Let the right one in (9 page)

"Yeah. He was strung up from a tree and had his throat slit."

"He wasn't. . . stabbed? Like the guy had stabbed him. In the chest, I mean."

"No, only his throat—
phhhhhssst."

"OK."

"Anything else?"

"No." "See you."

"Yeah."

Oskar stayed put on the bench, thinking. The sky was dark purple, the first star—or was it Venus?—was already clearly visible. He got up and went in to hide the Walkman before his mom got back.

Tonight he would see the girl, get his Cube back. The blinds were still drawn. Did she really live there? What did they do in there all day? Did she have any friends?

Probably not.

+

Tonight—"

"What have you been doing?" "I took a shower." "You don't normally."

"Hakan, tonight you have to ..." "No, I told you."

"Please?"

"This isn't about... I'll do anything except that. Say the word. I'll do it. Take some of mine, for God's sake. Here. Here's a knife. No? OK, then I'll have to—"

"Stop it!"

"Why? I'd rather do this. Why did you take a shower? You smell like ... soap."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I can't!"

"No."

"What are you going to do?"

"Do it myself."

"And you need to shower for that?"

"Hakan..."

"I would help you if it was anything else. Anything else, I.. ."

"Yeah, OK. Fine."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

"Be careful. I—was careful."

+

Kuala Lumpur, Phnom Penh, Mekong, Rangoon, Chungking...

Oskar looked at the photocopied map he had just filled out, weekend homework. The names told him nothing, were simply collections of letters. It gave him a certain feeling of satisfaction to sit and look them up in the geography book, to see that there actually were cities and rivers in just that place where they were marked on the photocopy.

Yes, he was going to memorize them and then his mom could test him. He would point to the dots and say the foreign names. Chungking, Phnom Penh. His mom would be impressed. And sure, it was kind of fun with all these strange names for places that were far away, but...
Why?

In fourth grade they had been given photocopies of Swedish geography. He had memorized everything back then too. He was good at that. But now?

He tried to recall the name of even one Swedish river.

Askan, Vaskan, Piskan .. .

Something along those lines. Atran, maybe. Yes. But where was it? No idea. And it would be the same thing with Chungking and Rangoon in a few years.

It's meaningless.

These places didn't even
exist.
And even if they did ... he would never see them in person. Chungking? What would he do in Chungking? It was just a big white area and a little dot.

He looked at the straight lines that his scrawled letters were balancing on. It was school. That's all. This was school. They told you to do a lot of things and you did them. The whole thing had been invented so the teachers would be able to hand out photocopies. It didn't mean anything. He could just as well be writing
Tjippiflax, Bubbelibang
and
Spitt
on these lines. It would be equally meaningful.

The only difference actually would be that his teacher would say it was
wrong.
That it wasn't the correct name. Then she would point to the map and say "Look, here it says Chungking, not Tjippiflax." Pretty weak argument, since someone had made up the names in the geography book. Nothing spoke for it being true. And maybe the Earth really was flat, but this was being kept secret for some reason.

Ships falling over the edge. Dragons.

Oskar got up from the table. The photocopy was done, filled with letters that his teacher would accept. That was all.

It was past seven, maybe the girl had gone outside? He moved his face to the window and cupped his hands around it so he could see better in the dark. Wasn't there something moving down by the playground?

He went out into the hall. His mom was knitting or maybe crocheting out in the living room.

"Going out for a while."

"You're going out again? I thought I was supposed to test you."

"We can do that in a while."

"Wasn't it Asia this time?"

"What?"

"The worksheet you had. Isn't it Asia?"

"Yes, I think so. Chungking."

"Where is that? China?"

"I don't know."

"You don't
know'?
But—"

"I'll be back."

"Alright. Be careful. Are you wearing your hat?"

"Sure."

Oskar put the hat in his coat pocket and went out. Halfway to the playground his eyes had grown accustomed enough to the dark that he spotted the girl in her usual place on the jungle gym. He walked up and stood below her, his hands in his pockets.

She looked different today. Still the pink top—did she not have any other?—but her hair didn't look so matted. It lay smooth, black, slick against her head.

"Hey there."

"Hi."

"Hi."

He was never in his life going to say "hey there" to someone ever again. It sounded incredibly stupid. The girl stood up.

"Come up here."

"OK."

Oskar climbed up onto the structure until he was next to her, discreetly drawing air into his nose. She didn't stink anymore.

"Do I smell better today?"

Oskar blushed. The girl smiled and held something out to him. His Cube.

"Thanks for lending it to me."

Oskar took the Cube and looked at it. Looked again. Held it up to the light as best he could, turned it and examined it from all sides. It had been solved. All of the sides were a solid color.

"Did you take it apart?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like . . . did you take it apart.. . and then put the pieces back in the right place?"

"Can you do that?"

Oskar tested the pieces to see if they were loosened from having been taken apart. He had done that once, marveled at how few twists it took to lose one's movements and forget how to make the sides all one color again. The pieces had of course not been loose when he took it apart, but did she actually solve this thing?

"You must have taken it apart."

"No."

"But you've never even seen one of these before."

"No, it was fun. Thanks."

Oskar held the Cube up to his eyes, as if it could tell him what had happened. In some way he was sure she wasn't lying.

"How long did it take you?"

"Several hours. If I did it again it would probably go faster."

"Amazing."

"It's not so hard."

She turned toward him. Her pupils were so large that they almost filled the whole iris, the lights from the building reflected in the black surface and it looked like she had a distant city in her head.

The turtleneck sweater, pulled high onto her neck, further accentuated her soft features and she looked like... a cartoon character. Her skin, its quality—he could only compare it to a wooden butter knife that had been polished with the finest sandpaper until the wood was like silk. Oskar cleared his throat.

"How old are you?"

"What do you think?"

"Fourteen, fifteen."

"Do I look it?"

"Yes. Or—no, but..."

"I'm twelve."

"Twelve!"

For crying out loud. She was probably younger than he was, since he was going to turn thirteen in a month.

"What month were you born?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? But... when do you celebrate your birthday and that?"

"I don't celebrate it."

"But your mom and dad must know."

"No. My mom is dead."

"Oh. I see. How did she die?"

"I don't know."

"And doesn't your dad know?"

"No."

"So ... you mean ... you don't get any presents or stuff?" She stepped closer to him. Her breath wafted onto his face and the city of light in her eyes was extinguished when she stepped into his shadow. Her pupils
were
two marble-sized holes in her head.

She's so sad. So very, very sad.

"No, I never get any presents. Ever."

Oskar nodded stiffly. The world around him had ceased to exist. Only those two holes, a breath away. Their breaths mingled and rose, dissipated.

"Do you want to give me a present?"

"Yes."

His voice was not even a whisper. Only an exhalation. The girl's face was close. His gaze was drawn to her butter-knife cheek.

That was why he didn't see her eyes change, how they narrowed, took on another expression. He didn't see how her upper lip drew back and revealed a pair of small, dirty white fangs. He only saw her cheek and while her mouth was nearing his throat he drew up his hand and stroked her face.

The girl froze for a moment, then pulled back. Her eyes resumed their former shape; the city of light was back.

"What did you do that for?"

"I'm sorry .. . I—"

"What did you do?"

Oskar looked at his hand, still holding the Cube, and relaxed his grip on it. He had been squeezing it so hard the corners had left deep imprints in his hand. He stretched it out toward her.

"Do you want it? You can have it."

She slowly shook her head.

"No. It's yours."

"What's . . . your name."

"Eli."

"My name is Oskar. What did you say your name was? Eli?"

"Yes."

The girl seemed suddenly restless. Her gaze flitted around as if she were looking for something, something she couldn't find.

"I'm . . . going now."

Oskar nodded. The girl looked him straight in the eyes for a few sec-onds, then turned to go. She reached the top of the slide and hesitated. Then she sat down and slid to the bottom, started off toward her front door. Oskar squeezed the Cube.

"See you tomorrow?"

The girl stopped and said "Yes" in a low voice without turning, then kept going. Oskar watched her. She didn't go home, though; she walked through the archway that led to the street. Disappeared.

Oskar looked at the Cube again. Unbelievable.

He twisted a section one rotation, broke up the unity. Then he turned it back. Wanted to keep it like this. At least for a while.

+

Jocke Bengtsson was chuckling to himself on his way home from the movies. Damned funny film,
The Charter Trip.
Especially that part with the two guys running around the whole movie looking for Peppe's Bodega. When the one pushed his hungover friend in a wheelchair through Customs: "invalido." Damn, that was funny.

Maybe he should go off on a trip like that with one of the guys. But which one.

Karlsson was so boring he made the clocks stop; you'd get sick of him in two days. Morgan could get ugly when he had too much to drink and he was sure to do that when it was cheap. Larry was OK but way too sickly. In the end you'd have to push him around in a wheelchair. "Invalido." No, Lacke was the only one who would do.

They could have a lot of fun down there for a week. But Lacke was poor as a church mouse, and could never afford it. He could sit and drink beers and smoke every night and that was totally cool by Jocke, but he'd never have the dough for a trip to the Canary Islands.

He may as well face the facts—none of the regulars at the Chinese restaurant were good travel companion material.

Could he go by himself?

Stig-Helmer had done it. Even though he was a total loser. Then he met Ole, and everything. Got together with a chick and all that. Nothing wrong with that. It was eight years since Maria had left him and taken the dog, and since then he had not known anyone in the biblical sense, not one single time.

Would anyone want him? Maybe. At least he didn't look as bad as Larry. Of course the booze was staking its claim in his face and body, even though he had managed to keep it under control to a certain extent. Today for example he hadn't had a single drop yet, even though it was almost nine o'clock. But now he was going to have a couple of gin and tonics before going down to the Chinese restaurant.

He'd have to think more about that trip. It would probably go the way of so much else these past few years: nothing. But you could always dream. He walked along the park path between Holbergsgatan and Blacke-berg school. It was pretty dark, the streetlights stood about thirty meters apart and the Chinese restaurant glowed like a lighthouse up on the hill to the left.

Should he throw caution to the wind tonight and go directly up to the restaurant and... no. Too expensive. Then the others would think he had won the lottery or something and call him a cheapskate for not buying them a round. Better to go home and get started first.

He passed the commercial laundering center, the chimney with its single red eye, the muted rumble from inside.

One night when he was on his way home—drunk to the gills—he had experienced a kind of hallucination and seen the chimney detach itself and start gliding down the hill toward him, growling and hissing. He had curled up on the path with his hands over his head, waiting for the attack. When he finally put his arms back down the chimney stood where it always was, magnificent and unmoving.

The streetlight nearest the Bjornsongatan underpass was broken and the path under the street a dark hole. If he had been drunk right now he would probably have walked up the stairs next to the underpass and gone up to Bjornsongatan, even though that was slightly longer. He could get such strange visions in the dark when he had had something to drink. Always slept with the light on for that reason. But right now he was stone sober.

He had a hankering to take the stairs anyway. The drunken visions had started to seep into his perception of the world even when he was sober. He stood still on the path and summed up the situation for himself:

"I'm starting to get soft in the head."

Let me make this clear to you, Jocke. If you don't get ahold of yourself
and make it just that little bit further through the underpass, you won't
make it to the Canary Islands either.

Why not?

Because you always jump ship at the first sign of a hurdle. The law of
least resistance, in every situation. What makes you think you could
manage to call a travel agent, get a new passport, buy things for your
trip, and above all, take that step out into the unknown if you don't even
have the guts to walk this short stretch?