‘What others?’
‘The others who are going to be with me. My pack.’
Johannes got up and walked around the room, rubbing his scalp. Then he came and stood next to Teresa. He looked at the tools, then at her. ‘What are you talking about? Stop it, Teresa. What’s the matter with you?’
‘I can’t stop it. But I’m scared.’
‘I’m not fucking surprised. What are you scared of?’
‘That I won’t be able to do it. I’m the one that has to go first.’
Johannes stroked her hair, shaking his head at the same time. Then he knelt down in front of her and said, ‘Come on. Come on,’ and put his arms around her again, holding her tight as he whispered, ‘Listen, Teresa. You haven’t killed anyone and you’re not going to kill anyone and you have to stop talking like this. Why would you kill anyone?’
Teresa pushed him away and said, ‘Because I can. Because I want to. Because it makes me alive.’
‘You want to kill people?’
‘Yes. I really, really want to. I long to do it. But I don’t know if I dare. I don’t know if I’m…ready.’
Johannes sighed and raised his eyebrows, then said in a tone which suggested he was prepared to play along a little bit, ‘So how will you know if you’re ready, then?’
‘By killing you.’
‘You’re going to kill me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Er…when?’
‘Now.’
A shadow passed over Johannes’ face as he tired of the game. With a swift movement he picked up the hammer and held it out to Teresa, still kneeling in front of her. ‘Go on then, kill me. Do it.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘No.’
Teresa raised the hammer and said, ‘Are you brave enough to close your eyes?’
He looked her in the eyes. For a long time. Then he closed his eyes. His eyelids were thin, delicate and completely relaxed. He wasn’t screwing his eyes up at all, his breathing was calm and even, and there was the hint of a smile on his lips. His cheeks were covered in fine, downy hairs and he was her best friend and the only boy she had perhaps actually loved. She said, ‘Bye then,’ and slammed the hammer into his temple.
She kept on hitting him until only a tiny bit of life remained. Then she picked up the drill and opened him up. The battery was fully charged, and it took her only a couple of seconds to drill through the skull. Johannes’ legs jerked in a series of final cramps, kicking over the plastic flower. Then she bent over him and took what had been the essence of him.
When she got up her path was clearly marked, and she knew she had the strength to follow it. There was nothing left. No further considerations, nothing to return to. She was entirely happy as she closed the door behind her and walked down the stairs, through the odours of frying food, cleaning products and dust warmed by the sun, tickling her nostrils.
In the box outside the railway station she posted the letters addressed to the four main national newspapers: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Aftonbladet. The letters were all exactly the same, and she had written them because she could.
Hi,
Today at Sing Along at Skansen we are going to kill a lot of people. We might die too. You never know.
You will ask why. Why, why, why. On the news placards. In the papers. Big thick letters. WHY? A sea of lighted candles. Pieces of paper with messages. People weeping. And over and above everything: WHY?
And this is our answer (wait for it now): BECAUSE!!!!
Because the tide of death is rising. Do you realise the tide of death is rising? In our schools. On Idol. In H & M. It is rising. Everyone knows. Everyone feels. No one realises.
Today it will overflow.
We were the nice little girls down at the front. We screamed and wept on cue. We worshipped ourselves when you made us into stars. We bought ourselves from you. ‘High five,’ you said. ‘Congratulations!’
The tide of death is rising. Thanks to you. It’s all thanks to you. You have deserved it all.
Goodbye
The wolves of Skansen
There wasn’t really anything she wanted to say. She had made up a reason because it felt appropriate. If you’re going to do something magnificent then you might as well come up with a magnificent reason, it makes things tidier. She had sat at the computer and put herself in her own position. If a group of girls were about to do what they were about to do, what might a nice farewell letter look like?
Then she had written it. If everything went the way she had planned it, the letter would be examined to the point of exhaustion, and every single word would be analysed. But she didn’t mean anything. She imagined herself and made things up. When she read through what she had written, she found it was all true. But it wasn’t about her. Nothing had ever been about her. Perhaps that was the reason.
EPILOGUE
‘We wait until the first chorus. Then we begin. Spread out.’
TERESA 19.47, 26/6/2007
Mother says I was a dancer before I could walk
Robert Segerwall has earned his place in the VIP seats after thirty years’ hard labour in the service of entertainment at Swedish Television. He is one of the people the camera lingers on when the singing starts. He is wearing a loose beige linen jacket, and gives the impression of both relaxation and upright character. He was actually in the running to take over when Lasse gave up. He is not bitter, he loves his free summers.
When the first blow strikes his arm, for a moment he is angry that someone has ruined his jacket. Then comes the pain, and the blood. When his wife of twenty-five years starts screaming at his side, he realises that the danger is real.
He turns to his attacker, but has no time to do anything before a slash across his throat monopolises his attention. The blows that come after this are irrelevant.
She says I began to sing long before I could talk
Everyone knows that when Linda Larsson does something, she does it properly. That’s why she claimed her spot at the Solliden stage at ten o’clock this morning. If she’s going to Sing Along at Skansen, then she’s going for the full experience. She has eaten the picnic she brought with her, she has watched the rehearsals. She is planning to write about it all in her blog, and has been making a few notes.
When she hears the angry buzzing behind her, she thinks it is an unusually large wasp. She also knows that the best thing to do in that case is to sit perfectly still. Not to start waving her arms about. She looks down at her notepad and wonders whether to write something about the wasp.
Then comes the sting in the back of her neck. The pain is indescribable. Her fingers spread and are suddenly ice cold. She opens her mouth to scream, but something is blocking her windpipe. Blood spurts over her notepad and her hand flies up to her throat where it is penetrated halfway by a rapidly rotating drill bit. Then the drill is torn out and she just has time to grasp what has happened before she loses consciousness.
And I’ve often wondered, how did it all start?
Despite the fact that they haven’t got to the bit where the audience joins in, Isailo Jovanovic can’t help singing along. This is the third time he has been to Sing Along at Skansen and, however integrated he might feel after seventeen years in Sweden, he just doesn’t know the songs. Every year it’s Evert Taube—and you don’t hear those songs much in Belgrade. But Abba, that’s different. When he was a teenager Isailo and his friends used to swap tapes; Isailo had his first kiss to the sound of ‘Fernando’.
He knows he has a decent tenor voice, and even though the people around him are not singing, he joins in with the girl up on the stage. He has never heard anyone sing like that, and it is a pleasure to hear his voice blending with hers.
He can hear the distant sound of people screaming, and assumes that the girl is some kind of idol. This isn’t important to him as he enjoys the way her voice interweaves with his.
In the middle of his joyous singing he receives a blow to his jaw, a
terrible blow on his chin. Something breaks in his lower jaw and he is hurled to the ground. In a couple of seconds his mouth is full of blood and fragments of tooth. He doesn’t understand. This is not the Sweden he knows.
Then he sees the hammer being raised, and holds up his hands in self-defence. His head is ringing and he is unable to focus. A blurred figure takes a step to one side, then comes an annihilating blow right on the top of his head.
Who found out that nothing can capture a heart like a melody can?
Johan Lejonhjärta is in seventh heaven. He came to Sing Along at Skansen for one thing, and one thing only, and that thing has happened. Ola Salo touched him. Johan has adored Ola Salo from the very start, and Ola was one of the reasons why he dared to come out of the closet eight years ago, leaving Kisa and moving to Stockholm.
When Ola fluttered past the sea of spectators as he sang ‘The Worrying Kind’, Johan stretched out his hand. And Ola didn’t just touch his hand. He took it for a moment and looked Johan in the eye as he sang ‘Be good for goodness sake’. The words and the touch burned into Johan.
He knows it’s ridiculous. He is thirty-two years old, and thinks he has been touched by a divine being. He has photographed his hand with his mobile, he has turned the words ‘be good for goodness sake’ over and over in his head like the words of a guru, a guideline for life. He knows it’s ridiculous and he couldn’t care less and he gives himself up to his happiness.
When he hears the screams around him they are filtered through his own experience, and he interprets them as screams of happiness and excitement. He loves Abba too, and the girl up there is a wonderful singer, but that’s not important right now.
He works as a carpenter and recognises the sound behind him for exactly what it is. A drill. And yet he does not link the sound with the agonising pain in his back, because it is just too far-fetched. Only when the second blow comes does he realise that the rev count of the drill is slowing down at the same time as he feels a quivering pain through his skeleton.
When he turns around the drill is pushed into his chest, and he coughs up blood as one lung is punctured. The drill is pulled out and he opens his mouth to stammer out a plea, a prayer. For a fraction of a second he can see the rotating spiral before it becomes blurred and disappears into his eye.
Well, whoever it was, I’m a fan
Elsie Karlsson has seen them come and go. She was here back in Egon Kjerrman’s day, but she’d go for Bosse Larsson if she had to choose. There was nothing wrong with Lasse, nor this new chap, but Bosse Larsson knew how to spread a sense of wellbeing like no one else. Things weren’t so over the top in those days.
You can usually get a seat if you arrive about two, but today there must be something particularly popular on, so Elsie has had to sit on her wheeled walker. To tell the truth, she wishes the show would end, because she’s really tired. You might think one of these young people would offer her their seat, but times have changed.
This is a nice tune, and the girl who is singing is very good. As far as Elsie can remember the girl wasn’t there for the rehearsals, which is unheard of. Or perhaps Elsie has forgotten. That happens more and more often these days.
Some kind of commotion over by the seating attracts her attention. A few people have got up and are running away. Odd. Things are usually very orderly and controlled once the broadcast has begun, people hardly dare cross their legs. But now people are running around and screaming in a quite unprecedented way.
She doesn’t understand what has happened until she is lying on her back and hears her hip bone crack. The wheeled walker has been pulled from underneath her. It hurts so much that the grinding of her jaws leaves her false teeth askew inside her mouth. Her glasses must have fallen off, because she can hardly see.
A thin figure is leaning over her with something in its hand. Elsie believes that people are intrinsically good, and assumes that this is someone who is going to help her, that whatever the figure is holding in its hand is something that can save her. Then comes the blow directly to her forehead, and everything goes black.
Inside her head, in some corner which is still conscious, she hears a sound like an angry insect. It is coming closer.
So I say thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing
At first Lena Forsman thought it was a bad idea. Going to Sing Along at Skansen on a first date. It felt like a family thing, not something for two people who met on the internet. But it’s gone well, really well.
There was so much to talk about as they fumbled their way towards an understanding of one another, and so far Peter seems to be a real gem. Self-confident without being arrogant, funny without being stupid. Not bad looking, well dressed, and as for the thinning hair, she actually thought it was sexy. On him anyway.
He had bought her raspberries from one of the girls who went around selling them before the live broadcast, and when ‘Some Day I’ll Come Sailing Home’ started up, he put his arm around her shoulders and half-jokingly swayed along in time. The arm had stayed there as a little girl came on stage and sang that fantastic Abba song.
The mixing desk hides the middle of the stage from where they are standing, and since she can’t see anyway, and since the girl is singing so beautifully, Lena closes her eyes and gives herself up to the pleasure of the friendly arm around her shoulders, the warm summer evening and the special moments life can still bring, moments like this.
She hears hysterical screams and smiles at the memory of herself when she was like that, when she was fourteen years old and went to see Abba at Gröna Lund; she almost fainted when Annifrid looked her in the eye for that fraction of a second, and she screamed until her throat hurt.
Suddenly Peter’s grip tightens around her shoulders. He is squeezing so hard that she gasps and opens her eyes, just as his hand is torn away from her. She sees him fall at her feet, clutching his head. He begins to twitch and shake, and her first thought is: Is he having an epileptic fit?
Then she sees that blood is beginning to seep from beneath his right hand. She doesn’t understand what has happened, but leans over him and says, ‘Peter? Peter? What’s the matter?’
His eyes are staring at a point immediately behind her. They widen and he opens his mouth to say something. The next moment a blow to the back of her neck brings her down, and she falls onto his body. She just has time to catch the aroma of Old Spice before another blow extinguishes all perception.
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Ronnie Ahlberg doesn’t know what the hell to do. He is in charge of the camera ten metres to the left of the stage, and from his metre-high wooden podium he has a good overview. What he is seeing is not what happened during rehearsals. Through his headset he has just been told to run pictures of the audience in the seated area, but what is happening down there isn’t exactly ideal material. People are out of their seats and running, and there seems to be some kind of mass exodus going on.
Still, his job is not to look for reasons, but to find camera angles. Since the audience in the seated area has decided to depart from the script for some reason, he turns the camera towards the standing area behind the barriers, where the kids are still behaving as they should, holding their mobiles up in the air to film the show and waving banners with ‘TESLA RULES’ and ‘TESLA GIRLS JAKOBSBERG’.
He hears a voice in his ear. Abrahamsson, the picture editor, sounds almost on the verge of tears in the outside broadcast truck. ‘What’s going on out there, Ronnie? Half our monitors are fucking useless.’
Ronnie’s camera is about to go the same way. The kids have started behaving oddly too, and the ‘TESLA RULES’ banner ends up on the ground just as the crowd at his feet begins to move away from the barrier. He is just thinking of angling his camera up towards the stage and the girl who is singing, because at least she’s standing still, when a powerful blow to his knee makes his legs give way beneath him.
He tries to stop himself from falling by grabbing hold of one of the levers
on the camera, but a blow to the other knee sends him tumbling from the platform, executing an involuntary stage dive backwards into the sea of running people.
His face, arms and hands are trampled underfoot as he hears a high-pitched whining noise—it sounds like a camera flash charging—coming closer to his ear.
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty, what would life be?
No, Sing Along at Skansen is not Kalle Bäckström’s scene, he was quite clear on that point after enduring a song by The Ark, some old farts’ song, and now that kid who was on MySpace. He only came because Emmy was supposed to be here. And now he can’t get hold of her!
He has spent the last ten minutes standing next to the portable toilets fifty metres behind the back row of seats, texting. He asked Emmy where she is, and she told him she was down the front. Whereabouts down the front, he asked her, and now he’s waiting for the reply.
OK, OK. If necessary he’s going to push his way through the crowd just so he can stand next to her and rub himself up against her. She’s the prettiest girl in the class, and when she said, ‘Are you coming to Skansen on Tuesday?’, he might have misinterpreted it slightly. As if it was a date. But she was here with three girlfriends, and he hasn’t even managed to find her yet.
He is standing there staring at his phone, using the power of the mind to try and make a reply from her appear, when he realises something is going on. People are screaming and waving their arms in the air down at the front, and one or two are running past him. He lowers his mobile and stands on tiptoe so that he can see better.
The crowd in front of him is expanding. The entire audience begins to swell towards him as if it was escaping from a pressure cooker. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. He is standing on the slope leading down from Solliden, right in the middle of the valve itself, and the boiling mass of people is cascading towards him.
Little Star Page 47
