I Am Behind You (16 page)

‘The thing is,' Donald repeats, before going on to say something completely unexpected, ‘I've realised that all this is just a dream. A nightmare inside my own head. I've had it before, but it's never been as clear or as real as this. But it's definitely a dream nevertheless, so all I have to do is wake up. So we're going to sit here and not let any more crap happen; we're just going to wait for it to end.'

Majvor has grown accustomed to the darkness, and she can see Donald's eyes shining in the dim light. They are wide open, to an unnatural degree, as if he is making a concerted effort to wake up. Tentatively she says: ‘But what about me?'

‘What about you?'

‘Are you saying I'm having the same dream?'

Donald snorts. ‘You're not here. I'm the only one who's dreaming. I'm sitting here talking to myself—fuck knows why. That's just the way it is in my dream.'

Donald folds his arms, rests his head on the back of the sofa and stares up at the ceiling. Majvor picks at one of the buttons on the seat; it is solid to the touch. She says: ‘But…I've been listening to some music while you were away. I wouldn't be able to do that if…'

‘Stop right there. What I don't understand is why I've made you exactly the way you are in my dream. I mean, I could be sitting here with Elizabeth Taylor, but oh no, it has to be Majvor. Same silly prattle, same stupid face.'

‘Do you often dream about Elizabeth Taylor?'

‘No, that was just an example. Be quiet. I've decided you have to shut up now. This is
my
dream, and in my dream you're not saying anything.'

Majvor can't understand where Donald has got this ridiculous idea from. It's not at all like him to come up with something so weird. But
however crazy he is, she feels humiliated at the most basic level. He won't even acknowledge her
existence
. Her mind, her very own and completely real mind, is working feverishly to find a way to put an end to this delusion.

‘Donald, listen to me…' Donald folds his arms even more tightly and makes a point of sinking deeper into the sofa, but Majvor takes no notice. ‘While you were gone, Claes-Göran Hederström was on the radio—“It's Beginning to Seem Like Love”. I wrote it down. How could I know that if…'

‘It's part of my dream. You saying that, it's part of my dream.'

Majvor is getting frustrated. It's like talking to a wall. She slaps her hands on her thighs and gets to her feet. ‘Okay, well in that case let's ask some of the others. Perhaps someone had the car radio on, and heard it too.'

As Majvor heads for the door she hears Donald behind her: ‘You're just as stupid as you are in real life. The others are part of my dream too. It doesn't matter what they say. And come away from the door. I've locked it.'

Majvor pushes down the handle, but the deadlock requires a key.

‘Give me the key, Donald.'

‘No chance. No more running around outside. Sit down and shut the fuck up. I'm determined to wait this out.' Donald sneezes and shakes his head, mutters to himself: ‘“It's Beginning to Seem Like Love”, for fuck's sake.'

Majvor goes and stands directly in front of her husband, who is now almost curled up on the sofa. ‘Donald! Tell me what you really saw out there!'

For the first time since Donald got back, there is some contact. He looks away and says: ‘Nothing. I saw nothing. Now shut up and sit down. I've never hit you, you know that. Not in real life. In my dream it could be different. So sit down.'

Majvor sits back down, her hands resting on her thighs. The air stands still inside the caravan. She looks at her husband, who is frowning, his lips moving as if he is silently trying to solve a difficult problem.

She isn't sure, but she thinks she might know what this is about.
The Bloodman
. If that is the case, there is a risk that they could be sitting here for a long time. A very long time.

*

There is a war going on inside Emil. He wants to be with Molly, and he definitely doesn't want to be with Molly. He is drawn to her, and he is afraid of her. The war makes him feel tired and apathetic. More than anything, he would just like to go to sleep.

As Molly walks towards him he doesn't know whether to go and meet her, or run away. His mother is kneeling in front of the cross on their caravan, running her fingers over its surface, so he can't hide behind her.

‘Come on,' Molly says.

‘I don't want to.'

‘You have to. Otherwise I'll tell.'

Emil looks around to see if he can spot his father, but there is no sign of him. He shrugs with as much nonchalance as he can muster, and follows Molly. She leads him to her caravan, crawls underneath it and beckons him to join her.

They lie on their stomachs on the grass between the wheels, listening to Molly's father pacing back and forth above their heads. Emil whispers: ‘I'll tell on you if you tell on me.'

‘You don't get it, do you?'

‘Get what?'

‘The way things are.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘There you go: you don't get it. You're the one who's going to be in trouble. You and your mum and dad. If you tell. Now do you get it?'

‘No.'

‘Well, that's the way it is. What did you say?'

‘When?'

Molly rolls over onto her back, sighing as she contemplates the
underside of the caravan, crisscrossed by a tangle of dirty pipes and cables. She sticks her finger in her mouth, then runs it over a pipe that is black with soot. She draws four lines on her cheeks, runs her finger over the pipe again and holds it out to Emil.

‘Come here.'

‘What for?'

‘You're going to be an Indian.'

Emil thinks for a moment. He can't see anything dangerous or forbidden about that, so he pushes his face closer to Molly, who draws on his forehead.

‘There you go,' she says, wiping her finger on the grass. ‘You're an Indian brave and I'm your chief.'

‘Girls can't be Indian chiefs.'

‘I'm not a girl.'

‘Yes you are.'

‘No I'm not.'

‘So what are you then?'

Molly places her hand on his, looks into his eyes and says: ‘If I told you, you'd die of fear. Shall I tell you?'

Emil shakes his head. He doesn't want the game to turn nasty again. When Molly says once again that she is his chief, he gratefully accepts.

‘Good,' Molly says. ‘You've been checking out the area. What did you see?'

Emil thinks as he picks at some bits of gravel stuck in the tyre next to him. ‘I saw…I saw ten cowboys with guns.'

‘No, no, no! You have to tell me what you really saw! When you were out there.'

‘My dad said it was nothing.'

‘So what was it?'

Emil peers towards the field as if he might catch a glimpse of what he saw, what he
knows
he saw. ‘An old man. Or something.'

‘What kind of old man?'

‘He was white. And thin. And it was as if…he wasn't really
walking
. Although he was moving.'

‘You mean he was flying?'

‘No…I don't know. It was weird. And he looked like a person, but somehow he didn't.'

Molly's brow is furrowed as she digests this information. Emil glances at her and thinks that she looks more like a little girl than an Indian chief or something that might make him die of fear. He prods her shoulder.

‘You were wrong,' he says. ‘It wasn't a monster with big teeth.'

Molly smiles and wriggles over to him, whispers in his ear: ‘How do you know?'

*

Carina runs her finger over the cross. A few flakes of the pigment loosen; she rubs them with her thumb and sees them disintegrate. It's blood—it can't be anything else. Someone has drawn a cross in blood on their caravan. It is difficult to put a positive interpretation on something like that.

She looks up and sees Emil and Molly crawling under Molly's caravan. She is concerned about the fact that they have started hanging out; she is all too well aware of what keeping the wrong company can do to a person. She touches her tattoo. She needs to talk to Stefan, but he has been avoiding her since he got back, even though they promised one another they would get through this together. It is up to her to bring him back home.

She doesn't normally hesitate to tackle things, but the emptiness all around is sapping her strength, and something within her just wants to run away, to take off in any direction.

Inside the caravan she is relieved to see that Stefan has boiled a pan of water on the camping stove and has made two cups of coffee, which he places on the table as a prelude to a conversation. Carina gestures towards the gas stove.

‘I'm almost certain it was Molly who took the hose.'

Stefan nods, but the information doesn't seem to bother him at the moment. He asks Carina to sit down. They both take a sip of their coffee. Stefan stares out of the window for a long time, then says: ‘When I was six years old I got a bike. With training wheels.'

He is sparing when it comes to stories from his childhood; he says he can hardly remember a thing. When Carina brings up some episode from the summers they shared as children, he rarely has anything to add. Carina is surprised by his opening remark, but merely says: ‘Oh yes?'

Stefan's expression grows distant as he looks back. ‘And then… something happened.'

His story is long and includes a certain amount of repetition, but it is the most cohesive account he has ever given from his early childhood, and Carina listens patiently.

Stefan had wanted a bike of his own for a very long time, and he finally got it on his sixth birthday. It had training wheels, because he hadn't quite mastered the technique yet. It was a great bike, and it had a shiny bell with a loud, clear ping, not like the grating noise the rusty bell on the bike he had borrowed used to make.

Stefan spent a considerable portion of his birthday riding around Mörtsjön on his new bike, around and around the lake. He pretended he was an astronaut, Lucky Luke, King of the Forest.

By the seventh or eighth circuit, the novelty had begun to wear off. New challenges were required. Stefan sat on his bike at the top of the hill leading down to the jetty. Now he was a secret agent. In the trees at the edge of the forest on the other side of the lake he could see a VW Beetle hooked up to a small, egg-shaped caravan. That was where the evil Doctor X had his headquarters! Soon Doctor X would escape in the motor launch that was moored at the jetty. He must be stopped! Stefan stamped on the pedals and zoomed down the hill.

For three more seconds he was a secret agent. Then he turned into a terrified six-year-old who was flying down a hill. He didn't dare brake because he was afraid of falling over, so he kept on going, out
onto the jetty, where his pumped-up tyres clattered over the planks of wood.

He couldn't swim, so there was just one word flashing in his brain as a warning signal:
Armbands! Armbands! Armbands!
Then he shot over the edge.

‘It's strange what you remember,' Stefan says. ‘So much is gone, but I do remember that the surface of the water was black, and that the sun was so high in the sky that…for a fraction of a second I was dazzled by its reflection before I plunged into it.'

The cold forced the air out of Stefan's lungs, and a stream of bubbles rose from his mouth to the surface high above. Stefan would later learn that the lake was actually only three metres deep at the point where he went in.

He knew that he was in trouble, and yet it was the bike that preoccupied him the most. He mustn't let go of the bike, so he clung on to the handlebars. He felt the saddle thud against his bum, and the pressure in his ears stopped getting worse. A cloud of mud swirled up around him. He had reached the bottom of the lake.

A very simple thought came into his mind:
I'm going to die
. Stefan didn't want to die, but he didn't know what to do to avoid it. He looked at the bell, which had something of a dull shine now, and wondered what it would sound like if he rang it underwater. But he didn't dare to let go of the handlebars.

I'm going to die.

In a way the thought didn't frighten him; he just felt very, very sad. Mummy and Daddy, his sixth birthday. Drowned. It was so upsetting that he almost burst into tears, but it was impossible to cry underwater. His head throbbed as he screwed up his eyes and concentrated on
not breathing
.

After a while he couldn't do it any more. He raised his head, took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He hardly noticed the water rushing into his lungs, because something very strange had happened. He was no longer on the bottom of the lake; he was in a field. He was surrounded by light, by warm air. He was still clutching the
handlebars, but something strange had happened to the bike. It was
shimmering
, as if it wasn't really there.

Stefan looked up and gasped. Coldness filled his chest once more. A figure was standing some twenty metres away, beckoning. A person, yet not a person. It wanted Stefan to join it, but Stefan had no intention of doing so. The non-person was horrible. It was completely white, and it lacked a number of things that would make it a person. If Stefan went over to it, he would end up like that. The icy cold in his chest banged and howled, and fear flooded his body as he tried to turn the bike that wasn't real; he opened his mouth and screamed.

Then he whirled around and the light changed and clouds flashed by and his stomach burned as he threw up onto the warm wood of the jetty and hands lifted him and it wasn't until he was lying in his bed with Mummy and Daddy sitting next to him and hugging and kissing him that he understood that it had actually happened. He had been rescued.

Stefan traces the rim of his coffee cup with his index finger and shakes his head. ‘The first thing I asked about was the bike. What had happened to the bike. It was pulled out later.'