igor. And I explain that my mum isn’t happy with me. That I am her greatest disappointment. That she might not actually love me.
But Rachel just smiles and shakes her head.
‘Silly,’ she says.
And then:
‘Of course she loves you. You are her child. You love your child, that’s just how it is.’
She pauses briefly and continues: ‘You said you were on the run from that guy Igor?’
‘Mhm.’
‘Have you spoken to your mum since?’
Her face is hard now and she almost looks a bit strict.
‘Well, no, I . . . she is always mad worried something will happen.’
Rachel smiles sadly.
‘All mums worry.’
She pauses and then goes on.
‘So you never worry?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m not that worried about something terrible happening. Or at least I wasn’t before Igor . . . I was probably more worried about . . .’
‘What?’ Rachel asks and looks genuinely interested.
‘That nothing would happen,’ I say and know immediately that it is true.
My nightmare was always getting stuck in that room in Fruängen for the rest of my life. That everything would just keep on going. Mum’s nagging, the nineteen-minute train ride to the city, the days imperceptibly adding up, becoming months and years. And next thing I know I’m sitting there and am, like, thirty years old and life is over.
Rachel looks both sad and amused. Then her gaze falls on the photo albums and her face contorts in pain.
‘No,’ she says. ‘We can’t sit around here all day.’
She stretches and the thin fabric of her singlet strains across her breasts.
I immediately look down at the table.
*
We work in the garden in the afternoon. The air is colder and a bit muggy, as if a thunderstorm is approaching. Dark, blueish-purple clouds have rolled in over the mainland, piling up like a giant wall to the west.
I have helped Rachel mend a big hole in the fence and she has raked pine cones from the lawn on the short end of the house.
Now she squints at the sky and goes over to pick up the gardening gloves and the shears that still lie discarded in the grass.
She stops for moment when she passes me.
‘I know,’ she says. ‘Could you help me screw the security bars back on outside Jonas’s window? They’ve come loose on the bottom.’
‘Sure,’ I say, shrugging slightly.
Rachel hurries away toward the storage cupboard.
A minute or so later she is back with screws and an electric screwdriver.
‘There have been a few burglaries around here,’ she says, nodding at the window bars. ‘So better safe than sorry.’
I don’t say anything but think that anyone who broke into this house would probably be disappointed.
Who would want to steal adult nappies and laxatives?
‘It’s probably the junkies over at the campsite,’ Rachel mumbles and her mouth turns into a thin line. ‘I guess they have to finance their habit somehow. But when you live this isolated, with a disabled child, the last thing you want is a visit from some high hippie in the middle of the night.’
The bars in front of the window are thick and rusted. Two screw holes gape emptily where the bottom attaches.
I lean forward to get a better look.
There are holes in the wood under the holes in the metal. Splintered holes – it almost looks like someone pulled the screws out.
I screw the bars back on and give them a tug to test. They don’t budge.
‘There,’ I say. ‘Now it should be solid.’
Rachel’s face lights up.
‘Thank you so much! You are so good at this stuff. The fence also turned out well!’
‘Nooo,’ I say, looking down at the grass.
‘Yes,’ Rachel insists and laughs. ‘I would never have managed this without you. You’re strong and technically minded.’
My cheeks burn and I hope she doesn’t notice. Mum would never have said that. Even if she thought it, she would never have said it.
I turn my gaze away from Rachel, down toward the peonies growing underneath the window. The stalks shoot like spears out of the tall grass. The swollen deep red buds have freed themselves from the sepals and look ready to burst at any moment. A vine clings to the wall. The light green leaves seem to grow as I watch them.
There is a smell of grass and damp soil, and of Rachel’s perfume. The insects buzz and hum around us. Birds sing. Butterflies flutter by. Everything is so verdant, so juicy, so full of vigour and life.
Rachel leans in. A strand of her dark hair falls across her face. She moistens her lips with her tongue and the saliva glistens at the corner of her mouth.
Now, I think.
Now.
Now I am about to die. Now it will happen.
She reaches her arm towards my face. But instead of stroking me she hits me hard in the face.
‘A mosquito,’ she says and shows me the palm of her hand.
I see a bloody smear, as big as a portion of snuff.
My skin burns like fire after the slap and from the fact that she actually touched me. That her pale hand met my cheek – OK, she hit me, but still.
Part of me wishes she’d do it again.
*
I’m lying in bed trying to sleep, but can’t get my thoughts to shut up. They are doing their best to drown each other out in my head, like starving, blind chicks in a bird house.
I can’t stay here.
Anything is better than sitting with zombie-Jonas in that room that smells like old farts.
And this thing with Rachel – her face and body that show up in my head at the weirdest moments. Despite her being at least forty years old and having a partner who is about to return from Stockholm.
Despite her looking like Mum.
Despite everything being so wrong I can’t help but think of her. Of her pale skin, the heavy breasts and the fine lines that frame her eyes when she laughs. And of her smile when she said I was ‘strong and technically minded’.
You’re trying to look good in front of a forty-year-old bitch because you dream of fucking her. That’s pathetic. And bloody perverted.
I turn over on my side and puff my pillow a bit under my head. The summer night is dusky and endlessly long, like one of those French films we watched in school. In the bluish half-light I can make out the silhouette of the wardrobe and the small chair next to it. My dirty clothes lie thrown across the seat.
Sooner or later I’ll have to wash them, but I have nothing else to wear. And I can’t spend a whole day naked while I wait for my clothes to dry.
But I have bigger problems than dirty clothes.
I try to assess my options.
Going to the cops is out of the question. First off, I don’t want to end up in jail and second, that would make it necessary to snitch on Igor, which would be like signing my own death warrant.
Because they can’t get at Igor.
I always thought that compared to Igor the cops were no more dangerous than a paper tiger, but now that they’re after me, I’d certainly rather avoid them. The problem is – I can’t reach out to Igor or Malte to explain that everything is a mistake. Too much time has passed for me to have any kind of credibility crawling back to apologise. I should have been in touch immediately, told them where I hid the money and that I borrowed the bike.
The money.
I sit up in bed and catch my breath violently. The pillow falls onto the floor with a rustle.
The money.
Why didn’t I think of that sooner?
There is at least two hundred thou under that rock in the woods by the industrial area. If I borrow a little I can lie low for a while, at least until all of this has died down.
I know Igor has talked about moving to Miami.
If he does it’ll just be Malte left and even if he is a real arsehole he isn’t as insane as Igor. Plus, I have something over him. I saw him give Igor’s money to a chick who was supposed to be due for a beating.
A chick we paid a second visit to.
I recall the words Malte hissed in my ear at the redhead’s apartment.
Not a word about this to anyone, do you understand? I’d be dead. And you too.
My heart beats faster in my chest.
I pick the pillow off the floor, lie on my back and stare at the ceiling.
How to get hold of the money? I can hardly go home to Fruängen on Igor’s bike and get it, the risk is too great that someone from the company will see me.
Could I ask Alexandra to get it?
No.
Not a chance in hell.
She hates everything to do with Igor. She would refuse to get involved in this mess.
I reach for my phone on the bedside table. Surely it can’t hurt if I turn it on for a few seconds?
I wait for a second as the screen lights the room up.
I scroll through Instagram.
Jeanette has uploaded a backlit close-up. Her shiny lips are pouting and her eyes are open wide. The wind is catching her hair and the light from the sun is making a halo glow around her head. Her facial expression is both provocative and startled.
‘So sad that we have buried my sister’s hamster Snuff. Everyone was really upset,’ reads the caption.
Four hundred and eleven likes.
Dead hamster combined with horny pouting lips is apparently just the thing on Instagram.
My mobile dings and I am so scared I almost drop it on the floor.
The message is from Liam.
Stop messaging me, for fuck’s sake. The cops have let Igor go. There was no evidence. He wants to KILL you. Lie low. Don’t call. I do NOT want to be fucking involved.
I close my eyes and let the phone fall onto my blanket.
Hopelessness grows inside until I feel like my chest is about to explode, as if someone or something is in there trying to claw its way out.
The tears come, even though I don’t want them. They fall and fall as if I were a snot-nosed little kid who lost his security blanket and not a grown guy who put himself in this shit by being so fucking retarded.
You are nothing. You know nothing. You may as well lie down and just die, because nobody will care anyway.
I blow my nose into the sheet.
There is one person left to contact. Just one.