Fire (14 page)

Viktor seems to search for the right word.

‘… you know,
reorientation
it would be for me.’

‘I understand how you feel. I mean, you must miss all your friends. Besides, this place isn’t exactly Stockholm. Not that I don’t like Stockholm. On the contrary,’ she says and registers that her capacity for insane gabbling is full on. ‘I always wanted to live in Stockholm. I’ve actually got relatives
there. I guess I’d have to rethink things, too, of course, but in a good way, if you see what I mean.’

Minoo doesn’t know where to look. She catches sight of the title of the book under Victor’s arm. It is a worn paperback edition of one of her favourites, Donna Tartt’s
The Secret History
, in English.

‘Do you like it?’ she asks.

‘Not exactly. I
love
it.’

There was a time when Minoo believed that anyone with good taste in books must automatically be a good human being. An illusion that Max trampled into the dust. Max, who despite his well-stocked bookshelf, was revealed as the demons’ psychopathic menial.

But all the same, she can’t help liking Viktor a little better than before.

‘I love it, too,’ she says. ‘But I’ve never read it in English.’

‘I only ever read books in the original language,’ Viktor says and, for a moment, looks as condescending as he did when they met at the manor house. ‘One loses such a lot otherwise. Translations do nothing but create barriers between you, the reader, and the author’s real message.’

‘I guess so …’ Minoo says. ‘You … read a lot, do you?’

Viktor is about to reply when an object comes flying through the air. It hits him in the back. A chemistry book.

Viktor doesn’t look round. Instead he bends a little closer over Minoo.

‘It was one of the Neanderthals over there, right?’

Minoo nods and looks across at them. Kevin stands a little apart. He is grinning. Robin and Erik seem rather impassive.

‘Welcome to Engelsfors,’ Minoo says to Viktor.

He sighs, picks up the book, opens it and reads out Kevin’s name.

‘Poofter!’ Kevin rasps.

Viktor closes the book, turns around and smiles.

‘Do you want to talk to me, Kevin?’ he says.

The two Hannas giggle. Viktor walks over to Kevin and hands him the book.

‘Surely you’re aware that you’re in your second senior year? Throwing books isn’t a—’

‘Shut the fuck up, fucking Stockholmer,’ Kevin grunts. ‘Fancy yourself, don’t you.’

He turns to Erik and Robin for support but they’re already off down the corridor. Kevin suddenly looks nervous. Minoo almost feels sorry for him. Erik and Robin have always been the brains in the gang of three. Kevin is simply a blunt instrument that they use now and then. They would probably have bullied him if he hadn’t been one of them.

Kevin sees her looking at him.

‘Got a problem, slag?’

Minoos’s sympathy evaporates instantly. Viktor stares at Kevin with distaste.

‘Are you losing it ’cause I insulted your girlfriend here, or what?’ Kevin asks.

‘Am I supposed to be a queer or am I going out with Minoo? What’s your angle?’

Kevin licks his front teeth, probes his mouth with his tongue to extract the wad of tobacco and spits it out. The brown spittle leaves a snail trail of mucus on Viktor’s pale trousers.

Viktor looks quizzically at Kevin. At that moment, Inez, the chemistry teacher, walks briskly up to the classroom door, unlocks it and lets everybody in.

Inez is one of the best teachers at Engelsfors Senior School. She’s pint-sized, but no one ever messes around with her. She starts handing out copies of the instructions for today’s experiments straight away.

‘You’ll be working with acids today, so don’t you forget the acid-into-water rule,’ she tells them. ‘Acid-into-water means that you can add acid to water safely. The other way round is never safe!’

They all put on lab coats and safety goggles, then go off to collect the equipment. Minoo ends up in the same group as Anna-Karin and Levan.

Minoo has just got a good grip on the acid flask when a scream echoes through the room.

The entire class turns to see what is going on.

Hanna A and Hanna H are hysterical, but the loudest screams come from the third member of their lab group. Kevin.

‘It splattered!’ Hanna A screams. ‘He got acid over himself!’

‘Fucking crap acid rule!’ Kevin howls. ‘I did it right!’

‘It’s true!’ Hanna A shouts at top volume. ‘I checked it too!’

Hanna H doesn’t utter a word. She only shrieks.

Inez rushes up to them, grabs Kevin’s lab coat and hauls him along to the emergency shower. She tugs at the handle and Kevin is instantly soaked.

Minoo looks away, lets her eyes scan the chaos in the lab. Everyone looks shocked.

Correction.
Nearly
everyone. Viktor is standing at the back of the room. He is calmly continuing with the experiment as if nothing is amiss. But he can’t quite hide his smile.

‘Oh, my God. Like, poor, poor Kevin,’ Felicia says as she plonks her tray down next to Robin and opposite Ida. ‘So totally awful!’

Ida spears a few peas on her fork. Whatever Felicia says or does today makes her shiver with irritation. Felicia has been
mucking around with both eyeliner and eyeshadow, and to cap it all she’s wearing what she is pleased to call her ‘cute vest’.

‘I don’t think it was that bad,’ Erik says. ‘He only got some stuff on his hand.’

He is stroking Ida’s knee under the table and she lets him carry on for now.

‘But all the same …’ Felicia won’t let go. She takes a slice of crispbread from Julia’s tray. ‘I mean, what if his hand has to be amputated and he has to have a yucky plastic hand instead. Maybe it’s the kind of acid that just bites into the skin and carries on and on corroding. That kind really exists.’

‘You’d almost think you passed in chemistry,’ Ida says and the others laugh.

Felicia goes quiet and starts breaking the crispbread into tiny fragments which she picks up and chews, one after the other.

‘Lucky that Kevin has such great friends, anyway,’ she says and smiles towards Robin.

‘I guess you do your best,’ he replies and smiles back at her.

‘There are times I almost wish I was a guy,’ Julia says. ‘Girls are so mean to each other.’

Ida is just about to say something when her mouth goes as dry as sandpaper. A headache is beginning to pulsate behind her eyes. The smell of burning stings in her nose.

She recognises what it is. It tries to seep into her and take her over. But this time, she has a name for it.

Matilda.

No, no, no! Not here! Not now!

She shuts her eyes tightly and musters all her defences. She feels how the other one is trying to force her way in, but for once Ida manages to drive her back. And a moment later Matilda has gone.

Now, Ida is suddenly aware of how silent the group around the table is.

She opens her eyes. The others stare at her.

‘Ida, what’s the matter?’ Julia asks in a voice meant to be friendly but which mostly sounds frightened. ‘Are you in pain or something?’

‘Just a headache, that’s all,’ Ida says and pushes Erik’s hand off her knee.

Linnéa pushes past the gaggle of first years at the school gates, where they hang out to smoke. They seem so young. But then, if she catches sight of herself in a mirror, Linnéa can sometimes be surprised at how young she looks. Inside, she feels ancient.

The air is a little cooler today. Not enough to make it bearable, just a shade less unbearable. She walks towards the centre, past Leffe’s kiosk. Leffe sits outside on a white plastic chair and smokes a pipe.

To stay out of the sun, Linnéa tacks between the patches of shade near the houses.

She lights the last cigarette in her pack and smokes it slowly. When she gets to the back of the City Mall, she stands still for a moment.

The seat where her father often sits is empty. Not a soul anywhere. Just two crows fighting about a piece of hot-dog bun.

She goes into the mall and looks for him in Sture & Co. He isn’t there either. On her way out, she passes the Crystal Cave. The notice on the door states that it is ‘
CLOSED FOR STOCKTAKING
’. Whatever, she can pick up a pungent smell of incense from inside.

When Linnéa steps into the street again, the sun dazzles her.

For a while, she is stuck behind three mums who walk side by side, pushing their prams. She has to jog a little to pass them and senses them checking her out, taking in her hair and make-up, what she wears, her shoes. All of her. In their worst nightmares, they must dread the prospect that their little darlings might grow up to look like her.

Some other day, she would have turned round and stared back at them, but not today. Not when she is trying to find him.

Linnéa did the same circuit yesterday, when Olivia had been telling her about Dad. Checked the City Mall. The local outlet for wines and spirits. Storvall Park. The Engelsfors winos’ very own Bermuda triangle.

If she finds him anywhere here, she will know that Olivia was wrong. Which she almost hopes.

She has seen him ‘sober up’ so many times. Let herself believe him, only to have to stand by and watch as he breaks every single promise he has made, yet again. When everything collapsed and she had to be taken into care at the age of fourteen, she made up her mind never to trust him again. Never listen when he assures her that he will make it work this time.

Later, after the social let her have a flat, she created a life of her own. The last thing she needs now is for him to ring her doorbell and offer her an awkwardly wrapped gift and a bunch of promises he cannot keep. But if he does turn up, she wants at least to be prepared.

Linnéa has a last puff on the cigarette before throwing the fag end away. She stops outside the closed and shuttered Café Monique.

Then she sees The Bag. He has parked himself outside the booze shop and is fermenting in the sun. He checks the shop door now and then. He is wearing sunglasses, so Linnéa isn’t
sure if he has noticed her. If he had, he’d have been sure to shout to her. Something like, Björn’s girlie should come over and say hello. And then, when she didn’t, start ranting about how effing stuck-up she has got lately.

Cautiously, Linnéa sends a probe into The Bag’s ragged brain. He is impatient. Waiting for someone, but she can’t make out who. Not now, when abstinence torments his mind.

Linnéa stays where she is until the booze shop’s door swings open and Doris’s bent figure emerges. She is pushing a trolley and bottles are clinking inside the basket. The Bag gives her the thumbs-up. He is thinking eagerly about the vodka he knows she has bought for him.

Linnéa walks on. Past Ingrid’s Hidey-hole, the shop selling second-hand stuff where she sometimes works in exchange for fabrics and old clothes that she can make something from. Because Ingrid has so few customers, there’s usually quite a lot for Linnéa to choose from. Her latest bargain is a big cloud of black tulle. She knows exactly what to do with it.

She glances at the disused library. The front door is wide open. Three men in blue overalls are shouting at each other over the noise of the drill. The windows are covered with brown paper.

Now she is almost at Storvall Park. Even from a distance, she spots the two figures on one of the park benches. One of them has got a radio and is turning the volume up and down, up and down. The loudspeaker grinds out an interminable report on wind speeds at sea.

‘It’s crap! Shut it!’ howls the other man, in a voice that slips and slides. Linnéa’s heart does a somersault when she sees the flabby face and the slightly purplish hands that grab the radio and throw it on the ground. The shipping forecast stops. The owner of the radio roars with anger.

But neither of them is her father, Björn Wallin.

‘
Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are …
’

Vanessa makes her voice fade and linger. Melvin has fallen asleep at last.

She stays by his bedside for a while. Listens to his hushed breathing and looks at the toy penguin cuddled in his arms. Recalls last winter, when she didn’t see him for several months. It still pains her to think about how much her disappearance had confused him. She doesn’t ever want to hurt him like that again. She would ruin Melvin’s whole world if she were to tell her Mum about Nicke.

Tears are burning behind her eyelids. She gets up from the bed gently to avoid waking Melvin. He would see her cry and he mustn’t.

She tiptoes across the floor and goes to the kitchen.

‘All well?’ Mum asks. She is sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over a sudoku.

‘He’s asleep now.’

‘We’ll see how long that lasts,’ Mum says and smiles.

Her blonde hair is unwashed and she looks tired. But she’s beautiful all the same, Vanessa thinks. She could have found someone better than Nicke. Much better, easily.

‘What are you thinking?’ Mum asks.

‘That you’re lovely,’ Vanessa replies.

And regrets it instantly, because Mum’s expression
brightens and she looks so happy that Vanessa almost starts crying again. She is saved by a key rattling in the front door lock.

Vanessa opens the dishwasher and tackles the mounds of dirty dishes piled up on the kitchen worktops.

‘It has been one fucking awful day,’ Nicke says as he comes into the kitchen.

Mum welcomes him with a sloppy kiss and Vanessa’s stomach turns. If only Mum knew where his mouth has been.

‘Poor darling, you’re so late home,’ Mum says. ‘You look all washed out.’

More squishy noises. Vanessa concentrates on the dishwasher. Competes with herself about fitting as many glasses as possible into the top drawer.

‘I wonder sometimes what’s going on in this town,’ Nicke says and goes to the fridge to get a can of beer.

Vanessa turns icy cold. What if someone saw them in the cemetery yesterday and told the police about the violation of the grave?

‘What’s up this time?’ Mum asks.

Vanessa tries to stack the dishes as quietly as possible. She doesn’t want to draw attention to her listening.

‘The autopsy results for that psychologist came through. It was an electric shock that did for her. Not a bloody clue how it happened. But as luck would have it, she has no family so no one will demand answers,’ Nicke says. There’s a hiss as he opens his beer.