The man’s nose had completely burned away leaving only two holes in his head. The mouth had melted, the lips sealed together with the exception of a small opening in one corner. One eye had melted down over what had been his cheek, but the other…the other was wide open.
Staffan stared into that eye, the only thing that was still recognisably human in this unshapely mass. The eye was red and when it tried to blink there was only a thread of skin that fluttered down and up again.
Where the rest of the face should have been there were only pieces of cartilage and bone sticking out between irregular shreds of flesh and blackened slivers of fabric. The naked, glistening muscles contracted and relaxed, contorting as if the head had been replaced by a mass of freshly killed and butchered eels.
The whole face, what had been the face, had its own life.
Staffan felt a retching in his throat and would have thrown up if his own body had not been so preoccupied with pumping pain into his lower back. Slowly he pulled his legs back in under him, stood up, leaning on the lockers for support. The red eye stared at him the whole time.
‘What the…’
Holmberg stood with hanging arms and stared at the deformed body on the floor. It wasn’t just the face. The acid had also run down onto the chest. The skin over the collarbone on one side was gone and a piece of the bone stuck out, glowing white like a piece of chalk in a meat stew.
Holmberg shook his head, raised and lowered one hand halfway up and down, up and down. Coughed.
‘What the….’
It was eleven o’clock and Oskar lay in his bed. Slowly tapped out the letters against the wall.
E…L…I…
E…L…I…
No answer.
Friday
30 October
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 lo
oked 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 sho
es 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.