The school was buzzing with rumours. Some teacher had listened to the radio during recess, had subsequently told his class about it and by lunchtime everyone knew.
The Russians were here.
The biggest topic of conversation among the children over the past week had been the Vällingby murderer. Many had seen him, so they said, some even claimed to have been attacked by him.
The children had seen the murderer in every sketchy-looking character who walked past the school. When an older man in ratty clothing had taken a short cut across the school grounds the children had run for cover—screaming—to the nearest building. Some of the tougher guys had armed themselves with hockey sticks and prepared to knock him down. Luckily, someone had finally identified the man as one of the local alcoholics from the main square. They let him go.
But now the Russians were here. They didn’t know much about the Russians. There once was a German, a Russian and a Bellman— or so the joke went. The Russians were best in the world at hockey. They were called the Soviet Union. They and the Americans were the ones who flew in outer space. The Americans had made a neutron bomb to protect themselves against the Russians.
Oskar talked it over with Johan during the lunchbreak.
‘Do you think the Russians have it too—the Bomb?’
Johan shrugged. ‘Sure. Maybe they’ve even got one on that submarine.’
‘I thought you had to have an aeroplane to drop it?’
‘Nah. They put them in rockets that can be fired from wherever.’
Oskar looked up at the sky. ‘And a submarine can have those?’
‘That’s what I said. They can put them anywhere.’
‘The people die but the houses are left standing.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Wonder what happens to the animals.’
Johan pondered this for a moment.
‘They must die too. At least the big ones.’
They sat down on a corner of the sandpit, where none of the smaller kids was playing. Johan picked up a large rock and threw it so the sand whirled up around it. ‘Pow! Everyone dead!’
Oskar picked up a smaller rock.
‘No! One person survived. Pshiuuuu! Missile in the back!’
They threw rocks and gravel, exterminating all the cities of the world, until they heard a voice behind them.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
They turned around. Jonny and Micke. Jonny was the one who had spoken. Johan tossed the rock he had in his hand.
‘Uh—we were just…’
‘I wasn’t talking to you. Piggy? What were you doing?’
‘Throwing rocks.’
‘Why were you doing that?’
Johan drew back a few steps, was busy retying his shoelaces.
‘Just—no reason.’
Jonny looked at the sandpit and then thrust his arm out so suddenly that Oskar flinched.
‘The little kids are supposed to play here. Don’t you get it? You’re wrecking the sandpit.’
Micke shook his head sadly. ‘They could trip and hurt themselves on the rocks.’
‘You’re going to have to clean this up, Piggy.’
Johan was still busy with his shoes.
‘Did you hear me? You’re going to have to clean this up.’
Oskar stood still, unable to decide what to do. Of course Jonny didn’t care about the sandpit. It was just the usual. It would take at least ten minutes to clear away all of the rocks that they had thrown and Johan wouldn’t help. The bell was going to go at any moment.
No.
The word came to him like divine inspiration. Like when someone says the word ‘god’ for the first time and really means… God.
An image of himself picking up rocks after the others had gone back to class, only because Jonny had told him to do so, had flickered past inside his head. But something else had too. In the sandpit there was a jungle gym like the one in Oskar’s courtyard.
Oskar shook his head.
‘What’s this?’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean “No”? You seem to be a little slow today. I’m telling you to pick this up and that means you do it.’
‘No.’
The bell rang. Jonny stood there looking at Oskar.
‘You know what this means, don’t you? Micke.’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll have to get him after school.’
Micke nodded.
‘See you, Piggy.’
Jonny and Micke went in. Johan got up, finished with his shoes.
‘That was pretty dumb.’
‘I know.’
‘What the hell did you do that for?’
‘Because…’ Oskar looked at the jungle gym. ‘Because I did, that’s all.’
‘Idiot.’
‘Yes.’
Oskar lingered at his desk after school. Took out two blank pieces of paper, got the encyclopedia from the back of the room, started turning the pages.
Mammoth…Medici…Mongol…Morfeus…Morse
Yes. Here it was. The dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet took up a quarter of a page. He started to copy down the code in large, legible letters on the first piece of paper:
and so on. When he was done he wrote it out again on the second sheet of paper. Wasn’t satisfied. Threw the piece of paper away and started over, making the symbols and letters even neater.
Of course it was only important that one of the pages came out well: the one for Eli. But he liked the work and it gave him a reason to stay there.
Eli and he had been meeting every evening for a week now. Yesterday Oskar had tried knocking on the wall before he went out and Eli had answered. Then they went out at the same time. That was when Oskar had the idea of developing this communication through a system, and since the Morse alphabet already existed…
He scrutinised the finished pages. Nice. Eli would like it. Just like him she liked puzzles, systems. He folded the pages, put them in his schoolbag, rested his arms on the bench. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach. The clock on the classroom wall showed twenty past three. He took out the book he had in his desk, Firestarter, and read it until four.
They couldn’t have waited for him for two hours, could they?
If he had just picked up the rocks like Jonny had said, he would be home by now. Be OK. Picking up rocks was certainly not the worst he had been asked to do, and done. He regretted it.
And if I do it now?
Maybe the punishment tomorrow would be milder if he told them he stayed after school and…
Yes, that’s what he would do.
He gathered up his things and went out to the sandpit. It would only take ten minutes to fix this. When he told them about it tomorrow Jonny would laugh, pat him on the head and say ‘good little Piggy’ or something like that. But that was better, all things considered.
He put his bag down next to the sandpit and started to pick up the rocks. The big ones first. London, Paris. While he was picking them up he imagined that he was now saving the world. Cleaning up after those terrible neutron bombs. When the stones were lifted the survivors crawled out from their ruined houses like ants out of an anthill. But weren’t the bombs supposed not to hurt the houses? Oh well, there were probably some atom bombs too.
When he walked to the edge of the sandpit to dump out a load of rocks they were just standing there. He hadn’t heard them coming, had been too busy with his game. Jonny, Micke. And Tomas. They held three long thin hazel branches. Whips. Jonny used his whip to point at a rock.
‘There’s one.’
Oskar dropped the rocks he was holding and picked up the rock Jonny was pointing at. Jonny nodded. ‘Good. We waited for you, Piggy. We waited a long time.’
‘And then Tomas came along and said you were here,’ Micke said.
Tomas’ eyes remained without expression. In elementary school Oskar and Tomas had been friends, played a lot in his yard, but after the summer between fourth and fifth grade Tomas had changed. He had started to talk differently, more grown up. Oskar knew that the teachers thought Tomas was one of the most intelligent boys in the class. You could tell from the way they talked to him. He had a computer. Wanted to be a doctor.
Oskar wanted to throw the rock he was holding straight into Tomas’ face. Into the mouth that now opened and talked.
‘Aren’t you going to run? Get going now. Run.’
There was a whistling sound as Jonny whipped the branch through the air. Oskar squeezed the rock harder.
Why don’t I run?
He could already feel the stinging pain on his legs when the whip hit its mark. If he could only make it out to the park road where there might be grown-ups around, they wouldn’t dare to beat him up.
Why don’t I run?
Because he didn’t have a chance. They would have him on the ground before he had taken five steps.
‘Let me go.’
Jonny turned his head, pretended like he hadn’t heard.
‘What did you say, Piggy?’
‘Let me go.’
Jonny turned towards Micke.
‘He thinks we should let him go.’
Micke shook his head.
‘But we’ve made such nice-looking…’ He waved his whip in the air.
‘What do you think, Tomas?’
Tomas looked at Oskar as if he were a rat, still alive, writhing in his trap.
‘I think Piggy needs a whipping.’
There were three of them. They had whips. It was a maximally unfair situation. He could throw the rock in Tomas’ face. Or hit him with it if he came close. There would be a talk with the principal and so on. But they would understand. There had been three of them, armed.
I was…desperate.
He wasn’t desperate at all. In fact he felt a streak of calm through the fear, now that he had made up his mind. They could whip him as long as it gave him the opportunity to smash the rock in Tomas’ disgusting face.
Jonny and Micke stepped up. Jonny whipped Oskar across one thigh so he doubled over in pain. Micke went up behind him and locked his arms by his side.
No.
Now he couldn’t throw it. Jonny whipped his legs, spun around once like Robin Hood in that movie, hit again.
Oskar’s legs burned from the lashes. He writhed in Micke’s grasp but couldn’t get free. Tears sprang to his eyes. He screamed. Jonny gave Oskar one last hard lash that grazed Micke’s legs so that he yelled, ‘Watch it, will you?’, but without releasing his hold.
A tear ran down Oskar’s cheek. It wasn’t fair. He had picked up all the rocks, he had bent over backwards, so why did they have to hurt him?
The rock that he had been holding onto so hard fell out of his hand and he started to cry for real.
Jonny said with a pitying voice, ‘Piggy’s crying.’
Jonny seemed satisfied. His work was done. He gestured to Micke to let go. Oskar’s whole body was shaking, wracked with sobs, and from the pain in his legs. His eyes were filled with tears when he lifted his face to them and heard Tomas’ voice.
‘What about me?’
Micke grabbed Oskar’s arms again and through the fog of tears over his eyes Oskar saw Tomas walk closer. He snivelled, ‘Please don’t.’
Tomas raised his whip and struck. One single blow. Oskar’s face exploded and he jerked so violently to the side that Micke either lost or let go of his grip and said, ‘What the hell, Tomas. That was…’
Jonny sounded angry. ‘Now you can talk to his mum.’
Oskar didn’t hear what Tomas answered, if he said anything.
Their voices disappeared into the distance, they left him with his face in the sand. His left cheek burned. The sand was cold, soothed the heat in his legs. He wanted to put his cheek in the sand as well, but realised it wasn’t a good idea.
He lay there so long he started to get cold. Then he sat up and carefully felt his cheek. His fingers were bloody.
He walked over to the outside toilets and looked in the mirror. The cheek was swollen and covered in half-congealed blood. Tomas must have struck him as hard as he could. Oskar washed his cheek and looked in the mirror again. The wound had stopped bleeding and it wasn’t deep. But it ran right across almost his entire cheek.
Mum. What do I tell her?
The truth. He needed comforting. In an hour Mum would be home and then he would tell her what they had done to him and she would be completely distraught and hug him and hug him and he would sink into her arms, into her tears and they would cry together.
Then she would call Tomas’ mum.
Then she would call Tomas’ mum and they would argue and then Mum would cry about how mean Tomas’ mum was and then… Woodshop.
He had had an accident in woodshop. No, then maybe she would call the teacher.
Oskar studied his wound in the mirror. How did you get something like this? He had fallen off the play structure. It didn’t really work but Mum would want to believe it. She would still feel sorry for him and comfort him but without all that other stuff. The play structure.
His pants felt cold. Oskar unbuttoned them and checked. His underpants were soaked. He took out the pissball and rinsed it out. He was about to put it back but stopped and looked in the mirror.
Oskar. That’s…Oskar.
He took the rinsed pissball and put it on his nose. Like a clown nose. The yellow ball and the red wound on his cheek. Oskar. He opened his eyes wide and tried to look crazy. Yes. Creepy. He talked to the clown in the mirror.
‘It’s over now, it’s enough. Understand? This is it.’
The clown didn’t answer.
‘I’m not standing for this. Not even one more time, understand?’ Oskar’s voice echoed in the empty bathroom.
‘What should I do? What should I do, do you think?’
He twisted his face into a grimace until it hurt, distorted his voice by making it as raspy and low as he could. The clown spoke.
‘Kill them. Kill them. Kill them.’
Oskar shivered. This was a little creepy for real. It really sounded like someone else’s voice, and the face in mirror wasn’t his own. He took the pissball from his nose, put it back in his pants.
The tree.
Not because he really believed in this and all, but he would go stab the tree. Maybe, just maybe. If he really concentrated then…
Maybe.
Oskar picked up his bag and hurried home, filling his head with lovely images.
Tomas is sitting at his computer when he feels the first stab. Doesn’t understand where it is coming from. Staggers out into the kitchen with the blood gushing from his stomach. ‘Mum, Mum, someone is stabbing me.’
Tomas’ mum would just stand there. Tomas’ mum who always took his side no matter what he had done. She would just stand there. Terror-stricken. While the stabs continued to puncture Tomas’ body.
He falls to the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, ‘Mum…Mum…’ while the invisible knife cuts open his stomach so his intestines spill out onto the linoleum.
Not that it really worked that way.
But still.
The apartment reeked of cat piss.
Giselle lay on his lap, purring. Bibi and Beatrice were wrestling on the floor. Manfred sat in the window as usual, his nose pushed up against the glass, and Gustaf was trying to get Manfred’s attention by buffeting his side with his head.
Måns and Tufs and Cleopatra were relaxing in the armchair. Tufs was pawing at a few loose threads. Karl-Oskar tried to jump up onto the windowsill but missed and fell backwards onto the floor. He was blind in one eye.
Lurvis was out in the hall keeping an eye on the letter slot, ready to jump if any advertising was pushed through. Vendela was resting on the hat shelf keeping an eye on Lurvis. Her deformed front paw hung down between the wooden slats and flinched from time to time.
More cats were out in the kitchen, eating or lazing around on tables and chairs. Five were sleeping on the bed in the bedroom. A few more had their favourite hideaways in closets or cupboards they had learnt how to get into on their own.
After Gösta had stopped letting them out—relenting to pressure from his neighbours—no more fresh genetic material had come in. Most of the kittens born were either dead or so deformed they died a few days after birth. About half of the twenty-eight cats that lived in Gösta’s apartment had some kind of congenital defect. They were blind or deaf or were missing teeth or had motor damage.
He loved them all.
Gösta scratched Giselle behind the ear.
‘Yes…my little darling…what are we going to do? You don’t know? No, either do I. But we have to do something, don’t we? You can’t get away with something like this. It was Jocke. I knew him. And now he’s dead. But no one else knows. Because they didn’t see what I saw. Did you see it too?’
Gösta lowered his head, whispered, ‘It was a child. I saw it coming down the path. It waited for Jocke. In the underpass. He went in, and never came out. Then in the morning he was gone. But he’s dead. I know he is.
‘What’s that? No, I can’t go to the police. They’re going to ask questions. There will be a lot of people and then they will ask why I didn’t say anything. Shine one of those lights in my face.
‘It was three days ago. Or four. I don’t know. What day is it today? They’re going to ask. I can’t do it.
‘But we have to do something. I just don’t know what.’
Giselle looked up at him. Started to lick his hand.
When Oskar came home from the forest, the knife was smeared with splinters of rotten wood. He washed it under the kitchen tap, drying it off with a dishcloth that he then rinsed clean and held against his cheek.
His mum would soon be home. He had to go out again, needed a little more time—tears were still clumped in his throat, his legs ached. He took the key from the kitchen cupboard, wrote a note: Back soon, Oskar. Then he put the knife back and walked down to the basement. Unlocked the heavy door, slipped in.
The underground smell. He liked it. A reassuring blend of wood, old things, and locked-in-ness. A little light filtered in through a ground-level window and in the dim light the basement promised secrets, hidden treasure.
To his left there was an oblong section divided into four storage compartments. The walls and doors were made of wood, the doors secured with various locks. One of the doors had a reinforced lock; a person who had been robbed.
On the wooden wall at the very end of the area someone had written KISS with a marker. The ‘S’s were formed like elongated, backward ‘Z’s.
But the most interesting area was to be found at the end opposite all this. The room for recycling and oversized rubbish. Oskar had once found a world globe that now stood in his room, as well as several issues of the series ‘The Hulk’, and some other stuff.
But today there was almost nothing. It must have been emptied recently. A few newspapers, some folders with the labels English and Swedish. But Oskar had enough folders. He had scavenged a whole bunch from the container outside the printing shop a while ago.
He walked through the basement room and out to the next stairwell in the building, Tommy’s stairwell. Continued on to that basement door, unlocked it and walked in. This basement had a different smell; a trace of paint, or thinning solution. This basement also contained the safety shelter for the whole complex. He had only been in once before, three years ago, when some of the older guys had a boxing club there. He had been allowed to go with Tommy and watch, one afternoon. The guys had gone after each other with boxing gloves on their hands and Oskar had been a little scared. The groaning and sweating, the tense, concentrated bodies, the sound of the blows muffled by the thick concrete walls. Then someone had gotten hurt, or something like that, and the wheels that you turned to pull away the fastening mechanism on the door had been blocked with chains and lock. That was the end of the boxing.
Oskar turned on the light and walked over to the shelter room. If the Russians were coming it would have to be unlocked.
If they hadn’t lost the key.
Oskar stood in front of the massive iron door and a thought appeared. That someone…someone was locked in here. That’s what the chains and lock were for. To restrain a monster.
He listened. There were distant sounds from the street, from people’s movements in the apartments above. He really liked the basement. It was like being in another world, while knowing that the other world was still there outside, above you, if you needed it. But down here it was quiet, and no one came and said anything, did anything to you. Nothing you had to do.
Across from the safety room was the clubhouse. Forbidden territory.
Of course, they didn’t have a lock, but that didn’t mean just anyone was allowed in. He took a deep breath and opened the door.
There wasn’t much in this storage unit. Just a badly sagging couch, and an equally sagging armchair. A rug on the floor. A chest of drawers with peeling paint. A clandestine lighting arrangement had been rigged up consisting of a cord feeding from the light in the corridor connected to a single naked bulb suspended from the ceiling. It was turned off.
He had been down here a few times before and knew that all he had to do to turn it on was twist the bulb. But he didn’t dare. Enough light filtered in through the gaps between the planks to see. His heart beat faster. If they found him here they would…
What? I don’t know. That’s what’s so horrible. Not beat me up, but…
He kneeled on the rug, and lifted a sofa cushion. A few tubes of glue and a roll of plastic bags, a container of lighter fluid. In the other corner of the sofa, under the seat cushion, there were porno magazines. A few well-thumbed issues of Lektyr and Fib Aktuellt.
He took a Lektyr and shifted closer to the door where there was more light. Still kneeling, he spread the magazine out on the floor in front of him, flipped the pages. His mouth was dry. The woman in the picture lay in a deckchair wearing only a pair of high-heeled shoes. She was pushing her breasts together and pouting. Her legs were spread and in the middle of the bushy hair between her thighs there was a strip of pink flesh with a groove down the middle.
How do you get in there?
He knew the words from talk he had heard, graffiti he had read. Cunt. Hole. Labia. But it wasn’t a hole. Only that groove. They had had sexual education at school and he knew there was supposed to be a…tunnel leading in from the vulva. But in what direction? Straight up or in or…you couldn’t tell.
He kept turning the pages. The readers’ own stories. At the swimming pool. A stall in the girls’ changing rooms. Her nipples stiffened under her bathing suit. My dick was thumping like a hammer in my swimming trunks. She gripped the clothes pegs, turned her little ass towards me and moaned, ‘Take me, take me now.’
Did this kind of thing go on all the time; behind closed doors, in places where you couldn’t see?
He had started a new story, about a family reunion that took an unexpected turn when he heard the basement door being opened. He shut the magazine, put it back under the sofa cushion and didn’t know what to do with himself. His throat contracted, he didn’t dare to breathe. Footsteps in the corridor.
Please God let it not be them. Let it not be them.
He squeezed his kneecaps with his hands, clenched his teeth so hard he hurt his jaw. The door opened. Tommy was standing there, blinking.
‘What the hell?’
Oskar wanted to say something, but his jaws were locked shut. He simply stayed where he was, kneeling on the rug of light that rolled out from the door, breathing through his nose.
‘What the hell are you doing here? And what have you been up to?’
Almost without moving his jaws Oskar managed to press out a ‘…Nothing.’
Tommy took a step into the storage area, towering over him.
‘With your cheek, I mean? How did you get that?’
‘I…it’s nothing.’
Tommy shook his head, screwed the light bulb so it turned on and closed the door. Oskar got to his feet, standing in the middle of the room with his hands by his side, unsure of what he should do. He took a step towards the door. Tommy sank down in the armchair and pointed to the couch.
‘Sit down.’
Oskar sat down on the middle cushion, the one that didn’t have anything stashed underneath it. Tommy sat quietly for a few moments, looking at him. Then he said: ‘All right, let’s hear it.’
‘What?’
‘What happened to your cheek.’
‘I just…’
‘Someone beat you up. Right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How come?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What? They beat you up with no reason?’
‘Yes.’
Tommy nodded, picked at a few loose threads that hung from the armchair. Took out a wad of chewing tobacco and tucked it into his lip, held out the jar to Oskar.
‘Want some?’
Oskar shook his head. Tommy put it back, adjusted the wad of tobacco with his tongue and then leaned back in the armchair, with his hands folded on his stomach.
‘I see. And what were you doing down here?’
‘Um, I was just going to…’
‘Check out some of the babes, right? Because you aren’t into sniffing yet, are you? Come over here.’
Oskar got up, walked over to Tommy.
‘Come closer. Breathe on me.’
Oskar did as he was told and Tommy nodded, pointed at the couch and told Oskar to sit down again.
‘You stay away from that shit, you understand?’
‘I haven’t…’
‘No, you haven’t. But you stay the hell away, you understand? It’s no good. Tobacco is good. You can try that.’ He paused. ‘OK, are you planning to sit there gawking at me all night?’ He gestured to the cushion next to Oskar. ‘Want to read more?’
Oskar shook his head.
‘OK, then get lost. The others are coming soon and they won’t be too pleased to see you here. Go home, go on now.’
Oskar got up.
‘And Oskar…’ Tommy looked at him, shook his head, sighed. ‘No, forget it. Go on home. And one more thing. Don’t come down here any more.’
Oskar nodded, opened the door. He stopped in the doorway.
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK. Just don’t come here any more. Oh—you got the money yet?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Great. I made a tape for you with Destroyer and Unmasked. Come by and pick it up later.’
Oskar nodded. He felt a lump growing in his throat. If he stayed here he would start to cry. He whispered, ‘Thanks’, and left.
Tommy stayed in his armchair, sucked on the wad of tobacco and stared at the dust bunnies that had collected under the couch.
Hopeless.
They would keep beating up Oskar until he finished ninth grade. He was the type. Tommy would have liked to do something but once it got started there was nothing you could do. No stopping it.
He dug a lighter out of his pocket, put it in his mouth and let out the gas. When it started to feel cold inside his mouth he took the lighter away, lit it and breathed out.
A burst of fire in front of his face. But he felt no happier. He was restless, got up and walked around. The dust whirled up around his feet.
What the hell can you do?
He paced around the small space, thinking it was a prison cell. You can’t get away. Have to make the best of it, bla bla. Blackeberg. He was going to get away from here, he was going to be…a sailor or something. Anything.
Swab the deck, go to Cuba, heave-ho.
A broom that was almost never used was leaned up against the wall. He took it and started to sweep. Dust flew up his nose. When he had been sweeping for a while he realised he had no dustpan. He swept the pile of dust under the couch.
Better to have a little shit in the corners than a clean hell.
He flipped through the pages of a porno, put it back. Wound his scarf around his neck and pulled it tight until his head felt like it was about to explode, released it. Got up and took a few steps on the rug. Sank to his knees, prayed to God.
Robban and Lasse came around half past five. When they walked in Tommy was relaxing in the armchair and looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. Lasse was sucking on his lips, seemed nervous. Robban grinned and thumped Lasse on the back.
‘Lasse needs another tape.’
Tommy raised his eyebrows.
‘Why?’
‘Tell him, Lasse.’
Lasse snorted, didn’t dare look Tommy in the eyes.
‘Uh…there’s a guy at work.’
‘Who wants to buy?’
‘Mmm.’
Tommy shrugged, got up from his chair and picked the key to the safety room out of the stuffing. Robban looked disappointed, he must have been expecting some kind of amusing scene but Tommy didn’t care. Lasse could shout out ‘Stolen goods for sale!’ from the rooftops at his job for all he cared. It didn’t matter.
Tommy pushed Robban aside and walked out into the corridor, turned the key in the lock, pulled the heavy chain out of the wheels and threw it over to Robban. The chain fell through his hands, rattling to the floor.
‘What’s your problem? Are you high or what?’
Tommy shook his head, turned the wheel mechanism and pushed the door open. The fluorescent lighting inside was broken, but there was enough light from the corridor to see the boxes piled up along one wall. Tommy picked up a carton of cassette tapes and gave it to Lasse.
‘Have fun.’
Lasse looked uncertainly at Robban as if to get help interpreting Tommy’s behaviour. Robban made a face that could have meant anything, then turned to Tommy who was locking up.
‘Heard anything more from Staffan?’
‘Nope,’ Tommy clicked the lock together, sighed. ‘I’m going over there for dinner tomorrow. We’ll see.’
‘Dinner?’
‘Yes—why?’
‘No, nothing. Just thought cops ran on…gas or something.’
Lasse laughed out loud, glad the tension was broken.
‘Gas…’
He had lied to his mother. And been believed. Now he was stretched out on his bed, feeling sick to his stomach.
Oskar. That guy in the mirror. Who is he? A lot of things happened to him. Bad things. Good things. Strange things. But who is he? Jonny looks at him and sees Piggy whom he wants to beat up. Mum looks at him and sees her Little Darling whom she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to.
Eli looks at me and sees…what?
Oskar turned to the wall, to Eli. The two faces peeked out from between the trees in the wallpaper. His cheek was still swollen and tender, a crust had started to form on top of the wound. What would he tell Eli, if Eli came out tonight?
It was all connected. What he would tell her depended on what he was to her. Eli was new to him and therefore he had the opportunity to be someone else, say something different from what he said to other people.
What do you do anyway? To make people like you?
The clock on his desk read a quarter past seven. He looked into the leaves, tried to find new shapes, had found a little gnome with a pointy hat and an upside-down troll when he heard a knock on the wall.
Tap-tap-tap.
A careful sound. He tapped back.
Tap-tap-tap.
Waited. After a few seconds a new tap.
Tap-taptaptap-tap.
He filled in the two missing ones: tap-tap.
Waited. No further tapping.
He took down the paper with the Morse code, pulled on his jacket, said goodbye to his mum and walked down to the playground. He had only taken a few steps when the door to Eli’s building opened and she came out. She was wearing tennis shoes, blue jeans and a black sweatshirt with Star Wars written across it in silver letters.
At first he thought it was his own shirt; he had one just like it that he had been wearing a couple of days ago. It was in the laundry basket now. Had she gone out and bought one just like it to match his?
‘Hey there.’
Oskar opened his mouth to say the ‘Hi’ he had had prepared, closed his mouth. Opened it again to say ‘Hey there’ and said ‘Hi’ anyway.
Eli frowned.
‘What happened to your cheek?’
‘Phhh…I…fell.’
Oskar kept moving towards the playground. Eli followed. He walked past the jungle gym, sat down in a swing. Eli sat in the swing next to it. They swung back and forth in silence for a while.
‘Someone did that to you, didn’t they?’
Oskar kept swinging.
‘Yes.’
‘Who?’
‘Some…friends.’
‘Friends?’
‘Some kids in my class.’
Oskar got the swing moving fast, picked up the thread.
‘Where do you go to school anyway?’
‘Oskar.’
‘Yes?’
‘Slow down a little.’
He slowed himself down with his feet, looked at the ground in front of him.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘You know what?’
She reached her hand out and grabbed his and he stopped completely, looked at her. Eli’s face was almost completely blacked out against the lighted windows behind her. Of course it was just his imagination but he thought her eyes were glowing. At any rate they were the only things he could see clearly in her face.
With her other hand she touched his wound and that strange thing happened. Someone else, someone much older, harder, became visible under her skin. A cold shiver ran down Oskar’s back, as if he had bitten into an ice cream.
‘Oskar. Don’t let them do it. Do you hear me? Don’t let them.’
‘…No.’
‘You have to strike back. You’ve never done that, have you?’
‘No.’
‘So start now. Hit them back. Hard.’
‘There’s three of them.’
‘Then you have to hit harder. Use a weapon.’
‘Yes.’
‘Stones, sticks. Hit them more than you really dare. Then they’ll stop.’
‘And if they keep hitting back?’
‘You have a knife.’
Oskar swallowed. At this moment, with Eli’s hand in his, with her face in front of him, everything seemed simple. But if they started doing worse things if he put up resistance, if they…
‘Yes, but what if they…’
‘Then I’ll help you.’
‘You? But you are…’
‘I can do it, Oskar. That…is something I can do.’
Eli squeezed his hand. He squeezed back, nodded. But Eli’s grip hardened, so hard it hurt a little.
How strong she is.
Eli loosened her grip and Oskar took out the page of code he had written out for her at school, smoothed out the folds and gave it to her. She wrinkled her forehead.
‘What’s this?’
‘Let’s go over to the light.’
‘No, I can see fine. But what is it?’
‘The Morse code.’
‘Oh, right. I see. Awesome.’
Oskar giggled. She said it in such a…what was it called?…artificial way. The word somehow didn’t fit in her mouth.
‘I thought…we could like…talk through the wall to each other.’
Eli nodded. Looked like she was thinking of something to say. ‘That will be amusing,’ she said.
‘You mean fun?’
‘Yes. Fun. Fun.’
‘You’re a little strange, you know that?’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, but it’s OK.’
‘You’ll have to show me what to do, in that case. Not to be strange.’
‘Sure. Want to see something.’
Eli nodded.
Oskar showed her his special trick. He sat on the swing like before, kicked off. With each pump of his legs, with every arc a notch higher, something grew in his chest: freedom.
The illuminated apartment windows went past like multicoloured, glowing strands and he swung higher and higher. He didn’t always manage to do this trick, but now he was going to do it, because he was as light as a feather and could almost fly.
When the swing got so high that the chains loosened and started to jerk on the back swing he tensed his whole body. The swing went back one more time and then at the top of the next forward swing he let go of the chains, and pushed his legs forward, as high as they would go. The legs went around half a turn and he landed on his feet, bending over as far as he could so the swing wouldn’t hit him in the head, and when it had gone past he stood up and stretched out his arms. Perfect.
Eli applauded, shouted ‘Bravo!’
Oskar caught the swing, walked back with it and sat down. He was again grateful for the dark that hid a triumphant smile he couldn’t suppress, even though it pulled at his wound. Eli stopped clapping, but his smile was still there.
Things were going to be different from now on. Of course you couldn’t kill people by hacking up trees. He knew that.