Let the right one in (30 page)

"Oh ... fine."

"Shouldn't you be at home getting some rest?"

"No, I thought..."

"You didn't need to, you know. Lotten will fill in for you today. I tried to call you earlier, but when you didn't pick up ..."

"Isn't there anything for me to do, then?"

"Check with Berit in the meat department. And Virginia . . ."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry about what happened. I don't know exactly how to say it, but... I feel badly about it. And I completely understand if you need to take it easy for a while."

Virginia couldn't get her head around it. Lennart was not the kind of person who looked kindly on sick leave, or for that matter, any kind of problem that other people might have. And to hear him extend his
per-
sonal sympathies
was something completely new. She must look pretty terrible with her swollen cheek and her bandages.

Virginia said: "Thanks. I'll think it over," and went to the meat department. She looped over past the checkout registers in order to say hi to Lot-ten. Five people were lined up at her register and Virginia thought she should open another one after all. But the question was if Lennart even wanted her to sit at a checkout register looking as she did.

When she walked into the light from the horrible window behind the checkout registers it got like that again. Her face tightened, her eyes ached. It wasn't as bad as the direct sunlight out on the street, but it was bad enough. She would not be able to sit there.

Lotten caught sight of her, waved in between two customers.

"Hi, I read . . . How are you doing?"

Virginia held up her hand, wiggled it from side to side: so so.
Read?

She nabbed the
Svenska Dagbladet
and
Dagens Nyheter,
took them with her over to the meat department, quickly eyed the first page news. Nothing there. That would have been a reach.

The meat department was at the very back of the store, beside the milk products, strategically planned so that you had to walk through the whole store in order to get there. Virginia stopped next to the shelves with canned food. She was trembling with hunger. She looked carefully at all the cans.

Crushed tomatoes, mushrooms, mussels, tuna, ravioli, Bullen's beer sausage, pea soup ... no. She felt nothing but revulsion.

Berit saw her from the meat counter, waved. As soon as Virginia had come around the back of the counter Berit hugged her, and carefully touched the bandage on her cheek.

"Ugh. Poor you."

"Oh, it's .. ."

Fine?

She retreated to the little storage room behind the meat counter. If she let Berit get started she would be subject to a long harangue about people's suffering in general and the evils of today's society in particular. Virginia sat down on a chair between the scales and the door to the freezer room. It was an area of only a few square meters but it was the most comfortable place in the store. No sunlight. She flipped through the papers and found a small article in the
Dagens Nyheter
domestic news section. She read:

Woman attacked in Blackeberg

A fifty-year-old woman unknown. The police are now was attacked and assaulted investigating a possible con-Thursday night in the Stock-nection to other violent inci-holm suburb of Blackeberg. A dents in the western suburbs passerby intervened and the during the past few weeks. The perpetrator, a young woman, fifty-year-old woman's injuries immediately fled the scene, were described as minor. The motive of the assault is

Virginia lowered the paper. So strange to read about yourself in that way. "Fifty-year-old woman," "passerby" "minor injuries." Everything that was concealed by those words.

"Possible connection?" Yes, Lacke was convinced that she had been attacked by the same child who killed Jocke. He had had to bite his tongue not to say this at the hospital, some time on Friday morning, to the female police officer and the doctor who examined her wounds. He was planning to talk to the police, but wanted to inform Gosta first, thought Gosta would see the whole thing from a new perspective now that even Virginia had been involved.

She heard a rustling sound and looked around. It took a few seconds before she realized that it was the newspaper shaking in her own hands that was making the noise. She set the newspapers on the shelf above the white coats and went out to join Berit.

"Anything I can do?"

"Do you really think it's a good idea, hon?"

"Yes, it's better for me to be doing something."

"I see. You can portion out the shrimp, in that case. Five hundred gram bags. But shouldn't you?..."

Virginia shook her head and walked back to the storage room. She put on a white coat and hat, took a case of shrimp out of the freezer, pulled a plastic bag over her hand, and started to weigh them out. Dug around in the carton with the hand that had the plastic bag over it, portioned them out into bags, weighed them on the scales. A boring, mechanical job, and her right hand felt frozen already on her fourth bag. But she was doing something, and it gave her an opportunity to think.

That night at the hospital Lacke had said something really strange: that the child who attacked her had not been a human being. That it had had fangs and claws.

Virginia had dismissed this as a drunken hallucination.

She didn't remember much from the attack. But she could accept this: the thing that had jumped on top of her had been much too light to be an adult, almost too light to be a child, even. A very small child in that case. Five or six maybe. She recalled that she had stood up with the weight on her back. After that everything was black until she woke up in her apartment with all the guys except Gosta gathered around her. She put a tie around a finished bag, took out the next one, dropped in a few handfuls. Four hundred and thirty grams. Seven more shrimp. Five hundred and ten.

Our treat.

She looked down at her hands, which were working independently of her brain. Hands. With long nails. Sharp teeth. What was that called?

Lacke had said it out loud. A vampire. Virginia had laughed, carefully, so that the stitches in her cheek wouldn't come out. Lacke had not even smiled.

"You didn't see it."

"But Lacke . . . they don't really exist."

"No. But what was it then?"

"A child. Living out a strange twisted fantasy."

"Who grew out her nails? Filed her teeth down? I'd like to see the dentist who ..."

"Lacke, it was dark. You were drunk, it—"

"It was, and I was. But I saw what I saw."

It burned and felt tight under the bandage on her cheek. She removed the plastic bag from her right hand, put her hand over the bandage. It was ice cold and that felt good. But she was weak; it felt as if her legs weren't going to carry her much longer.

She would finish this carton and then go home. This wasn't going to work. If she could rest over the weekend she would probably feel better on Monday. She put the plastic bag back on and started in on the work again with a spark of anger. Hated being sick.

A sharp pain in her index finger. Damn it. That's what happens if you don't concentrate. The shrimp were sharp when they were frozen and she had pricked her finger. She pulled off the plastic bag and looked at the finger. A smallish cut with a little blood welling out of it. She automatically popped it into her mouth to suck the blood away. A warm, healing, delicious spot radiating out from the place where her fingertip met her tongue, started to spread. She sucked harder on the finger. All good tastes concentrated into one filled her mouth. A shiver of well-being went through her body. She sucked and sucked, giving in to the pleasure until she realized what she was doing.

She pulled the finger out of her mouth, stared at it. It was shiny with saliva and the tiny amount of blood that now welled out was immediately thinned out by the wetness, like an overly diluted watercolor. She looked at the shrimp in the carton. Hundreds of pink bodies, covered with frost. And eyes. Black pinheads dispersed in the white and pink, an upside-down starry sky. Patterns, constellations started to dance in front of her eyes.

The world spun on its axis and something hit her in the back of the head. In front of her eyes there was a white surface with cobwebs in the corners. She understood that she was lying on the floor but had no strength to do anything about it.

In the distance she heard Berit's voice: "Oh my God .. . Virginia . .."

+

Jonny liked to hang out with his older brother. At least when none of his sketchy buddies were around. Jimmy knew some guys from Racksta that Jonny was pretty scared of. One evening a few years ago they had come by to talk to Jimmy, hanging around outside but without ringing the buzzer. When Jonny told them Jimmy wasn't home they asked him to deliver a message.

"Tell your brother that if he doesn't get us the dough by Monday we'll put his head in a vice . . . you know what that is?... OK . .. and turn it like this until the dough runs out of his ears. Can you tell him that? OK, great. Jonny's your name? Good-bye then, Jonny."

Jonny had delivered the message and Jimmy had simply nodded, said he knew. Then some money had disappeared from Mom's wallet and then there had been an angry scene.

Jimmy was not home as often nowadays. There was sort of no room for him anymore since their youngest little sister was born. Jonny already had two younger siblings and there weren't supposed to be any more. But then Mom had met some guy and .. . well.. . that's how it went. At least Jonny and Jimmy had the same dad. He worked on an oil rig off the coast of Norway and not only had he started sending regular child support, he was also sending a little extra just to make up for before. Mom blessed him, and when she was drunk she had even cried over him a few times and said she would never again meet a man like that. So for the first time in as long as Jonny could remember a lack of money was not the constant topic of conversation.

Now they were sitting in the pizzeria on the main square in Blacke-berg. Jimmy had been home in the morning, argued a bit with Mom, and then he and Jonny had gone out. Jimmy heaped condiments on his pizza, folded it up, picked up the large roll with both hands, and started to eat. Jonny ate his pizza in the usual way, thinking that next time he ate pizza without Jimmy he would eat it like that.

Jimmy chewed, nodded his head at the bandage over Jonny's ear. "Looks like hell."

"Yes."

"Does it hurt?"

"It's OK."

"Mom said it's damaged for life. That you won't be able to hear anything."

"They don't know yet. Maybe it'll be alright."

"Hm. Let me get this straight. The guy just picked up some big branch and bashed it into your head."

"Mm."

"Damn. What are you going to do about it?"

"Don't know."

"Need any help?"

"... No."

"What? Me and a few of my pals can take him out."

Jonny pulled off a big piece with shrimp, his favorite, put it in his mouth and chewed. No. Better not drag Jimmy's friends into this, then it would get out of hand. Nonetheless Jonny smiled at the thought of how scared shitless Oskar would be if he appeared at his house with Jimmy and, say, those guys from Racksta. He shook his head.

Jimmy put his pizza roll down and looked seriously at Jonny.

"OK, but I'm just saying.
One
more thing, and then ..." He snapped his fingers hard, then made a fist.

"You're my brother and no little shit is going to come and . ..
One
more thing, then you can say whatever you like. Then I'm going after him. OK?"

Jimmy held out his fist across the table. Jonny also made a fist and bumped Jimmy's with it. It felt good. That there was someone who cared. Jimmy nodded.

"Good. I have something for you."

He bent down under the table, took out a plastic bag that he had been carrying all morning. He drew a thin photo album out of the bag. "Dad came by last week. He's grown a beard, almost didn't recognize him. He had this with him."

Jimmy held the album out to Jonny, who wiped his fingers on a napkin and opened it.

Pictures of children. Of Mom. Maybe ten years ago. And a man he recognized as his father. The man was pushing the kids on swings. In one picture he was wearing a much-too-small cowboy hat. Jimmy, maybe nine years old, was standing next to him with a plastic rifle in his hands and a grim expression. A little boy who had to be Jonny sat on the ground nearby and looked wide-eyed at them.

"He loaned me this till next time. He wants it back, said it was ... yeah, what the fuck was it... 'my most valuable possession,' I think he said. Thought it might interest you too."

Jonny nodded without looking up from the album. He had only met his dad two times since he left when Jonny was four. At home there was one picture of him, a pretty bad one where he was sitting around with some other people. This was something completely different. Here you could kind of construct a real image of him.

"One more thing. Don't show it to Mom. I think Dad kind of swiped it when he left and if she sees it... well, he wants it back, as I told you. Promise. Don't show Mom."

Still with his nose buried in the album, Jonny made a fist and held it out over the table. Jimmy laughed and then Jonny felt Jimmy's knuckles against his. Promise.

"Hey, you check it out later. Take the bag too."

Jimmy held out the bag and Jonny reluctantly folded up the album, put it in the bag. Jimmy was done with his pizza, leaned back in his chair, and patted his stomach.

"So. How are things on the chick front?"

+

The village flew by. Snow that was kicked up by the wheels of the moped trailer was sprayed back and peppered Oskar's cheeks. He gripped the towrope with both hands, shifted his weight to the side, swinging out of the snow cloud. There was a sharp scraping sound as the skis sliced through the loose snow. The outer ski nudged an orange reflector where the road split in two. He wobbled, then regained his balance.

The road down to Lagaro and the summer houses wasn't plowed. The moped left three deep tracks in the untouched snow cover, and five meters behind it came Oskar on skis, making two additional tracks. He drove zigzag over the moped tracks, stood on one ski like a trick skier, crouched down into a little ball of speed.