⦠opens his eyes and sees the blond hair unclearly, the blue eyes like distant forest pools. Sees the bowl the man is holding in his hands, the bowl he brings to his mouth and how he drinks. How the man shuts his eyes, finally shuts them and drinksâ¦
More time⦠Endless time. Imprisoned. The man bites. And drinks. Bites. And drinks.
Then the glowing rod moves up into his head and everything turns pink as he jerks his head up from the rope and fallsâ¦
***
Eli caught him when he fell backward from Eli’s lips. Held him in his arms. Oskar fumbled for whatever there was to grasp, the body in front of him, and squeezed it hard, looked unseeing around the room.
Stay still.
After a while a pattern started to emerge before Oskar’s eyes. Wallpaper. Beige with white, almost invisible roses. He recognized it. It was the wallpaper in his living room. He was in the living room in his and his mom’s apartment.
And the person in his arms was⦠Eli.
A boy. My friend. Yes.
Oskar felt sick to his stomach, dizzy. He freed himself from Eli’s arms and sat down in the couch, looked around as if to reassure himself again that he was back and not⦠there. He swallowed, noticing that he could recall every detail of the place he had just been. It was like a real memory. Something that had happened to him, recently. The funny man, the bowl, the painâ¦
Eli kneeled on the floor in front of him, hands pressed against his stomach.
“Sorry.”
Just likeâ¦
“What happened to Mama?”
Eli looked uncertain, asked:
“Do you mean⦠my mother?”
“No⦔ Oskar grew silent, saw the image of Mama down by the stream rinsing the clothes. But it wasn’t his mother. They didn’t look anything alike. He rubbed his eyes and said,
“Yes. Right. Your mother.”
“I don’t know.”
“They weren’t the ones who-”
“I don’t know!”
Eli’s hands squeezed so hard in front of his stomach that the knuckles whitened, his shoulders pulled up. Then he relaxed, said more gently:
“I don’t know. Excuse me. Excuse the whole⦠thing. I wanted you to⦠I don’t know. Please excuse me. It was⦠stupid.”
Eli was a copy of his mother. Thinner, smoother, younger but⦠a copy. In twenty years Eli would probably look just like the woman by the stream.
Except that he won’t. He’s going to look exactly like he looks now.
Oskar sighed, exhausted, leaned back in the couch. Too much. An incipient headache groped along his temples, found foothold, pressed in. Too much. Eli stood up.
“I’ll go now.”
Oskar leaned his head in his hand, nodded. Didn’t have the energy to protest, think about what he should do. Eli took off the bathrobe and Oskar got another glimpse of his groin. Now he saw that in the midst of that pale skin there was a faint pink spot, a scar.
What does he do when he⦠pees? Or maybe he doesn’tâ¦
Couldn’t muster the energy to ask. Eli crouched down next to the plastic bag, untied it, and started to pull out his clothes. Oskar said: “You can⦠take something of mine.”
“It’s OK.”
Eli took out the checkered shirt. Dark squares against the blue. Oskar sat up. The headache whirled against his temples.
“Don’t be silly, you can-”
“It’s OK.”
Eli started to put on the bloodstained shirt and Oskar said: “You’re gross, don’t you get it? You’re gross.”
Eli turned to him with the shirt in his hands. “Do you think so?”
“Yes.”
Eli put the shirt back in the bag.
“What should I take then?”
“Something from the closet. Whatever you like.”
Eli nodded, went into Oskar’s room where the closets were while Oskar let himself slide sideways into the couch and pressed his hands against his temples to prevent them from cracking.
Mom, Eli’s mom, my mom. Eli, me. Two hundred years. Eli’s dad. Eli’s dad? That old man who⦠the old man.
Eli came back into the living room. Oskar got ready to say what he was planning to say but stopped himself when he saw that Eli was wearing a dress. A faded yellow summer dress with small white dots. One of his mother’s dresses. Eli stroked his hand over it.
“Is this alright? I took the one that looked the most worn.”
“But it’s⦔
“I’ll bring it back later.” Yes, yes, yes.
Eli went up to him, crouched down, and took his hand.
“Oskar? I’m sorry that⦠I don’t know what I should⦔
Oskar waved with his other hand to get him to stop, said: “You know that that old guy, that he’s escaped, don’t you?”
“What old guy?”
“The old guy who⦠the one you said was your dad. The one who lived with you.”
“What about him?”
Oskar shut his eyes. Blue lightning flashed inside his eyelids. The chain of events he had reconstructed from the papers flashed past and he got angry, loosening his hand from Eli’s and making it into a fist, hitting against his own throbbing head. He said with his eyes still shut: “Cut it out. Just cut it out. I know all of it, OK. Quit pretending. Quit lying, I’m so damn tired of that.”
Eli didn’t say anything. Oskar pinched his eyes shut, breathed in and out.
“The old man has escaped. They’ve been looking for him the whole day without finding him. Now you know.”
A pause. Then Eli’s voice, above Oskar’s head:
“Where?”
“Here. In Judarn. The forest. By Akeshov.”
Oskar opened his eyes. Eli had stood up, stood there with his hand over his mouth and large, frightened eyes above his hand. The dress was too big, hung like a sack over his thin shoulders, and he looked like a kid who had borrowed his mom’s clothes without permission and was now awaiting his punishment.
“Oskar,” said Eli. “Don’t go out. After it gets dark. Promise me that.” The dress. The words. Oskar snorted, couldn’t help saying it. “You sound like my mom.”
***
The squirrel darts down the trunk of the oak tree, stops, listens. A siren, in the distance.
***
On Bergslagsvagen an ambulance is going by with flashing blue lights, the sirens on.
Inside the ambulance there are three people. Lacke Sorensson is sitting on a folding seat and is holding a bloodless, lacerated hand belonging to Virginia Lind. An ambulance technician is adjusting the tube that administers saline solution to Virginia’s body in order to give her heart something to pump around, now that she has lost so much blood.
***
The squirrel judges the sound to be not dangerous, irrelevant. It continues down the tree trunk. All day there have been people in the forest, dogs. Not a moment of calm and only now, when it is dark, does the squirrel dare come down out of the oak tree it has been forced to hole up in all day.
Now the dogs’ barking and the voices have died down, gone away. The thundering bird that has been hovering over the tree tops also appears to have returned to its nest.
The squirrel reaches the foot of the tree, runs along a thick root. It does not like to make its way over the ground in the dark, but hunger forces it on. It makes its way with alertness, stopping to listen, looking around every ten meters. Makes sure to steer clear of a badger den that has been inhabited as recently as this summer. He hasn’t seen the family for a long time but you can never be too careful.
Finally the squirrel reaches its goal: the nearest of the many winter stores it has laid up in the fall. The temperature this evening has sunk below freezing and on top of the snow that has been melting all day there is now a thin, hard crust. The squirrel scratches with its claws through the crust, gets through, and moves down. Stops, listens, and digs again. Through snow, leaves, dirt.
/> Just as it picks up a nut between its paws it hears a sound.
Danger.
It takes the nut in its teeth and runs straight up into a pine tree without having time to cover over the store. Once in the safety of a branch it takes the nut into its paws again, tries to locate the sound. Its hunger is great and the food only some centimeters from its mouth but the danger must first be located, identified, before it is time to eat.
The squirrel’s head jerks from side to side, his nose trembles as he looks down over the moon-shadowed landscape below and traces the sound to its source. Yes. Taking the long way around was worth it. The scratching, wet sound comes from the badger den.
Badgers can’t climb trees. The squirrel relaxes a little and takes a bite of the nut while it continues to study the ground, but now more as a member of a theater audience, third balcony. Wants to see what will happen, how many badgers there are.
But what emerges from the badger’s den is no badger. The squirrel removes the nut from its mouth, looks down. Tries to understand. Put what it sees together with known facts. Doesn’t manage it.
Therefore takes the nut into its mouth again, dashes further up the trunk, all the way up into the very top.
Maybe one of those can climb trees.
You can never be too careful.
SUNDAY
November [Evening/Night]
At is half past eight, Sunday evening.
At the same time as the ambulance with Virginia and Lacke is driving over the Traneberg Bridge, the Stockholm district chief of police holds up a photograph for the image-hungry reporters, Eli chooses a dress out of Oskar’s mother’s closet, Tommy squeezes glue into a plastic bag and draws in the exquisite fumes of numbness and forgetfulness, a squirrel sees Hakan Bengtsson-as the first living creature in fourteen hours to have done so-and Staffan, one of the ones who has been searching for him, is pouring out a cup of tea.
He has not realized that a sliver is missing from the very front of the spout and a large quantity of tea runs along the spout, the teapot, down onto the kitchen counter. He mumbles something and tips the teapot at an even steeper angle so the tea comes splashing out and the lid tumbles off and into the cup. Scalding hot tea splashes onto his hands and he slams the teapot down, holding his arms stiffly at his sides, while in his head he starts to run through the Hebrew alphabet in order to quell his impulse to throw the teapot against the wall.
Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Dalethâ¦
***
Yvonne came into the kitchen, saw Staffan bent over the counter with closed eyes.
“How are you doing?”
Staffan shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
Lamed, Mem, Nun, Sameshâ¦
“Are you sad?”
“No.”
Koff, Resh, Shin, Taff. There. Better.
He opened his eyes, pointed at the teapot.
“That’s a terrible teapot.”
“It is?”
“Yes, it⦠spills when you try to pour the tea.”
“I’ve never noticed.”
“Well, it does.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Staffan pinched his lips together, stretched out his scalded hand towards her with a gesture of Peace. Shalom. Be quiet. “Yvonne. Right now I feel such an⦠intense desire to hit you. So please, don’t say any more.”
Yvonne took half a step back. Something in her had been prepared for this. She had not admitted this insight into her conscious mind, but had still sensed that behind his pious facade Staffan stored some kind of⦠rage.
She crossed her arms, breathed in and out a few times, while Staffan stood still, staring at the teacup with the lid in it. Then she said: “Is that what you do?”
“What?”
“Hit. When something goes wrong.”
“Have I hit you?”
“No, but you said-”
“I said. And you listened. And now it’s alright.”
“And if I hadn’t listened?”
Staffan looked completely calm again and Yvonne relaxed, lowered her arms. He took both her hands in his, kissed the backs of them lightly.
“Yvonne. We have to listen to each other.”
The tea was poured out and they drank it in the living room. Staffan made a mental note to buy Yvonne a new teapot. She asked about the search in Judarn forest and Staffan told her. She did her best to engage him in conversation on other topics but, finally, came the unavoidable question.
“Where’s Tommy?”
“I⦠don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Yvonne⦔
“Well, at a friend’s house.”
“Hm. When is he coming home.”
“I think he was⦠supposed to spend the night. Over there.”
“There?”
“Yes, at⦔
In her head Yvonne went through the names of Tommy’s friends that she knew. Didn’t want to tell Staffan that Tommy was gone for the night without knowing where. Staffan took this thing about a parent’s responsibility very seriously.
“⦠at Robban’s.”
“Robban. Is that his best friend?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“What is he called, more than Robban?”
“⦠Ahlgren. Why? Is that someone you have⦔
“No, I was just thinking.”
Staffan took his spoon, hit it lightly against the teacup. A delicate ringing sound. He nodded.
“Great. You know⦠I think we’re going to have to call this Robban and ask Tommy to come home for a while. So I can talk to him a little.”
“I don’t have the number.”
“No, but⦠Ahlgren. You know where he lives, don’t you? All you have to do is look it up in the telephone directory.”
Staffan got up out of the couch and Yvonne bit her lower lip, felt how she was constructing a labyrinth that it was getting harder and harder to get out of. He got the local part of the telephone book and stopped in the middle of the living room, flipping through it and mumbling:
“Ahlgren, Ahlgren⦠Hm. Which street does he live on?”
“I⦠Bjornsonsgatan.”
“Bjornsonsgatan⦠no. No Ahlgren there. But there is one here on Ibsengatan. Could it be him?”
When Yvonne didn’t answer, Staffan put his finger in the phone book and said:
“Think I’ll give him a try at any rate. It’s Robban, right?”
“Staffan⦔
“Yes?”
“I promised him not to tell.”
“Now I don’t understand anything.”
“Tommy. I said I wouldn’t tell you⦠where he is.”
“So he is not at Robban’s?”
“No.”
“Where is he then?”
“I⦠I promised.”
Staffan put the telephone book on the coffee table, went and sat down next to Yvonne on the couch. She took a sip of tea, held the teacup in front of her face as if to hide behind it while Staffan waited for her. When she put the cup down on the saucer she saw that her hands were shaking. Staffan put his hand on her knee.
“Yvonne. You have to understand that-”
“I promised.”
“I only want to talk to him. Forgive me for saying this, Yvonne, but I think it is exactly this kind of inability to deal with a situation as it arises that is the reason⦠well, that they happen in the first place. In my experience, the faster young people have someone respond to their actions, the greater the chance that⦠take a heroin addict, for example. If someone takes action when he is only doing, say, hashish⦔
“Tommy doesn’t do things like that.”
“Are you completely sure of that?”
Silence fell. Yvonne knew that for each second that went by, her “yes” in response to Staffan’s question decreased in value. Tick-tock. Now she had already answered “no” without saying the word. And Tommy did act strange sometimes. When he cam
e home. Something about his eyes. What if heâ¦
Staffan leaned back in the couch, knew the battle was won. Now he was only waiting for her conditions.
Yvonne’s eyes were searching for something on the table.
“What is it?”
“My cigarettes, have you-”
“In the kitchen. Yvonne-”
“Yes. Yes. You can’t go to him now.”
“No. You can decide. If you think-”
“Tomorrow morning. Before he goes to school. Promise me. That you won’t go to him now.”
“Promise. So. What kind of mysterious place is he holed up in anyway?”
Yvonne told him.
Then she went out into the kitchen and smoked a cigarette, blew the smoke out through the open window. Smoked one more, cared less about where the smoke went. When Staffan came out into the kitchen, demonstratively waved away the smoke with his hand, and asked where the cellar key was, she said she had forgotten for the moment but it would probably come back to her tomorrow morning.
If he was nice.
***
When Eli had gone, Oskar sat down at the kitchen table again looking through the displayed newspaper articles. The headache was starting to lessen now that the impressions were taking on more of a pattern.
Eli had explained that the old man had become⦠infected. And worse. The infection was the only thing in him that was alive. His brain was dead, and the infection was controlling and directing him. Toward Eli.
Eli had told him, begged him not to do anything. Eli would leave this place tomorrow as soon as it got dark, and Oskar had of course asked why not leave tonight already?
Because⦠I can’t.
Why not? I can help you.
Oskar, I can’t. I’m too weak.
How can that be? You’ve justâ¦
I just am.
And Oskar had realized that he was the reason that Eli was weak. All the blood that had run out in the hall. If the old guy got ahold of Eli it would be all Oskar’s fault.
The clothes!
Oskar got up so violently the chair tipped over backward and fell to the floor.
The bag with Eli’s bloodied clothes was still sitting in front of the couch, the shirt half hanging out. He pressed it deeper into the bag and the sleeve was like a damn sponge when he pressed it down, tied the bag, and⦠He stopped, looked at the hand that had pressed the shirt down.
Let The Right One In aka Let Me In Page 37
