She’s so sad. So very, very sad.
‘No, I never get any presents. Ever.’
Oskar nodded stiffly. The world around him had ceased to exist. Only those two holes, a breath away. Their breaths mingled and rose, dissipated.
‘Do you want to give me a present?’
‘Yes.’
His voice was not even a whisper. Only an exhalation. The girl’s face was close. His gaze was drawn to her butter-knife cheek.
That was why he didn’t see her eyes change, how they narrowed, took on another expression. He didn’t see how her upper lip drew back and revealed a pair of small, dirty white fangs. He only saw her cheek and while her mouth was nearing his throat he drew up his hand and stroked her face.
The girl froze for a moment, then pulled back. Her eyes resumed their former shape, the city of light was back.
‘What did you do that for?’
‘I’m sorry, I…’
‘What did you do?’
‘I…’
Oskar looked at his hand that was still holding the cube, relaxed his grip on it. He had been squeezing it so hard the corners had left deep imprints in his hand. He stretched it out to her.
‘Do you want it? You can have it.’
She slowly shook her head.
‘No. It’s yours.’
‘What’s…your name?’
‘Eli.’
‘My name is Oskar. What did you say your name was? Eli?’
‘Yes.’
The girl seemed suddenly restless. Her gaze flitted around as if she was looking for something, something she couldn’t find.
‘I’m…going now.’
Oskar nodded. The girl looked him straight in the eyes for a few seconds, then turned to go. She reached the top of the slide and hesitated. Then she sat down and slid to the bottom, started off towards her front door. Oskar squeezed the cube.
‘See you tomorrow?’
The girl stopped and said ‘Yes’ in a low voice without turning, then kept going. Oskar watched her. She didn’t go home, though, she walked through the archway that led to the street. Disappeared.
Oskar looked at the cube again. Unbelievable.
He twisted a section one rotation, broke up the unity. Then he turned it back. Wanted to keep it like this. At least for a while.
Jocke Bengtsson was chuckling to himself on his way home from the movies. Damned funny film, The Charter Trip. Especially that part with the two guys running around the whole movie looking for Peppe’s bodega. When the one pushed his hungover friend in a wheelchair through Customs: invalido. Damn, that was funny.
Maybe he should go off on a trip like that with one of the guys. But which one? Karlsson was so boring he made the clocks stop, you’d get sick of him in two days. Morgan could get ugly when he had too much to drink and he was sure to do that when it was cheap. Larry was OK but way too sickly. In the end you’d have to push him around in a wheelchair. Invalido.
No, Lacke was the only one who would do.
They could have a lot of fun down there for a week. But Lacke was poor as a church mouse, and could never afford it. He could sit and drink beers and smoke every night and that was totally cool by Jocke, but he’d never have the dough for a trip to the Canary Islands.
He may as well face the facts—none of the regulars at the Chinese restaurant were good travel-companion material.
Could he go by himself?
Stig Helmer had done it. Even though he was a total loser. Then he met Ole, and everything. Got together with a chick and all that. Nothing wrong with that. It was eight years since Maria had left him and taken the dog and since then he had not known anyone in the biblical sense, not one single time.
Would anyone want him? Maybe. At least he didn’t look as bad as Larry. Of course the booze was staking its claim on his face and body, even though he managed to keep it under control to a certain extent. Today for example he hadn’t had a single drop, even though it was almost nine o’clock. But now he was going to have a couple of gin and tonics before going down to the Chinese restaurant.
He’d have to think more about that trip. It would probably go the way of so much else these past few years: nothing. But you could always dream.
He walked along the park path between Holbergsgatan and Blackeberg school. It was pretty dark, the streetlights stood about thirty metres apart and the Chinese restaurant glowed like a lighthouse up on the hill to the left.
Should he throw caution to the wind tonight and go directly up to the restaurant and…no. Too expensive. Then the others would think he had won the lottery or something and call him a cheapskate for not buying them a round. Better to go home and get started first.
He passed the big commercial laundry, the chimney with its single red eye, the muted rumble from inside.
One night when he was on his way home—drunk to the gills— he had experienced some kind of hallucination and seen how the chimney detached itself and started gliding down the hill towards him, growling and hissing.
He had curled up on the path with his hands over his head, waiting for the attack. When he finally put his arms back down the chimney stood where it always was, magnificent and unmoving.
The streetlight nearest the Björnsongatan underpass was broken and the path under the street a dark hole. If he had been drunk right now he would have walked up the stairs next to the underpass and gone up to Björnsongatan, even though it was slightly longer. He could get such strange visions in the dark when he had had something to drink. Always slept with the light on for that reason. But right now he was stone-cold sober.
He had a hankering to take the stairs anyway. The drunken visions had started to seep into his perception of the world even when he was sober. He stood still on the path and summed up the situation for himself: ‘I’m starting to get soft in the head.’
Let me make this clear to you, Jocke. If you don’t get a hold of yourself and make it just that little bit further through the underpass, you won’t make it to the Canary Islands either.
Why not?
Because you always jump ship at the first sign of a hurdle. The law of least resistance, in every situation. What makes you think you could manage to call a travel agent, get a new passport, buy things for your trip, and above all, take that step out into the unknown if you don’t even have the guts to walk this short stretch?
You have a point. But so what? If I walk through the underpass, that means I’ll make it to the Canary Islands, that it’ll happen?
It makes me think you’ll call and book the ticket tomorrow. Tenerife, Jocke, Tenerife.
He started to walk again, summoning images of sunny beaches and drinks with little umbrellas. Damn it, he was going. Wouldn’t go down to the restaurant tonight, no. He would stay home and check the ads in the paper. Eight years. Fucking time to pull himself together.
He had just started to think about palm trees, whether or not there were palm trees in the Canary Islands, if he had seen any in the movie, when he heard the sound. A voice. He stopped in the middle of the underpass, listening. A moaning voice was coming from one side.
‘Help me…’
His eyes were getting used to the dim light, but he could still only discern the contours of the leaves that had blown in and collected in heaps. It sounded like a child.
‘Hello? Is anyone there?’
‘Help me…’
He looked around. No one in sight. He heard a rustling in the dark, could see movement in the leaves.
‘Please, help me.’
He felt a strong desire to walk away. But that was impossible. A child had been hurt, had maybe been attacked by someone…
The murderer!
The Vällingby murderer had come to Blackeberg, but this time the victim had survived…
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
He didn’t want any part of this. He who was on his way to Tenerife and all. But what could he do? He took a few steps towards the voice. The leaves crunched under his feet and now he could see the bo
dy. It was curled into a foetal position in the leaves.
Damn, damn.
‘What happened?’
‘Help me…’
Jocke’s eyes were now fully accustomed to the dark and he could see the child stretch out a pale arm. The body was naked, probably raped. No. When he got close he saw that the child was not naked, was simply wearing a pink top. How old? Ten or twelve. Maybe he had been knocked down by his ‘friends’. Or her. If it was a girl that was less likely.
He crouched down next to the girl and took her hand.
‘What happened to you?’
‘Help me. Lift me up.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
‘Lift me up…’
‘Is it your back?’
He had been drafted into the medical corps during his compulsory military training and knew you shouldn’t lift people with neck or back injuries unless you secured their heads first.
‘It’s not your back, is it?’
‘No. Lift me.’
What the fuck was he supposed to do? If he took the child home to his apartment the police would think…
He would have to take him or her to the restaurant and call an ambulance from there. Yes. That was a plan. The child had a small, thin body—must be a girl—and even though he wasn’t in the greatest shape he thought he could manage to carry her there.
‘OK. I’ll carry you to a place where we can call, all right?’
‘Yes…thank you.’
That ‘thank you’ stung his heart. How could he have hesitated? What kind of bastard was he? Well, he had managed to keep his head and now he was going to help the girl. He coaxed his left arm under her knees and put the other arm under her neck.
‘OK. Up we go.’
‘Mmm.’
She weighed almost nothing. Twenty-five kilos, at most. Maybe she was malnourished. Problems at home, or anorexia. Maybe a stepfather or something who abused her. Fucking pathetic.
The girl put his arms around his neck and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. He was going to manage this.
‘How does that feel?’
‘Good.’
He smiled. A feeling of warmth rushed through him. He was a good person, in spite of everything. He could imagine the others’ faces when he came in, the girl in his arms. At first they would wonder what the fuck he was up to and then they would be more and more impressed. ‘Well done, Jocke’ etc.
He turned to start walking up to the restaurant, consumed by his fantasies of a new life, the new start he was in the process of making, when he felt the pain in his throat. What the fuck? It felt like a bee sting and his left hand wanted to wave it away, examine it. But he couldn’t drop the child.
Stupidly he tried to bend his head to see what it was, even though he naturally couldn’t see his own throat from that angle. He couldn’t bend his head anyway because the girl’s jaw lay pressed against his chin. Her grip around his neck grew tighter and the pain stronger. Now he understood.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
He felt the girl’s jaws working up and down against his chin as the pain at his throat grew more intense. A warm trickle of fluid ran down his chest.
‘Stop it!’
He let go of the girl. It wasn’t a conscious thought, simply a reflex: must get this off my throat.
But the girl didn’t fall. Instead she established an iron grip around his neck—good God how strong her little body was—and wrapped her legs around his hips.
She clung to him like four hands wrapped tightly around a doll, while her jaws continued to work.
Jocke grabbed her head and tried to pull it away from him but it was like trying to tear a fresh branch from a birch tree with your bare hands. It was as if her head was glued to him. Her grip on him was so strong that it pressed the breath from his lungs and didn’t allow him to draw in fresh air.
He staggered backwards, desperate for air.
The girl’s gnawing had stopped, now he only heard a quiet lapping. She had not loosened her grip for a moment, quite the opposite. Her grip on him was even tighter now that she was sucking. A muted crunch and his chest radiated with pain. Several ribs had been broken.
He had no more air for screaming. He pummelled the girl’s head with a few feeble blows as he staggered around in the dry leaves. The world was spinning. The distant streetlamps danced like fire-flies in front of his eyes.
He lost his balance and fell backwards. The last sound he heard was the leaves crunching as they were crushed by his head. A microsecond later he hit the stone pavement and the world disappeared.
Oskar lay wide awake in his bed, staring at the wallpaper.
He and his mum had watched ‘The Muppets’ but he had not followed the story at all. Miss Piggy had been angry about something and Kermit had been looking for Gonzo. One of the sour old men had fallen from the theatre balcony—but the reason why had escaped Oskar. His thoughts had been elsewhere.
Then he and his mum had had hot cocoa and cinnamon buns. Oskar knew they had chatted but couldn’t remember about what. Something about painting the kitchen sofa blue, maybe.
He stared at the wallpaper.
The whole wall that his bed was pushed up against was decorated with a photograph wallpaper depicting a forest meadow. Wide tree trunks and green leaves. He would sometimes lie in bed and dream up figures in the leaves nearest his head. There were two figures he always saw as soon as he looked. The others he had to try harder to summon forth.
Now the wall had developed another significance. On the other side, on the other side of the forest, there was Eli. Oskar lay there with his hand pressed against the green surface and tried to imagine what the other side looked like. Was the room on the other side her bedroom? Was she also lying in her bed right now? He transformed the wall into Eli’s cheek, stroked the green leaves, her soft skin.
Voices on the other side.
He stopped stroking the wallpaper and listened. One high and one low voice. Eli and her father. It sounded like they were arguing. He pushed his ear against the wall to hear better. Damn it. If only he had had a glass. He didn’t dare get up and get one because maybe they would stop talking before he got back.
What are they saying?
Eli’s dad was the one who sounded angry. You could hardly hear Eli’s voice at all. Oskar had to concentrate to catch the words. He heard the occasional swear word and ‘unbelievably cruel’, then there was a thud as if something had been knocked over. Had he hit her? Had he seen them when Oskar stroked Eli’s cheek…could that be it?
Now Eli was talking. Oskar could not hear a word she was saying, only the soft tones of her voice as it rose and sank. Would she be talking that way if he had hit her? He couldn’t hit her. Oskar would kill him if he hit her.
He wished he could vibrate himself through the wall, like Lightning, the superhero. Disappear through the wall, in through the forest and out the other side, see what was happening, if Eli needed help, comforting, anything.
Now it was quiet on the other side. Only the sound of his heart drumming out its sucking whirling beats in his ear.
He got up out of bed, went over to his desk and poured out a number of erasers from a plastic cup. Took the cup back with him into bed and held the open end against the wall, the closed end against his ear.
The only thing he could hear was a distant clanking, hardly from the room next door. What were they doing? He held his breath. Suddenly there was a loud bang.
A gunshot!
He had taken out a gun and—no it was the front door that had been slammed so hard the walls were ringing.
He jumped out of bed and walked over to the window. After a few seconds a man emerged. Eli’s dad. He was carrying a bag in his hand and walked with quick, angry strides towards the exit, and disappeared from sight.
What should I do? Follow him? Why?
He went back to bed. It was only his imagination working overtime. Eli
and her dad had argued, like Oskar and his mum sometimes. It even happened that his mum stepped out like that afterward if it had been really bad.
But not in the middle of the night.
His mum sometimes threatened to move out when she thought Oskar was being bad. Oskar knew she would never do it, and she knew he knew. Maybe Eli’s dad had simply taken this game of threats a step further. Took off in the middle of the night with a bag and everything.
Oskar lay in his bed with his palms and forehead pressed against the wall.
Eli, Eli. Are you there? Has he hurt you? Are you sad? Eli…
There was a knock on Oskar’s door and he flinched. For a terrible moment he thought it was Eli’s dad coming in to take him on as well.
But it was his mum. She tiptoed into his room.
‘Oskar? Are you asleep?’
‘Mmm.’
‘I just have to say…about these new people…what neighbours.
Did you hear them?’
‘No.’
‘You must have heard them. He was screaming and banged that door like he was crazy. Good God. Sometimes I’m so relieved I don’t have a man in my house. Poor woman. Have you seen her?’
‘No.
‘I haven’t either. Well, I haven’t seen him either for that matter. Blinds drawn all day. Probably alcoholics.’
‘Mum.’
‘Yes?’
‘I want to sleep now.’
‘Yes, sorry, honey. I just got so…Goodnight. Sweet dreams.’
‘Mmm.’
His mum closed the door carefully behind her. Alcoholic? Yes, that seemed probable.
Oskar’s dad drank too much from time to time. That was why he and Mum weren’t together any more. Dad could have tantrums like that when he got too drunk. He never hit anyone but could scream so he got hoarse, bang doors and break things.
Something in Oskar was cheered by this thought. Ugly, but still. If Eli’s dad was an alcoholic then they had something in common, something they shared.
Oskar leaned his forehead and hands against the wall again.
Eli, Eli. I know how it is for you. I’m going to help you. I’m going to save you.
Eli…
The eyes were wide open, staring blindly towards the arched ceiling of the underpass. Håkan brushed a few dry leaves away revealing the thin pink top Eli usually wore, now discarded on the man’s chest. Håkan picked it up, at first intending to hold it up to his nose to smell it but he stopped when he felt that the top was sticky.