When his dad slowed down on the long hill heading down to the old steamship pier Oskar was going faster than the moped and he was forced to brake a little so he didn’t let too much slack into the line, which would mean a strong jerk when the hill levelled off and the moped picked up speed again.
The moped got all the way down to the pier and his dad switched down out of gear and stood on the brake. Oskar was still travelling at full throttle, and for a short moment he thought about dropping the rope and keeping going…Out over the end of the pier, down into the black water. But he angled the mini-skis out, braked a couple of metres from the edge.
He stood panting for a while, looked out over the water. Thin sections of ice had started to form, bobbed up and down in the small waves by the shores. Maybe there was a chance of real ice this year. So you could walk across to Vätö on the other side. Or did they keep a channel into Norrtälje open? Oskar couldn’t remember. It was several years since there had been ice like that.
When Oskar was out here in the summer he would fish for herring from this pier. Loose hooks on the line, a lure on the end. If he found a school he could end up with a couple of kilos if he had the patience, but mostly he ended up with ten to fifteen fish. That was enough for dinner for him and his dad, the smallest ones went to the cat.
Dad came up and stood behind him.
‘That went well, it did.’
‘Mmm. But I went all the way through the snow a couple of times.’
‘True, the snow is a little loose. If we could pack it tighter somehow. If we could…maybe take a particle-board and hitch it up, put some weight on it. You know, if you put the board and the weight down, then…’
‘Should we do it?’
‘No, it’d have to be tomorrow, at any rate. It’s getting dark now. We’ll have to get home and work on that bird a little if there’s going to be any dinner.’
‘OK.’
His dad looked out over the water, stood there quietly for a while.
‘You know, I’ve been thinking about something.’
‘Yes?’
It was coming now. Mum had told Oskar that she let Dad know in no uncertain terms that he had to talk to him about what happened with Jonny. And actually Oskar wanted to talk about it. Dad was at a secure distance from it all, wouldn’t interfere in any way. His dad cleared his throat, gathered himself. Breathed out. Looked over the water. Then he said, ‘Yes, I was thinking…do you have any ice skates?’
‘No, none that fit me.’
‘No, no. No. Well, if we get ice this winter and it looks like… then it would be fun to have some, wouldn’t it? I have some.’
‘They probably won’t fit.’
His dad snorted, a kind of chuckle.
‘No, but…Östen’s boy has some he’s grown out of. Thirty-nines. What size do you wear?’
‘Thirty-eight.’
‘Yes, but with woollen socks you’d…I’ll ask him if you can have them.’
‘Great.’
‘Then it’s settled. Good. Should we get going, then?’
Oskar nodded. Maybe it would come later. And the part about the skates was good. If they could manage it tomorrow then he could bring them back with him.
He walked on his mini-skis over to the end of the towrope, backed up until the line was taut, signalled his dad that he was ready. His dad started the moped. They had to go up the hill in first gear. The moped roared so that it frightened some crows out of the top of a pine tree.
Oskar glided slowly up the hill like he was going up a rope tow, stood straight with his legs pressed together. He wasn’t thinking about anything except trying to keep his skis in the old tracks in order to avoid cutting through the snow layer to the ground. They made their way home as twilight was falling.
Lacke walked down the stairs from the main square with a box of Aladdin chocolates tucked inside the top of his pants. Didn’t like to steal, but he had no money and he wanted to give Virginia something. Should have brought roses as well, but try swiping anything at a florist.
It was already dark and when he reached the bottom of the hill towards the school he hesitated. Looked around, scraped the snow with his foot and uncovered a rock the size of a fist that he kicked loose and slipped in his pocket, squeezing his hand around it. Not because he thought it would help against what he had seen but the stone’s weight and cold offered a bit of comfort.
His asking around in the various apartment courtyards had not yielded any results other than guarded, suspicious looks from parents who were out building snowmen with their youngsters. Dirty old man.
It was only when he opened his mouth to talk to a woman who was beating rugs that he realised how unnatural his behaviour must appear. The woman had paused in her task, turned to him with the stick in her hand like a weapon.
‘Excuse me,’ Lacke said. ‘Yes, I was wondering…I’m looking for a child.’
‘Really?’
He heard himself how it sounded, and it made him even more unsure of himself. ‘Yes, she has…disappeared. I was wondering if someone had seen her around here.’
‘Is it your child?’
‘No, but…’
Apart from a couple of teenagers, he had given up talking to people he didn’t know. Or at least recognised. He bumped into some acquaintances, but they hadn’t seen anything. Seek and thou shalt find, sure. But then you probably also had to know exactly what you were looking for.
He came down the path through the park leading to the school and glanced over at Jocke’s underpass.
The news had made quite a splash in the papers yesterday, mostly because of the macabre way in which the body had been discovered. A murdered alcoholic was normally nothing noteworthy but there had been salacious interest in the children watching, the fire department who had to saw into the ice, etc. Next to the text there was a passport photo of Jocke in which he looked like a mass murderer, at the very least.
Lacke continued on past the Blackeberg school’s dour brick façade, the wide high steps, like the entrance to the National Courts, or to hell. On the wall next to the lowest step someone had spray-painted the words Iron Maiden, whatever that meant. Maybe some group.
He walked past the parking lot, out onto Björnsonsgatan. Normally he would have taken a short cut across the back of the school but there it was…dark. He could very easily imagine that creature curled up in the shadows. He looked up into the tops of the tall pine trees that bordered the path. A few dark clumps in among the branches. Probably birds’ nests.
It wasn’t just what the creature looked like, it was also the way in which it attacked. He would maybe, maybe have been able to accept the idea that the teeth and claws had some natural explanation, if it hadn’t been for the jump from the tree. Before carrying Virginia back he had looked up at the tree. The branch that the creature had jumped from was maybe five metres above the ground.
To fall five metres onto someone’s back—if you added ‘circus artist’ to the other things to arrive at a ‘natural explanation’, then maybe. But all things considered it was as improbable as what he had said to Virginia, which he now regretted.
Damn it… He pulled the box of chocolates from his pants. Maybe his body heat had already melted them? He shook the box gently. No. It made a rattling sound. The chocolates had not run together. He continued along Björnsonsgatan, past the ICA store.
CRUSHED TOMATOES. THREE CANS 5 KRONOR
Six days ago.
Lacke’s hand was still wrapped around the stone. He looked at the sign, could imagine Virginia’s concentration to make the even, straight letters. Wouldn’t she have stayed home to rest today? It would be just like her to stumble in to work before the blood even had a chance to congeal.
When he reached the front door of her building he looked up at her window. No light. Maybe she was with her daughter? Well, he had to at least go up and leave the chocolates on her door handle if she wasn’t home. It was pitch-black inside the stairwell. The hair on the back of hi
s neck stood up.
The child is here.
He stood frozen in place, then threw himself on the shining red button of the light switch, pushing it in with the back of the hand carrying the box of chocolates. The other hand squeezed tightly around the stone in his pocket.
A soft clonking from the relay in the cellar as the light was turned on. Nothing. Virginia’s stairwell. Yellow vomit-patterned concrete stairs. Wood doors. He breathed deeply a few times and started up the steps.
Only now did he realise how tired he was. Virginia lived all the way up on the third floor, and his legs were dragging him up there, two lifeless planks attached to his hips. He was hoping Virginia was home, that she was feeling good, that he could sink down into her armchair and simply rest in the place he most wanted to be. He let go of the rock in his pocket and rang the bell. Waited a while. Rang it again.
He had started trying to balance the box of chocolates on the door handle when he heard creeping steps from within the apartment. He backed away from the door. On the inside, the steps came to a halt. She was standing next to the door, on the other side.
‘Who is it?’
Never, ever had she asked this question before. You rang the bell, you heard her steps, swish swish, and then the door opened. Come in, come in. He cleared his throat.
‘It’s me.’
Pause. Could he hear her breath or was it his imagination?
‘What do you want?’
‘I wanted to see how you were doing, that’s all.’
Another pause.
‘I’m not feeling so good.’
‘Can I come in?’
He waited. Held the box of chocolates in both hands, feeling silly. A bang as she turned the first lock, the rustle of keys as she unlocked the deadbolt. Another rustle as she took the chain off the door. The door handle was pushed down and the door opened.
He involuntarily took half a step back, the small of his back hitting against the stair railing. Virginia was standing in the doorway. She looked like she was dying.
Besides the swollen cheek her face was covered with tiny little boils and her eyes looked like she had the hangover of the century. A tight network of red lines in the whites and the pupils so tightly contracted they had almost disappeared. She nodded. ‘I look like hell.’
‘No, no. I only…I thought maybe…can I come in?’
‘No. I don’t have the energy.’
‘Have you been to the doctor?’
‘I will. Tomorrow.’
‘Good. Well, I…’
He handed her the box of chocolates, which he had been holding in front of him the whole time like a shield. Virginia accepted it. ‘Thank you.’
‘Virginia. Is there anything I can—?’
‘No. It’ll be all right. I just need some rest. Can’t stand here any longer. We’ll be in touch.’
‘Yes, I’ll come by…’
Virginia closed the door.
‘…tomorrow.’
The rustling of locks and chains again. He stood there outside her door with his arms hanging by his sides. Walked up to the door and put his ear to it. He heard a cabinet opened, slow steps inside the apartment.
What should I do?
It was not his place to force her to do something she didn’t want, but he would have preferred to take her to the hospital now. Well. He would come back tomorrow morning. If there was no improvement he would take her in to the hospital whether she wanted to or not.
Lacke walked down the stairs, one step at a time. So tired. When he reached the last flight of stairs before the door outside, he sat down on the highest step and leaned his head in his hands.
I am…responsible.
The light went off. The tendons in his neck tensed, he drew a ragged breath. Only the relay. On a timer. He sat on the steps in the dark, carefully taking the rock out of his pocket, resting it in both hands and staring out into the dark.
Come on, then. Come on.
Virginia closed the door on Lacke’s pleading face, locked it and put the chain on. Didn’t want him to see her. Didn’t want to see anyone. It had cost her a great effort to say those few words, to act normally.
Her condition had deteriorated rapidly after she got home from the ICA store. Lotten had helped her home and in her dazed state she had simply put up with the pain of daylight on her face. Once she was home she had looked in the mirror and seen the hundreds of tiny blisters on her face and hands. Burn marks.
She had slept for a few hours, woken up when it got dark. Her hunger had then changed in nature, been transformed into anxiety. A school of hysterically wriggling little fish now filled her circulatory system. She could neither lie down, nor sit, nor stand. She walked around and around the apartment, scratched her body, took a cold shower to dampen the jumpy, tingling feeling. Nothing helped.
It defied description. It reminded her of when she was twenty-two and had been informed that her father had fallen from the roof of their summer cottage and broken his neck. That time she had also walked around and around as if there was not a single place on earth where her body could rest, where it didn’t hurt.
Same thing now, except worse. The anxiety did not let up for a moment. It forced her around the apartment until she couldn’t stand it any longer, until she sat down on a chair and banged her head on the kitchen table. In desperation she took two sleeping pills and washed them down with a couple of mouthfuls of wine that tasted like dishwater.
Normally one pill was all she needed to fall asleep as if she had been hit on the head. The only effect on her now was that she became nauseous and after five minutes vomited green slime and both of the half-dissolved tablets.
She kept walking around, ripped a newspaper into tiny pieces, crawled on the floor and whimpered. She crawled into the kitchen, pushed the bottle of wine from the table so it fell to the floor and broke in front of her eyes.
She picked up one of the broken shards.
Didn’t think. Just pressed it into the palm of her hand and the pain felt good, felt right. The school of fish in her body rushed towards the point of the pain and blood welled out. She pressed the palm to her mouth and licked it, and the anxiety gave way. She cried with relief while she punctured her hand in a new place and kept sucking. The taste of blood mingled with the taste of tears.
Curled up on the kitchen floor, with her hand pressed against her mouth, greedily sucking like a newborn child that finds its mother’s breast for the first time, she felt—for the second time on this terrible day—calm.
About half an hour after she had stood up from the floor, swept the shards up and put on a band-aid, the anxiety had started to return. That was when Lacke had rung the bell.
When she had sent him away and locked the door she walked out into the kitchen and put the box of chocolates in the pantry. She sat down on a kitchen chair and tried to understand. The anxiety would not let her. Soon it would force her to her feet again. The only thing she knew was that no one could be with her here. Particularly not Lacke. She would hurt him. The anxiety would drive her to it.
She had contracted some kind of disease. There were medicines for diseases.
Tomorrow she would consult a doctor, someone who could examine her and say, ‘Well, this was simply an attack of X. We’ll have to put you on Y and Z for a couple of weeks. That’ll clear it right up.’
She paced around the apartment. It was starting to get unbearable again.
She hit her arms, her legs, but the small fish had come back to life and nothing helped. She knew what she had to do. She sobbed from fear of the pain but the actual sensation was so brief and the relief so great.
She walked out into the kitchen and got a sharp little fruit knife, went back out and sat down in the couch in the living room, rested the blade against the underside of her arm.
Only to get her through the night. Tomorrow she would seek help. It was self-evident she couldn’t keep going like this. Drink her own blood. Of course not. There would have to be a change. B
ut for now…
The saliva rose up in her mouth, wet anticipation. She cut into herself. Deeply…
Saturday
7 November (Evening)
Oskar cleared the table and his dad did the dishes. The eider duck had been delicious, of course. No shot. There was not much to wash off the plates. After they had eaten most of the bird and almost all of the potato they had sopped up the remains on their plates with white bread. That was the best part. Pour out gravy on the plate and sop it up with porous bits of white bread that half-dissolved in the gravy and then melted in your mouth.
His dad wasn’t a great cook or anything but three dishes—pytt-i-panna, fried herring and roasted seabird—he made so often that he had mastered them. Tomorrow they would have pytt-i-panna using the leftovers.
The hours before dinner Oskar had spent in his room. He had his own room at his dad’s house that was bare compared to his room in town, but he liked it. In town he had posters and pictures, a lot of things, it was always changing.
This room never changed and that was exactly what he liked about it.
It looked the same now as when he was seven years old.
When he walked into the room, with its familiar damp smell that lingered in the air after a rapid heating job in anticipation of his visit, it was as if nothing had happened for…a long time.
Here still were the Donald Duck and Bamse comic books bought during the many summers of years past. He no longer read them when he was in town but here he did. He knew the stories by heart but he read them again.
While the smells filtered in from the kitchen he lay on his bed and read an old issue of Donald Duck. Donald, his nephews and Uncle Scrooge were travelling to a distant country where there was no money and the cap tops of the bottles containing Uncle Scrooge’s calming tonic became the currency.
When he had finished reading he busied himself with his assortment of lures and sinkers that he kept in an old sewing kit his dad had given him. Tied a new line with loose hooks, five of them, and attached the lures for summer-time herring fishing.