The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

‘My mother’s a doctor,’ Minoo jabbers. ‘The flu going around is pretty nasty. It hits you out of nowhere and you’re as sick as dog.’ Minoo takes Gustaf’s arm and lets him show her the way to his room on the second floor.

  ‘Can you turn on the light?’ she asks, as they enter the darkened room.

  ‘Yes,’ he answers, and collapses on to his bed with a heavy thud.

  It takes Minoo a second to pick up on it – it’s like when little kids are trying to be funny and answer exactly what you ask them, no more.

  ‘Where’s the switch?’ Minoo asks.

  ‘To the right of the door.’

  She turns on the ceiling light. The bed that Gustaf is lying on is unmade. Otherwise the room is tidy.

  On the wall beside the bed there’s a photo of Rebecka and Gustaf. Their faces fill the frame so it’s impossible to determine where it was taken. You can only tell from the light that it was shot outside. They look happy. At that particular hundredth of a second that the camera captured, they had no idea of what was in store for them.

  Gustaf may have known, she reminds herself. Far from depicting a happy couple, it may be of a murderer and his victim.

  She feels a gentle shove. It’s not hard to interpret. Vanessa thinks Minoo should get a move on – and she’s right. Who knows how long the serum will last. A drop lasted about a minute with Ida. Minoo has worked out that they ought to have at least ten minutes but they’ve already lost some time. And Gustaf is bigger than Ida.

  Minoo sits on the edge of the bed. The list of questions she’s prepared is in her jeans pocket. She leaves it there. ‘Did you love Rebecka?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gustaf answers, without hesitation. ‘More than anything else in the world.’

  ‘When you were at her grave, you asked for her forgiveness.’

  Gustaf nods and a tear trickles from the corner of his eye, continues along his temple and disappears into his blond hair. He’s lying completely still, looking at Minoo with a frightened expression.

  ‘Did you have anything to do with her death?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answers.

  Minoo’s blood runs cold. ‘Tell me about it,’ she forces herself to say.

  ‘It was my fault. Everyone said Rebecka had an eating disorder, but I was too much of a coward to ask her straight out. I didn’t want to upset her, and I didn’t want her to think I was hassling her. I never realised how serious it was. I should have spoken to her about it.’

  He continues looking at Minoo with big, frightened eyes.

  ‘You think Rebecka killed herself, don’t you?’ she says.

  The question seems to confuse him. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘She jumped from the roof of the school. It was my fault. If I had been a better boyfriend, it would never have happened.’

  Minoo glances at the photo and wonders if Rebecka can see them. She hopes not because she feels so ashamed of what she’s doing.

  ‘Were you up on the roof with her?’ she asks.

  ‘I was waiting for her downstairs. She was having her meeting with the principal.’

  He lays a hand on Minoo’s arm. His fingers are cold. ‘I hoped the principal would talk to her about her eating disorder. Maybe get her to open up about it, so I wouldn’t have to. I was such a coward.’

  ‘Have you done anything special this autumn? Have you contacted anyone?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Minoo feels another impatient shove, a reminder that time is running out. ‘Have you been in contact with any demons?’

  He looks confused. Like a child who’s been asked a far too grown-up question.

  ‘Have you engaged in any supernatural activities?’ Minoo continues.

  ‘No.’

  It’s clear he has no idea what she’s talking about.

  ‘You may not even know about it. Think for a second. Has anything strange happened?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Do you ever hear a voice inside your head telling you to do things?’

  He shakes his head again.

  ‘What’s the first thing that comes into your mind when I say “blood-red moon”?’

  ‘Blood orange.’

  ‘Do you have a doppelganger?’

  ‘No,’ he says weakly. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I can’t handle this,’ Vanessa says.

  Minoo understands how she feels. To see Gustaf so afraid and vulnerable is almost more than she can bear. It’s like something out of the Spanish inquisition. But she has another question, and she can only hope Gustaf won’t say anything about the kiss because, unlike him, Vanessa won’t forget everything afterwards.

  ‘Did you follow me into town one day and then meet me by the viaduct?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I met you there, and we … spoke. Do you remember that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And yet you were at the cemetery. That was when you visited Rebecka’s grave for the first time. You were in two places at once. How was that possible?’

  Gustaf shakes his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he says. ‘Your questions are so strange.’

  Minoo can’t take it any more. She tries to coax his fingers from her arm, but he’s holding it in an iron grip. She strokes them gently, hoping that will calm him.

  It works. His grip loosens and she gets up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  ‘What are you saying sorry about?’

  ‘All of this.’

  ‘I like you, Minoo,’ he says.

  ‘I like you, too,’ she says, and discovers she means it. ‘I wish I could tell you how Rebecka died, but it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Minoo, what are you doing?’ Vanessa whispers.

  But Minoo ignores her. It’s very easy to ignore someone who’s invisible. ‘I want to ask you to try to remember one thing.’ Minoo says. ‘Try to remember it somewhere deep inside you. Can you promise you’ll try?’

  ‘I promise I’ll try,’ Gustaf says.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. Rebecka loved you.’

  Fresh tears well in Gustaf’s eyes and Minoo nods, trying to ingrain it into his subconscious. ‘She would never have left you of her own accord,’ she says.

  Gustaf smiles cautiously. ‘I’m tired,’ he says.

  ‘You should sleep for a while.’

  Gustaf shuts his eyes and Minoo and Vanessa stay in the room until he’s dropped off. Then they sneak out, careful not to wake him.

  51

  VANESSA HAS HAD a long shower, and she still doesn’t feel clean. When she and Minoo had separated, they had agreed that they would never reveal what Gustaf had said to anyone. They texted the others that they were sure Gustaf wasn’t the killer, and that he didn’t know about his doppelganger. Nothing more. The rest is nobody else’s business. Not even theirs. That’s why she feels so dirty. She never wants to rummage around in someone’s innermost thoughts again.

  Now she’ almost inhaling the sausage stew Sirpa has made for dinner. Vanessa is on her second helping, but her hunger shows no signs of abating. As always when she’s been invisible, her body craves nourishment. And lots of it.

  ‘Slow down, Nessa,’ Wille says, and has a hard time not laughing.

  ‘Mind your own business,’ she says, her mouth full of rice drenched in tomato sauce.

  ‘You’ll end up weighing a tonne if you go on like that.’

  ‘And I’ll still be better-looking than you.’ She pours more milk and downs it in three gulps.

  Sirpa watches them nervously.

  ‘Sorry I’m gobbling it,’ Vanessa says. ‘It’s just so delicious. As usual.’

  ‘Good,’ Sirpa replies.

  She looks as if she means it, but Vanessa knows it must be difficult for her to have another mouth to feed. Especially such an unusually voracious one. Of course Vanessa gives Sirpa half of her student allowance each month, but it won’t cover much. ‘Thanks so much for dinner,’ she says, and swallows a last piece of sausage.

  She starts clearing the table.
She’s too restless to sit still. When Sirpa stands up, Vanessa tells her to go and watch TV. Sirpa smiles gratefully and disappears into the living room. Wille stays where he is, rocking back on his chair as he sticks a bag of tobacco under his lip.

  Vanessa piles the dirty dishes on the counter and fills the sink with water. Then she starts to scrub the plates with the brush. The water is so hot that beads of sweat pop out on her forehead. It’s good to concentrate on something mundane.

  Suddenly she feels a pair of hands slide around her waist.

  ‘You know,’ Wille says, kissing her neck. ‘I saw an ad for a cheap trip to Thailand in a few weeks.’

  ‘I’ll still be at school.’

  Thailand, Thailand, Thailand. He’s been harping on about Thailand for months.

  ‘Fuck school,’ Wille mumbles. ‘Let’s go. I think I can get some money from Jonte.’

  She sidesteps to escape his hands. But they’re on her again and she shakes them off, more firmly this time.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks.

  ‘Can’t you leave me alone for one second?’

  ‘Why are you so grumpy?’

  ‘And why are you stuck to me like a frigging Band Aid all the time?’

  He remains behind her. She feels his irritation radiating out from him.

  ‘I just want a cuddle,’ he says.

  ‘And I want to be left alone. Is that so difficult to understand?’

  ‘Why are you so pissed off all the time?’ He walks back to the kitchen table.

  Vanessa dries the dishes while she waits for him to speak again. She knows he can never stay silent for very long.

  ‘I had a look at those links you sent me,’ he says finally.

  She turns with a glass in one hand and the towel in the other.

  ‘They’re not for me,’ he continues.

  Vanessa squeezes the glass so hard it should have cracked. ‘You didn’t see anything you liked, or what?’

  ‘I don’t want to be a fucking telesales representative, Nessa.’

  ‘Then what the hell do you want, Wille?’

  He laughs feebly, not seeming to realise how angry she is.

  ‘I don’t know … I guess I think things are pretty good the way they are for me. For us.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  So, Vanessa knows that the end of the world is approaching, yet it’s Wille who has trouble thinking about the future.

  ‘If you want a decent job, then you’ll just have to go back to school,’ she says.

  ‘Fuck that. I was never any good at school.’

  ‘There are vocational schools.’

  ‘Yeah, but … I don’t know.’

  ‘So you’re happy with the way things are? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Well, it would be cool if we had our own place, of course. Maybe you can hook us up with one once you’ve got a job?’ Wille says jokingly.

  She can tell he thinks he’s being cute. She’d like nothing better than to hurl her glass at the wall. She probably would have, too, if it hadn’t belonged to Sirpa, just like everything else around them. And Vanessa doesn’t want to explode: she can’t take responsibility for what might happen.

  She sets the glass on the counter and lays the towel on the table in front of Wille. ‘You can do this,’ she says.

  ‘Nessa, I was only kidding! I understand we can’t live like this forever, but I haven’t a clue what to do.’

  ‘I know you were kidding. But I have to go out for a bit – and if you want us to carry on being together, then I’d advise you to shut up.’

  Vanessa walks through the town without knowing where she’s going. Thoughts are spinning in her head like a nausea-inducing merry-go-round. There are far too many Vanessas now, and she no longer knows which is the real one. The Vanessa she is when she’s with Michelle and Evelina is different, for example, from the Vanessa who’s trying to save the world. And then there’s the Vanessa she has to be when she’s with Wille, and the Vanessa who’s trying not to be too much of a burden on Sirpa, plus the Vanessa who wants to leave school with at least a pass grade in her final exams … She’s lost her way among all her different personas.

  Vanessa looks at the tall high-rises that surround her. She’s ended up near Linnéa’s place. She hears music coming from a few of the apartments around her. It’s Saturday night and she’s only just realised it. When did her life become so dull that she no longer has plans for a Saturday night? Getting drunk might help. Evelina and Michelle were talking about a party, she remembers.

  Vanessa hesitates. She doesn’t want to be alone, but she doesn’t want to see them either. Michelle will obsess about Mehmet whom she’s just started dating and Evelina will whine that she’s never going to meet anybody, even though they all know she’s the best-looking of the three of them.

  When was the last time she felt like seeing Evelina and Michelle? So much has happened in Vanessa’s life since last summer. There’s so much she can’t talk to them about.

  It would have been easier to go back to being the old Vanessa. Christ, she wishes she could.

  Vanessa looks up at the high-rises again. Maybe it isn’t pure chance that she’s ended up here.

  She makes for the entrance to Linnéa’s building, takes the lift up to her floor and rings the bell. Nobody comes to open the door and she feels disappointed. It makes her realise how much she wants to see Linnéa.

  Vanessa rings again, and hears a toilet flush. When Linnéa opens the door she’s wearing the same Dir En Grey shirt as she had that night with Jonte.

  ‘Hi,’ Vanessa says.

  ‘Hey,’ Linnéa answers.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s Saturday night,’ Vanessa says. ‘Shouldn’t you be having fun?’

  ‘Who says I’m not?’ Linnéa says. She looks so grimfaced when she says it that Vanessa starts laughing.

  Linnéa stares at her for half a second. Then she laughs, too. It turns into one of those hysterical, can’t-breathe-can’t-stop-laughing fits and Vanessa can’t even remember the last time she had one. They laugh till they almost choke, then make the mistake of catching the other’s eye, which sets them off again.

  They sit opposite each other on the sofa and talk. A stream of morose-sounding boys and girls with guitars plays on Linnéa’s computer, but strangely it doesn’t depress Vanessa. Instead the music, with the dim red lighting, envelops her in a soft, warm sensation.

  Their conversation flows naturally. Linnéa tells her what the Book of Patterns has revealed about protective magic. Vanessa tells Linnéa how she poured the serum into Gustaf’s cola, but leaves out the details of what he said. ‘You know I was with Gustaf once?’ she says instead.

  When she registers the shock on Linnéa’s face she giggles. ‘For a whole afternoon in year one. I used to do this thing back then … Any boy who managed to swing in sync with me on the swings during break could be with me for the rest of the day.’

  ‘So you were cheap even then?’ Linnéa says, cackling harshly.

  ‘If only it was that easy to decide who to be with now,’ Vanessa says, and giggles.

  They laugh as they recall when Ida was forced to confess that she was secretly in love with Gustaf. They talk about how five or six girls used to bike around his house, around and around, in the hope that he would look out of a window and see them. Magic or not, he’s always had girls under a spell.

  Then they talk about Minoo and whether or not she’s a lesbian. Vanessa is convinced she is. Linnéa says definitely not.

  ‘I think I like her, but I don’t understand her. I can’t work out when she’s pissed off and when she’s just Minoo,’ Vanessa says.

  Linnéa laughs and nods. ‘I think she may be a little pissed off with me,’ she says.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A misunderstanding.’ Linnéa doesn’t elaborate.

  ‘We Chosen Ones are a pretty
strange bunch,’ Vanessa says.

  ‘Aren’t we just? Look at the two of us,’ Linnéa says, and grins.

  ‘Who would’ve thought you and me would be sitting here like this? I’ve always like hated you. Or, at least, I’ve been jealous of you over the whole Wille thing.’ What am I saying? Vanessa wonders. But it feels okay. She had almost forgotten how it felt to be so relaxed. And she realises she needs to talk about Wille. Linnéa will understand. ‘I don’t want to break up with him,’ she says, ‘but he’s driving me crazy.’

  ‘Do you have to live with him?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Vanessa says. She can’t bring herself to explain why she isn’t living at home. It sounds so pathetic when she imagines the story from Linnéa’s perspective. Linnéa, who doesn’t even have a mother. Linnéa, whose father dances drunken jigs in Storvall Park.

  ‘I don’t understand how I can be in love with someone who pisses me off so fucking much,’ Vanessa says. ‘Or why I’m always so fucking pissed off with the person I love.’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Linnéa leans back on the sofa.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You should never offer advice about other people’s relationships.’

  ‘But at Monique’s you said—’

  ‘That was a mistake.’

  Linnéa sits cross-legged and looks straight at her. ‘Don’t you get it?’ she asks. ‘You deserve someone better than Wille. But if I say that, and you break up with Wille, I’m the one you’ll be angry with if you regret it. And if you decide to stick it out, then you’ll know what I think and hate me for it.’

  ‘But I won’t—’ Vanessa protests.

  ‘I just mean I don’t want to be the girl you blame everything on later,’ Linnéa interrupts.

  Vanessa doesn’t know what to say. She feels as if she’s just been paid a compliment that’s really nice and really strange at the same time.

  ‘But he doesn’t call me any more,’ Linnéa says.

  Vanessa sinks a little deeper into the sofa, and gets a flashback of how Jonte and Linnéa looked when they were lying there that night. It feels like a lifetime ago. ‘Are you still seeing Jonte?’

  ‘No. I plead temporary insanity for that whole thing.’

  Vanessa giggles and wriggles to adjust her position on the sofa so that her feet are resting against Linnéa’s legs.