Jonny lay curled up on his side with his hand pressed against his ear. Blood was trickling out between his fingers. Oskar wanted to apologize. He hadn"t meant to hurt him so bad. He crouched down next to Jonny, steadying himself on the stick, and he was about to say "sorry" but before he had a chance, he saw saw Jonny. Jonny.
He was so small, curled up into a fetal position, whimpering "owowowow" while a thin trickle of blood ran down inside the collar of his coat. He was slowly turning his head back and forth.
Oskar looked at him in wonder.
That tiny bleeding bundle on the ice would not be able to do anything to him. Couldn"t hit him or tease him. Couldn"t even defend itself. I could whack him a few more times and then it"s could whack him a few more times and then it"s all all over. over. Oskar stood up, leaned on the stick. The rush was ebbing away, replaced by a feeling of nausea that welled up from deep inside his stomach. What had he done? Jonny must be really hurt to be bleeding like that. What if he bled to death? Oskar sat down on the ice again, pulled off one shoe and removed his wool sock. He crawled over to Jonny on his knees, poked the hand that he was holding to his ear, and pushed the wool sock into it. Oskar stood up, leaned on the stick. The rush was ebbing away, replaced by a feeling of nausea that welled up from deep inside his stomach. What had he done? Jonny must be really hurt to be bleeding like that. What if he bled to death? Oskar sat down on the ice again, pulled off one shoe and removed his wool sock. He crawled over to Jonny on his knees, poked the hand that he was holding to his ear, and pushed the wool sock into it.
"Here. Take this."
Jonny grabbed the sock and pressed it to his wounded ear. Oskar looked up over the ice. He saw a person on skates approaching. A grown-up. Shrill screams from far away. Children, screaming in panic. A single high, penetrating shriek that was joined by others after a few seconds. The person who had been on his way over, stopped. Stood motionless for a second, then turned and skated back.
Oskar was still kneeling beside Jonny, felt the snow melting, dampening his knees. Jonny had his eyes shut, whimpering from between clenched teeth. Oskar lowered his face closer to his.
"Can you walk?"
Jonny opened his mouth to say something and a yellow-and whitecolored liquid gushed out from between his lips, coloring the snow. A little landed on one of Oskar"s hands. He looked at the slimy drops that quivered on the back of his hands and became really scared. He dropped the stick and ran toward land to get some help.
The children"s screams from next to the hospital had increased in volume. He ran toward them.
Mr. Avila, Fernando Cristobal de Reyes y Avila, enjoyed ice skating. Yes. One of the things he most appreciated about Sweden was the long winters. He had partic.i.p.ated in the Vasa cross-country ski race for ten consecutive years now, and whenever the waters of the outer archipelago froze solid he drove out to Graddo Island on the weekends in order to skate out as far toward Soderarm as the ice cover allowed.
It was three years ago since the archipelago had frozen last, but an early winter such as this one gave him hope. Of course Graddo Island would be crawling with skating enthusiasts if the waters froze, but that was in the daytime. Mr. Avila preferred to skate at night.
With all due respect to the Vasa Race, it did make one feel like one of a thousand ants in a colony that had suddenly decided to emigrate. It was quite different to be on the open ice, alone in the moonlight. Fernando Avila was only a lukewarm Catholic, but even he could feel in those moments that G.o.d was near. The rhythmic sc.r.a.pe of the metal blades, the moonlight that gave the ice a leaden gleam, above him the stars vaulted in their infinity, the cold wind streaming over his face, eternity and depth and s.p.a.ce in all directions. Life could not be bigger. A little boy was tugging on his pant leg.
"Teacher, I have to pee."
Avila woke from his skating dreams and looked around, pointed to some trees by the sh.o.r.e that grew out over the water; the bare network of branches fell like a shielding curtain toward the ice.
"You can pee there."
The boy squinted at the trees.
"On the ice?"
"Yes? What is wrong with that? Makes new ice. Yellow." The boy looked at him as if he were crazy, but skated off toward the trees.
Avila looked around and made sure none of the older ones had wandered too far. With a few quick strokes he took off to get an overview of the situation. Counted the children. Yes. Nine, plus the one who was peeing. Ten.
He turned the other way and looked in toward Kvarnviken, stopped. Something was happening down there. A group of bodies approaching something that had to be an opening in the ice, the spot marked by small straggly trees. While he stood still, watching, the group broke up. He saw that one of them was holding a stick.
The stick was swung and one boy fell down. He heard a howl. Turning around, he checked his own group one last time, then set off swiftly toward the figures by the hole. One of them was now running toward land. That was when he heard the scream.
The piercing scream of a child from his group. The snow spurted up around his blades as he made an abrupt halt. He had managed to ascertain that the kids by the hole were older. Maybe Oskar. Older boys. They would manage. His charges were younger.
The scream increased in intensity and when he turned and skated toward it he heard more voices join in.
Cojones!
Something happened in the exact moment when he was not there. Dear G.o.d, let the ice not have given way. He skated as fast as he could, the snow whirling around his blades as he sprinted toward the source of the scream. He saw now that many children had gathered, were standing and screaming hysterically in a choir of sorts, and more were on their way. He also saw that an adult was moving down toward the ice from up by the hospital.
With a few final strong pushes he arrived next to the children, and stopped so hard a fine ice-dust sprayed over the children"s jackets. He did not understand. All the children were gathered next to the network of branches, looking down toward the ice, and shrieking.
He skated closer.
"What is it?"
One of the children pointed down toward the ice, to a lump that was frozen into it. It looked like a brown, frozen clump of gra.s.s with a red line on one side. Or a run-over hedgehog. He leaned down toward the clump and saw that it was a head. A human head frozen into the ice so that only the top of the head and forehead were visible.
The boy he had sent off to pee here was sitting on the ice a few meters away, sobbing.
"I-I-I ra-a-an into it."
Avila straightened up.
"Get away! Everyone goes back onto land nowl" nowl"
The children seemed as if they were also frozen in place in the ice; the little ones kept crying. He took out his whistle and blew into it sharply, twice. The screams stopped. He took a few pushes to position himself behind the children in order to herd them toward the sh.o.r.e. The children went. Only a fifth grader stayed where he was, leaning down toward the clump, full of curiosity.
"You too!"
Avila gestured to him with his hand, indicating he should come over. Once they were on land he said to the woman who had come down from the hospital, "Call the police. An ambulance. There is a body frozen into the ice."
The woman ran back up to the hospital. Avila counted the children on land, saw that one was missing. The boy who had run into the head was still sitting on the ice with his face in his hands. Avila glided out to him and lifted him up by his armpits. The boy turned around and put his arms around Avila, who lifted the boy as gently as if he were a fragile package and carried him to sh.o.r.e.
Can I talk to him?"
"He can"t actually talk..."
"No, but he understands what is said to him."
"I would think so but..."
"Just for a little while."
Through the fog that clouded his vision Hakan saw a man in dark clothes pull up a chair and sit down next to his bed. He could not make out the man"s features, but there was probably a serious expression on his face. The last few days Hakan had been floating in and out of a red cloud scored through with lines as thin as hairs. He knew that they had anes-thetized him a couple of times, operated on him. This was the first day he was fully conscious, but he did not know how many days had pa.s.sed since he first came here.
Earlier this morning Hakan had been exploring his new face with the fingers on his feeling hand. A rubberlike bandage covered his whole face, but from what little he was able to make out after painfully exploring the contours protruding under the bandage with his fingertips, he concluded he no longer had a face.
Hakan Bengtsson no longer existed. All that was left of him was an unidentified body in a hospital bed. They would of course be able to connect him with the other murders, but not to his earlier or present life. Not to Eli.
"How are you feeling?"
Oh, very well, officer, thank you. Couldn"t he better. It feels as if someone has applied burning napalm to my face but other than that I someone has applied burning napalm to my face but other than that I can"t complain. can"t complain.
"Yes, I understand that you can"t speak, but perhaps you can nod if you hear what I am saying? Can you nod?"
I can, but I don"t want to. can, but I don"t want to.
The man next to his bed sighed.
"You tried to kill yourself by doing this, so clearly you are not completely ... gone. Is it hard for you to raise your head? Can you lift your hand if you hear me? Can you lift your hand?"
Hakan disconnected himself from all thoughts of the policeman and instead started to think about the place in Dante"s h.e.l.l, Limbo, where all the great souls from Earth without knowledge of Christ went after death. Tried to imagine the place in detail.
"We would like to know who you are, you see."
Which circle did Dante himself go to after death ...
The policeman pulled his chair even closer.
"We"ll find that out, you know. Sooner or later. You could save us some legwork by communicating with us now."
No one misses me. No one knows me. Go ahead, try.
A nurse came in. "There"s a telephone call for you." The policemanman stood up, walked over to the door. Before he walked out he turned around.
"I"ll be back."
Hakan"s thoughts now returned to more significant matters. Which circle was he destined for? The circle of child murderers? That was the seventh circle. On the other hand, maybe the first circle. Those who sinned for love"s sake. Then, of course, the sodomites had their own circle. The most reasonable thing would be to a.s.sume you went to the circle that represented your worst crime. Therefore: if you had committed an absolutely terrible crime you could thereafter sin away all you liked with the crimes punished in higher circles. It couldn"t get worse. Like murderers in the USA who were sentenced to three hundred years in prison. The different circles whirled in their spiral patterns. The funnel of h.e.l.l. Cerberus with his tail. Hakan imagined the violent men, the bitter women, the proud ones in their boiling pots, in their fire rain, wandering among them, looking for their place.
One thing he was completely sure of. He would never end up in the lowest circle. The one where Lucifer himself chewed on Judas and Brutus, standing in a sea of ice. The circle of traitors. thing he was completely sure of. He would never end up in the lowest circle. The one where Lucifer himself chewed on Judas and Brutus, standing in a sea of ice. The circle of traitors.
The door opened again, with that strange, sucking sound. The policeman sat down next to the bed.
"h.e.l.lo again. It seems like they"ve found another one, down by the lake in Blackeberg. Same rope, in any case."
No!
Hakan"s body flinched involuntarily when the policeman said Blackeberg. The policeman nodded. "Apparently you can hear me. That"s good. We can a.s.sume you live in the western suburbs then. Where? Racksta?
Vallingby? Blackeberg?"
The memory of how he had disposed of the man down by the hospital raced through his head. He had been sloppy. He had screwed up.
"OK, then I am going to leave you alone. You can think about if you want to cooperate. It"ll be easier that way. Don"t you think?" The policeman stood up and left. In his place a nurse came in and sat down in the chair, keeping watch.
Hakan started to toss his head from side to side, in denial. His hand went out and started to tug on the tube to the respirator. The nurse quickly jumped up and tore his hand away.
"We"ll have to tie you up. One more time and we"ll tie you up. Understood? If you don"t want to live that"s your business but as long as you"re here our job is to keep you alive. Regardless of what you have or haven"t done. Got it? And we will do what we have to in order to get through this even if it means putting restraints on you. Do you hear me?
Everything will be better for you if you cooperate."
Cooperate. Cooperate. Suddenly everyone wants to cooperate. I am no longer a person. I am a project. Oh my G.o.d. Eli, Eli. Help me. longer a person. I am a project. Oh my G.o.d. Eli, Eli. Help me.
Oskar heard his mom"s voice as soon as he was in the stairwell. She was talking to someone on the phone, and she sounded angry. Jonny"s mom?
He stopped outside the door and listened.
"They"re going to call me and ask me what I"ve done wrong... oh yes, they will, and what do I say? Sorry, but you see, my boy doesn"t have a father and that... but live up to it then ... no, you haven"t... I think you should talk to him about this."
Oskar unlocked the door and stepped into the hall. His mom said, "That"s him now" into the receiver and turned to Oskar.
"They called from school and I. . . you"ll have to talk to your dad about this because I. . ." She talked into the receiver again. "Now you can ... I am calm . . . it"s easy for you to say, sitting out there .. ." Oskar went into his room, lay down on his bed and put his hands over his face. It felt like his heart was beating in his head.
When he"d reached the hospital he had initially thought that all the people running around had something to do with Jonny. But it had turned out that wasn"t it. Today he had seen a dead person for the first time in his life.
His mom opened the door to his room. Oskar removed his hands from his head.
"Your father wants to talk to you."
Oskar held the receiver to his ear and heard a distant voice reciting the names of lighthouses and wind strength, wind direction. He waited with the receiver to his ear without saying anything. His mom frowned and looked questioningly at him. Oskar put his hand over the earpiece and whispered: "the marine weather report."
His mom opened her mouth as if to say something, but only came out with a sigh and let her hands drop. She walked out into the kitchen. Oskar sat down on the chair in the hall and listened to the marine weather report along with his dad.
He knew his dad would remain distracted by what was said on the radio if Oskar tried to start a conversation now. The sea report was holy. Those times he was at his dad"s, all activity in the house came to a stop at 16:45 and his dad sat down next to the radio while staring absently out over the fields, as if to check that what they were saying on the radio was true.
It was a long time since his dad had been at sea, but old habits died hard. Almagrundet northwest eight, toward evening turning to the west. Good visibility. The Aland Sea and Archipelago area northwest ten, toward evening warning for gale-force winds. Good visibility.
There. The most important part of it was over.
"Hi Dad."
"Oh, it"s you. Hi there. We"re going to have gale-force winds here toward evening."
"Yeah, I heard."
"Hm. How are things?"
"Good."
"You know, your mom just told me about this thing with Jonny. That doesn"t sound so good."
"No, I guess not."
"He got a concussion."
"Yeah, he threw up."
"That"s a common side effect. Harry... yes, you"ve met him ... he took the lead weight in the side of the head once and he ... well, he lay there on deck and was sick as a calf after that."
"Was he OK?"