It is just after ten in the morning when I hear the front door close. Rachel has let me sleep in since I’ve been working so much overtime the last few days. Her guy, Olle, still isn’t back from Stockholm and I haven’t had as much time off as she promised.
I jump out of bed, step into my jeans, go out into the family room and draw a few deep breaths.
It has to be thirty fucking degrees in my room.
At least.
And you can’t open the window without being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
The floorboards creak and sigh when I walk up to the window and look out across the water. Some sea birds glide high above and there is a sailing boat on the horizon.
Rachel jogs down the long wooden stairs towards the jetty dressed in her far-too-large navy blue bathrobe. Her long hair flutters behind her.
It seems she slept in too.
Maybe Jonas had a rough night, the kind that ends with him getting a shot in the bum cheek, making him high as a fucking kite.
I force myself to stop looking at Rachel and go over to the bookcase. The key is right where I left it – next to the book about lighthouses. And when I unlock the door to Olle’s study, it opens without a sound.
The room is still in the shade and the air is pleasantly cool. There is a slight scent of dust and leather from the armchair in the corner.
I kneel down beside the navy blue canvas bag and pull out a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a button-down shirt. Pick up the envelope containing the passport and the credit card.
Then I pull the zipper shut and make sure the bag looks like it did before.
It does – it is completely impossible to see that I’ve been digging around in there, unless someone opens the bag and notices that the clothes and the envelope are missing.
I sneak out of the room, lock the door behind me and put the key back in the same place as before. I put the clothes and the envelope in my backpack, next to the Fentanyl vials that I took from the medicine chest.
I make sure I have my other things too – the mobile, the charger and my keys – and slide my fingers across the key ring I got from Mum. A miniature book and a small plastic fish dangle on the stainless-steel ring. An idiotic Christian thing that the congregation bought to bribe the kids in the youth group.
The time has come to get out of here.
As soon as I am done for the day I am leaving to meet Mum by the dock.
And I don’t intend to come back.
Once I have Igor’s money I’ll be able to stay away for a long time. And thanks to the passport I can even go abroad.
It’s like, problem solved.
*
After I’ve showered I walk down the spiral staircase to the ground floor. There’s a smell of freshly made pancakes.
That round, slightly burned scent arouses my hunger, but also something else: a nagging sense of guilt swells in my chest.
Poor Rachel – here she is making grub for me, even though she doesn’t need to. She really deserves better than to run into a guy who steals from her and then takes off, leaving her alone with her vegetable kid.
I swallow hard and feel how tight my throat feels, as if an invisible ball was lodged there.
You don’t know anything. You don’t want anything. And now you are pissing on the only person who’s helped you.
‘Happy Midsummer! There are pancakes. I hope you’re hungry.’ Rachel smiles and pops a piece of pancake into her mouth with her index finger and her thumb.
She is wearing an apron over her white dress and I think of Mum again. She used to make pancakes for breakfast when I was little and she had an apron that looked almost the same.
The lump in my throat grows. I feel like my throat is about to explode and I can’t speak.
I sit by the table, pour some juice into a glass and force down a few gulps.
Rachel comes up to me and places a plate of freshly made pancakes on the table.
‘Here you are!’
‘Thank you,’ I manage, even as the lump in my throat threatens to explode.
‘I need to go down to the shops for a bit,’ she says, untying the apron at her back, pulling it over her head and hanging it on a hook by the stove. ‘Will you keep an eye on Jonas?’
‘Sure,’ I say and feel myself slowly regaining control, the anxiety is fading and the hard lump shrinks like a punctured balloon.
I am not a bad person, I think.
I am just a guy like any other, who is in trouble and doing his best to get out of it.
I never had a choice.
Zombie-Jonas is lying motionless on his back.
The faint smell of urine that permeates the stuffy room mixes with the scent of the red rose in the vase on the table, like a lone exclamation point.
I lean over the bed and inspect his face carefully.
The skin in his nostril, where the cannula pokes out, is red and there is pus. Part of a scab has come loose, revealing raw flesh. His mouth seems even drier than yesterday and deep, vertical cracks criss-cross his lips.
‘Hi,’ I say, reaching for the lip balm. Take the cap off and carefully run the rounded tip across his lips.
He doesn’t react, but a thin, viscous strand of saliva runs out of the corner of his mouth and onto the pillow.
I get up and fetch a paper towel from the shelf on the wall. Carefully wipe his mouth and place the towel next to the vase with the rose on the bedside table. Then I reach for the hand cream, squeeze out a blob and start to massage his thin, cold fingers.
‘What do you think? Shall we finish reading that poem?’
Of course he doesn’t answer, but the fact is that I am a bit curious as to what will happen to the lion, the lamb and that wounded dove that just wanted its wings back.
I lean across the bed and pull out the paper that is stuck under the mattress at the foot of the bed. Sit down in my armchair and begin to read.
You were the dove, I was the lamb
The lion chastised you,
Roared you have to stay
But his teeth were so sharp,
his claws so long
He your body happened to crush
in his attempt to catch you
The dove was no more
I cried myself a sea of tears
and lay down to die
on the soft tuft of grief
But the lion emerged anew
and in his giant maw he held
an untarnished dove
I lay the paper down in my lap. The poem continues on the next page, but something makes me stop.
I can’t read any more.
Who would write this kind of messed-up shit?
Besides, this isn’t just sick, it’s sick in a way that is almost a bit biblical. And if anyone knows what that means, it is me, after having been forced to go to those fools at the Bible school in Mum’s congregation.
I look at the text again. Reread the last lines.
But the lion emerged anew
and in his giant maw he held
an untarnished dove
There is something about this poem, the actual story, that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. But I can’t figure out what. It is as if some sort of epiphany is hatching in my subconscious, as if a big black animal is swimming down there, refusing to surface, even as I try to summon to it.
I fold up the papers with the poem, put them in the back pocket of my jeans and look at zombie-Jonas.
His whole body is shaking and his fists are clenched as if he is having a seizure.
Dammit!
He’d better not be about to die on my watch!
But just seconds later the pale hands relax and his body is still again. White foam is coming out of the corners of his mouth. It reminds me of the foam that gathers by the rocks when it’s windy.
I reach for the bedside table, take the paper towel and wipe the drool off with a sense of growing unease.
‘I have to go soon,’ I say. ‘Sorry. It’s nothing personal, really, I just have to go.’
I think for a bit then say:
‘Anyway, I hope you get better soon and all that.’
I’m out of words.
There is nothing more to say, nothing that can explain what I’m about to do.
After that I sit still in the armchair. Time has slowed to a crawl.
*
The door slams when Rachel comes home. I can hear her rustle with bags and opening the fridge. Then she disappears into her room.
I wait another half hour and then decide that it is time. I reach for Jonas’s hand, take it in mine and squeeze it, but carefully so that he won’t bruise.
‘Bye. Get better.’
He lies there, immobile.
I go into the hall and knock on Rachel’s door.
‘Come on in!’ she calls.
I crack the door open and see her sitting in front of her little desk, with the laptop open as usual.
She works a lot.
She takes her reading glasses off and closes the computer. Rests her arm on the table and looks at me.
‘Everything OK?’
I nod.
‘He is sleeping. I need to go to the shop to buy some stuff.’
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Could you get me a bike lock at the petrol station if you happen to pass it?’
‘Absolutely,’ I say and feel a bit ashamed as I think I will never buy her that lock. That I will soon be far away from here.
‘Here, 200 should be enough?’
‘Sure,’ I say and put the money in my pocket.
The sun is shining in through the window, giving Rachel’s hair a copper glow. She notices that I’m looking at her and smiles a little.
I swallow hard and resist the impulse to rush out of there, to get away from Rachel who is sitting there and like not really knowing how damn fit she is.
I merely smile back at her, like a really well brought-up lad.
She opens her laptop again, puts her glasses on and turns around, as if to signal that the conversation is over.
I go out into the hall, put on my shoes and backpack.
Just as I am about to open the door I hear steps behind me and turn around.
Rachel is standing in the hall behind me.
‘Hey,’ she says quietly. ‘I just wanted to thank you again. You are so incredibly good with Jonas. I saw that you had moisturised his hands too. It means so much to me that you’re here. Especially now when Olle is away. It is nice to have a man in the house.’
‘Thanks,’ I mumble.
It is nice to have a man in the house.
I can feel myself blush. At the same time I feel bad about being such a useless human. About being about to trick her and leave her very soon, like a straight-up conman.
I open the front door to Rachel’s house for the last time and meet her gaze.
At that very moment Rachel’s smile freezes, her eyes widen and her mouth becomes a little ‘o’.
‘What?’ I ask and feel a little gust of warm, humid air gush in to caress my neck – it almost feels like standing in the breeze on a platform the seconds before the train rolls in.
Rachel doesn’t answer.
Her mouth widens and she emits a scream so loud my heart feels like it stops for real. As if it freezes mid-beat and sort of dies on the spot, shrivelling into a dry little piece of cartilage in my chest.
Slowly I turn around towards the front door.
An enormous, dark figure towers on the doorstep. Muscles strain against his tight vest. His tattooed skin shines with sweat. His jaw is clenched and his eyes look dead, as if someone had gouged them out and replaced them with two lead marbles.
It is Igor.