‘I guess I’ve forgotten how to.’
The girl quickly turned around and walked back to her door. Oskar remained where he was looking at her. When she reached the heavy front door he expected that she would need to use both hands to pull it open. Instead she grasped the door handle with one hand and pulled it open so hard it banged into the wall stop, bounced and then closed behind her.
He pushed his hands into his pockets and felt sad. Thought about Bobby and how he had looked in the makeshift coffin Dad had made for him. Thought about the cross he had made in woodshop that had snapped in two as they hammered it into the frozen ground.
He ought to make a new one.
Friday
23 October
Håkan was sitting on a subway train again, on his way downtown. Ten thousand-kronor bills in his pocket, secured by a rubber band. He was going to do something good with them. He was going to save a life.
Ten thousand was a lot of money, and when you thought that those Save the Children campaigns claimed ‘One thousand kronor can feed one family for a whole year’, you would think that ten thousand could save a life, even in Sweden.
But whose life? And where?
You couldn’t just walk up and give the money to the first drug addict you bumped into and hope that…no. And it had to be a young person, anyway. He knew it was silly, but ideally it would be a weeping child like in one of those pictures. A child who took the money with tears in his eyes and then…and then what?
He got off at Odenplan and, without knowing why, walked in the direction of the public library. In the days that he had lived in Karlstad, when he was a Swedish teacher at the high school and still had a place to live, it was generally known that the Stockholm public library was a…good place.
Not until he saw the cupola, familiar to him through pictures in books and magazines, did he know why he had come here. Because it was a good place. Someone in the group, probably Gert, had told him how you went about buying sex there.
He had never done that. Buy sex.
Once Gert, Torgny and Ove had found a boy whose mother had been brought back from Vietnam by someone Gert knew. The boy was maybe twelve years old and knew what was expected of him, was well-paid for his trouble. And yet Håkan couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had sipped his Bacardi and Coke, enjoyed the boy’s naked body as he writhed and turned in the room where they had gathered.
But that was the limit.
The others had been sucked off by the boy one by one, but when it was Håkan’s turn a hard knot formed inside him. The whole situation was too disgusting. The room smelled of arousal, alcohol and mustiness. A drop of Ove’s cum glistened on the boy’s cheek. Håkan pushed the boy’s head aside when he lowered it to Håkan’s groin.
The others had taunted him, called him names, even threatened him. He was a witness, he needed to be a partner in crime. They taunted him about his scruples, but that wasn’t the problem. It was simply too ugly, the whole thing. The single room of Gert’s commuter apartment, the four mismatched armchairs arranged for the event, the dance music from the stereo.
He paid for his part of the affair and never saw the others again. He had his magazines and photos, his films. That had to be enough. Probably he also had his scruples, that only showed themselves this once in distaste for the situation.
Why then am I on my way to the city library?
He was probably going to take out a book. The fire three years ago had consumed his life, and his book collection. Yes. He could borrow The Queen’s Diadem by Almquist, before he performed his good deed.
It was quiet inside the library this morning. Older men and students, mostly. He quickly found the book he was looking for, read the first few lines.
Tintomara! Two things are white
Innocence—Arsenic
and put it back on the shelf. A bad feeling. It reminded him of his earlier life.
He had loved this book, used it in his class. Reading the first few words made him long for his reading chair. And the reading chair was supposed to be in a house that was his, a house filled with books, and he should have a job again and he should and he would. But he had found love, and that dictated his life nowadays. No reading chair.
He rubbed his hands together as if to erase the book they had been holding, and walked into an adjacent reading room.
There was a long table with people reading. Words, words, words. At the very back of the room there was a young man in a leather coat. He had tipped the chair back and was flipping through a book of photographs. Håkan moved in his direction, pretended to be interested in a shelf of geology books, glancing now and then at the youth. Finally the boy lifted his gaze and met his, raised his eyebrows in a question:
Want to?
No he didn’t want to. The youth was around fifteen years old, with a flat, eastern European face, pimples and narrow, deeply set eyes. Håkan shrugged and walked out of the room.
Outside the main entrance the youth caught up with him, gestured with his thumb and asked, ‘Got a light?’
Håkan shook his head. ‘Don’t smoke,’ he said in English.
‘OK.’
The boy pulled out a lighter, lit his cigarette and stared at him through the smoke. ‘What you like?’
‘No, I…’
‘Young, you like young?’
He pulled away from the youth, away from the main entrance where anyone could come walking by. He needed to think. He hadn’t expected it to be this straightforward. It had only been a kind of game, to check if what Gert had said was true.
The youth followed him, came up right next to him by the stone wall.
‘How young? Eight or nine? Is difficult, but—’
‘No!’
Did he really look like such a fucking pervert? Stupid thought. Neither Ove nor Torgny had looked particularly…remarkable. Normal guys with normal jobs. Only Gert, who lived on the proceeds of a huge inheritance from his father and could indulge himself in whatever he wanted. After multiple international trips he had acquired a truly appalling appearance. A flaccid mouth, glazed eyes.
The boy stopped talking when Håkan raised his voice, still studying him through narrowed eyes. Took a puff on his cigarette, then dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his foot, stretched out his arms.
‘What?’
‘No, I just…’
The boy took half a step closer.
‘What?’
‘I…maybe…twelve.’
‘Twelve? You like twelve?’
‘I…yes.’
‘Boy.’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. You wait. Number two.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Number two. Toilet.’
‘Oh. Yes.’
‘Ten minutes.’
The boy zipped his leather jacket and disappeared down the steps.
Twelve years old. Booth number two. Ten minutes.
This was really, really dumb. If a policeman came by. They must know about these transactions after all these years. That would be the end. They would connect him to the job he had done yesterday and that would be the end. He couldn’t do this.
Go over to the bathroom and take a look, that’s all.
The bathroom was empty. A urinal and three stalls. Number two had to be the one in the middle. He put a one crown coin in the lock, turned it and walked in. Closed the door behind him and sat down on the toilet seat.
The walls were covered with scribbles. Not at all what you would expect from the city library clientele. Here and there a literary quotation:
HARRY ME, MARRY ME, BURY ME, BITE ME
but mostly obscene drawings and jokes:
Killing for peace is like fucking for virginity.
Here I sit
I am elated
Came to shit
Ejaculated
as well as an impressive number of telephone numbers that one could call for a variety of interests. A few of them had the sign and were probably authenti
c. Not just someone trying to have a joke at someone else’s expense.
So, now he had checked it out. He should leave. Never knew what the young man in the leather jacket would think of. He stood up, urinated into the toilet, sat down again. Why had he urinated? He didn’t really need to go. He knew why he had done it.
Just in case.
The outer door opened. He held his breath. Something in him hoped it was a policeman. A large male policeman who would kick open the door to the stall and beat him up with the baton before he arrested him.
Low voices, soft steps, a light knock on the door.
‘Yes?’
Another knock. He swallowed a thick clump of saliva, leaned forward and unlocked the door.
A boy about eleven or twelve stood there. Blond hair, heart-shaped face. Thin lips and large, blue eyes devoid of expression. A red puffy jacket that was a little too big for him. Right behind him was the older boy in the leather coat. He held up five fingers.
‘Five hundred.’
The way he said ‘hundred’ sounded like ‘chundred’.
Håkan nodded and the older boy carefully guided the younger one into the stall and shut the door. Wasn’t five hundred a bit much? Not that it mattered but…
He looked at the boy he had bought. Hired. Was he on drugs? Probably. The look in his eyes was far away, unfocused. The boy stood pressed up against the door half a metre away. He was so short that Håkan didn’t need to tilt his head to look into his eyes.
‘Hello.’
The boy didn’t answer, just shook his head, pointed to his groin and made a gesture with his finger: unzip your pants. He obeyed. The boy sighed, made a new gesture: take out your penis.
Håkan’s cheeks grew hot as he obeyed the boy. That was how it was. He was following the boy’s orders. He had no will of his own. He wasn’t the one doing this. His small penis was not in the least erect, hardly made it down to the toilet lid. A slight tickle when the head touched the cold surface.
He narrowed his eyes, tried to imagine the boy’s gestures so they more closely resembled his beloved. It didn’t work so well. His beloved was beautiful. This boy, who now bent down and pushed his head towards his groin, was not.
His mouth.
There was something wrong with the boy’s mouth. He put his hand to the boy’s forehead before he reached his goal.
‘Your mouth?’
The boy shook his head and pushed on his hand so he could continue his work. But now Håkan couldn’t. He had heard about this kind of thing.
He put his thumb against the boy’s upper lip and pulled up. The boy had no teeth. Someone had knocked or pulled them out in order to make him more fit for his work. The boy stood up, a frothy, whispering sound as he crossed his arms across his chest in the puffy jacket. Håkan tucked his penis back into his pants, zipped them and stared at the floor.
Not like this. Never like this.
Something came into his line of vision. An outstretched hand. Five fingers. Five hundred.
He took the pack of bills out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. The boy took off the rubber band, ran his pointed finger across the ten pieces of paper, replaced the rubber band and held the packet aloft.
‘Why?’
‘Because…your mouth. Maybe you can…get new teeth.’
The boy smiled a little. Not a wide grin, but the corners of his mouth pulled up. Perhaps he was only smiling at Håkan’s folly. The boy thought for a moment, then took a thousand kronor note from the packet and put it in his outer pocket. Put the rest in an inner pocket. Håkan nodded.
The boy unlocked the door, hesitated. Then he turned to Håkan, stroked his cheek.
‘Sank you.’
Håkan put his hand over the boy’s, held it against his cheek and closed his eyes. If only someone could.
‘Forgive me.’
‘Yes.’
The boy pulled his hand back. Its warmth was still on Håkan’s cheek when the outer door banged shut. He stayed in the booth, staring at something someone had written on the wall.
WHOEVER YOU ARE. I LOVE YOU.
And right underneath it someone had written,
DO YOU WANT SOME COCK?
The warmth had long since left his cheek when he made his way back to the subway and bought an evening paper with his last few kronor. Four pages were devoted to the murder. Among others was a picture of the hollow where he had done it. It was full of lighted candles, flowers. He studied the picture and didn’t feel much.
If you only knew. Please forgive me, but if you only knew.
On his way home from school Oskar stopped under the two windows of her apartment. The closest was only two metres from his own room. The blinds were drawn and the windows formed light grey rectangles against the dark grey concrete walls. Looked suspicious. Probably they were a…strange kind of family.
Drug addicts.
Oskar looked around, then walked in the front door and looked at the list of names. Five surnames neatly spelled out in plastic letters. One line was empty. The name that had stood there before, HELLBERG, had been there so long you could read it from the dark contours left against a sun-bleached background. But no new letters, not even a note.
He jogged up the two sets of stairs to her door. Same thing there. Nothing. The nameplate attached to the letter slot was blank. The way it looked when an apartment was unoccupied.
Maybe she had been lying. Maybe she didn’t live here at all. But she had walked in this entrance. Sure. But she could have done that anyway. If she—
The front door downstairs opened.
He turned and quickly walked down the stairs. Let it not be her. She would think that he was somehow…But it wasn’t her.
Halfway down the stairs Oskar met a man he had never seen before. A short, stocky man who was half bald and smiled in an unnaturally wide way.
The man saw Oskar, lifted his head and nodded, his mouth still pulled up in that clown-like smile.
Oskar paused in the front entrance, listening. Heard keys pulled out and a door open. Her door. That man was probably her dad. Granted, Oskar had never seen a real-life drug addict but that man looked sick.
No wonder she was strange.
Oskar went down to the playground, sat on the edge of the sandpit and kept an eye on her window to see if the blinds had been pulled up. Even the bathroom window looked like it had been covered on the inside. The frosted glass was much darker than in other people’s apartments.
He took his Rubik’s cube out from his pocket. It creaked and squeaked as he turned it. A copy. The original was much more supple but cost five times as much and could only be found in the well-guarded toy store in Vällingby.
Two sides had been completed, all one colour, and on a third side only one little bit was out of place. But he couldn’t get it there without destroying the two completed sides. He had saved an article from Expressen that described the various turns—that was how he had managed to solve two sides, but after that it was much harder.
He looked at the cube, tried to think out the solution instead of just turning. He couldn’t. His brain couldn’t manage it. He pressed the cube against his forehead, as if to delve into its interior. No answer. He placed the cube on a corner of the sandbox half a metre away. Stared at it.
Glide, glide, glide.
Telekinesis, that was the name for it. In the US they had run experiments. There were people who could do stuff like that. ESP. Extra Sensory Perception. Oskar would have given anything to be able to do something like that.
And maybe…maybe he could.
Today at school hadn’t been so bad. Tomas Ahlstedt had tried to pull his chair out in the cafeteria, but he had seen it in time. That was all. He was going to go out into the forest with his knife, to that tree. Make a more serious attempt. Not get all carried away like yesterday.
Cut into the tree calmly and methodically, hack it apart and concentrate on Tomas Ahlstedt’s face in his mind the whole time. But… there was the whole thin
g with the murderer. The real murderer who was out there somewhere.
No, he had to wait until the murderer was caught. On the other hand; if there was a normal murderer then the experiment was useless. Oskar looked at the cube, imagined a line connecting his eyes to the cube.
Glide, glide, glide.
Nothing happened. Oskar stuffed the cube into his pocket, got up, brushed some sand from his pants and looked at her window.
The blinds were still drawn.
He went inside to work on his scrapbook, to cut out and paste the articles about the Vällingby murder. There would be a lot of them, in time. Especially if it happened again. He was hoping a little that that would be the case. Hopefully in Blackeberg.
So the police would come to his school, the teachers would be serious, concerned, that kind of atmosphere. He liked it.
‘Never again. No matter what you say.’
‘Håkan…’
‘No. It’s just—no.’
‘I’ll die.’
‘Then die.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘No. I don’t. But you could do it yourself.’
‘I’m still too weak.’
‘You’re not weak.’
‘Too weak for—that.’
‘Well, then I don’t know. But I won’t do it again. It’s so— horrible, so…’
‘I know.’
‘You don’t know. It’s different for you, it is…’
‘What do you know about how it is for me?’
‘Nothing, but at least you’re…’
‘Do you think I like it?’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘No.’
‘No, of course not. Well, anyway…I’m not doing it again. Maybe you’ve others who have helped you who have been…better at this than me. Have you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see.’
‘Håkan?’
‘I love you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you love me, even one little bit?’
‘Would you do it again if I said I loved you?’
‘No.’
‘I should love you anyway, you mean.’
‘You only love me to the extent I help you stay alive.’
‘Yes. Isn’t that what love is?’
Let the Right One In Page 5