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 recognized. He b.u.mped 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 underpa.s.s.
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 pa.s.sport photo of Jocke in which he looked like a ma.s.s murderer, at the very least. Lacke continued on past the Blackeberg school"s dour brick facade, the wide high steps, like the entrance to the National Courts, or to h.e.l.l. 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 Bjornsonsgatan. 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 bird nests. It wasn"t just what the creature looked like, it was also the way in which it attacked. He would maybe, 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 meters above the ground. 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 meters above the ground.
To fall five meters 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.
d.a.m.n it...
He pulled the box of chocolates from his pants. Maybe his body heat had already melted the chocolates? He shook the box gently. No. It made a rattling sound. The chocolates had not run together. He continued along Bjornsonsgatan, 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 in order 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 his neck stood up.
The child is here.
He stood frozen in place, then threw himself on the shining red b.u.t.ton 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 realize 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 front of him in both hands, feeling silly. A bang as she turned the first lock, the rustle of keys as she unlocked the dead bolt. 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 network of red lines in the whites and the pupils so tightly contracted they had almost disappeared. She nodded. "I look like h.e.l.l."
"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 that he had been holding in front of him the whole time like a shield. Virginia accepted it. "Thank you. you.
"Virginia. Is there anything I can-?"
"No. It"ll be alright. 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? 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 bring her to the hospital now. Well. He would come back here tomorrow morning. If there was no improvement he would bring 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 to the outside, he sat down on the highest step and leaned his head in his hands.
/ am . .. responsible. 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, then, he thought. he thought. Come on. 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 according to some basic form of normality.
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 into 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 was all she needed to fall asleep as if she had been hit in the head. The only effect on her now was that she became intensely nauseated and after five minutes vomited green slime and both of the halfdissolved 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 ground 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 toward 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 from the floor, 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 that: 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 walked to and fro in 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. But for now ... The saliva rose up in her mouth, wet antic.i.p.ation. She cut into herself. Deeply...
SAt.u.r.dAY.
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, pytt-i-panna, fried herring, and roasted seabird-he made so often that he had mastered them. Tomorrow they would have fried herring, and roasted seabird-he made so often that he had mastered them. Tomorrow they would have pytt-i-panna pytt-i-panna made from the leftovers. made from the leftovers.
Oskar had spent the hours before dinner 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 antic.i.p.ation of his visit, it was as if nothing had happened for ... a long time.
Here were still 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 traveling 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 the a.s.sortment 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 summertime herring fishing.
Then they ate, and when his dad was done with the dishes they played tic-tac-toe.
Oskar liked sitting like that with his dad; the graph paper on the thin table, their heads leaning over the page, close to each other. The fire crackled in the fireplace.
Oskar was crosses and his dad circles, as usual. His dad never let Oskar win purposely and so until a few years ago his dad had always won easily, even if Oskar got lucky now and again. But now it was more even. Maybe it had to do with him practicing so much with the Rubik"s Cube.
The matches could go on over half the page, which was to Oskar"s advantage. He was good at keeping in mind places with holes that could be filled if Dad did this or that, mask an offensive as a defense. Tonight it was Oskar who won.
Three matches in a row had now been encircled and marked with an "O" in the middle. Only a little one, where Oskar had been thinking of something else, had a "P" on it. Oskar filled in a cross and got two open fours where his dad could only block one. His dad sighed and shook his head.
"Well, Oskar. Looks like I"ve met my match."
"Seems like it."
For the sake of the game, his dad blocked the one four and Oskar filled in the other. His dad closed one side of the four and Oskar put a fifth cross on the other side, drew a circle around the whole thing, and wrote a neat "O." His dad scratched his beard and pulled out a new sheet of paper. Held his pen up.
"But this time I"m going to .. ."
"You can always dream. You start."
Four crosses and three circles into the match there was a knock at the front door. Shortly thereafter it opened and Oskar could hear thuds from someone stamping the snow off their feet.
"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo!"
Dad looked up from the paper, leaned back in the chair, and looked out into the hall. Oskar pinched his lips together.
No.
His dad nodded at the new arrival. "Come in."
"Thank you."
Soft thumps from someone walking through the hall with woolen socks on their feet. A moment later Janne came into the kitchen, said: "Oh I see. Well aren"t you two having a cozy evening."
Dad gestured toward Oskar. "You"ve met my boy."
"Sure," Janne said. "Hi Oskar, how"s it going?"
"Fine."
Until now. Go away.
Janne thudded over to the kitchen table; the woolen socks had slid down his heels and were fluttering out in front of his toes like deformed flippers. He pulled out a chair and sat down.
"I see you"re playing tic-tac-toe."
"Yes, but the boy is too good for me. I can"t beat him anymore."
"No. Been practicing in town? Do you dare play against me, then, Oskar?"
Oskar shook his head. Didn"t even want to look at Janne, knew what he would see there. Watery eyes, a mouth pulled into a sheep-grin; yes, Janne looked like an old sheep and the blond curly hair only strengthened the impression. One of Dad"s "friends" who was Oskar"s enemy.
Janne rubbed his hands together, producing a sound like sandpaper, and in the backlight from the hall Oskar could see small flakes of skin fall to the floor. Janne had some kind of skin disease that flared up in the summer that made his face look like a rotten blood orange.
"Well, well. It sure is cozy in here."
You always always say that. Go away with your revolting face and your old say that. Go away with your revolting face and your old stale words. stale words.