‘Don’t stop him,’ Mahler said. ‘Help him.’
Anna held Elias under his arms and he got to his feet. With Anna’s support he took a tentative step toward the car. Mahler drove it up a few centimetres, then back again. Elias took another step. When he was almost there and held out his hand, Mahler drove the car away, to the door.
‘Let him take it,’ Anna said.
‘No,’ Mahler said. ‘Then he’ll stop.’
Elias turned his head in the direction of the car, turned his body in the direction of his head and walked toward the door. Anna followed, tears streaming down her cheeks. When Elias reached the door, Mahler drove the car into the hall.
‘Let him have it,’ Anna’s voice was muffled. ‘He wants it.’
Mahler continued to steer the car away as soon as Elias caught up with it, until Anna stopped, with Elias straining in her arms.
‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Stop. I can’t keep doing this.’
Mahler let the car stop. Anna held Elias under his chest with both hands.
‘You’re making him into a robot,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be part of it.’
Mahler sighed and lowered the remote control.
‘Would you rather he was just a lump? This is fantastic.’
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Yes it is. But it’s… wrong.’ Anna sank down onto the floor, shifted Elias onto her lap and took the car, giving it to him. ‘Here, sweetheart.’
Elias’ fingers flew across the plastic details on the car, as if searching for a way in. Anna nodded, stroking his hair. His hair had grown stronger and had stopped falling out, but there were a couple of bald spots from the first few days.
‘He’s wondering how it can be moving,’ Anna said, and drew teary mucus into her nose. ‘He’s wondering what it is that has made it move.’
Mahler put down the remote control.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I just know,’ Anna answered.
Mahler shook his head, walked out into the kitchen and got himself a beer. There had been several times since they had come here that Anna reported things that she just knew about what Elias wanted, and it irritated Mahler that she was using this supposed ability to slow down his training.
‘Elias doesn’t like that top… Elias wants me to apply the cream… ‘
When Mahler asked her how she could know that, he always received the same answer: she just knew. He opened the beer, drank half and looked out the window. The tropical rain had not been enough to save the trees. Many were losing their leaves even though it was only the middle of August.
This time he thought Anna was right. Many of Elias’ old toys had not stirred the slightest interest, so probably it was the movement inside the car that had awakened him. What use could they make of that?
Anna left Elias on the floor with the car and came into the kitchen.
‘Sometimes,’ Mahler said, still looking out of the window, ‘sometimes I don’t believe you want him to get better.’
He heard Anna draw breath to reply, and knew more or less what she was going to say. Before she had time to say it she was interrupted by a sharp crack from the hall.
Elias was sitting on the floor with the car in his hands. Somehow he had managed to break away the entire upper part of the chassis, so that parts and wires were revealed. Before Mahler could stop him he got hold of the battery pack and tore it away, holding it up to his eyes.
Mahler threw his arms out, looked at Anna.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Are you happy now?’
Elias had taken apart another battery-operated car before Mahler thought of getting a Brio train set with wooden pieces. The engine that came with it was so neatly made, with so few moving parts, that it resisted the attempts of Elias’ still-weak fingers to deconstruct it.
That morning he had been in Norrtalje and bought yet another engine. Now he attached a strip of masking tape across the middle of the kitchen table in order to create a demarcation, two zones, and placed a tank engine in One. The first step of the autism training described in the book was a mimicking exercise. He laid three straight track pieces in each zone and then carried Elias out from the bedroom, placing him on a kitchen chair.
Elias looked at the window, toward the garden where Anna was mowing the lawn.
‘Look,’ Mahler said and held his engine out toward Elias. No reaction. He put the engine down on the table and started it. It made a hollow buzzing sound as it moved slowly across the surface. Elias turned his head toward the sound, reached his hand to it. Mahler took the engine away.
‘There.’
He pointed at the identical engine in front of Elias. Elias leaned over the table and tried to get a hold of the engine still buzzing in Mahler’s hand. He turned it off and pointed to Elias’ engine again.
‘There. That one is yours.’
Elias fell back in the chair, expressionless. Mahler stretched out his arm and clicked the on button of the engine in Elias’ zone. It droned on across
the table until Elias clumsily put his hand over it, grabbed hold of it, lifted it to his eyes and tried to pry off the turning wheels.
‘No, no.’
Mahler walked around the table and managed to coax the train out of Elias’ stiff hand, and placed it back on the table.
‘Look.’
He put his own engine out on the other side of the table and turned it on. Elias stretched for it.
‘There,’ Mahler pointed to Elias’ stationary train. ‘There. Now you do that.’
Elias heaved his entire upper body across the table, grabbed hold of Mahler’s engine and started trying to take it apart. Mahler did not like standing at this angle; there was a hole in Elias’ head where his ear had been. He rubbed his eyes.
Why don’t you understand? Why are you so stupid?
The engine made a crunching sound as Elias unexpectedly managed to break it open. The batteries fell to the floor.
‘No, Elias. No!’
Mahler grabbed the pieces out of Elias’ hand, angry despite himself; he was starting to get so awfully tired of all this. He smashed his own engine into the table and pointed with pedantic precision at the on button.
‘Here. You start it here. Here.’
He turned it on. The train inched its way over to Elias and he took it, breaking off one of the wheels.
I can’t bear it. He can’t. He can’t do anything.
‘Why do you have to break everything?’ he said out loud. ‘Why do you have to destroy…’
Suddenly Elias bent his hand back and threw the engine at Mahler’s face. It struck him right across the mouth, splitting his lip, and from behind a red membrane he heard it bounce against the floor as the metal taste rose inside his head. He stared at Elias with a swelling anger. Elias’ dark brown lips were pulled back in a grin. He looked… mean.
‘What are you doing?’ Mahler said. ‘What are you doing?’
Elias’ head was going back and forth as if shaken from behind by an invisible force and the legs of the chair teetered, hitting the floor. Before Mahler had time to do anything Elias collapsed, completely floppy. He collapsed on the chair and slid down on the floor as if his skeleton had suddenly been transformed into jelly. In slow motion, Mahler saw the chair fall after him, had time to realise that the back of it was going to strike Elias across the cheek before a whining sound pierced his skull like a dentist’s drill and forced him to shut his eyes.
His hands went up to his temples and pressed, but the whining noise disappeared, as quickly as it had come. Elias was lying on the floor with the chair over him, absolutely still.
Mahler hurried over and lifted the chair away. ‘Elias? Elias?’
The door to the verandah was opened and Anna entered. ‘What are you…’
She threw herself on her knees beside Elias, stroking his cheeks.
Mahler blinked, looked around the kitchen, and a shiver crawled up his spine.
There is someone here.
The whining
returned, weaker this time. Switched off. Elias lifted his hand to Anna and she took it, kissing it. She looked angrily at Mahler, still turning his head this way and that to catch sight of someone he could not see. He licked his lip, which was already starting to swell up, the skin slick as plastic.
Gone.
Anna tugged on his shirt. ‘You aren’t allowed to do that.’
‘I’m not allowed to… what?’
‘Dislike him.’
Mahler’s fingers flickered, pointing indeterminately toward different areas of the kitchen. ‘There was someone… here.’
The perception of a presence was still palpable in the skin of his back. Someone had been watching him and Elias. He stood up, walked over to the counter and rinsed his face with cold water. Once he had wiped himself with a kitchen towel his head felt clearer. He sat on a stool.
‘I can’t handle this.’
‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I can tell.’
Mahler picked up the half-destroyed engine and weighed it in his hand. ‘I don’t just mean… this. I mean… ‘ his eyes narrowed, he looked at Anna. ‘There is something. There is something I don’t understand. Something else is going on here.’
‘You don’t want to listen,’ Anna said. ‘You’ve already made up your mind.’
She shifted Elias to the side so that he was lying on the rag rug in front of the stove. When you looked closely it was unmistakeable: Elias might have made some progress, nearing a kind of consciousness, but his body had shrunk further. The arms poking out of the pyjamas were just bone covered in parchment-like skin, his face a skull, painted and garnished with a wig. It was impossible to imagine a soft, wet, working brain inside.
Mahler made a fist and banged it against his leg.
‘What is it I don’t understand? What is it. I don’t. Understand?’
‘That he is dead,’ Anna said.
Mahler was about to argue the point when there was the clomp of clogs on the stoop and the front door opened.
‘Yoo-hoo in there!’
Mahler and Anna’s eyes met and for a second they were united in panic. Aronsson’s clogs thundered on into the house and Mahler rushed up from the table, placing himself as an obstacle in the kitchen doorway.
Aronsson looked up and pointed to Mahler’s lip. ‘Well, well. Been in a fight, have you?’ He laughed at his own wit and removed his hat, fanning his face. ‘How are you holding up in the heat?’
‘OK,’ Mahler said. ‘It’s just, we’re a bit busy right now.’
‘I understand,’ Aronsson said. ‘I won’t interrupt. I just wanted to hear if they’d picked up your garbage.’
‘Yes.’
‘I see. But not mine. Not for two weeks. I’ve called and complained and they say they’re coming out, but they don’t come. And in this heat. They can’t keep carrying on like this.’
‘No.’
Aronsson knit his brows. He sensed something. In theory, Mahler could simply have wrapped his arms around him, carried him to the door and thrown him out. Later he would wish that this was what he had done. Aronsson peered past him.
‘Fine company, I see. The whole family. That’s lovely.’
‘We were just going to eat.’
‘I see, I see. Well, don’t let me interrupt. I just want to say hello…’
Aronsson tried to get past, but Mahler put his hand against the door post so that his arm created a barrier. Aronsson blinked. ‘What’s wrong with you, Gustav? I just want to say hello to the girl.’ Anna got up quickly, intending to greet Aronsson in the doorway so he wouldn’t have to enter the kitchen. When Mahler lowered his arm to let her past, Aronsson ducked in.
‘Well, goodness me,’ he said and held out his hand to Anna. ‘It’s been a while hasn’t it?’
His sharp eyes scanned the room and Anna didn’t bother to say hello; it was too late anyway. Aronsson caught sight of Elias and his eyes widened, locking on like a radar that has finally found its target. His tongue appeared, licking his lips, and for one second Mahler debated whether or not he should hit him in the head with the cast iron pot holder.
Aronsson pointed to Elias. ‘What is… that?’
Mahler grabbed him by the shoulders, dragging him into the hall. ‘That is Elias, and now you have to go home.’ He took the hat out of Aronsson’s hands and pushed it onto his head. ‘I could ask you to keep quiet, but I know there’s no point. Go away.’
Aronsson wiped some spittle from his mouth. ‘Is he… dead?’
‘No,’ Mahler said as he forced Aronsson toward the front door. ‘He is reliving and I was trying to help him get better. But that’s the end of that, if I know you.’
Aronsson backed out onto the porch with an inscrutable little smile pasted on his face. He was most likely figuring out who exactly he should call to turn them in.
‘Well, good luck then,’ he said and left, still backing up. Mahler slammed the door.
Anna was sitting on the kitchen floor with Elias in her lap.
‘We have to leave,’ Mahler said, expecting resistance, but Anna simply nodded. ‘Yes. I guess we do.’
They tossed everything in the refrigerator into a cooler and packed Elias’ things in a gym bag. Mahler was careful to include the engine and the other toys. The cell phone, some extra clothes. They didn’t have sleeping bags or a tent, but Mahler had a plan. The past couple of days, particularly before he fell asleep, he had run through various scenarios, what they would do if this occurred, or this. Now this had occurred and in the plastic bag with the clothes he included a hammer, a screwdriver and a crowbar.
Past summers when they had gone out to sea for a whole day, the packing had taken over an hour. Now, when they were going to stay away indefinitely, it took ten minutes and probably they had forgotten about half of what they needed.
So be it. Mahler could return to the mainland at a later point and get provisions if needed. The thing was to get Elias out of the way.
They walked slowly through the forest. Anna was carrying the bags, Mahler had Elias. His heart wasn’t giving him any trouble, but he knew this was one of those occasions when he could very well suffer an attack if he did not take it easy.
Elias was a statue in his arms. No sign of life. Mahler trod carefully, unable to look down, feeling his way with his feet over the roots that crossed the path. Sweat stung his eyes.
All this work. For this little scrap of life.
Svarvagatan 11.15
Sture’s Volvo 740 was newly washed but a strong smell of wood and linseed oil still clung to it. Sture was a carpenter, and he lived in a hexagonal cottage with an extension at the front, designed by himself
for summer guests.
Magnus crawled into the back seat and David handed him the basket with Balthazar, then sat down in the passenger seat. Sture rifled through the maps that he had torn out of the phone book, scratching his head and trying to locate the place.
‘The Heath, the Heath…’
‘I don’t think it’s on the map,’ David said. ‘It’s jarva field. Towards
Akalla.’
‘Akalla…’
‘Yes. North-west.’
Sture shook his head. ‘Maybe it’s better if you drive.’ ‘I’d rather not,’ David said. ‘I feel…1’ d rather not.’
Sture looked up from the page. A smile flickered at the corner of his mouth and he leaned forward, opening the glove compartment.
‘I brought these.’ He gave David two wooden dolls, about fifteen centimetres tall, and started the car. ‘I’ll drive out to the E20 and then we’ll see.’
The dolls were silken as only wood sanded down by hands and fingers can be. They were a boy and a girl, and David knew their story.
When Eva was little Sture had worked as a construction carpenter in Norway two weeks on, one week off. On one of his weeks at home he had
carved the dolls and given them to his then six-year-old daughter. To his delight they had become her favourite toys, even though she had both Barbie and Ken and
Barbie’s dog.
The funny thing was that she had given the dolls names: they were called Eva and David. Eva told him this story a couple of months after they met.
‘It was inevitable,’ she said. ‘I’ve been fated to be with you since I was six years old.’
David closed his eyes, rubbing his fingers over the dolls.
‘Do you know why I made them?’ Sture asked, his gaze on the road.
‘No.’
‘In case I died. It wasn’t completely without risks, that job. So I thought that if… that she would have something left.’ He sighed. ‘But I wasn’t the one who died.’ He sounded wistful. Eva’s mother had died of cancer six years earlier and Sture was affronted, somehow, that it had not been him, the less valuable person.
Sture glanced at the dolls. ‘I don’t know. I probably thought… something that would get her to remember.’
David nodded, thinking about what he would leave for Magnus. Piles of paper. Videos of himself performing. He had never made anything with his hands. Nothing worth keeping, at least.
David directed Sture through the city as best he could. Many times people honked at them, since Sture was driving so slowly. But they reached their goal. At ten minutes to twelve they parked on the field close to a hastily erected parking sign. Hundreds of other cars were lined up. Sture turned off the engine and they remained seated.
‘We don’t have to pay for parking, at least,’ David said to break the silence. Magnus opened his door and got out, the basket in his arms. Sture’s hands were still resting on the steering wheel. He looked out at the crowds of people outside the gates.
‘I’m afraid,’ he said.
‘I know,’ David said. ‘Me too.’
Magnus rapped on the window. ‘Come on!’
Sture took the dolls before he left the car. He held them in tightly
clenched fists as they walked toward Eva.
The area was bordered by a newly erected fence that raised the uncomfortable association of a concentration camp, which was what, in the purely literal sense of the term, it was. A gathering place. The perspective was distorted by the fact that the hordes of people were located outside the fence while the area on the inside was empty. Only the grey buildings scattered on the field, fenced in.
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