The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

  On Saturday the storm hits. The last of the autumn leaves are torn from the trees, and there’s a howling wind that pummels the town with rain.

  Vanessa is a prisoner at home. By the afternoon claustrophobia is creeping in. It feels as though Nicke is everywhere. If she goes into the kitchen, he’s there making coffee. If she wanders into the living room, he’s lying on the sofa, reading a crime novel, muttering about bad research. In the end Vanessa starts tidying up her room for something to do.

  ‘Can you do the rest of the apartment, while you’re at it?’ her mother says, in a way that suggests she’s being funny.

  But Vanessa actually does it. If nothing else, it’s fun to irritate Nicke with the sound of vacuuming. He can hardly complain.

  Afterwards, Vanessa sits in front of the computer. Nobody’s logged in. She tries calling Wille. No answer. She walks up to the window.

  Engelsfors is best viewed in darkness, from a bit of distance, when all you can see is streetlamps and lit windows. Vanessa catches sight of the church spire. That’s where Rebecka is going to be buried on Monday. Vanessa wishes she could be there, but it’s out of the question. Nobody can know that she and Rebecka were friendly.

  Frasse scratches at the door and she lets him in. He lies down on the bed and sighs contentedly. Vanessa glances at her mobile on the desk. Then she picks it up.

  Linnéa sounds out of breath when she answers. ‘Has something happened?’

  Vanessa is a little confused. Then she realises that Linnéa was hardly expecting an ‘ordinary’ call from her. ‘No, I just wanted …’

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘Forget it,’ says Vanessa, and hangs up.

  Unease wells up in her chest. She calls Wille. The phone rings at the other end. He doesn’t answer.

  Frasse yawns so widely that it looks as if his jaw is going to pop out of joint. Vanessa puts down her mobile and downloads a horror movie. It’ll be nice to look at some imaginary monsters. Anything to stop her thinking about the ones already living inside her head, whispering that her boyfriend is cheating on her at this very moment with Linnéa Wallin.

  The windowpanes rattle in the wind.

  Minoo is searching the Net for information about demons. Again. As usual she gets nowhere. The stories she finds are more like fairy tales. She tries to compare them with each other, but draws no useful conclusions other than that evil creatures figure in most religions and cultures. But originally the word demon had nothing to do with evil. It stems from the Greek word daimon which simply means ‘spirit’, ‘god’ or ‘being’. Evil demons didn’t appear until the arrival of Christianity.

  Minoo sighs in frustration. She’s sure that the people who put up the information on these sites know as little about it as she does. A lot of it is obviously rubbish, other stuff is wishful thinking from wannabe Satanists, but most of it is the senseless rambling of religious nuts. And they frighten her as much as any demons.

  Minoo gets up and massages her stiff shoulders. Her gaze falls on the black dress hanging on the wardrobe door.

  They had bought her funeral outfit after school yesterday. Minoo had put it off as long as she could until her mother had forced her to go shopping with her in Borlänge. Minoo feels sick just thinking about the funeral. It’s the day after tomorrow, and she wishes she could get out of it. But her mother keeps insisting: ‘You have to go. It’s part of the grieving process. You’ll understand what I mean afterwards.’

  Rebecka’s parents don’t want the funeral to become a big spectacle, and have invited only the closest family and friends to attend.

  Minoo doesn’t know if she’ll be able to handle it. What will she say to Rebecka’s mother? How will she cope with seeing Rebecka’s little brothers and sisters? Is Gustaf going to be there? She hasn’t spoken to him since Rebecka died. Not since she read Cissi’s interview with him in the paper.

  Minoo takes her outfit and hangs it inside the wardrobe, out of sight.

  Then she picks up her dog-eared copy of The Secret History and lies down on the bed. But she can’t concentrate on the familiar words. Instead her thoughts wander from the principal to demons, to school, to Max.

  Max is a refuge from the darkness, and she lingers on his face. Her thoughts give way to dreams of longing, the kind of dreams that have filled so many lonely Saturday nights.

  25

  THE TREES ARE silhouetted against the grey-white sky. It is one of those non-weather days – neither wet nor sunny. A vast greyness sits like a lid over the town.

  Minoo walks along the path to the door of the church, the gravel crunching under her feet. Her new dress feels tight around her chest, making it hard for her to breathe. A few old ladies in black coats are standing on the church steps, talking in low voices. Minoo stares at their grizzled hair and wrinkled faces: Rebecka will never look like that.

  Her parents had offered to take time off work and go with her, but Minoo said no. Now she can hardly remember why. She regrets it.

  She tortures herself with various nightmare scenarios. What if she does something wrong –cries too much, giggles hysterically, faints or trips? What if she ruins the funeral for Rebecka’s family? Does she have the right to be there? She had known Rebecka for such a short time.

  Slowly she climbs the steps and passes the old ladies, entering through the open doors. People are already sitting in the pews. Everyone has their backs to her. No one would notice if she turned and left.

  Then she sees the white coffin. Next to the altar there’s an enlarged photograph of Rebecka on an easel. It’s a nice picture. She’s sitting at Dammsjön Lake, squinting a little in the sunlight, smiling at the person taking the picture. And Minoo knows she has to stay.

  She is the only one there who knows why Rebecka died. The only one who knows it wasn’t suicide. Somehow that makes it her duty to be present. At least one person at Rebecka’s funeral knows the truth.

  As she walks up the aisle, she remembers that this is also how bridal couples and parents christening their children enter the church. Minoo’s parents aren’t religious, but suddenly she understands the point of church; here, birth, life and death occupy the same space.

  Minoo sits somewhere in the middle and tries to make herself invisible.

  The bells start to toll.

  Several people are snivelling.

  She looks at Rebecka’s picture again, at her smiling face, which looks so alive, and it’s as if she realises for the first time that Rebecka is never coming back. Never. It’s like staring into a bottomless pit. It’s impossible to get your head around. For ever. Eternity. Suddenly tears are streaming down her face. She becomes afraid of losing control completely. She hides her face in her hands and thinks about everything Rebecka was and everything she might have been, all the things she’ll never feel, see and hear, love, hate, yearn for and laugh at. An entire life. Gone.

  Helena Malmgren, Elias’s mother, isn’t conducting the service. Of course not. How could she bear it, so close to Elias’s death? Instead it’s a young priest. He’s uncertain, stumbling and mumbling his way through the sermon. Minoo hears the words slip past: … so young … God has a purpose … after death … but none provide comfort. When the priest talks about Rebecka, he sounds as if he’s talking about someone else, and Minoo wants him to shut up. Leave them in peace. She hates him for being so ill-prepared. She hates the psalms about souls going to Paradise. How can anyone pretend there’s something beautiful and meaningful about Rebecka’s death?

  The organ music plays. Cautious tones rise up through the church.

  Rebecka’s parents stand and walk to the coffin. Rebecka’s father, a tall, broad-shouldered man whom Minoo has never met, is red-faced from crying. Now and then his sniffs echo through the church, penetrating through the organ music. Her mother has the closed-off expression of the deeply shocked. They are leaning on each other for support. Behind them come Rebecka’s two little brothers; they are so like their elder sister that it’s painful for Minoo to
look at them. They’re wearing black suits and holding each other’s hands as they follow their parents towards the coffin. She wonders how much they understand of what’s going on. An older man is behind them, resting his hands on their shoulders.

  The young priest nods respectfully to the family and there is genuine empathy in his face. Minoo’s anger towards him disappears. He tries to comfort them: an impossible task, but at least he’s trying.

  When the people sitting in the pew in front of Minoo get up, she follows them. Her legs feel unsteady as she walks towards the coffin. The tears well up again as she gets closer and it feels right and proper. It’s fitting that she should cry with Rebecka’s family and everyone else who knew her. She cannot take away their grief, but she can share it.

  Minoo catches sight of a big wreath of lilies with white ribbons on which is written: REST IN PEACE – YOUR FRIENDS. They had chosen the most generic inscription they could come up with so as not to arouse curiosity. But Minoo knows who the senders are and that gives her strength.

  One by one the funeral guests go up and lay a flower on the coffin. Minoo doesn’t have a flower. She didn’t know she was supposed to bring one with her. When she reaches the coffin she instead lays her palm against it. She almost expects to feel something –a sign, an electric shock –but the wood is cool against her skin. It’s impossible to imagine that Rebecka is lying inside.

  Rebecka, Minoo says to herself, I promise I’ll find the person who did this. And they will never have a chance to do it again. I promise you.

  Following the ceremony coffee is served in the parish house but Minoo can’t bear to stay any longer. She can’t imagine what it must be like for Rebecka’s parents to cope with all the questions and guilt, the rage and sorrow. It’s awful not to be able to tell them that their daughter didn’t commit suicide.

  She steps out on to the church steps and looks out across the new section of the cemetery, which extends to the other side of a long box hedge. Elias, the seventh Chosen One, lies somewhere over there.

  She walks down the steps and continues along the gravel path. She thinks about the room in the principal’s house, the frightening things inside it. How can they defeat such an enemy?

  ‘Hi.’

  She looks up. Gustaf is leaning against a tree. He seems a little lost in his black suit. Their eyes meet and Minoo quickens her pace. Gustaf is the last person she wants to talk to.

  ‘Minoo …’

  She doesn’t answer, just walks faster. He follows her.

  ‘Please – can’t I just talk to you?’ he calls out.

  ‘No!’ she hisses.

  ‘It’s not how you think.’

  Minoo stops so suddenly that Gustaf almost cannons into her. Seeing him close up causes some of her anger to dissipate. He’s no longer the golden boy who’s never faced any hardship. His eyes are red and his skin is ashen.

  ‘What’s not how I think?’

  ‘That interview. That’s why you don’t want to talk to me, right?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Gustaf looks at her, searching for words that don’t come.

  ‘You said she was better off dead!’ Minoo reminds him.

  Gustaf shuts his eyes. When he opens them, they’re wet with tears. ‘I was standing at the front entrance waiting for her,’ he says, ‘I saw her fall and hit the ground. I couldn’t do anything—’ He chokes up. Tears run down his cheeks. Minoo is crying, too. A lone raven flies above their heads and lands on a tree.

  ‘Cissi came over to my house that night,’ Gustaf continues, more composed. ‘Of course she said she was a journalist, but it didn’t feel like that when we talked. She really seemed to care. And I said lots of things I shouldn’t have. I barely even remember what I said. My mother’s filed a complaint against the newspaper, but now it’s been printed …’

  Minoo knows what Cissi can be like – she ought to have understood what had happened at the interview. And there’s no trace of deceit in Gustaf’s face. He’s speaking the truth, she’s sure.

  The remnants of the anger she’s felt towards him evaporate, leaving just their grief. Minoo can hardly bear hers, and she can’t begin to conceive of the emptiness Rebecka must have left behind in Gustaf.

  ‘I just have to know,’ he says. ‘Did she say anything to you about being unhappy? Did you notice anything to suggest she didn’t want … to go on living?’

  ‘No,’ she answers. ‘But I do know one thing. You made her happy.’

  Gustaf looks away. ‘Not happy enough.’

  ‘You can’t think like that.’

  ‘Sure I can. I knew something was wrong. Sometimes I sensed she wanted to talk about it. If only I’d asked her …’

  ‘She could just have told you,’ Minoo says gently.

  ‘But instead she jumped off the school roof.’

  There’s nothing Minoo can say. She can’t tell him the truth.

  ‘Her parents must hate me,’ Gustaf continues. ‘I didn’t dare go to the funeral. I didn’t want to ruin things any more than I have already.’

  ‘Go and talk to them. Maybe they understand more than you think.’

  Gustaf shakes his head. ‘I can’t.’ He looks at Minoo and his face breaks into a smile that is full of pain. ‘She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m so fucking alone without her. I don’t recognise my own life any more.’

  He sobs, and Minoo does the only thing she can: she puts her arms around him. From the corner of her eye, she sees the raven flap its wings and fly off into the grey-white sky.

  26

  VANESSA HAS BEEN standing in the darkness outside Linnéa’s door for more than an hour. Linnéa is playing hard grindcore inside her apartment. The singer is alternating between singing and screaming. Vanessa has always thought that kind of music sounds like a really bad headache, but now that she’s forced to listen to it, she gets the point of it. At first it stressed her out, but when she let go and allowed herself to be carried away by it, she found it became strangely relaxing. It’s as if all the stress and fear are transformed into rage, which the music resolves.

  I shouldn’t be here, she thinks.

  But she can’t leave. Not until she knows for sure.

  Late last night she’d got a text message: ‘Tired as hell. Sleep well ’. When she tried calling, the phone rang but nobody answered. She didn’t sleep a wink all night.

  She knew it would piss Wille off if she woke him at seven in the morning demanding he drive her to school. She had to play her full register – scornful, facetious, sexy, angry, helpless – before he gave in. And then it didn’t feel like a triumph. On the contrary. She was humiliated.

  She’d thought that if she could just see him she’d know whether he’d been with Linnéa. That was why it was so important to meet him first thing in the morning. And at first Vanessa took Wille’s silence in the car as a sign that he hadn’t cheated on her. Because if he had, surely he would have tried to suck up to her. But then she wondered instead if the silence meant he was tired of her.

  When they reached the school she threw open the car door and slammed it behind her. She didn’t care if people stared at her as she crossed the playground, ignored Evelina and Michelle when they called to her. As soon as she got inside, she ran to the girls’ toilets by the cafeteria.

  All the cubicles were empty. Vanessa made herself invisible and began to cry quietly and furiously.

  Just then Linnéa entered.

  Vanessa held her breath. She hardly even dared think. But Linnéa had her mobile pressed to her ear and seemed preoccupied. She sighed deeply at whoever was talking to her. She stood in front of the mirror, ran one hand over her black hair and bared her teeth as if to check whether any food was caught in them.

  ‘Stop it. I can’t talk about shit like this when I’m at school,’ she said. ‘No, but I’m here now … I don’t want to know anything about it. That’s your problem. Okay … I realise that … M-hm … I don’t know … Okay … Come over ton
ight, then. At nine. And don’t call me again today.’

  The clock on Vanessa’s mobile reads 9:34. She needs to pee. A telephone number appears on the screen. Minoo. She must have tried to call her, like, seven times already this evening, but Vanessa decides she’ll have to wait. Linnéa hasn’t rushed off to the fairground so it can’t be all that important.

  At 9:46 she tells herself that if no one’s appeared by ten she’ll leave. At ten she decides to give it fifteen more minutes, even though she’s about to pee in her pants.

  At 10:09 the front door to the building opens and a light comes on in the stairwell. The cables in the lift shaft creak, and Vanessa keeps her eyes fixed on the little window. The lift rises into view and stops. She glimpses a figure standing inside.

  The doors open.

  It’s not Wille.

  It’s Jonte.

  He walks up to Linnéa’s door and rings the bell.

  The music cuts out in the apartment. He rings the bell again.

  Linnéa opens the door. She’s not wearing any makeup and has on a pair of tracksuit shorts and a tight black T-shirt with a bat on the chest and DIR EN GREY written across it. She gives Jonte a hard look. ‘You’re late.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, but doesn’t sound as if he means it.

  Linnéa steps aside to let him in.

  Vanessa follows him. It just happens, without her realising. She has just enough time to press herself against the wall before Jonte closes the door and locks it.

  Now she’s standing in Linnéa’s hall and has no idea why she came in, or why she follows Jonte and Linnéa into the living room.

  Fuck, she thinks. Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.

  Linnéa stops suddenly and gives Jonte a strange look.

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘Why do you smell of coconut?’

  Jonte snorts with laughter and throws himself on to the sofa, which gives a loud crack. He’s wearing a washed-out black hoody and baggy jeans. He picks up a little bag of weed, pulls a packet of Rizla papers from his pocket and deftly rolls a joint. Linnéa sits next to him and leans her head on his shoulder.