Let the Right One In

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  A pretty long intro, and then the singer’s soft voice began rolling out of the speakers.

  ‘The girl puts flowers in her hair

  as she wanders through the field

  She will be nineteen this year

  And she smiled to herself as she walks

  Eli came into the living room. She had fastened a towel around her hair, in her hand she had the plastic bag with her clothes. Her face was clean now and some wet hair fell in tendrils over her cheeks, ears. Oskar folded his arms across his chest where he stood next to the record player, nodding to her.

  ‘Why are you smiling, the boy asks then

  When they meet by chance at the gate

  I’m thinking of the one who will be mine

  Says the girl with eyes so blue

  The one that I love so.

  ‘Oskar?’

  ‘Yes?’ he lowered the volume, inclined his head towards the record player. ‘Silly, isn’t it?’

  Eli shook her head. ‘No, this is great. This I really like.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes. But Oskar…’ Eli looked like she was going to say more, but only added an ‘oh well’ and undid the towel knotted around her waist. It fell to the floor at her feet and she stood there naked. Eli made a sweeping gesture with her hand over her thin body. ‘Just so you know.’

  ‘…down to the lake, where they draw in the sand

  They quietly say to each other;

  You my friend, it is you I want

  La-lala-lalala…

  A short instrumental section and then the song was over. A mild crackling from the speakers as the needle moved towards the next song, while Oskar looked at Eli.

  The small nipples looked almost black against her pale white skin. Her upper body was slender, straight and without much in the way of contours. Only the ribs stood out clearly in the sharp overhead light. Her thin arms and legs appeared unnaturally long the way they grew out of her body; a young sapling covered with human skin. Between the legs she had…nothing. No slit, no penis. Just a smooth surface.

  Oskar pulled his hand through his hair, let it rest cupped against his neck. He didn’t want to say that ridiculous mummy-word, but it slipped out anyway.

  ‘But you don’t have a…willie.’

  Eli bent her head, looked down at her groin as if this was a completely new discovery. The next song started and Oskar didn’t hear what Eli answered. He pushed back the lever that raised the needle so it lifted from the record.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I’ve had one.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  Eli chuckled and Oskar heard himself, what the question sounded like, blushing a little. Eli waved her arms to the side and pulled her lower lip over the upper one.

  ‘I left it on the subway.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  Without looking at Eli, Oskar walked to the bathroom to check that there were no traces.

  Warm steam hung in the air, the mirror was misted over. The bathtub was as white as before, just a faint yellow streak of old dirt near the edge that never went away. The sink, clean.

  It hasn’t happened.

  Eli had simply gone into the bathroom for appearance sake, dropped the illusion. But, no: the soap. He lifted it up. The soap was faintly streaked with pink and in the water that collected in the soapdish, there was a lump of something that looked like a tadpole, yes: alive, and he flinched when it started to—

  to swim

  —to move, wag its tail and wriggle its way to the outlet of the porcelain indentation, down into the sink, getting stuck on the edge. But it didn’t move there, was not alive. He splashed water from the tap on it so it was flushed down the drain. He also rinsed off the soap and washed out the soap holder. Then he took his bathrobe from the hook, went back into the living room and held it out to Eli who was still standing naked, looking around.

  ‘Thanks. When will your mother be back?’

  ‘In a couple of hours.’ Oskar held up the bag with her clothes. ‘Should I throw these away?’

  Eli pulled on the bathrobe, tied the belt around the middle.

  ‘No. I’ll get it later.’ She nudged Oskar’s shoulder. ‘Oskar? You understand now that I’m not a girl. That I’m not…’

  Oskar stepped away from her.

  ‘You’re like a goddamn broken record. I got it. You told me already.’

  ‘But I haven’t.’

  ‘Of course you have.’

  ‘When?’

  Oskar thought it over.

  ‘I can’t remember, but I knew about it at least. Have known it for a while.’

  ‘Are you…disappointed?’

  ‘Why would I be?’

  ‘Because…I don’t know. Because you think it’s…complicated. Your friends…’

  ‘Cut it out! Cut it out! You’re sick. Just lay off.’

  ‘OK.’

  Eli fiddled with the belt of the bathrobe, then walked over to the record player and looked at the turning record. Turned around, looked around the room.

  ‘You know, it’s been a long time since I was…just hanging out in someone’s home like this. I don’t really know…What should I do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Eli let her shoulders fall, pushed her hands into the pockets of the bathrobe and watched the LP’s dark hole in the middle as if hypnotised. Opened her mouth as if to say something, closed it again. Took her right hand out of the pocket, stretched it out towards the record and pushed her finger on it so it came to a stop.

  ‘Watch it. It can get…damaged.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Eli quickly pulled his hand back and the record sped up, kept turning. Oskar saw that his finger had left a damp imprint behind that could be seen every time the record spun through the strip reflected from the overhead light. Eli put his hand back in the robe’s pocket, watching the record as if trying to listen to the music by studying the tracks.

  ‘This sounds a bit…but…’ the corners of Eli’s mouth twitched, ‘…I haven’t had a…normal friendship with anyone in two hundred years.’

  He looked at Oskar with a sorry-I’m-saying-such-silly-things smile. Oskar widened his eyes.

  ‘Are you really that old?’

  ‘Yes. No. I was born about two hundred and twenty years ago, but half the time I’ve slept.’

  ‘That’s normal, I do that too. Or at least…eight hours…what does that make…one third of the time.’

  ‘Yes. But…when I say sleep I mean that there are months at a time when I don’t…get up at all. And then a few months when I… live. But then I rest during the daytime.’

  ‘Is that how it works?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s how it is with me at any rate. And then when I wake up I’m…little again. And weak. That’s when I need help. That’s maybe why I’ve been able to survive. Because I’m small. And people want to help me. But…for very different reasons.’

  A shadow crossed Eli’s cheek as he clenched his teeth, pushed his hands down into the pockets of the robe, found something, drew it up. A shiny, thin strip of paper. Something Oskar’s mum had left there; she sometimes used Oskar’s bathrobe. Eli gently put the strip of paper back in the pocket as if it was something valuable.

  ‘Do you sleep in a coffin?’

  Eli laughed, shook his head. ‘No, no, I…’

  Oskar couldn’t keep it in any longer. He didn’t mean to but it came out like an accusation when he said: ‘But you kill people!’

  Eli stared back at him with an expression that looked like surprise, as if Oskar had forcefully pointed out that he had five fingers on each hand or some equally self-evident fact.

  ‘Yes. I kill people. Unfortunately.’

  ‘So why do you?’

  A flash of anger from Eli’s eyes.

  ‘If you have a better idea I’d like to hear it.’

  ‘Yes, what…blood…there must be some way of…some way to…that you…’


  ‘There isn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Eli snorted, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘Because I am like you.’

  ‘What do you mean like me? I…’

  Eli thrust his hand through the air as if he was holding a knife, said, ‘“What are you looking at, idiot? Want to die, or something?”’

  Stabbed the air with his empty hand. ‘That’s what happens if you look at me.’

  Oskar rubbed his lips together, dampening them.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘It’s not me that’s saying it. It’s you. That was the first thing I heard you say. Down on the playground.’

  Oskar remembered. The tree. The knife. How he had held up the blade of the knife like a mirror, seen Eli for the first time.

  Do you have a reflection? The first time I saw you was in a mirror.

  ‘I…don’t kill people.’

  ‘No, but you would like to. If you could. And you would really do it if you had to.’

  ‘Because I hate someone, That’s a very big…’

  ‘Difference. Is it?’

  ‘Yes…?’

  ‘If you got away with it. If it just happened. If you could wish someone dead and they died. Wouldn’t you do it then?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Sure you would. And that would be for your own enjoyment. Your revenge. I do it because I have to. There is no other way.’

  ‘But it’s only because…they hurt me, because they tease me, because I…’

  ‘Because you want to live. Just like me.’

  Eli held out his arms, laid them against Oskar’s cheeks, brought his face closer.

  ‘Be me a little.’

  And kissed him.

  The man’s fingers are curled around some dice and Oskar sees that the nails are painted black.

  Silence blankets the room like thick fog. The thin hand tips… slowly…and the dice fall out, onto the table…pa-bang. Hit against each other, spin around, stop.

  A two. And a four.

  Oskar feels a sense of relief, though he doesn’t know where it comes from, when the man walks around the table, stopping in front of the row of boys like a general in front of his army. The man’s voice is tonelessly flat, neither low nor high as he stretches out his long index finger and starts to count down the row.

  ‘One…two…three…four…’

  Oskar looks to the left, in the direction the man has started to count. The boys stand relaxing, freed. A sob. The boy next to Oskar bends over, his lower lip trembling. Oh. He’s the one who is… number six. Oskar now understands his own relief.

  ‘Five…six…and…seven.’

  The finger points straight at Oskar. The man looks into his eyes. And smiles.

  No!

  That wasn’t…Oskar tears his gaze away from the man, looks at the dice. They now show a three and a four. The boy next to Oskar looks around wildly as if he has just woken up from a nightmare. For a second their eyes meet. Empty. Without comprehension.

  Then a scream from next to the wall.

  …mother…

  The woman with the brown shawl runs towards him, but two men intervene, gripping her arms and throwing her back against the stone wall. Oskar’s arms fly out a little as if to catch when she falls and his lips form the word ‘…Mama!’

  Hands as strong as knots are laid over his shoulders and he is taken out of the line, led to a little door. The man in the wig is still holding out his finger, following him with it while he is pushed, pulled out of the room into a dark chamber that smells…alcohol…

  Then flickering, fuzzy images; light, dark, stone, bare skin…until the picture stabilises 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 prepared 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 towards the stream, towards 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 shirt, 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 Oskar when he fell backwards from his 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 recognised it. It was the wallpaper in his living room. He was in the living room in his and his mum’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 on the couch, looked around to reassure himself
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.

  ‘Yes. Right. Your mother.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They weren’t the ones who—’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  Eli’s hands squeezed so hard together 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 on 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 rested 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.

  ‘You can take something of mine,’ Oskar said.

  ‘It’s OK.’

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