Little Star

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Teresa couldn’t bring herself to check the message to see if it was embarrassing or crap. She just sent it. After five minutes a reply arrived.

  i am fourteen years old like you so we are almost the same with the same name but i dont know where to put full stops and things when you write you can teach me i dont do anything exciting and you mustnt be scared im the one who should be scared i hardly do anything but now im going to sleep and tomorrow we will write more

  They were the same age and they had almost the same name. Theres and Teresa. It was perfect.

  BOTH THE GIRLS

  Max Hansen.

  If that name means anything to you, then either you’re interested in old Danish films, or you’re in the music industry. The Hansens came from Denmark, and when their only son was born in 1959, they named him Max after the actor who appeared in the first film they saw together in the cinema, Beautiful Helena.

  It would be quite interesting to investigate Max Hansen’s early years, to try and work out how such a person is formed, but that lies outside the scope of this narrative. It is enough to report that the family moved to Stockholm when Max was two years old, that he grew up as a Swede, and that he makes his entrance into this story forty-five years after that move.

  In his twenties Max tried his hand at a musical career as the singer with the glam rock band Campbell Soup, but the only thing this led to was that he got to know the more successful band Ultrabunny and through a series of decisions and coincidences, ended up as their manager.

  When Ultrabunny dissolved due to the songwriter’s crippling writer’s block, Max looked around for another band to help along the way. He had a winning attitude, a firm handshake, and a particular talent for making himself look much more important than he was. After a couple of years he had a small stable of fairly successful acts.

  It was the middle of the 1980s, and Café Opera was the playground of choice for anyone who was someone or wanted to be someone in the music industry. Max wasn’t at the top of the tree, but he made sure he invited the right people, hung out in the right company and made useful contacts. If an up and coming songwriter needed something to shove up his nose, Max wasn’t slow to share, and when some well-known band made their noisy entrance, a bottle of chilled champagne would sometimes arrive at their table. Who’s it from? Max Hansen, over there. Come and sit yourself down buddy, what did you say your name was? Spread the name around, spread the name.

  The girls they let in solely because of their looks swarmed the tables, pretending to be unimpressed. Max focused on the ones with the wrong brand of handbag and the slightly desperate look. Chatted for a while, made sure he said hi to a couple of faces they would recognise from TV; that was usually all it took. Home to his two-room apartment on Regeringsgatan and wham, bam, thank you ma’am, breakfast not included. His all-time record was thirty in one month, but to make that he’d had to trawl Riche on the nights when Café Opera was dead.

  And so it went on. Max had a highly developed sense of hierarchy, which was both a blessing—because it told him what his position should be within a group—and a curse, because it informed him implacably that he had got stuck two tiers below the top level.

  If it had been just one tier, his artists would probably have stuck with him even if they got their big break, and would then have hauled him up with them. As it stood, if things started to go too well they left him when their contracts ran out.

  He was fortunate enough to sign a completely unknown band, Stormfront, on a five-year contract that was dubiously advantageous for him; he then saw them break through after only a year. This made him plenty of money, but also led to a whole lot of bad feeling. The band bad-mouthed him constantly and called him a parasite: what should have been his great success turned out to be the beginning of his decline.

  A few years after Stormfront had left him, pissing on his hall carpet by way of a farewell gift, the situation was completely reversed.

  The only young artists he had any chance with were those who hadn’t heard of him. Or those who knew exactly who he was, but were desperate. He still had his contacts, in spite of everything.

  By the end of the nineties there was a saying in the industry that summed up the situation perfectly: ‘Max Hansen—the last chance’. There were still songwriters, producers and record companies he could turn to if there was anything brewing, but they were down at the lower end of the scale, and the good times were over.

  One thing remained unchanged: his taste for young girls. Since it was no longer enough to say hi to the right people in order to make an impression (and since the right people no longer said hi back), he had to bring in the heavy artillery to get the tender young flesh into his bed: the half promises.

  Times had changed. In the mid-eighties, the dream of fame had been just that—an unattainable dream for most people. But now, thanks to the reality TV explosion, Lisa from Skellefteå and Mugge from Sundbyberg could suddenly believe, in all seriousness, that they were rising stars, that something big was just around the corner, and they grabbed at every opportunity.

  Max hung out in the Spy Bar, keeping an eye out for anyone whose star had noticeably begun to fade. Those who had done the suburban clubs and shopping malls, and who now had only the odd gig with a backing track in a small-town pizza joint to keep the dream alive. Then he struck.

  In this context his nickname, ‘Last chance’ was no liability. The girls in question were usually painfully aware that their moment had passed, even when they kept up a good front. ‘Last chance’ at least meant there was a chance, and that was what Max told them.

  Untapped potential, a good stylist, a songwriter I know who’s worked with the Backstreet Boys, this guy at the record company who’s looking for someone exactly like you, contacts in Asia, they absolutely love Swedish girls over there.

  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it bombed. In November 1999 Max recorded his first shag-free month since he was twenty. He got a hair transplant to restore his fringe, had a few wrinkles ironed off his upper lip and considered his situation.

  It wasn’t that he actually scammed the girls. He did give them a few numbers to call, occasionally set up the odd meeting. With a girl from Big Brother he even managed to get her song listed as ‘bubbling under’ on Tracks, plus a few gigs in shopping malls. OK, so his promises were dubious, but these were hard times.

  He decided to change tactics. Trawling in Spy Bar had become more and more difficult, and he decided to go back to basics. He started turning up at the public end-of-term concerts at music schools, and he kept an eye on the young girls who sang on TV, then got in touch.

  Sometimes he would manage to get one of them into a manufactured group for a tour in Japan, or fix a couple of appearances at games fairs where they needed a Lara Croft. He recorded videos of girls dancing in their underwear, and he made the position clear: they could put out or push off, and yes, he was intending to film it.

  One evening when he was sitting on his sofa half-drunk, jerking off to a DVD of a girl he had taped a couple of days earlier dancing clumsily to ‘Oops, I Did It Again’, he realised he had reached some kind of rock bottom, and that he hadn’t the slightest desire to do anything about it. Then he came and fell asleep.

  That was the situation when Max Hansen switched on the television at the end of September 2006 to watch ‘agony week’ on Idol. Every single boy and girl he saw on the program had some measure of talent, and he thought he could predict the ones who would get through, and how things would go for them after that. He was really after those who were voted off.

  An incredibly pretty and innocent girl from Simrishamn piqued his appetite, but he suspected she was one of the ones where all contact had to go via the parents. However, he did make a note of her name as a possibility for business rather than penetration.

  Then came Tora Larsson with ‘Life on Mars’, arousing something in him that was usually fast asleep: his curiosity. He couldn’t work her out. He had been in the business for such a lo
ng time, and was musical enough to recognise a matchless voice when he heard it, but the girl herself? And her performance? What was all that about? Was it fantastic, or utter crap?

  For once he had no idea how things would go for her, even though her voice echoed in his head long after she had stopped singing. She was pretty as a picture and at the same time ice-cold, in a way that was both repellent and arousing.

  Tora got through, and the following day Max got hold of her contact details through an acquaintance at TV4. An address, nothing more. He printed out his standard letter with some modifications, but decided to wait and see how things went before sending it. Presumably she would have received a number of offers.

  He watched the program when Tora sang ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. He was pleased when she went out, because that increased his chances. If he had ever seen an uncut diamond, he was looking at one right now. She had the voice and the appearance going for her, more than most in fact, but there was a hell of a lot missing if she wanted to have a successful career and become really popular.

  And who would polish this diamond if not Max Hansen? Filled with inspiration, he dispensed with his standard letter and put together a new one, in which he went through her current qualities and defects, explained how he could help her, and outlined the opportunities that were open to her.

  As usual he exaggerated a fair amount, but there was still a significant level of truth in what he wrote. He managed to convince himself that he just wanted to take her under his wing and help this fragile plant to grow, and so on. He almost got tears in his eyes; it was only the discovery that he had got an erection while he was writing that brought him back to reality.

  He went straight down to the post box to send the letter. By the time he got back to the apartment, a part of him was already waiting anxiously for a reply.

  He wanted this. Oh, how he wanted this.

  The Idol adventure had been quite taxing for both Jerry and Theres, although in very different ways. It had changed them, and it had changed their relationship. Jerry had been forced to bring out aspects of himself that he didn’t know existed, and he had seen elements of Theres that were completely new to him.

  It had begun at the very first audition. On the subway he had asked her what she had actually said to console all those weeping girls, and Theres had replied, ‘Words.’

  ‘I get that. But what kind of words?’

  ‘Normal words. The way things are.’

  That was all he could get out of her, and his curiosity would eventually be satisfied by something that happened.

  Theres sailed through the various stages of the Idol auditions in the spring and summer as if it was something completely natural, while Jerry became more and more exhausted. He hadn’t realised there was so much of it. He thought you just turned up, sang for the judges, were either accepted or not accepted, and then you were ready for the program.

  But that wasn’t how it worked. After the preliminary audition at the Grand Hotel, Theres was asked to come back three days later with the same number, the same clothes and the same hairstyle to avoid any continuity problems; she had then sung for the main judging panel, got through and been congratulated by a small group of girls.

  There had been breakdowns and streaky mascara on that occasion too, and once again Theres had stepped in; bending her head close to the distressed contestant, whispering words that Jerry strained, unsuccessfully, to hear. Theres was given more bits of paper with telephone numbers on them, and made not the slightest attempt to ring them.

  But there was more. A month or so later there was the final audition at Oscar’s Theatre, and Jerry had to put up with hours and days of waiting while Theres sang solo or in various groups. Every day he hoped she would be eliminated so that it would all be over, every day she got through. There was sweat and suffering and kids singing in every corner and cameras filming and it was hell on earth.

  When Theres had finally been filtered through as one of the twenty lucky contestants who would return for the live shows in the autumn, Jerry felt undiluted relief. Not because she had got through, but because it was finally over. For now. He would worry about the autumn when the time came.

  One very hot day in the middle of July, when the heat between the three-storey buildings was enough to make your skin hurt, Jerry finally found out what it was that Theres did.

  They had gone into the local shop to choose an ice cream each, when they heard raised voices from the direction of the freezer. Then the owner appeared, marching towards the storeroom and dragging a girl of about thirteen by the arm.

  From a few monosyllabic exchanges Jerry realised that the girl had been stealing, and she was now being called to account. The owner was squeezing the girl’s forearm hard with one hand, and she was sobbing, ‘No, look, I’m really sorry, I won’t…’

  Like anything unexpected that has some element of violence, it created a kind of physical numbness in the observer, and Jerry stood there with his arms dangling as he watched the owner push open the doors leading to the storeroom and drag the girl along with him.

  He thought the owner was basically a nice guy who just wanted to make a point, rather than reporting the incident to the police. A good telling-off, and that would be the end of the matter. That was his interpretation. Theres’ interpretation was different.

  When Jerry emerged from his temporary paralysis, he caught sight of Theres. She had gone over to the shelf containing kitchen items, picked up a carving knife and ripped off the packaging. She was now heading for the storeroom with great determination, holding the knife at waist level.

  ‘Sis? Sis!’

  He ran after her and grabbed her by the shoulder. Theres raised the knife and turned to face him. Her eyes were empty, her face a grimacing mask. Instinctively Jerry let go of her shoulder and held up his hands in self-defence. Theres seemed to be on the point of stabbing at him, but stopped. He could hear a low growl coming from her throat.

  Incredibly, Jerry had enough presence of mind to see that there was a question in her expression, her posture: Why are you getting in my way? You have one minute to explain.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Jerry said. It was the quickest thing he could come up with to give himself a little bit of breathing space. ‘You’re wrong. You’re doing the wrong thing.’

  ‘Little girl will be dead,’ said Theres. ‘The big person will kill her. Not wrong.’

  Jerry made a huge effort to speak in clear sentences that Theres would hopefully be able to grasp as truths. ‘You are wrong. He is not going to kill her. He is not going to harm her. He is going to say…words to her. Some harsh words. Then she will be allowed to leave.’

  Theres lowered the knife a fraction. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You have to trust me.’ Jerry pointed at the storeroom doors. ‘In a couple of minutes she’ll come out. She won’t be harmed. I promise.’

  The knife returned to waist level as Theres stared fixedly at the doors, keeping watch. Jerry looked around the shop. Fortunately there were no other customers, but someone could come in at any moment.

  ‘Theres? Could you give me the knife?’

  Theres shook her head. ‘If the little girl doesn’t come, the big person will be dead.’

  Jerry scratched the back of his head hard. His scalp was damp and more sweat was breaking through. He got the dizzying feeling that his and Theres’ day-to-day existence was no more than a matter of tripping along across suspension bridges. There was actually an abyss between them, a chasm so deep that he couldn’t even see the bottom. It had just become visible for a moment.

  ‘OK,’ said Jerry. ‘But if…when the little girl comes out, will you give me the knife then?’

  Theres nodded.

  They waited. A minute passed. Two. No other customers came into the shop. Jerry stood next to Theres, staring at the closed double doors. When another minute had passed, an irrational fear began to grow in his breast. That Theres was right. That a murder or rape was being committed rig
ht now in the storeroom. He glanced at Theres. Her face was hard, closed. The girl needed to come out now, otherwise something terrible was going to happen.

  And then she appeared. The doors opened and the owner saw Jerry, nodded in greeting and gestured at the tear-stained creature meekly trailing behind him.

  ‘Sometimes you just have to make a stand, don’t you?’

  Jerry nodded and took a step to one side so that he was standing at an angle that hid the knife from the owner’s view. The girl headed for the exit, and the owner called after her, ‘You’re welcome to come in again. But no more of that kind of thing.’

  The girl shook her bowed head, and Theres followed her. Jerry let her go, because she no longer had the knife in her hand. He glanced sideways and saw that it was lying on top of the ice cream freezer.

  The owner was talking about how it was essential to tackle this kind of thing from the start rather than simply letting these kids carry on, because they would end up paying for it later. Jerry nodded and made noises to indicate agreement as he manoeuvred the knife into his hand behind his back. When the owner turned away, he hid it among the packets of crisps. Then he left.

  Theres and the girl were sitting side by side on the wall outside the shop. The girl was curled up into a weeping bundle, and the scene looked familiar. This time Jerry was going to find out what it was all about. The girls were sitting with their heads close together, taking no notice of him, so he crept around them until he was standing on the pavement behind the wall.