Little Star

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  At some point in the middle of all this, Jerry began to seriously despair. The locked doors, the difficult shopping expeditions, the constant fear. The way Theres had come to dominate his existence without saying or doing anything. Why the hell had he got into all this?

  He realised he was going to have to hand her over sooner or later. A great big anonymous basket on the steps of the youth psychiatric service. Then he would be free to live his own life again. Without fear or anxiety.

  But for the time being, the food problem had to be solved. Jerry took the only course of action he could think of and rang Ingemar. They hadn’t been in touch since Jerry had explained that he was finished with the cigarette business after the incident with Bröderna Djup. When Jerry asked if he was still in a position to get hold of just about anything, Ingemar was up for it straight away.

  ‘As long as we’re not talking about drugs…shoot. What do you need?’

  ‘Baby food. Can you get hold of baby food?’

  It was a point of honour to Ingemar that he never asked about the goods he supplied, but from the silence that followed Jerry’s question, it was clear that his principles were being severely tested. However, the only thing he eventually said was: ‘You mean that stuff in jars? Stewed meat, that kind of crap?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how many do you want?’

  ‘A hundred, maybe.’

  ‘Jars? I’m not exactly going to make a fortune on this, you know.’

  ‘I’m offering you the retail price. Eleven kronor a jar.’

  ‘Twelve?’

  And so it was agreed. When Jerry hung up, he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He had made a decision. When the hundred jars were gone, he would hand over Theres. It was a nice even number and it felt right. Another two weeks, approximately.

  Ingemar turned up with the jars and Jerry paid him. When Ingemar asked if he would be needing any more, Jerry said no. Then he carried in the two boxes himself. The labels on the jars were in some kind of East European language, and each one contained something that was presumably meat stew. Theres didn’t seem to care, she shovelled down the contents with the same joyless single-mindedness she always displayed when she was eating.

  Since the keyboard was one of the few things that seemed to interest her, Jerry had started teaching her to use the internet, and that evening they had something resembling a pleasant interlude together as they sat side by side at the computer, and Jerry demonstrated how to get onto different sites and forums, how to set up an email account and so on. Perhaps it was because he had set a definite end date for their relationship that he felt more relaxed.

  During the night Theres became ill. As Jerry lay there trying to get to sleep, he heard a long drawn-out whimpering from the living room. He hesitated before getting up and unlocking the bedroom door, as always alert to any changes in Theres that might suggest a shift in her mood.

  He didn’t need to worry. Theres was hardly in a state to harm anyone. The room stank, and when Jerry switched on the light he saw Theres flat out on the sofa, her face greenish-white. She had thrown up all over the floor, and one hand was waving feebly.

  ‘What the fuck, sis…’

  Jerry fetched cloths and a mop, cleaned the floor and gave Theres a bucket to throw up in. As he headed back to his room, Theres whimpered behind his back. He stopped, sighed, and sat down in the armchair. When he had been sitting there for a while, something struck him.

  He picked up one of the jars of baby food, unscrewed the lid and sniffed at the contents. He wrinkled his nose. Not that baby food normally smelled good, but surely it shouldn’t smell like this, for fuck’s sake? Behind the smell of stale meat there was an undertone of…acetone. Something suffocating, fermented. He turned the jar around to look for the sell-by date, but it had been rubbed out until it was illegible.

  Theres was writhing as her stomach contracted with cramp, emitting a damp croaking noise. Sweat poured down her face and a trickle of dark green bile seeped out between her lips and stuck to her chin. Her head drooped helplessly over the edge of the sofa.

  Jerry ran into the kitchen and fetched a towel and a bowl of water. He wiped Theres’ face, dabbing her forehead with the cool water. Her skin was hot and her eyes shone like marbles. She was shivering, and a new kind of fear nudged its way into Jerry’s body.

  ‘Listen, sis, you can’t be this sick. You just can’t, you hear me?’

  He couldn’t take her to hospital. She had no patient number or ID card or anything, and he might as well go straight to the police station and turn himself in. Of course he could just dump her there, but then again someone might see him, and in any case he couldn’t put her on the back of his motorbike in this fucking state and how was he supposed to…

  Theres’ transparent gaze fixed on his and she whispered, ‘Jerry…’ before her body contracted in a series of fresh cramps, twisting the damp sheets around her thin legs. Jerry stroked her head and said, ‘It’ll be OK, sis, it’ll be OK. You’ve just got a bit of a bad stomach, nothing serious.’ Presumably he was trying to convince himself.

  He fetched her a drink of water. Five minutes later she brought it back up. He changed her bedclothes, which were soaked through and stinking. Two hours later they were just as wet. He got her to swallow an Ibuprofen tablet, which came straight back up. He chewed his nails until his fingertips hurt, and didn’t know what to do.

  Towards six o’clock the dawn began to breathe on the windows and found an exhausted Jerry slumped in the armchair next to Theres, staring blankly at her skinny body as it lay on the sofa curled up into a question mark. Her breathing was jerky and shallow and her voice was so weak Jerry could barely hear her when she said, ‘Little One bad. Made them dead. Mum and Dad. Little One soon dead now. That’s good.’

  Jerry sat up and rubbed his eyes with the damp hand towel he had changed several times during the night. He leaned closer to Theres. ‘Don’t talk like that. You didn’t kill them because you’re bad. I don’t know why you did it, but it’s nothing to do with being bad, I do know that. Why do you say you’re bad?’

  ‘You’re sad. Because Mum and Dad got dead. Little One bad.’

  Jerry cleared his throat and adopted a firmer tone of voice: ‘Right. Stop calling yourself Little One, stop saying you’re bad, and stop calling them Mum and Dad. Pack it in.’

  Theres was once more gazing into emptiness. When she said, ‘Little One soon be dead’, Jerry’s anger flared up. He placed his hand over her head and squeezed her temples between his thumb and middle finger.

  ‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘It’s I will soon be dead. I! And you’re not going to die. You can fucking forget that. I’m looking after you. If you die I’ll kill you.’

  Theres frowned and did something he had never seen before. She smiled. ‘You can’t do that. When you’re dead you’re dead.’

  Jerry rolled his eyes. ‘It was a joke, stupid.’

  The subtle lightening of the atmosphere in the room came to a sudden stop: ‘Mum and Dad got dead. Then. Little One got them.’

  Despite the fact that Theres was obviously no threat, Jerry backed away from her slightly. ‘What the hell are you talking about, and stop saying Little One, what do you mean you got them?’

  ‘I got them. They’re mine now.’

  ‘They are not yours! They’re not even your parents, will you stop talking like that!’

  Theres closed her eyes and her mouth and rolled over so that she was lying with her back to Jerry. Her narrow chest rose and fell jerkily as she breathed. Jerry leaned back in the armchair and sat there listening to her breathing; he tried to get to sleep, but without success. He asked the question straight out: ‘Why did you do it?’ But there was no answer.

  Perhaps it was the lack of sleep combined with being shut in the apartment, but during the course of the morning Jerry got more and more irritated. He had known for a long, long time that there was something seriously wrong with Theres, and that she could ha
rdly be held responsible for her actions. However, he still couldn’t cope with her lack of emotion when it came to what she had done. I got them.

  That’s probably something you might come out with if you’ve bagged a couple of ducks with a shotgun. Not when you’ve killed two people—who just happened to be Jerry’s parents, regardless of what he thought of them. I got them.

  Theres seemed to have improved after her dreadful night. She was still pale and couldn’t even keep a sip of water down, but she sat up on the sofa with a couple of pillows behind her, flicking through an illustrated Winnie-the-Pooh book Jerry had had when he was little. In his confused state Jerry thought she looked shamelessly smug as she sat there. I got them.

  Jerry stood by the unit housing all his videos with his arms folded, looking at her as she studied the nice, brightly coloured pictures without the slightest concern for all the grief she had caused. Without considering what he was doing he selected Cannibal Holocaust and said cheerfully, ‘Shall we watch a film?’

  Without looking up from the book, Theres asked, ‘What’s a film?’

  You’ll see, thought Jerry, inserting the tape in the video player. If he did have a thought in his head it was something to do with getting Theres to realise that killing wasn’t just tra-la-la and I got them, but a seriously unpleasant business.

  The film began, and people were chopped up and slaughtered with screams and tears, internal organs were removed and bodily fluids spurted. Jerry noticed that what had happened to his parents had made him more sensitive, and he no longer took any pleasure in the images. From time to time he glanced at Theres, who was sitting on the sofa watching the bloodbath, her face completely expressionless.

  When the film was over he asked her, ‘What did you think? Lots of people died, didn’t they? Pretty gruesome.’

  Theres shook her head. ‘They weren’t really dead.’

  Jerry had always thought Cannibal Holocaust was one of the better splatter films. It felt and looked real. Since Theres was totally unfamiliar with the phenomenon of film, he had thought she would see it as a pure documentary, which fitted in with his somewhat unclear aim.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said, stretching the truth. ‘Of course they were really dead. You could see that, couldn’t you? I mean, they got hacked to pieces.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Theres. ‘But they weren’t dead.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘No smoke.’

  Jerry had prepared a number of responses to possible objections in order to get her to understand at last, but this was so unexpected that all he could say was, ‘What?’

  ‘There was no smoke. When they smashed the heads.’

  ‘What are you talking about? There’s never any smoke.’

  ‘Yes. There’s a little bit of smoke. Red.’

  Theres had approximately the same expression on her face as when Jerry had said, ‘If you die I’ll kill you.’ She looked suspiciously amused, as if she knew that Jerry was teasing her, and would soon admit it. Then he realised what she was talking about.

  ‘You mean blood,’ he said. ‘There was loads of blood, all the time.’

  ‘No,’ said Theres. ‘Stop it, Jerry. You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know. It just so happens that I’ve never killed anyone, so I don’t know.’

  ‘Why have you never killed anyone?’

  Jerry didn’t really know how he had expected Theres to react to the film. With tears, perhaps, or screams, or a refusal to watch, or fascination and lots of questions. This hadn’t been among the possible alternatives.

  Acidly he said, ‘I don’t know, I suppose the opportunity never came up.’

  Theres nodded, her expression serious. Then she said, as if she was explaining something to a slightly backward child, ‘Blood comes later. First smoke. Just a bit. Red. But then it’s gone. You can’t find any more. But you get that little bit. That’s love. I think.’

  There was something about the way she spoke. With the monotonous, soporific voice of someone reading out the stock market prices, she listed dry facts that brooked no contradiction, and for a moment Jerry started to believe that what she said was the truth. Then a minute or so passed in silence, and the spell was broken. Jerry looked at Theres. Beads of sweat had started to break out along her hairline. He plumped up her pillows and shook the blanket, told her to lie down and rest. When she was settled he perched on the edge of the sofa.

  ‘Sis,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked you this before, but now I’m asking you again. Just say all that stuff about smoke and so on when somebody dies is true. And say I’ve got it inside me as well. Are you thinking of trying to take it?’

  Theres shook her head and Jerry asked the obvious follow-up question. ‘Why not?’

  Theres’ eyes grew misty and she blinked a few times, but Jerry couldn’t let her fall asleep until he had an answer. He shook her shoulder gently and she said, ‘I don’t know. It says stop.’

  Her eyes closed and Jerry had to be content with her answer. He went and lay down to try and sleep off the worst of the woolly mess inside his head, but sleep wouldn’t come. After half an hour he got up, took a cold shower and went out to buy some baby rice.

  She has to eat something, after all.

  On the stairs he met his neighbour, Hirsfeldt—an elderly man whose neat clothes were in sharp contrast with his face, which was strongly marked by his fondness for alcohol. He peered at Jerry in the harsh morning light as it bounced off the concrete. ‘Has somebody moved in with you?’ he asked.

  Jerry’s stomach went cold. ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘But I can hear them,’ said Hirsfeldt. ‘You can hear everything in this building. I can hear somebody throwing up like a sick calf, and it’s not you.’

  ‘It’s a friend—she’s not very well, so I’m letting her stay with me for a few days.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Hirsfeldt in a tone which implied that he didn’t believe a word Jerry said. Then he tipped his exaggeratedly elegant hat. ‘My condolences on your loss, by the way. A terrible business.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ said Jerry, hurrying off down the stairs. When he had covered two flights he looked up through the gap between the landings and thought he could see a tiny bit of Hirsfeldt’s coat by his door. As if he were standing there listening.

  Jerry gave up the idea of walking to the big supermarket, and quickly headed for the local shop. He didn’t dare leave Theres alone for too long. What if she woke up and did something while bloody Hirsfeldt was sniffing around the letterbox? Why couldn’t people just mind their own business?

  He’d planned on buying ordinary baby rice, but they’d run out, so he had to buy Semper’s organic baby rice, one year and up. When he put the box on the conveyor belt, the checkout girl gave him an odd smile. He’d seen her several times before, she’d seen him, and she was bound to know who he was. If it hadn’t been for the incident with Hirsfeldt he wouldn’t have been particularly bothered, but now he felt like a hunted animal as he hurried home with the baby rice in a plastic bag.

  Theres was still asleep, and Jerry flopped down in the armchair to catch his breath. When she woke up he put the TV on very loud to drown out any possible suspicious noises. He couldn’t stop himself from going over to the window a couple of times to peer down at the street.

  The day passed against the backdrop of repeats and ad breaks on TV4. Theres lay on the sofa, following everything with dull eyes. He tried feeding her a couple of spoonfuls of baby rice. Then he sat on the armchair, hugging his knees and waiting anxiously for the poor attempt at nutrition to come back up again. When it didn’t, he was absurdly pleased and gave her a little more. She’d had enough then, but at least she didn’t throw it up.

  The incidents with Hirsfeldt and the checkout girl had brought things to a head. Jerry could no longer amble along pretending everything would be fine. Unfortunately, he was much too tired to be able to come up with any kind of strategy. He fed Theres a few spoonfuls o
f baby rice from time to time, was pleased when she kept it down, wiped her sweating brow and sat with her as fresh cramps racked her body from time to time.

  For Jerry, the hours that passed in their little bubble were dominated by two strong impressions. The first was claustrophobia. The room felt smaller than usual, the walls were closing in around him and outside the walls were watchful eyes. He shrank into himself, compressed down to a stock cube whose sole function was to feed and care for Theres.

  However, the claustrophobia was balanced by a new discovery: the joy of caring for another person. It was deeply satisfying to support Theres’ head with his hand as he brought the spoon to her lips, then watched her swallow and keep down the food he had given her. He got a warm feeling in his chest when she sighed with relief as he wiped her hot face with a cool, damp towel.

  Or maybe it wasn’t quite such a pretty picture. Maybe it was all about power, the fact that she was completely dependent on him. No one had ever depended on him for survival, but Theres was very clearly in that position now.

  Nobody even knew she existed. He could press a pillow over her face and nobody would say a word.

  But did he do that? No, not Jerry. He made her baby rice and moistened towels and changed sheets. He was there for her, looking after her. He had such power over her that he didn’t even need to exert it. Jerry was a terrific guy, for a change.

  Idol started at eight o’clock. When some girl pitched up and started melodramatically wailing, ‘Didn’t we almost have it all’, Theres lay on the sofa and sang along in a weak voice. Jerry’s eyes grew moist, no thanks to the girl on the screen.

  ‘Bloody hell, sis,’ he said. ‘You could do a much better job than her. You can sing the crap out of the lot of them.’