Big things, small things. He thought perhaps that’s exactly what love is: everything is connected to another person. To be alone is to be a pair of seeing eyes, hearing ears, registering. A meter. Nothing. To be in love is to relate to someone else, to know: another person exists. And life expands, acquires something resembling a meaning. That’s what he thought.
When they had been together for a week, Flora took him to meet her grandmother Elvy in Täby. She had told him that her grandmother had the same ability as her, and to Kalle’s relief Elvy seemed to see the same thing as Flora. He had her approval.
As they sat drinking coffee in Elvy’s kitchen, the topic came up again. Elvy asked what Kalle did and he told her about Tropicos, at which point Flora chipped in and mentioned the trips to the Heath. Elvy fell silent and looked Kalle in the eye.
‘You work there?’
Kalle sighed. Here we go again. ‘I’ve just moved a few things in the van, that’s all.’
‘What kind of things?’
Kalle had realised that there was absolutely no point in being mysterious. ‘Hospital stuff. They’ve built some kind of…clinic there.’
Elvy looked sharply at Flora, who shook her head. ‘I don’t know either. Something’s going on. Something…terrible. I don’t know what it is.’
This was news to Kalle. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I’ve been there. Outside. I can feel it.’
‘Do you still go there?’
Flora looked at him, her expression uncomprehending. ‘Yes. Why wouldn’t I?’
Kalle had no answer to this. Without really thinking about it he had assumed that he had saved Flora from her loneliness, her obsession when he picked her up in the van that night. She hadn’t mentioned the Heath much since they met, but now he realised this was perhaps out of consideration for him. He was brought back to reality by Elvy placing a hand on his arm.
‘What does it look like in there?’ she asked.
‘Well, it’s…empty. Desolate.’
‘I mean the security. How tight is it?’
‘There are guards more or less everywhere. Submachine guns, the lot.’
Elvy nodded and thought for a moment. Then she looked at him, her expression serious. ‘If you wanted to get inside, how would you go about it?’
Kalle smiled. ‘Well, I suppose I’d just drive the van in.’
‘Can you take me in?’
Kalle laughed and looked at Flora. To his surprise she didn’t smile back, but simply looked at him, waiting for him to answer the question. Kalle wound a dreadlock around his index finger as an unpleasant feeling grew in his stomach.
‘Yeees…but why?’
‘Hasn’t Flora told you?’
‘She’s told me some things.’
Flora looked down at the table and said quietly, ‘I didn’t really want to drag him into it.’
Elvy folded her arms and stared at them both with the severity of an interrogator. Then she said, ‘In that case I think you need to reconsider. This could be our only chance.’
Flora nodded. ‘I know.’
Kalle looked from one to the other. ‘Hang on, this chance you’re talking about—would that be me?’
Their silence was answer enough.
A great deal was explained that afternoon. When Kalle and Flora got back to his apartment in the evening, his head was spinning. They played a few games of Mario Kart so they wouldn’t have to talk or think. Kalle had bought a Gamecube so that he could practise on his own, but he still had no chance against Flora. He could win the odd round, but never a whole tournament.
He had just driven into the ravine on Rainbow Road for the third time when the phone rang. Kalle paused and looked at the caller display. It was his father. He glanced at Flora, took a deep breath and answered.
Things needed moving. From the compound this time. At ten o’clock tonight. Flora didn’t take her eyes off him while he was talking, and the unpleasant sensation in his stomach moved up a gear. When he had hung up he stared at the TV screen for a while, where his car was just being dropped back onto the track, frozen in the air. He turned to Flora, weighing every word:
‘I need to ask you something. Did you get together with me because I’m…a chance?’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘I don’t know what to think, to be honest.’
Flora put down the handset and shook her head.
‘No. But you are a chance. As well. And I have to…make the most of it. Unfortunately.’
At last Kalle had the opportunity to ask the question that had been going round and round in his head since the conversation with Elvy that afternoon. ‘Why?’
Flora didn’t say anything for such a long time that he thought she wasn’t going to answer, but eventually she said, ‘Because nobody else will do it. Nobody else can do it. I’ve been burdened with a terrible responsibility. Which I don’t want. But I can’t just run away from it. That would be…wrong of me.’ She looked up at Kalle. ‘To use your sister’s terminology, I would be contributing to the misery of the world. By not doing anything.’
Kalle nodded, accepting what she said. He lowered the car onto the track. Flora was home before he’d even started his last run.
At half past eight they parked the van where it couldn’t be seen from the Heath and walked the last few hundred metres to the fence, on the opposite side from the entrance. They sat down to practise. It would be impossible for Kalle to get away with having Flora hidden in the van unless he could mask his thoughts. The field was not as strong outside the fence as it was inside, but on the other hand Flora’s ability to read thoughts was better than that of the guards.
They sat down cross-legged opposite one another. Kalle opened his hands wide.
‘So what do we do?’
‘Don’t think about a polar bear,’ said Flora.
‘A polar bear?’
‘Yes. Don’t think about it.’
Kalle made an effort not to think about a polar bear. First of all he thought of a blackboard. A piece of chalk appeared and started to draw the outline of a polar bear. He erased the blackboard and thought about a beach with palm trees, like the one on the Tropicos’ bus—an impossible location for a polar bear. A cloud drifted across the tropical sky, forming itself into a polar bear. Kalle shook his head and asked Flora, ‘Are you doing this?’
‘I’m not doing anything.’
‘Has it got something to do with the fact that we’re here?’
‘No, that’s just the way it is. If you tell somebody not to think about something, it’s hopeless. The polar bear won’t disappear until you forget about it.’
‘Could you see what I was thinking?’
‘Yes. Chalk. A cloud.’
‘OK. Can I try again?’
‘Mm. Don’t think about a giraffe.’
Kalle thought about a giraffe on the savannah. It was nibbling leaves from a tall tree. Flora burst out laughing.
‘Well, that’s just—’
Kalle held up one hand. ‘Wait.’
He started drumming over the picture. Laid down, appropriately enough, an African rhythm on top of the giraffe. The animal’s legs moved as if it were dancing to the music. Then Kalle took the drumsticks that were beating out the rhythm and started to hit the picture, banging and banging until it broke into pieces and dissolved into a disjointed collection of colours. Flora stared at him, searching for the giraffe. But there was nothing but the rhythm.
She nodded. ‘Say something.’
‘Like what?’
‘Tell me something. Not about the giraffe.’
Kalle searched beneath, behind the rhythm for words and contexts, but the fact that Flora had uttered the word made the orange and black patches on the giraffe’s coat begin to take shape. He could just see the outlines of the body; he drummed louder and said at the same time, ‘I’ve met this girl called Flora. She’s got some strange hobbies. At the moment I’m sitting by a fence doing some kind of workout f
or the brain. I say the word giraffe without thinking about a giraffe and I really like the look on her face right now as she tries to find the giraffe that isn’t there.’
It was true. Even though he’d said the word, neither the image nor the concept of a giraffe came into his head. Kalle relaxed and smiled. ‘OK?’
Flora nodded and waggled her hand in the air: so-so.
‘What? There was no giraffe.’
‘No,’ said Flora. ‘But you weren’t talking. You were singing.’
‘Was I?’
‘Mm. It sounded good, but the guards might think it’s a bit odd if you start rapping at them.’
They carried on practising. After half an hour Kalle had learned to separate his speech from the rhythm in his head, and Flora could see no trace of the thing he wasn’t allowed to think about. They went back to the van. It was a quarter to ten.
‘OK,’ said Kalle. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘There is no plan.’
‘For safety reasons, or because…?’
‘Because there is no plan. I’ll get in the back.’
They kissed, then Flora climbed over the seats and found a cloth to hide under.
‘Do you realise,’ said Kalle as he started the engine, ‘that you’re actually lying underneath Tropicos’ backdrop?’
‘I’m honoured,’ Flora’s voice came through the fabric.
Kalle headed for the gates. Fortunately it was the same guard as last time. He merely glanced at Kalle’s ID through the open window and let him in. Kalle found it more difficult to get his bearings this time, because he couldn’t allow other consciousnesses through his carpet of drumming. However, he was beginning to recognise the route, and after a couple of minutes he pulled up outside the basement room.
Six metal boxes of the same type as he had seen before were stacked up outside. He went round and opened the back doors of the van. Flora peered out from under the cloth; he saw her, but didn’t think about her.
Nobody answered when he knocked on the door. He looked around and opened it. The place had changed. A couple of fluorescent lights hung on chains from the ceiling, shining down on the hospital beds Kalle had brought last time. The cement floor under the beds was discoloured.
Something…disgust…it’s…pain
It was the perceptions, not the words that forced their way through the rhythm which was beginning to dissolve, become uneven and
sticky
it sounded as if the drums were standing in clay, mud, there was a squelching sound with every beat and he could hear screams inside his head, beads of sweat broke out on Kalle’s forehead as he strained to incorporate the screams into the rhythm, make them
Flora
He looked around. Flora was getting out of the van. He waved his hand to make her stay where she was. She remained by the van, and just as Kalle turned back into the room, one of the doors set in the wall opened.
The man he had seen before wearing a check shirt was now dressed in a white coat. He gave a start when he saw Kalle, and looked into his eyes for just a second too long before a little smile appeared on his lips.
‘Hi.’
Kalle just had time to think Flo—before the rushing sound of static filled his head, obliterating every thought. The man must have heard it too, because he put his hand to his temple and looked around, searching. On a level that did not involve thought Kalle sensed what it was, and through the noise he said as calmly as he could, ‘I’ve come to pick up the boxes. They’re going to Karolinska, right?’
The man nodded absently; Kalle backed out through the door and closed it behind him. Flora was no longer standing by the van.
The boxes were heavy. Each one weighed around eighty kilos, and there was a difference from the boxes he had carried last time: these weren’t just locked, they were welded shut. Apart from the handles on the sides, there wasn’t a single gap or protrusion.
Kalle loaded them in the van as quickly as he could, grateful for the additional protection they would provide for Flora. The rushing sound had abated as soon as he closed the door, and he carried on drumming as he shifted the boxes. When he went to fetch the last one, the door opened and the man came out. He had taken off his white coat and was now wearing a check shirt in a different colour from the last time. He looked at the van. Kalle pretended not to notice him as he heaved the last box inside.
He closed the doors and the man said, ‘Heavy?’
‘Yeah,’ said Kalle, wiping the sweat from his brow.
The man nodded. ‘Sorry. I was a bit busy.’
‘It’s OK.’
The man was still looking at the van, and Kalle had to make a huge effort not to let any suspect thoughts break through. Whether it did any good or not, he wasn’t sure. The man pointed at the van.
‘It’s a Toyota, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good cars. Bloody good cars.’
The man looked Kalle in the eye and Kalle could feel the groping he now knew he was able to withstand. The man shrugged his shoulders, said, ‘See you,’ and went back inside.
Kalle was dripping with sweat by the time he started the van. He drove carefully through the compound, out through the gates and up to the spot where he had first met Flora. He switched off the engine, let go of the steering wheel and screamed as loud as he could.
Flora’s arms came creeping around him.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘It’s driving me mad. Being in there makes me completely fucking mental.’
‘You did really well.’
Kalle took a couple of deep breaths. Then he asked, ‘That rushing sound. That was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thought so.’
They both fell silent. Kalle’s head felt utterly exhausted, as if he’d been to the dentist, completely drained of energy by the effort of distancing himself. He turned around and looked at the boxes.
‘What do you think is in them?’
‘No idea.’
‘You can’t feel anything?’
‘No.’
Kalle reached over and ran his hand over one of the boxes. The join between the lid and the box itself was uneven, bumpy with melted metal. He shook his head and looked at Flora. Her expression was distant, as if her thoughts were elsewhere.
‘Are you OK?’
‘In there…’ said Flora. ‘It was terrible in there. It hurt. Much worse than outside. The place where we were. That’s where it comes from. The pain.’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it the same when you were there before?’
‘No. It’s something new.’
They sat without speaking for a while. The boxes behind Kalle felt like a burden, a threat. He turned and knocked on the nearest one. The material was unresponsive against his knuckles, nothing but thick metal. No clue as to what might be inside. His watch was showing just before eleven.
‘I think we’d better make a move,’ he said to Flora. ‘They’ll be wondering.’
Twenty minutes later they had reached the loading bay at Karolinska. When Kalle opened the van door to get out, Flora laid a hand on his arm and said, ‘Don’t ring the bell. Just leave them. And save one.’
‘What do you mean, save?’
‘Just leave five. We’ll take one with us. Shall I give you a hand?’
Kalle shook his head. ‘No, it’s probably best if I…what the fuck do you think they’re going to say?’
‘Well, you could have left one behind.’
‘Yeah, right. They’re going to believe that, aren’t they?’
‘Have you got any better ideas?’
Kalle had a number of better ideas, but none of them involved finding out what was inside the boxes, so he said, ‘No,’ and got out of the van. He moved the boxes as quietly and carefully as he could. Luckily nobody came out to check this time.
Luckily. Absolutely. Lucky me. Just like winning the lottery. What the fuck have I got myself mixed up in?
/> As he put down the last box, his phone rang. He gave a start and ran back to the van to stop the noise attracting unwanted attention. He closed the door and looked at the display. ROLAND, it said.
Roland? What the hell does Roland want?
In his stressed state of mind he didn’t consider the consequences, but simply answered as he started the van, the phone tucked awkwardly between his shoulder and his ear.
‘Hello?’
‘Kalle,’ said Roland. ‘My dear Kalle. The son I never had.’
Fingers wriggled their way in beneath his cheek. Flora took the phone and held it to his ear so that he could drive properly. Kalle nodded his thanks and manoeuvred out of the loading bay. Roland was obviously drunk, and when he was drunk he became solemn and sentimental.
‘Hi,’ said Kalle.
‘Kalle, my friend. Are you in the van?’
‘Yes, I’m…yes.’
‘That’s absolutely wonderful. Fantastic.’
‘If you say so.’
Kalle headed towards the E4 and wondered where this conversation was going. Roland went on, ‘The thing is, I’ve got myself into a bit of a situation. A delicate situation, as they used to say in the old days. I need a lift.’
‘Roland, it’s a bit…tricky at the moment.’
‘You never spoke a truer word, my friend. I accompanied a lady home, and without going into detail I find myself standing here without any money, without…anything on some fucking suburban estate in Södertälje.’
‘At least you’ve got your phone.’
‘Indeed. And I’m ringing to ask you…to beg you to come and pick me up, Kalle.’
Kalle squeezed his eyes tight shut, then opened them again. He couldn’t say no. After all, he was driving around in Roland’s van.
‘OK. Where are you?’
‘Now there’s a question.’
‘Come on, Roland.’
Well, I saw Saltskog on some sign. Salty Forest, for God’s sake. That’s where I am. So all you have to do is…if you see a man on his own wandering around in a salty forest, that’s me. You see, Kalle…’
‘On my way. I’ll be in touch.’
Kalle indicated that Flora should end the call. He’d been around a couple of times before when Roland was drunk, and he knew that Roland was perfectly capable of bending his ear all the way to Södertälje if Kalle didn’t put a stop to it.