The boys in 6b stood lined up outside the school and waited for their gym teacher, Mr Ávila, to give them the go-ahead. Everyone had some kind of gym bag in his hands because God save you if you forgot your gym clothes or didn’t have an acceptable reason to sit out gym class.
They stood at arm’s length from each other as the teacher had told them, when, on the first day in fourth grade, he had taken over the responsibility of their physical education from their home room teacher.
‘A straight line! Arm’s length distance!’
Mr Ávila had been a fighter pilot in the war. He had entertained the boys a few times with stories about airborne skirmishes and emergency landings in fields of wheat. They were impressed. They had respect for him.
A class that was considered difficult and unruly now stood lined up in a neat row an arm’s length from each other even though the teacher was out of sight. If the line didn’t meet his expectations he made them stand there an extra ten minutes or cancelled a promised volleyball game in favour of push-ups and sit-ups.
Like the rest of them, Oskar had a healthy respect for his gym teacher. With his stubbly grey hair, eagle nose, a still-impressive physique and iron grip, Mr Ávila was hardly predisposed to love or sympathise with a meek, somewhat chubby and bullied boy. But order ruled during his class period. Neither Jonny, Micke nor Tomas dared do anything while Mr Ávila was around.
Now Johan stepped out of line, threw a quick glance up at the school building, then gave a Heil Hitler salute and said with a feigned Spanish accent: ‘Straight lines! Today fire drill! With ropes!’
Some pupils laughed nervously. Mr Ávila had a fondness for fire drills. Once every semester he had his students practise lowering themselves out of the windows with ropes while he timed the procedure with a stopwatch. If they managed to beat the previous best time they would be allowed to play The Whole Sea Is Raging in their next lesson. If they deserved to.
Johan quickly got back in line. He was lucky because a few seconds later Mr Ávila came out of the front entrance and walked briskly to the gym. He was looking straight ahead without giving the class so much as a look. When he was halfway across the schoolyard he made a follow me gesture with one hand, without breaking his stride, without a backward glance.
The line started moving while trying to retain the arm’s length distance between people. Tomas, who was behind Oskar, stepped on Oskar’s heel so the shoe slid off in the back. Oskar kept on walking.
Since the incident with the whips the day before yesterday they had left him alone. Not that they had gone so far as to apologise or anything, but the wound on his cheek was very visible and they probably felt it was enough. For now.
Eli.
Oskar bunched his toes up inside his shoe in order to keep it on, marching towards the gym. Where was Eli? Oskar had kept a lookout from his window last night to see if Eli’s dad made it home. Instead he had seen Eli slip out around ten o’clock. Then he had had hot cocoa and rolls with his mum and maybe he had missed seeing her come home. But she had not answered any of the messages he tapped into the wall.
The class lumbered into the changing room, the line dissolved. Mr Ávila stood waiting for them with crossed arms.
‘Well, well. Today physical training, with bar, pommel horse and jump rope.’
Groans. Mr Ávila nodded.
‘If it is good, if you work hard, next time we can play spöck-ball. But today: physical training. Get a move on!’
No room for discussion. You had to make do with the promise of ghost-ball, and the class hurried up and changed. As usual Oskar made sure he had his back turned to the others as he changed pants. The pissball made his underpants look a little strange.
Up in the gym hall the others were busy putting out the pommel horses and lowering the bars. Johan and Oskar carried out mats. When everything was arranged to his liking Mr Ávila blew his whistle. There were five stations, so he divided them into five groups of two.
Oskar and Staffe were grouped together, which was good since Staffe was the only kid in the class worse at gym than Oskar. He had raw strength but was clumsy. Chubbier than Oskar. Even so, no one teased him. There was something about the way Staffe carried himself that said if you messed with him something bad would happen to you.
Mr Ávila blew his whistle again and everyone set to work.
Pull-ups on the bar. Chin over the bar, then down, then up again. Oskar managed two. Staffe did five, then gave up. Whistle. Sit-ups. Staffe just lay on the mat and stared at the ceiling. Oskar did cheater sit-ups until the next whistle. Jump rope. Oskar was good at this. He kept jumping while Staffe got tangled up in his. Then regular push-ups. Staffe could do these till the cows came home. Then the pommel horse, the damned pommel horse.
It was a relief to be paired with Staffe. Oskar snuck a peak at Micke and Jonny and Olof, how they flew over the horse via the springboard. Staffe geared up, ran, bounced so hard off the springboard that it creaked and still he didn’t make it up onto the horse. He turned to walk back. Mr Ávila came up to him.
‘Up on pommel.’
‘Can’t do it.’
‘Then you do over.’
‘What?’
‘Do over. Do over. Go jump! Jump!’
Staffan grabbed the pommel horse, heaved himself up onto it and slid like a slug down the other side. Mr Ávila waved go! and Oskar ran.
Somewhere during his run up to the pommel he made up his mind.
He would try.
Once Mr Ávila had told him not to be afraid of the pommel horse, that everything hung on his attitude. Normally he didn’t jump from the springboard with full force, afraid of losing his balance or of hitting something. But now he was going all out, pretend as if he could do it. Mr Ávila was watching and Oskar ran full force towards the springboard.
He hardly thought of the jump off, so focused was he on the aim of clearing the pommel horse. For the first time he pushed his feet into the springboard with full force, without braking, and his body took off by itself, his hands stretched out to steady himself and steer his body on. He flew over the horse with such force that he lost his balance and tumbled head first on the other side. But he had cleared it!
He turned and looked at his teacher, who was definitely not smiling, but nodded encouragingly.
‘Good, Oskar, but more balance.’
Then Mr Ávila blew his whistle and they were allowed to rest for a minute before trying again. This time Oskar managed both to clear the pommel horse and keep his balance when he landed.
Mr Ávila ended the lesson and went to his office while they put the equipment away. Oskar folded out the wheels under the pommel horse and pushed it into the storage room, patting it like a good horse that had finally allowed itself to be tamed. He put it up against the wall and then walked to the changing room. There was something he wanted to talk to Mr Ávila about.
He was stopped halfway to the door. A noose made from a jump rope went over his head and landed around his shoulders. Someone held him in place. Behind him he heard Jonny’s voice saying, ‘Giddy up, Piggy!’
Oskar turned so that the loop slid over his stomach and lay against his back. Jonny was standing in front of him with the ends of the rope in his hands. He waved them up and down.
‘Giddy up, giddy up.’
Oskar grabbed the rope with both hands and pulled the ends out of Jonny’s grip. The jump rope clattered onto the floor behind Oskar. Jonny pointed to the rope.
‘Now you have to pick it up.’
Oskar picked up the jump rope in the middle and started to swing it above his head so the handles rattled against each other, yelled, ‘Here it comes’, and let go. The jump rope flew off and Jonny instinctively put his hands up to shield his face. The jump rope fluttered over his head and smacked against the wall behind him.
Oskar walked out of the gymnasium and ran down the stairs. The sound of his heart hammering in his ears. It had begun. He took the stairs three at a time, landing with both feet on the landings, walked through the changing rooms and into the teacher’s office.
Mr Ávila was sitting there in his gym clothes, talking on the phone in a foreign language, probably Spanish. The only word Oskar could make out was ‘perro’ which he knew meant ‘dog’. Mr Ávila made a sign for him to sit down in the chair opposite his desk. Mr Ávila kept talking, repeating ‘perro’ a few more times. Oskar heard Jonny walk into the changing room and start talking in a loud voice.
The changing room had emptied out before Mr Ávila was done talking about his dog. He turned to Oskar.
‘So, Oskar. What do you want?’
‘Yes, well, I…about these training sessions on Thursday.’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I come to them?’
‘You mean the strength training class at the swimming pool?’
‘Yes, those. Do I have to sign up or…’
‘No need to sign up. Just come. Thursdays at seven o’clock. You want to do it?’
‘Yes, I…Yes.’
‘That is good. You train. Then you can do pull-up bar…fifty times.’
Mr Ávila mimed pulling up on a bar in the air. Oskar shook his head.
‘No. But…yes, I’ll be there.’
‘Then I see you Thursday. Good.’
Oskar nodded, about to leave, then he said, ‘How is your dog?’
‘Dog?’
‘Yes, I heard you say perro on the phone just now. Doesn’t that mean dog?’
Mr Ávila thought for a moment.
‘Ah. Not perro. Pero. That means “but” in Spanish. As in “but not me”. That is pero no yo. Understand? You want to join the Spanish class too?’
Oskar smiled and shook his head. Said the strength training would do for now.
The changing room was empty except for Oskar’s clothes. Oskar pulled off his gym clothes and stopped short. His pants were gone. Of course. Dumb that he hadn’t thought of this in advance.
He checked everywhere in the changing room, in the toilets. No pants.
The chill nipped his legs as he walked home in his gym shorts. It had started to snow during gym class. The snowflakes fell and melted on his legs. In his yard he stopped under Eli’s window. The blinds were drawn. No movement inside. Large snowflakes caressed his upturned face. He caught some on his tongue. They tasted good.
‘Look at Ragnar.’
Holmberg pointed in the direction of Vällingby plaza where the falling snow was covering the cobblestones in gossamer. One of their regular alcoholics sat on a bench in the square without moving, wrapped in a large coat while the snow slowly made him into a poorly proportioned snowman.
Holmberg sighed. ‘We’ll have to go take a look if he doesn’t move soon. How are you doing?’
‘So so.’
Staffan had put an extra cushion on his chair to relieve the pain in his lower back. He would rather be standing, or most of all, lying in his bed, but the report of last night’s events had to be entered into the homicide register before the weekend.
Holmberg looked down at his pad and tapped his pen on it.
‘Those three who were in the changing room. They said that the guy, the killer, before he poured the acid over his face, that he had shouted “Eli, Eli” and now I’m wondering…’
Staffan’s heart leaped in his chest and he leaned across the desk.
‘He said that?’
‘Yes, do you know what…’
‘Yes.’
Staffan sat back suddenly and the pain shot up like an arrow all the way to the roots of his hair. He grabbed the edge of the desk, straightened up and put his hands over his face. Holmberg looked closely at him.
‘Damn, have you seen a doctor?’
‘No, it’s just…it’ll be fine in a minute. Eli, Eli.’
‘Is that a name?’
Staffan nodded slowly. ‘Yes…it means…God.’
‘I see, he was calling out to God. Do you think he was heard?’
‘What?’
‘God. Do you think God heard him? When you consider the circumstances it seems a little…unlikely. But you’re the expert. Hmm.’
‘They’re the final words that Christ uttered on the cross. “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”’
Holmberg blinked and looked down at his notes.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘According to the gospels of Matthew and Mark.’
Holmberg nodded and sucked on the end of his pen.
‘Should we include this in the report?’
When Oskar got home from school he put on a new pair of pants and went down to the Lovers’ Kiosk to get a newspaper. There had been talk of the killer getting caught and he wanted to know everything. Clip articles for his scrapbook.
Something felt slightly different when he went down to the kiosk, something that wasn’t how it normally was, even if you overlooked the snow.
On his way home with the paper he suddenly knew what it was. He wasn’t keeping a lookout. He just walked. He had walked all the way down to the kiosk without keeping an eye out for someone who would be able to hurt him.
He started to run. Ran home all the way with the paper in his hand while the snowflakes licked his face. Locked the front door from the inside. Went to his bed, lay down on his stomach, tapped on the wall. No reply. He wanted to talk to Eli, tell her.
He opened the newspaper. The Vällingby pool. Police cars. Ambulance. Attempted murder. The man’s injuries had made identification difficult. A picture of Danderyd where the man had been hospitalised. A rundown on the first murder. No comments.
Then submarine, submarine, submarine. The military on high alert.
The doorbell rang.
Oskar jumped off his bed, walked quickly into the hall.
Eli, Eli, Eli.
He hesitated with his hand on the door handle. What if it was Jonny and the others? No, they would never come to his house like this. He opened. Johan was outside.
‘Hey there.’
‘Yeah…hey there.’
‘Want to do something?’
‘Sure…like what?’
‘I don’t know. Something.’
‘OK.’
Oskar put on his shoes and coat while Johan waited for him on the stairs.
‘What Jonny did back there was pretty shitty. In the gym.’
‘He took my pants, right?’
‘Yeah, I know where they are.’
‘Where?’
‘Back there. Behind the pool. I’ll show you.’
Oskar thought—but didn’t say out loud—that Johan could have made the effort to bring him the pants when he came over. But Johan’s generosity did not extend that far. Oskar nodded and said, ‘Great.’
They walked over to the pool and got the pants that were hanging on a bush. Then they walked around and checked things out. Made snowballs and tried to hit a specific target on a tree. In a container they found some old electric cables that they could cut and use as slingshots. Talked about the murderer, about the submarine and about Jonny, Micke and Tomas, who Johan thought were dumb.
‘Completely retarded.’
‘But they don’t do anything to you.’
‘No, but still.’
They walked to the hotdog stand by the subway station and bought two luffare each. One krona apiece; a grilled hotdog bun with only mustard, ketchup, hamburger dressing and raw onion inside. It was starting to get dark. Johan talked to the girl in the hotdog stand and Oskar looked at the subway trains that came and went, thinking about the electric wires that ran above the tracks.
They started walking towards the school where they would go their separate ways, their mouths reeking of onion. Oskar said, ‘Do you think people kill themselves by jumping onto those wires above the tracks?’
‘Don’t know. I guess so. My brother knows someone who went down there and pissed on a live track.’
‘What happened?’
‘He died. The current went up through the piss into his body.’
‘No way. So he wanted to die?’
‘Nah. He was drunk. Shit. Think about it…’
Johan mimed taking out his dick, peeing, and then starting to convulse. Oskar laughed.
Down by the school they said goodbye, waved. Oskar walked home with the pants he had found tied around his waist, whistling the theme tune to ‘Dallas’. It had stopped snowing but a white film covered everything. The large frosted windows of the swimming pool were brightly lit. He would go there Thursday evening. Start training. Get strong.
Friday evening at the Chinese restaurant. The round, steel-rimmed clock on one wall looks completely out of place among the rice paper lamps and golden dragons. It says five to nine. The guys are leaning over their beers, losing themselves in the landscapes depicted on the placemats. The snow continues to fall outside.
Virginia stirs her San Francisco a little and sucks on the end of the stirrer that has a Johnnie Walker figure on the end.
Who was Johnnie Walker? Where was he walking with such determination?
She taps her glass with the stirrer and Morgan looks up.
‘Giving a toast?’
‘Someone should.’
They had told her about it, everything that Gösta had said about Jocke, the underpass, the child. Then they had sunk into silence. Virginia let the ice cubes in her glass clink, looked at how the dimmed ceiling lights reflected in the half-melted cubes.
‘There’s one thing I don’t get. If all this that Gösta says really happened. Where is he? Jocke, I mean.’
Karlsson brightened, as if this was the opportunity he had been waiting for.
‘Exactly what I have been trying to say. Where is the body? If you’re going…’
Morgan held up a finger in front of Karlsson.
‘You do not refer to Jocke as “the body”, understood?’
‘Well, what do I call him? The deceased?’
‘You don’t call him anything, not until we know for sure.’
‘That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say. As long as we don’t have a b…as long as they haven’t…found him, we can’t.’
‘Who’s “they”?’
‘Who do you think? The helicopter division in Berga? The police, of course.’
Larry rubbed one eye with a low clucking sound. ‘That’s a problem. As long as they haven’t found him they aren’t interested, and as long as they aren’t interested they won’t find him.’
Virginia shook her head. ‘You have to go to the police and tell them what you know.’
‘Oh yeah, and what exactly do you think we should tell them?’ Morgan chuckled. ‘Hey, lay off all this shit with the child murderer, the submarine and everything, because we’re three merry alcoholics and one of our drinking buddies has disappeared and now another of our drinking buds tells us that one night when he was really high he saw…does that sound good?’
‘But what about Gösta? He was the one who saw it, he’s the one who…’
‘Sure. But he’s so damned unstable. Shake a uniform at him and he’ll collapse, ready to be admitted to Beckis. He can’t take it. Interrogations and shit.’ Morgan shrugged. ‘No chance there.’
‘But do we really do nothing?’
‘Well, what the hell do you suggest?’
Lacke, who had downed his beer while the conversation was going on, said something too low for them to hear properly. Virginia leaned towards him and put her head on his shoulder.
‘What did you say?’
Lacke stared into the foggy ink-drawn landscape on his placemat and whispered, ‘You said. That we would get him.’
Morgan thumped the table with his hand so the beer glasses jumped. Held out his hand like a claw.
‘And we will. But we need something to go on first.’
Lacke nodded like a somnambulist and started to get up.
‘Just have to…’
His legs gave way and he fell head-first across the table. The loud crash of fallen glass made all eight restaurant patrons turn and stare. Virginia grabbed Lacke’s shoulders and helped him up in the chair again. Lacke’s eyes were far away.
‘Sorry, I…’
The waiter hurried over while frenetically rubbing his hands on his apron. He bent down to Lacke and Virginia and whispered furiously, ‘This is a restaurant not a pigsty!’
Virginia gave the widest smile she could muster while she helped Lacke get to his feet. ‘Come on, Lacke. We’re going to my place.’
With an accusing look at the other men, the waiter quickly walked around the pair and supported Lacke on his other side to show his patrons he was just as concerned as they that this disturbing element be removed.
Virginia helped Lacke put on his heavy overcoat, elegant in an old-fashioned way—which he inherited from his father who had died a few years earlier—and ferried him to the door.
Behind her she heard a few meaningful whistles from Morgan and Karlsson. With Lacke’s arm over her shoulder she turned to them and made a face. Then she pulled open the front door and walked out.
The snow was falling in large, slow flakes, creating a space of cold and silence for the two of them. Virginia’s cheeks turned pink as she led Lacke down the park path. It was better like this.
‘Hi. I was going to meet my dad, but he didn’t show up…may I come in and use the phone?’
‘Of course.’
‘May I come in?’
‘The telephone is over there.’
The woman pointed further into the hallway; a grey telephone stood on a small table. Eli remained where she was outside the door, she hadn’t yet been invited in. Right next to the door there was a cast iron hedgehog shoe wiper with prickles made of piassava fibres.
Eli wiped her shoes to cover her inability to enter.
‘Are you sure it’s all right?’
‘Of course. Come in, come in.’
The woman made a tired gesture; Eli was invited. The woman seemed to have lost interest and walked into the living room, where Eli could hear the static whining of a TV. She had a yellow bow on one side of her head. On the other side the bow had pulled loose into a hanging length of ribbon, which ran down her back like a pet snake.
Eli walked into the hall, took off her shoes and jacket, lifted the telephone receiver. Dialled a number at random. Pretended to talk to someone. Put the receiver down.
Drew air in through her nose. Cooking smells, cleaning agents, earth, shoe polish, winter apples, damp cloth, electricity, dust, sweat, wallpaper glue and…cat urine.
Yes. A soot-black cat stood in the doorway to the kitchen, growling. The ears back flat, fur standing on end, back arched. It had a red band around its neck with a little metal cylinder, probably containing a slip of paper with the owner’s name and address.
Eli took a step towards the cat and it bared its teeth, hissing. The body was tensed for attack. One more step.
The cat retreated, pulling backward while continuing to hiss, maintaining eye contact. The hate pulsating through its body caused the metal cylinder to tremble. They took each other’s measure. Eli moved slowly forward, forcing the cat back until it was in the kitchen, and then she closed the door. The cat continued to growl and mew angrily on the other side. Eli walked into the living room.
The woman was sitting on a leather couch so well-polished the light from the TV was reflected in it. She sat bolt upright, staring unstintingly at the blue-flickering screen. On the coffee table in front of her was a bowl of crackers and a cutting board with three cheeses. An unopened bottle of wine and two glasses.
The woman did not seem to note Eli’s presence, so absorbed was she by what she saw on the screen. A nature program. Penguins at the South Pole.
‘The male carries the egg on his feet so it will not come in contact with the ice.’
A caravan of penguins swaying from side to side moved across an ice desert. Eli sat down, next to the woman. She sat stiffly, as if the TV was a disapproving teacher who was telling her off.
‘When the female returns after three months the male’s layer of fat has been all but used up.’
Two penguins rubbed their beaks together, greeting each other.
‘Are you expecting someone?’
The woman flinched and stared without comprehension into Eli’s eyes for a few seconds. The yellow bow accentuated how ravaged her face looked. She shook her head quickly.
‘No, help yourself.’
Eli didn’t move. The picture on the TV screen changed to a panorama of the southern parts of the former Soviet Georgia, set to music. In the kitchen the tone of the cat’s miaows had turned into something…beseeching. There was a chemical smell in the room. The woman was exuding a hospital smell.
‘Is anyone going to come over?’
Again the woman flinched as if she had been woken up, turned to Eli. This time she looked irritated, with a sharp furrow between her eyebrows.
‘No. No one’s coming. Eat if you like.’ She pointed with a stiff finger at the cheeses. ‘Camembert, gorgonzola and roquefort. Eat. Eat.’
She looked sternly at Eli, and Eli helped herself to a cracker, put it in her mouth and started to chew slowly. The woman nodded and turned her gaze back to the screen. Eli spit the chewy mass of crackers into her hand and dropped it onto the floor behind the armrest.
‘When are you leaving?’ the woman asked.
‘Soon.’
‘Stay as long as you like. It’s all the same to me.’
Eli moved a little closer, as if to see the TV better, until their arms touched. Something happened to the woman. She trembled and sank together, softened like a punctured coffee packet. Now when she looked over at Eli it was with a mild, dreamy gaze.
‘Who are you?’
Eli’s eyes were close to hers. The hospital smell wafted from the woman’s mouth.
‘I don’t know.’
The woman nodded, reached for the remote control on the coffee table and turned off the sound.
‘In the spring southern Georgia blooms with a barren beauty—’
The cat’s beseeching miaows could now be heard very clearly but the woman didn’t seem to care. She pointed to Eli’s lap.
‘May I…’
‘Of course.’
Eli shifted slightly away from the woman, who pulled up her legs and rested her head on Eli’s lap. Eli slowly stroked her hair. They sat like that for a while. The shimmering backs of whales broke the surface of the water, spurting out a fountain of water, disappeared.
‘Tell me a story,’ said the woman.
‘What do you want to hear?’
‘Something beautiful.’
Eli tucked a tendril of hair behind the woman’s ear. She breathed slowly now and her body was completely relaxed. Eli spoke in a low voice.
‘Once upon a time…a long, long time ago there was a poor farmer and his wife. They had three children. A boy and a girl both old enough to work together with the adults. And then a little boy, only eleven years old. Everyone who saw him said he was the most beautiful child they had ever seen.
‘The father was in villeinage to the lord who owned the land, and had to work many days for him. Therefore it often fell to the mother and her two oldest to look after the house and garden. The youngest boy wasn’t good for much.
‘One day the lord announced a competition for the families that worked his land. Everyone who had a boy between the ages of eight and twelve had to enter. No reward was promised, no prize. Even so, it was called a competition.
‘On the day of the competition the mother took her youngest to the lord’s castle. They were not alone. Seven other children accompanied by one or both parents had gathered in the courtyard of the castle. Three more came. Poor families, the children dressed in the best clothes they had.
‘They waited all day in the courtyard. When it was starting to get dark a man came out of the castle and told them they could come in.’
Eli listened to the woman’s breathing, deep and regular. She slept. Her breath was warm against Eli’s knee. Right below her ear Eli could discern the pulse ticking under loose, wrinkled skin.
The cat was quiet.
The credits for the nature program rolled on the TV. Eli put a finger on the woman’s throat artery, it felt like a beating bird heart under her fingertip.
Eli braced herself against the back of the couch and carefully pushed the woman’s head forward so it leaned on Eli’s knees. The sharp smell of roquefort cheese drowned out the other smells. Eli pulled out a blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over the cheeses.
A soft squeaky sound, the woman’s breathing. Eli leaned over and held her nose close to the woman’s artery. Soap, sweat, the smell of old skin…and that hospital smell…something else that was the woman’s own smell. And beneath all this: the blood.
The woman moaned when Eli’s nose brushed against her throat, started to turn her head but Eli gripped the woman’s arms and chest with one hand, held the other one firmly around her head. Opened her mouth as much as she could, brought it down to the woman’s throat until her tongue pressed against the artery and bit down. Locked her jaws.
The woman jerked as if she had received an electric shock. Her limbs were flung out and her feet hit the armrest with such force that she pushed away and Eli ended up with the woman’s back across her knees.
The blood spurted rhythmically out of the open artery and splashed against the brown leather of the couch. The woman screamed and waved her hands in the air, pulling the blanket from the table. A waft of blue cheese filled Eli’s nostrils as she threw herself over the woman, pushing her mouth against her throat and drinking deeply. The woman’s screams pierced her ears and Eli let go with one arm in order to be able to place a hand over her mouth.
The screams were muffled but the woman’s free hand went out to the coffee table, grabbed the remote control and banged it into Eli’s head. The sound of plastic breaking as the noise of the TV came on again.
The theme song of ‘Dallas’ floated out into the room and Eli tore her head away from the woman’s throat.
The blood tasted like medication. Morphine.
The woman stared up at Eli with wide eyes. Now Eli perceived yet another flavour. A rotten taste that combined with the smell of the blue cheese.
Cancer. The woman had cancer.
Eli’s stomach turned with revulsion. She had to sit up and let go of the woman in order not to vomit.
The camera flew over Southfork while the music rose. The woman wasn’t screaming any more, just lay still on her back while the blood pumped out of her in weaker and weaker spurts, streaming down behind the sofa cushions. Her eyes were damp and remote as she met Eli’s gaze and said, ‘Please…please…’
Eli held back her impulse to be sick, leaned forward over the woman.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Please…’
‘Yes, what is it you want?’
‘Please…please…’
After a while the woman’s eyes changed, stiffened. Became unseeing. Eli closed them. They opened again. Eli took the blanket and covered her face with it, sat up straight in the couch.
The blood was palatable even though it tasted bad, but the morphine…
There was a skyscraper of mirrors on the TV. A man dressed in a suit and a cowboy hat got out of his car, walked towards the skyscraper. Eli tried to get up out of the couch. She couldn’t. The skyscraper started to lean, to turn. The mirrors reflected clouds that floated across the sky in slow motion, taking on the shape of animals, plants.
Eli burst out laughing when the man in the cowboy hat sat down behind a desk and started to speak in English. Eli understood what he was saying, but it was meaningless. Eli looked around. The whole room had started to lean in such a funny way it was strange the TV hadn’t started to roll away. The cowboy-man’s words echoed in her head. Eli looked for the remote control but it lay in pieces strewn across the table and floor.
Have to get the cowboy-man to stop talking.
Eli slid to the floor, crawling on all fours over to the TV with the morphine rushing through her body, laughing at the figures that dissolved into colours, colours. Didn’t have the energy. Sank onto her stomach in front of the TV with the colours dancing in front of her eyes.
A few children were still sliding down the hill on their Snowracers between Björnsonsgatan and the little field next to the park road. Death Hill, it was called for some reason. Three shadows started out at the same time from the top and some loud swearing was heard when one of the shadows was forced off course into the forest, as well as laughter from the other two as they continued down the slope, flew up from the dip at the bottom and came to rest with a muffled clatter.
Lacke stopped, looked down into the ground. Virginia carefully tried to shove him on with her. ‘Come on, Lacke.’
‘It’s just so damned hard.’
‘I can’t carry you, you know.’
A snort that was probably a laugh, that became a cough. Lacke dropped his shoulders, stood there with hanging arms and turned his head towards the sledding hill.
‘Damn it, here there are kids sledding, and there…’ he gestured vaguely towards the underpass at the far end of the hill that the slope was on, ‘…that’s where Jocke was murdered.’
‘Don’t think about that any more.’
‘How can I stop? Maybe it was one of those kids who did it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
She took his arm to put it around her neck again, but Lacke pulled away. ‘No, I can walk on my own.’
Lacke started gingerly down the path. The snow crunched under his feet. Virginia stood and watched him. There he was, the man she loved and whom she could never live with.
She had tried.
It was during a time eight years ago when Virginia’s daughter had just moved away from home. Lacke had moved in. Then, as now, Virginia worked at a local grocery store, ICA, on Arvid Mörnes Road above China Park. She lived in a one bedroom apartment about three minutes’ walk from the store.
During the four months that they lived together Virginia never managed to figure out what Lacke actually did. He knew something about electrical wiring and put in a dimmer on the lamp in the living room. He knew something about cooking: surprised her several times with well-made fish-based creations. But what did he do?
He sat in the apartment, went for walks, talked to people, read a lot of books and newspapers. That was all. For Virginia, who had worked since she left school, it was an incomprehensible way to live.
‘So Lacke,’ she had asked him, ‘I don’t mean this…but what is it you do? Where do you get your money?’
‘I don’t have any.’
‘But you do have a little money.’
‘This is Sweden. Carry out a chair and put it on the footpath. Sit there in that chair and wait. If you wait long enough someone will come out and give you money. Or take care of you somehow.’
‘Is that how you see me?’
‘Virginia. When you say “Lacke, please leave,” then I’ll leave.’
It had taken a month before she said it. Then he had stuffed his clothes into a bag, his books into another. And left. She hadn’t seen him for six months. During that time she started to drink more, alone.
When she saw Lacke again he had changed. Sadder. He had been living with his father who was wasting away with cancer somewhere in a house in Småland. When his father died Lacke and his sister had inherited the house, sold it and split the money. Lacke’s share had been enough to get him a small condo with a low monthly fee in Blackeberg and now he was back for good.
In the years that followed they met more and more frequently at the Chinese restaurant where Virginia had started to go more often in the evenings. Sometimes they left together, made love in a subdued way and—by silent agreement—Lacke made sure he was gone by the time Virginia came home from work the following day. They were a couple in the loosest sense of the word—sometimes a few months went by without them sharing their bed and this arrangement suited them.
They walked past the ICA store with its advertisement about cheap ground beef and its exhortation to ‘Live, drink and be happy’. Lacke stopped, waited for her. When she reached him he held an arm out to her. Virginia put her arm through his. Lacke nodded at the store.
‘Good old work, huh?’
‘The usual,’ Virginia said. ‘I did that one.’
It was a sign that said ‘CRUSHED TOMATOES. THREE CANS, 5 KRONOR’.
‘Nice job.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Sure I do. Gives you a real craving for crushed tomatoes.’
She jabbed him in the side, carefully. Felt her elbow make contact with a rib. ‘You don’t even remember what real food tastes like.’
‘You certainly don’t need to…’
‘I know, but I’m going to anyway.’
‘Eeeeli…Eeeeliii…’
The voice coming from the TV was familiar. Eli tried to back away from it, but her body wouldn’t obey her. Only her hands moved around on the floor in slow motion, searching for something to hold onto. Found a cord. Squeezed it hard with one hand as if it were a lifeline out of the tunnel that ended in the TV that was talking to Eli.
‘Eli…where are you?’
Her head felt too heavy to lift from the floor; the only action Eli managed was to raise her eyes to the screen and of course it was…Him.
The blond tendrils from his wig made of human hair fanned out over the silk robe and made the effeminate face look even smaller than it was. The thin lips were pressed together, drawn into a lipsticked smile that looked like a knife gash in the pale powdered face.
Eli managed to raise her head slightly and saw his whole face. Blue, childishly large eyes and above his eyes…the air came out of Eli’s lungs in ragged spurts, and her head fell heavily to the floor causing a crunching noise in her nose. Funny. He was wearing a cowboy hat.
‘Eeeliii…’
Other voices. Children’s voices. Eli raised her head again, trembling like a baby. Drops of the sick blood ran from Eli’s nose down to her mouth. The man had opened his arms in a gesture of welcome, revealing the red lining of his robe. The lining billowed out, it was swarming, made up of lips. Hundreds of children’s lips that writhed painfully, whispering their story, Eli’s story.
‘Eli…come home…’
Eli sobbed, shut her eyes. Waited for the cold grip around the neck. Nothing happened. Opened her eyes again. The picture had changed. Now you could see a long line of children in poor clothes wandering over a snowy landscape, waddling in the direction of a castle of ice on the horizon.
This isn’t happening.
Eli spat blood out of her mouth at the TV. Red dots punctured the white snow, ran down over the ice castle.
It isn’t real.
Eli pulled on the lifeline, tried to pull herself out of the tunnel. A clicking was heard as the plug was yanked from the socket, and the TV turned off. Viscous strands of blood-tinged saliva ran down the darkened screen, dripping down to the floor. Eli rested her head against her hands, disappearing into a dark red whirlpool.
Virginia put on a quick pot of stewed beef, onion and crushed tomatoes while Lacke was showering. He was taking a long time. When the food was ready she went into the bathroom. He was sitting in the tub, his head between his knees, the detachable showerhead resting against one shoulder. His vertebrae a string of ping-pong balls under the skin.
‘Lacke? The food is ready.’
‘Great, that’s great. Have I been in here long?’
‘Not really. But the water company just called and said their wells are going dry.’
‘What?’
‘Come on, up you go.’ She lifted her bathrobe off its hook and held it out to him. He stood up by steadying himself with one hand on each side of the tub. Virginia winced as she noticed his emaciated body. Lacke saw her reaction. ‘Thus he rose from his bath,’ he said, ‘like a god, beautiful to behold.’
Then they had dinner, splitting a bottle of wine. Lacke did not manage to get much down, but at least he was eating. They split another bottle of wine in the living room, then went to bed. Lay for a while next to each other, looking into each other’s eyes.
‘I’ve stopped taking the pill.’
‘I see. We don’t have to…’
‘I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just I don’t need them any more. Menopause.’
Lacke nodded. Thought about it. Stroked her cheek.
‘Does that make you sad?’
Virginia smiled.
‘You must be the only man I know who would think of asking me that. Yes, a little bit actually. It’s as if…the part that makes me a woman. It doesn’t apply to me any more.’
‘Mmmm. Good enough for me, though.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come here.’
He did as he was told.
Gunnar Holmberg was dragging his feet in the snow so as not to leave any footprints behind, which would make things harder for the forensic technicians. He stopped and looked back at the traces that led away from the house. Light from the fire made the snow glow orange and the heat was intense enough that beads of sweat had formed along his hairline.
Holmberg had been teased many times for his naïve belief in the basic goodness of young people. That was what he tried to support through his frequent school visits, through his many and long conversations with youngsters who had made bad choices, and that was one reason why he was so affected by what he now saw in front of him.
The footprints in the snow had been made by small shoes. Not even what you would call a ‘young person’, no, these tracks had been made by a child. Small, neat imprints spaced at a remarkable distance from each other. Someone had run here. Fast.
In the corner of his eye he saw Larsson, an officer-in-training, approaching.
‘Drag your feet, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
Larsson started wading through the snow, stopping next to Holmberg. Larsson had large bulging eyes with a constant expression of amazement that was now directed at the tracks in the snow.
‘Damn.’
‘Couldn’t have said it better myself. Made by a child.’
‘But…they are so…’ Larsson followed the tracks for a while with his gaze. ‘Like a triple jump.’
‘Spaced widely, yes.’
‘More than “widely”. It’s…it’s unbelievable. It’s so far.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I run a lot and I wouldn’t be able to run like this. More than for…two steps at least. And this goes on the whole way.’
Staffan came jogging along past the houses, made his way through the group of curious onlookers who had gathered, and walked up to the little group in the middle which was overseeing some paramedics manoeuvring a covered female corpse on a stretcher into an ambulance.
‘How did it go?’ Holmberg asked.
‘Uh…went out onto…Bällstavägen and then…can’t follow them…any further…all the cars…we’ll have to…put the dogs on it…’
Holmberg nodded, half his attention claimed by a conversation nearby. A neighbour who was witness to part of the events was being questioned.
‘At first I thought it was some kind of fireworks or something, you know. Then I saw the hands. Her hands were waving in the air. And then she came out like this…through the window…she came out.’
‘So the window was open?’
‘Yes, it was open. And she came out of it…and then the house burned down. I saw it then. That it was all burning up behind her… and she came out…oh, shit. She was on fire, her whole body. And then she walked away from the house—’
‘Excuse me? Walked? She wasn’t running?’
‘No, that’s what was so damned…she was walking. Waved her arms around like this in order to…I don’t know. And then she stopped. Follow me? She stopped. Her whole body on fire. Stopped like this. And looked around. As if…calmly. And then she started walking again. And then it was as if…as if it ended, you know? No sign of panic or anything, she…uh, damn…she wasn’t screaming. Not a sound. She just collapsed like this. Fell to her knees. And then…boom. Down on the snow.
‘And then it was as if…I don’t know…it was so damned strange all of it. That was when I…when I ran in and got a blanket, two blankets, and then I ran back out and…put it out. Shit, you know… when she was lying there, it was…no, shit.’
The man put two sooty hands up to his face, sobbing. The police officer put a hand on his shoulder.
‘We can put together a more official version of this tomorrow. But you didn’t see anybody else leaving the house?’
The man shook his head and the officer scribbled something on his pad.
‘As I said, I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow. Do you want me to ask a medic to give you something, to help you sleep, before they leave?’
The man rubbed the tears from his eyes. His hands left damp streaks of soot in his face.
‘No, that’s…I have something if I need it.’
Gunnar Holmberg looked again at the burning house. The fire-fighters had been effective and now you could hardly see any flames. Only a giant pillar of smoke that rose into the night sky.
While Virginia was opening her arms to Lacke, while the crime technicians were making imprints of the tracks in the snow, Oskar stood by his window and looked out. The snow had blanketed the bushes under the window and made a white surface so thick you would have thought you could slide down it.
Eli hadn’t come by this evening.
Oskar had stood, walked, waited, swung, and frozen down there on the playground between half past seven and nine o’clock. No Eli. At nine he had seen his mum standing in the window and he had gone inside, full of anxiety. ‘Dallas’ and hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls and his mum asking questions and he almost spilled the beans, but didn’t.
Now it was a little after midnight and he stood next to his window with a hole in his gut. He opened the window, breathing in the cold night air. Was it really for her sake that he had decided to fight back? Wasn’t this really about him?
Yes.
But for her sake.
Unfortunately. That’s how it was. If they went after him on Monday he wouldn’t have the energy, the desire to stand up to them. He knew it. Wouldn’t show up for the training session on Thursday. No reason.
He left the window open with the vague hope that she would come back in the night. Call his name. If she could go out in the middle of the night she could come back in the middle of the night.
Oskar undressed and got into bed. Tapped on the wall. No answer. He pulled the blankets over his head and kneeled in the bed. He intertwined his hands and pressed his forehead to them, whispering, ‘Please, dear God. Let her come back. You can have whatever you like. All my magazines, all my books, my things. Whatever you want. But just make it so she comes back. To me. Please, please God.’
He stayed there under the blankets until he was so hot he was sweating. Then he poked his head out again and rested it on the pillow. Assumed the foetal position. Closed his eyes. Images of Eli, of Jonny and Micke, Tomas. Mum, Dad. He lay there for a long time conjuring up the images he wanted to see, then they started to take on a life of their own as he slid off into sleep.
Eli and he were sitting in a swing that was going higher and higher until it loosened from its chains and flew up into the sky. They were holding on tight to the edge of the swing, their knees pressed against each other and Eli whispered, ‘Oskar. Oskar…’
He opened his eyes. The light inside the globe was turned off and the moonlight made everything blue. Gene Simmons looked at him from the wall across from the bed, sticking out his long tongue. He curled up, shut his eyes. Then he heard the whisper again.
‘Oskar…’
It was coming from the window. He opened his eyes, looked over. He saw the contour of a little head on the other side of the glass. He pulled off the covers, but before he managed to get out of bed Eli whispered, ‘Wait there. Stay in bed. Can I come in?’
Oskar whispered, ‘Ye-es...’
‘Say that I can come in.’
‘You can come in.’
‘Close your eyes.’
Oskar shut his eyes tightly. The window opened and a cold draught blew into the room. The window was carefully closed. He heard how Eli breathed, whispered, ‘Can I look now?’
‘Wait.’
The sofa bed in the other room creaked. His mum had gotten up. Oskar was still keeping his eyes shut as the blanket was pulled off and a cold, naked body crept in behind him, pulled the covers back over them both and curled up into a ball behind his back.
The door to his room opened.
‘Oskar?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Is that you talking?’
‘No.’
His mum stayed in the doorway, listening. Eli lay completely still behind his back, pushing her forehead in between his shoulder-blades. Her breath ran warmly down the small of his back.
His mum shook her head.
‘It must be those neighbours.’ She listened for another moment then said ‘Good night, sweetheart,’ and closed the door.
Oskar was alone with Eli. He heard a whisper behind his back.
‘Those neighbours?’
‘Shhhh.’
There was a creaking sound as his mum got back into the sofa bed. He looked up at the window. It was closed.
A cold hand crept over his stomach and found its way to his chest, over his heart. He put both his hands over it, warming her hand. Eli’s other hand worked its way under his armpit then up over his chest and between his hands. Eli turned her head and laid her cheek between his shoulderblades.
A new smell had entered the room. The faint smell of his dad’s moped when it was fully tanked. Gasoline. Oskar bent his head down and smelled her hands. Yes, the smell was coming from her hands.
They lay like that for a long time. When Oskar could tell from his mum’s breathing that she had fallen asleep again, when the lump of their hands was warmed through and starting to get sweaty, he whispered:
‘Where have you been?’
‘Getting some food.’
Her lips tickled his shoulder. She loosened her hands from his, rolled over on her back. Oskar stayed in the same position for a moment and looked into Gene Simmons’ eyes. Then he turned onto his stomach. Behind her head he imagined the figures on the wall eyeing her with curiosity. Her eyes were wide open, blue-black in the moonlight. Oskar got goose pimples on his arms.
‘What about your dad?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone?’ Oskar couldn’t help raising his voice.
‘Shhh. It doesn’t matter.’
‘But…what…is he—?’
‘It. Doesn’t. Matter.’
Oskar nodded, signalling that he wasn’t going to ask her any more questions, and Eli put both her hands under her head, staring up at the ceiling.
‘I was feeling lonely. So I came here. Was that OK?’
‘Yes. But…you don’t have any clothes on.’
‘I’m sorry. Is that disgusting?’
‘No. But aren’t you freezing?’
‘No, no.’
The white strands in her hair were gone. Yes, she looked altogether healthier than when they met yesterday. Her cheeks were rounder, the dimples more pronounced when Oskar joked and asked: ‘You didn’t happen to walk past the Lovers’ Kiosk or anything?’
Eli laughed, then made her voice very serious and said with a ghostly voice, ‘Yes, I did and you know what? He poked his head out and said: “Coooome…coooom…I have candy and… banaaaanas.”’
Oskar buried his face in the pillow, Eli turned her head towards his and whispered in his ear. ‘Cooome…jelly beans…’
Oskar shouted ‘No, no!’ into the pillow. They kept doing this for a while. Then Eli looked at the books in his bookcase and Oskar gave a synopsis of his favourite: The Fog by James Herbert. Eli’s back glowed white like a sheet of paper in the dark as she lay there on her stomach in bed and studied the bookcase.
He held his hand so close to her skin that he could feel the warmth from it. Then he walked his fingers down her back whispering, ‘Bulleribulleri bock. How many horns are sticking…up?’
‘Mmm. Eight?’
‘Eight you say and eight there are, bulleribulleribock.’
Then Eli did the same to him but he was not nearly as good at telling how many fingers there were as she was. On the other hand he was much better at Rock, Paper, Scissors. Seven to three. Then they played again. He won nine to one. Eli started to get a little irritated.
‘Do you know what I am going to pick?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘I just know, that’s all. It happens all the time. I get a picture in my head.’
‘One more time. I won’t think this time, just choose.’
‘You can try.’
They played again. Oskar won easily with eight–two. Eli pretended to be enraged, turned to the wall.
‘I’m not playing with you. You cheat.’
Oskar looked at her white back. Did he dare? Yes, now that she wasn’t looking at her he could do it.
‘Eli. Will you go out with me?’
She turned around, pulled the covers up to her chin.
‘What does that mean?’
Oskar stared at the spines of the books in front of him, shrugged.
‘That…you would want to be together with me.’
‘What do you mean “together”?’
Her voice sounded suspicious, hard. Oskar hurriedly said, ‘Maybe you already have a guy at your school.’
‘No, I don’t…but Oskar, I can’t. I’m not a girl.’
Oskar snorted. ‘What do you mean? You’re a guy?’
‘No, no.’
‘Then what are you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What do you mean, “nothing”?’
‘I’m nothing. Not a child. Not old. Not a boy. Not a girl. Nothing.’
Oskar ran his finger down the spine of The Rats, pinched his lips together and shook his head. ‘Will you go out with me or not?’
‘Oskar I’d really like to but…can’t we just be together like we already are?’
‘…Yes.’
‘Are you sad? We can kiss, if you like.’
‘No!’
‘You don’t want to?’
‘No, I don’t!’
Eli frowned.
‘Do you do anything in particular with someone you’re going out with?’
‘No.’
‘It’s just like normal?’
‘Yes.’
Eli looked suddenly happy, folded her arms over her stomach and gazed at Oskar.
‘Then we can go out. We can be together.’
‘We can?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
With a quiet happiness in his belly Oskar kept studying the titles of the books. Eli lay still, waiting. After a while she said, ‘Is there anything else?’
‘No.’
‘Can’t we lie down together again like we did before?’
Oskar rolled over so his back was against her. She put her arms around him and he took her hands. They lay like that until Oskar started to get sleepy. His eyes felt sandy, it was hard to keep them open. Before he slid off into sleep he said, ‘Eli?’
‘Mmm?’
‘I’m glad you came over.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why…do you smell like gasoline?’
Elis’s hands gripped more tightly around his hands, against his heart. Hugged. The room grew larger all around Oskar, the walls and ceiling softened, the floor fell away and when he felt the whole bed floating in the air he knew he was asleep.