Maybe it was only a sudden gust of wind but at the very bottom of the hill he drove into a viscous, transparent, filmy barrier stretched out over the path that tried to stop him. But his speed was too great. The Snow Racer drove into the filmy barrier and it glued itself onto his face and body, was stretched until it burst, and then he was through. The lights were glittering over Kvarnviken Bay. He sat on his Snow Racer and stared out over the spot where he had knocked down Jonny yesterday morning. Turned around. The Ghost House was an ugly shack of sheet metal.
He pulled the Snow Racer up the hill again. Slid down. Up again. Down again. Couldn"t stop. And he went on. Went on until his face was a mask of ice.
Then he walked home.
He had only slept four or five hours, afraid that Eli was going to come. Of what he would be forced to say, to do if she did that. Push her away. Therefore he fell asleep on the bus to Norrtalje and didn"t wake up until they were there. On the Radmanso bus he had kept himself awake, made a game out of trying to remember as much as possible along the way. Soon there will be a yellow house with a windmill on the lawn. Soon there will be a yellow house with a windmill on the lawn. A yellow house with a snowy windmill on the lawn pa.s.sed by outside the window. And so on. In Spillersboda a girl got on the bus. Oskar gripped the back of the seat in front of him. She looked a little like Eli. Of course it wasn"t her. The girl sat down a few seats in front of him. He looked at her neck. A yellow house with a snowy windmill on the lawn pa.s.sed by outside the window. And so on. In Spillersboda a girl got on the bus. Oskar gripped the back of the seat in front of him. She looked a little like Eli. Of course it wasn"t her. The girl sat down a few seats in front of him. He looked at her neck.
What"s wrong with her?
The thought had come to him even as he was in the cellar gathering the bottles together and wiping the blood away with a piece of cloth from the garbage: that Eli was a vampire. That explained a lot of things. That she was never out in the daytime.
That she could see in the dark; see in the dark; he had come to understand that she could. he had come to understand that she could.
Plus a lot of other things: the way she talked, the cube, her flexibility, things that of course could have a natural explanation . . . but then there was also the way that she had licked his blood from the floor, and what really made him shiver was when he thought about the: "Can I come in? Say that I can come in."
That she had needed an invitation to come into his room, to his bed. And he had invited her in. A vampire. A being that lived off other peoples"
blood. Eli. There was not one one person who he could tell. No one would believe him. And if someone did believe him, what would happen? person who he could tell. No one would believe him. And if someone did believe him, what would happen?
Oskar imagined a caravan of men walking through Blackeberg, in through the covered entrance where he and Eli had hugged, with sharpened stakes in their hands. He was afraid of Eli now, didn"t want to see her anymore, but he didn"t want that. that.
Three quarters of an hour after he had boarded the bus in Norrtalje he arrived in Sodersvik. He pulled on the string and the bell rang up front by the driver. The bus pulled over right in front of the store and he had to wait for an old lady, whom he recognized but didn"t know the name of, to get off.
His dad was standing below the stairs, nodded and said "hum" to the old lady. Oskar climbed off the bus, stood still for a second in front of his dad. This last week things had happened that had made Oskar feel bigger. Not adult. But bigger, at any rate. All that fell away as he stood in front of his father.
His mom claimed his dad was childlike, in a bad way. Immature, couldn"t handle responsibility. Oh, she said some nice things about him too, but that was what she always came back to. The immaturity. For Oskar, his dad was the very image of an adult as he now stretched out his broad arms and Oskar fell into them.
His dad smelled different from all the people in the city. In his torn h.e.l.ly Hansen vest fixed with Velcro there was always the same mixture of wood, paint, metal, and above all, oil. These were the smells but Oskar didn"t think of them in that way. It was all simply "Dad"s smell." He loved it and drew a deep breath through his nose as he pressed his face against his dad"s chest.
"Well hey there."
"Hi Dad."
"Your trip go OK?"
"No, we ran into an elk."
"Oh no. That must have been something."
"Just joking."
"I see. I see. But you know, I remember a time ..." As they walked toward the store, Dad started telling a story about how once a truck he was driving had collided with an elk. Oskar had heard the story before and looked around, humming from time to time. The Sodervik store looked as trashy as ever. Signs and streamers that had been allowed to stay up in antic.i.p.ation of next summer made the whole store look like an oversized ice cream stand. The large tent behind the store, where they sold garden tools, soil, outdoor furniture, and such, was tied up for the season.
In summer the population of Sodervik increased four-fold. The whole area down toward Norrtaljeviken Bay, Lagaro, was an unruly conglomeration of summer houses, and even though the mailboxes down toward Lagaro were hung in double rows of thirty, the mailman almost never had to go there at this time of year. No people, no mail. Just as they reached the moped his dad finished the story with the elk.
".. . and then I had to hit him with a crowbar that I had for opening drawers and that kind of thing. Right between the eyes. He twitched like this and ... yes. No, it wasn"t so nice."
"No, of course not."
Oskar jumped up on the trailer, pulling his legs in under him. His dad dug around in a pocket on the vest and pulled out a cap.
"Here. It"ll get cold around your ears."
"No, I have one."
Oskar took out his own cap and put it on. Dad put the other one away.
"What about you? It"ll get cold around your ears."
Dad laughed.
"No, I"m used to it."
Of course Oskar knew that; he was just teasing. He couldn"t remember ever seeing his dad in a wool cap. If it got really cold and windy he put on a kind of bearskin hat with ear flaps that he called his "inheritance," but that was the limit.
His dad kick-started the moped and it roared like an electric chain saw. He shouted something about the idling and put it in first. The moped jumped forward, almost causing Oskar to fall backwards; his dad yelled something about the gears and then they were off.
Second, third gear. The moped flew through the town. Oskar sat with his legs crossed in the clattering trailer. He felt like a king of the world and would have been able to keep going like this forever.
A physician had explained it to him. The fumes he had inhaled had burned away his vocal chords and he would probably never be able to speak normally again. A new operation would be able to give him a rudimentary ability to produce vowels, but since even his tongue and lips were badly injured there would have to be additional operations to enable the possibility of uttering consonants.
As a former Swedish teacher Hakan could not help but be fascinated at the thought: to create speech by surgical means.
He knew quite a bit about phonemes and the smallest components of language, common across many cultures. He had never reflected much over the actual tools of production-the roof of the mouth, lips, tongue, vocal chords-in this way. To coax speech from this shapeless raw material with a scalpel.
But it was meaningless anyway. He did not intend to speak. In addition, he suspected that the doctor was talking that way for a special reason. He was considered suicide-p.r.o.ne. Therefore it was important to imprint him with a linear sense of time. To recreate the feeling of life as a project, a dream of future conquests.
He didn"t buy it.
If Eli needed him he could consider living. Otherwise he could not. Nothing indicated that Eli needed him.
But how would Eli be able to contact him in this place?
From the tree tops outside his window he sensed that he was high up. And furthermore, he was well-guarded. In addition to the doctors and nurses there was always at least one policeman nearby. Eli could not reach him and he could not reach Eli. The thought of escaping, of getting in touch with Eli one last time had gone through his head. But how?
The throat operation had made him capable of breathing on his own again. He no longer had to be attached to a respirator. But he could not get down food in the normal way (even this would be repaired, the doctor had a.s.sured him). The feeding tube dangled constantly at the edge of his vision. If he pulled it out an alarm would go off somewhere, and anyway he couldn"t see very well. To escape was basically unthinkable. A plastic surgeon had taken the opportunity to transplant a piece of skin from his back to his eyelid so he could shut his eye.
He shut his eye.
The door to his room opened. It was time again. He recognized the voice. The same man as before.
"Well, well," said the man. "They tell me there won"t be any talking in the near future. That"s too bad. But I have this stubborn thought that we could still manage to communicate with each other, you and me, if you"re up for it."
Hakan tried to remember what Plato said in The Republic The Republic about murderers and violent offenders, what you were supposed to do with them. about murderers and violent offenders, what you were supposed to do with them.
"I see you can shut your eye now. That"s good. You know what? I"ll try to make this a little more concrete for you. Because it struck me that maybe you don"t believe we"re going to identify you. But we will. I"m sure you remember you had a wrist.w.a.tch. Luckily it was an older watch with the manufacturer"s initials, serial number, and everything. We"re going to trace it within a couple of days, in one way or another. A week maybe. And there are other things.
"We"ll find you, that"s a certainty.
"So .. . Max. I don"t know why I want to call you Max, it is entirely provisional. Max? You maybe want to help us out a little here. Otherwise we"ll have to take a picture of you and send it to the papers and ... well, you see. It will be . . . complicated. Much easier if you talk ... or something . . . with me now.
"You had a piece of paper with the Morse code in your pocket. Do you know the Morse code? Because in that case we can talk by tapping." Hakan opened his eye, looked in the direction of the two dark spots in the white, blurry oval that was the man"s face. The man clearly chose to interpret this as an invitation. He continued.
"This man in the water. It wasn"t you who killed him, was it? The pathologists say that the bite marks in his neck were probably made by a child. And now we"ve had a report that I unfortunately can"t give any details of, but... I think you are protecting someone. Is this correct? Lift your hand if this is correct."
Hakan shut his eye. The policeman sighed.
"OK, then we"ll let the machine keep working. Is there anything else you would like to tell me before I go?"
The man was about to get up when Hakan lifted one hand. The policeman sat down again. Hakan lifted the hand higher. And waved. Good-bye. Good-bye.
The policeman let out a snorting sound, got up, and left.
Virginia"s injuries had not been life-threatening. On Friday afternoon she was discharged from the hospital with fourteen st.i.tches and a large bandage on her neck, a smaller one on her cheek. She had refused Lacke"s offer to stay with her, live with her, until she felt better. She had gone to bed Friday evening convinced that she would get up and go to work Sat.u.r.day morning. Couldn"t afford to stay home.
It had been hard to fall asleep. Memories of the attack kept returning, and she couldn"t get settled. Thought she saw black lumps emerge out of the shadows of her room and fall down on her as she lay in bed with her eyes wide open. Her wound itched under the bandage on her throat. Around two o"clock in the morning she got hungry, went out into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator.
Her stomach had felt empty, but as she stood there and looked at all the food, there was nothing she felt she wanted. From habit, she had still taken out the bread, b.u.t.ter, cheese, and milk and set them on the kitchen table.
She made herself a cheese sandwich and poured milk into a gla.s.s. Then she sat at the table and looked at the white liquid in the gla.s.s, the brown piece of bread with its yellow slice of cheese. It looked revolting. She didn"t want it. She threw it out, pouring the milk down the drain. There was a half-full bottle of white wine in the fridge. She poured out a gla.s.s, brought it to her lips. But when she smelled the wine she lost interest. With a feeling of failure she poured herself a gla.s.s of water from the tap. She hesitated as she brought it to her mouth. Surely you could always drink water?... Yes. She could drink the water. But it tasted . .. stale. As if everything good in the water had been removed and only left the flat dregs.
She went back to bed, shifting restlessly for a few more hours then finally falling asleep.
When she woke up it was half past ten. She threw herself out of bed, pulled on some clothes in the dimly lit bedroom. Good heavens. She should have been at the store at eight. Why hadn"t they called?
Oh, but wait. She had heard the phone ring. It had rung in her last dream before she woke up, then stopped. If they hadn"t called she would still be sleeping. She b.u.t.toned her blouse and walked over to the window, pulled up the blinds.
The light struck her face like a physical blow. She staggered backward, away from the window, and dropped the cords to the blinds. They slipped down again with a clattering sound, stopping at a crooked angle. She sat down on the bed. A single beam of sunlight came in through the window, shining on her naked foot.
A thousand pinp.r.i.c.ks.
As if her skin were being twisted in two directions at once.
What is this?
She moved her foot away, pulled on her socks. Moved her foot back into the sunlight. Better. Only a hundred pinp.r.i.c.ks. She stood up to go to work then sat down again.
Some kind of... shock.
The sensation when she pulled up the blinds had been ghastly. As if the light were heavy matter flung at her body, pushing her away. It had been the worst in the eyes. Two strong thumbs pressing on them, threatening to gouge them out of her head. They were still stinging.
She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, took her sungla.s.ses out of the bathroom cabinet and put them on.
Hunger raged in her body but all she had to do was think of the contents of the refrigerator and pantry to make all thoughts of eating breakfast disappear. And anyway she had no time. She was almost three hours late.
She went out, locked the door, and walked down the stairs as fast as she could. Her body was weak. Maybe it was a mistake to go to work today. Well, the store would only be open four more hours and it was now now the Sat.u.r.day customers started to come in. the Sat.u.r.day customers started to come in.
She was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she did not hesitate before opening the front door of the building.
The light was there again.
Her eyes hurt despite the sungla.s.ses, boiling water was poured over her hands and face. She gave a little scream. Pulled her hands into her coat, bent her face to the ground and ran. She could not protect her neck and scalp and they stung like they were on fire. Luckily it was not far to the store.
When she was safely inside, the stinging and pain quickly lifted. Most of the store windows were covered in advertising and protective plastic film so that the sunlight wouldn"t affect the goods. She took off her sungla.s.ses. It hurt a little, but that could be because a little bit of sunlight came in the s.p.a.ces between the advertising posters. She put her sungla.s.ses in her pocket and walked out to the office. Lennart, the store manager and her boss, was there filling out forms, but he looked up when she came in. She had expected some kind of reprimand but he simply said: "Hi, how"s it going."
"Oh ... fine."
"Shouldn"t you be at home getting some rest?"
"No, I thought..."
"You didn"t need to, you know. Lotten will fill in for you today. I tried to call you earlier, but when you didn"t pick up ..."
"Isn"t there anything for me to do, then?"
"Check with Berit in the meat department. And Virginia . . ."
"Yes."
"I"m sorry about what happened. I don"t know exactly how to say it, but... I feel badly about it. And I completely understand if you need to take it easy for a while."
Virginia couldn"t get her head around it. Lennart was not the kind of person who looked kindly on sick leave, or for that matter, any kind of problem that other people might have. And to hear him extend his per- per- sonal sympathies sonal sympathies was something completely new. She must look pretty terrible with her swollen cheek and her bandages. was something completely new. She must look pretty terrible with her swollen cheek and her bandages.
Virginia said: "Thanks. I"ll think it over," and went to the meat department. She looped over past the checkout registers in order to say hi to Lot-ten. Five people were lined up at her register and Virginia thought she should open another one after all. But the question was if Lennart even wanted her to sit at a checkout register looking as she did.
When she walked into the light from the horrible window behind the checkout registers it got like that again. Her face tightened, her eyes ached. It wasn"t as bad as the direct sunlight out on the street, but it was bad enough. She would not be able to sit there.
Lotten caught sight of her, waved in between two customers.
"Hi, I read . . . How are you doing?"
Virginia held up her hand, wiggled it from side to side: so so. Read? Read?
She nabbed the Svenska Dagbladet Svenska Dagbladet and and Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Nyheter, took them with her over to the meat department, quickly eyed the first page news. Nothing there. That would have been a reach. took them with her over to the meat department, quickly eyed the first page news. Nothing there. That would have been a reach.
The meat department was at the very back of the store, beside the milk products, strategically planned so that you had to walk through the whole store in order to get there. Virginia stopped next to the shelves with canned food. She was trembling with hunger. She looked carefully at all the cans.
Crushed tomatoes, mushrooms, mussels, tuna, ravioli, Bullen"s beer sausage, pea soup ... no. She felt nothing but revulsion.
Berit saw her from the meat counter, waved. As soon as Virginia had come around the back of the counter Berit hugged her, and carefully touched the bandage on her cheek.