Let the right one in (46 page)

... alcohol. ..

... then flickering, fuzzy images; light, dark, stone, bare skin .. .
until the picture stabilizes and Oskar feels a strong pressure against his
chest. He cannot move his arms. His right ear feels as if it is going to
burst, lies pressed against a .. . wooden plank.

Something is in his mouth. A piece of rope. He sucks on the rope, opens
his eyes.

He is lying face down on a table. Arms bound to the legs of the table. He
is naked. In front of his eyes are two figures: the man with the wig and
another one. A little fat man who looks... funny. No. Who looks like
someone who thinks he is funny. Always tells stories that no one laughs
at. The funny man who has a knife in one hand, a bowl in the other.
Something is wrong.

The pressure against his chest, his ear. Against his knees. There should
be pressure against his... willie as well. But it is as if there is a ... hole in
the table right there. Oskar tries to wriggle a little to check it out but his
body is bound too hard.

The man in the wig says something to the funny man and the funny man
laughs, nods. Then both of them crouch down. The wig man fastens his
gaze on Oskar. His eyes are clear blue, like the sky on a cold autumn
day. Looks as if he is taking a friendly interest. The man looks into
Oskar's eyes as if he is searching for something wonderful in there,
something he loves.

The funny man crawls in under the table with the knife and the bowl in
his hands. And Oskar understands.

He also knows that if he can just... get this piece of rope out of his mouth
he doesn't have to be here. Then he disappears.

Oskar tries to pull his head back, leave the kiss. But Eli, who was pre-
pared for this reaction, cups one hand around the back of his head,
pushing his lips against his, forcing him to stay in Eli's memories,
continues.

The piece of rope is pressed into his mouth and there is a hissing, wet
sound when Oskar farts with fear. The man in the wig scrunches up his
nose and smacks his lips, disapprovingly. His eyes don't change. Still the
same expression, as on a child opening a cardboard box he knows
contains a puppy.

Cold fingers grasp Oskar's penis, pulling on it. He opens his mouth to
scream "nooo!" but the rope prevents him from forming the word and all
that comes out is "aaaaaaah!"

The man under the table asks something and the wig man nods without
shifting his gaze from Oskar. Then the pain. A red hot iron forced into
his groin, gliding up through his stomach, his chest corroded by a
cylinder of fire that passes right through his body and he screams,
screams so his eyes are filled with tears and his body burns.
His heart beats against the table like a fist against a door and he shuts
his eyes tight, he bites the rope while at a distance he hears splashing,
he sees . . .

. .. his mother on her knees at the stream rinsing the clothes. Mama.
Mama. She drops something, a piece of cloth, and Oskar gets up, he has
been lying on his stomach and his body is burning, he gets up, he runs
toward the stream, toward the rapidly disappearing piece of cloth, he
throws himself into the stream to put out his torched body, to save the
piece of cloth, and he manages to get it. His sister's shirt. He holds it up
to the light, to his mother, who is silhouetted on the shore, and drops fall
from the cloth, glittering in the sun, falling splashing into the stream, in
his eyes, and he cannot see clearly because of the water running into his
eyes, over his cheeks as he.. .

... opens his eyes and sees the blond hair unclearly, the blue eyes like
distant forest pools. Sees the bowl the man is holding in his hands, the
bowl he brings to his mouth and how he drinks. How the man shuts his
eyes, finally shuts them and drinks . . .

More time.. . Endless time. Imprisoned. The man bites. And drinks. Bites.
And drinks.

Then the glowing rod moves up into his head and everything turns pink
as he jerks his head up from the rope and falls...

+

Eli caught him when he fell backward from Eli's lips. Held him in his arms. Oskar fumbled for whatever there was to grasp, the body in front of him, and squeezed it hard, looked unseeing around the room. Stay still.

After a while a pattern started to emerge before Oskar's eyes. Wallpaper. Beige with white, almost invisible roses. He recognized it. It was the wallpaper in his living room. He was in the living room in his and his mom's apartment.

And the person in his arms was . . . Eli.

A boy. My friend. Yes.

Oskar felt sick to his stomach, dizzy. He freed himself from Eli's arms and sat down in the couch, looked around as if to reassure himself again that he was back and not... there. He swallowed, noticing that he could recall every detail of the place he had just been. It was like a real memory. Something that had happened to him, recently. The funny man, the bowl, the pain ...

Eli kneeled on the floor in front of him, hands pressed against his stomach.

"Sorry."

Just like. . .

"What happened to Mama?"

Eli looked uncertain, asked:

"Do you mean . . . my mother?"

"No ..." Oskar grew silent, saw the image of Mama down by the stream rinsing the clothes. But it wasn't his mother. They didn't look anything alike. He rubbed his eyes and said,

"Yes. Right. Your mother."

"I don't know."

"They weren't the ones who—"

"I don't know!"

Eli's hands squeezed so hard in front of his stomach that the knuckles whitened, his shoulders pulled up. Then he relaxed, said more gently:

"I don't know. Excuse me. Excuse the whole ... thing. I wanted you to ... I don't know. Please excuse me. It was . . . stupid."

Eli was a copy of his mother. Thinner, smoother, younger but... a copy. In twenty years Eli would probably look just like the woman by the stream.

Except that he won't. He's going to look exactly like he looks now.
Oskar sighed, exhausted, leaned back in the couch. Too much. An incipient headache groped along his temples, found foothold, pressed in. Too much. Eli stood up.

"I'll go now."

Oskar leaned his head in his hand, nodded. Didn't have the energy to protest, think about what he should do. Eli took off the bathrobe and Oskar got another glimpse of his groin. Now he saw that in the midst of that pale skin there was a faint pink spot, a scar.

What does he do when he . .. pees? Or maybe he doesn't. . .
Couldn't muster the energy to ask. Eli crouched down next to the plastic bag, untied it, and started to pull out his clothes. Oskar said: "You can ... take something of mine."

"It's OK."

Eli took out the checkered shirt. Dark squares against the blue. Oskar sat up. The headache whirled against his temples.

"Don't be silly, you can—"

"It's OK."

Eli started to put on the bloodstained shirt and Oskar said: "You're gross, don't you get it? You're gross."

Eli turned to him with the shirt in his hands. "Do you think so?"

"Yes."

Eli put the shirt back in the bag.

"What should I take then?"

"Something from the closet. Whatever you like."

Eli nodded, went into Oskar's room where the closets were while Oskar let himself slide sideways into the couch and pressed his hands against his temples to prevent them from cracking.

Mom, Eli's mom, my mom. Eli, me. Two hundred years. Eli's dad. Eli's
dad? That old man who ... the old man.

Eli came back into the living room. Oskar got ready to say what he was planning to say but stopped himself when he saw that Eli was wearing a dress. A faded yellow summer dress with small white dots. One of his mother's dresses. Eli stroked his hand over it.

"Is this alright? I took the one that looked the most worn."

"But it's..."

"I'll bring it back later." Yes, yes, yes.

Eli went up to him, crouched down, and took his hand.

"Oskar? I'm sorry that... I don't know what I should . . ." Oskar waved with his other hand to get him to stop, said: "You know that that old guy, that he's escaped, don't you?"

"What old guy?"

"The old guy who ... the one you said was your dad. The one who lived with you."

"What about him?"

Oskar shut his eyes. Blue lightning flashed inside his eyelids. The chain of events he had reconstructed from the papers flashed past and he got angry, loosening his hand from Eli's and making it into a fist, hitting against his own throbbing head. He said with his eyes still shut: "Cut it out. Just cut it out. I know all of it, OK. Quit pretending. Quit lying, I'm so damn tired of that."

Eli didn't say anything. Oskar pinched his eyes shut, breathed in and out.

"The old man has escaped. They've been looking for him the whole day without finding him. Now you know."

A pause. Then Eli's voice, above Oskar's head:

"Where?"

"Here. In Judarn. The forest. By Akeshov."

Oskar opened his eyes. Eli had stood up, stood there with his hand over his mouth and large, frightened eyes above his hand. The dress was too big, hung like a sack over his thin shoulders, and he looked like a kid who had borrowed his mom's clothes without permission and was now awaiting his punishment.

"Oskar," said Eli. "Don't go out. After it gets dark. Promise me that." The dress. The words. Oskar snorted, couldn't help saying it. "You sound like my mom."

+

The squirrel darts down the trunk of the oak tree, stops, listens. A siren, in the distance.

+

On Bergslagsvagen an ambulance is going by with flashing blue lights, the sirens on.

Inside the ambulance there are three people. Lacke Sorensson is sitting on a folding seat and is holding a bloodless, lacerated hand belonging to Virginia Lind. An ambulance technician is adjusting the tube that administers saline solution to Virginia's body in order to give her heart something to pump around, now that she has lost so much blood.

+

The squirrel judges the sound to be not dangerous, irrelevant. It continues down the tree trunk. All day there have been people in the forest, dogs. Not a moment of calm and only now, when it is dark, does the squirrel dare come down out of the oak tree it has been forced to hole up in all day.

Now the dogs' barking and the voices have died down, gone away. The thundering bird that has been hovering over the tree tops also appears to have returned to its nest.

The squirrel reaches the foot of the tree, runs along a thick root. It does not like to make its way over the ground in the dark, but hunger forces it on. It makes its way with alertness, stopping to listen, looking around every ten meters. Makes sure to steer clear of a badger den that has been inhabited as recently as this summer. He hasn't seen the family for a long time but you can never be too careful.

Finally the squirrel reaches its goal: the nearest of the many winter stores it has laid up in the fall. The temperature this evening has sunk below freezing and on top of the snow that has been melting all day there is now a thin, hard crust. The squirrel scratches with its claws through the crust, gets through, and moves down. Stops, listens, and digs again. Through snow, leaves, dirt.

Just as it picks up a nut between its paws it hears a sound.

Danger.

It takes the nut in its teeth and runs straight up into a pine tree without having time to cover over the store. Once in the safety of a branch it takes the nut into its paws again, tries to locate the sound. Its hunger is great and the food only some centimeters from its mouth but the danger must first be located, identified, before it is time to eat.

The squirrel's head jerks from side to side, his nose trembles as he looks down over the moon-shadowed landscape below and traces the sound to its source. Yes. Taking the long way around was worth it. The scratching, wet sound comes from the badger den.

Badgers can't climb trees. The squirrel relaxes a little and takes a bite of the nut while it continues to study the ground, but now more as a member of a theater audience, third balcony. Wants to see what will happen, how many badgers there are.

But what emerges from the badger's den is no badger. The squirrel removes the nut from its mouth, looks down. Tries to understand. Put what it sees together with known facts. Doesn't manage it.

Therefore takes the nut into its mouth again, dashes further up the trunk, all the way up into the very top.

Maybe one of those can climb trees.

You can never be too careful.

NOVEMBER [EVENING/NIGHT]

At is half past eight, Sunday evening.

At the same time as the ambulance with Virginia and Lacke is driving over the Traneberg Bridge, the Stockholm district chief of police holds up a photograph for the image-hungry reporters, Eli chooses a dress out of Oskar's mother's closet, Tommy squeezes glue into a plastic bag and draws in the exquisite fumes of numbness and forgetfulness, a squirrel sees Hakan Bengtsson—as the first living creature in fourteen hours to have done so—and Staffan, one of the ones who has been searching for him, is pouring out a cup of tea.

He has not realized that a sliver is missing from the very front of the spout and a large quantity of tea runs along the spout, the teapot, down onto the kitchen counter. He mumbles something and tips the teapot at an even steeper angle so the tea comes splashing out and the lid tumbles off and into the cup. Scalding hot tea splashes onto his hands and he slams the teapot down, holding his arms stiffly at his sides, while in his head he starts to run through the Hebrew alphabet in order to quell his impulse to throw the teapot against the wall.