Have to.

The IV stand had wheels, the batteries to the alarm were screwed in a little ways under the bag. He reached for the stand, grabbed hold of it. With the stand as support he stood up, slowly, slowly. The room swam around in front of his one eye as he took a tentative step, stopped, listened. The guard's breathing was still calm and regular. He shuffled through the room at a snail's pace. As soon as one of the wheels squeaked he stopped and listened. Something told him this was the last time he would see Eli and he didn't intend to ...

... blow it. blow it.

His body was as exhausted as after a marathon when he finally reached the window and pressed his eye against it so the gelatinous membrane on his face was plastered onto the gla.s.s and his skin started to burn again.

Only a few centimeters of double-paned gla.s.s separated his eye from his beloved. Eli moved her hand across the window as if to caress his deformed face. Hakan held his eye as close to Eli's as he could and still his sight was distorted: Eli's black eyes dissolved, became fuzzy. He had a.s.sumed his tear ca.n.a.l had burned away like everything else, but this wasn't the case. Tears welled up in his eye and blinded him. The provisional eyelid could not blink them away and so he carefully wiped his eye with his uninjured hand while his body shook with silent sobs. His hand fumbled for the window lock. Turned it. Snot ran out of the hole that had been his nose, dripping down onto the window sill as he opened the window.

Cold air rushed into the room. Only a matter of time before the guard woke up. Hakan reached his arm, his healthy hand, through the window toward Eli. Eli pulled herself up onto the window ledge, took his hand between hers and kissed it. Whispered: "h.e.l.lo, my friend." Hakan nodded slowly to let her know he could hear her. Took his hand out of Eli's and stroked her over the cheek. Her skin like frozen silk. Everything came back.

He wasn't going to rot in some jail cell surrounded by meaningless letters. Hara.s.sed by other prisoners for having committed the-in their eyes-worst of all crimes. He would be with Eli. He would ...

Eli leaned close to him, curled up on the windowsill.

"What do you want me to do?"

Hakan moved his hand from her cheek and pointed to his throat. Eli shook her head.

"That would mean I'd have to kill you . . . after." Hakan took his hand from his throat, brought it back to Eli's face. Rested a finger for a moment on her lips. Then pulled it back. Pointed once more at his throat.

His breath came out in white clouds but he wasn't cold. After ten minutes Oskar had reached the store. The moon had followed him from his dad's house, played hide-and-seek behind the spruce tops. Oskar checked the time. Half past ten. He had seen on the bus schedule in the hall that the last bus from Norrtalje left around half past twelve. He crossed the open s.p.a.ce in front of the store, lit up by the lights of the gas pumps, walked out toward Kapellskarsvagen. He had never hitched a ride before and his mom would go crazy if she knew. Climbing into a complete stranger's car . ..

He walked faster, past a few lit-up houses. People were sitting in there having a good time. Kids sleeping in their beds without having to worry about their parents coming and waking them up to talk a lot of nonsense. This is Dad's fault, not mine. This is Dad's fault, not mine.

He looked down at the boots he was still carrying in his hands, threw them into the ditch, stopped. The boots came to rest there, two dark splotches against the snow in the moonlight.

Mom will never let me come out here again.

Dad would realize he was gone in maybe ... one hour. Then he would go outside and look for him, shout out his name. Then he would call Mom. Would he? Probably. To see if Oskar had called her. Mom would realize Dad was drunk when he told her about Oskar being gone and then it would be . . .

Wait. Like this.

When he got to Norrtalje he would call his dad from a pay phone and tell him he had gone back to Stockholm, that he was going to spend the night at a friend's house and then go back to Mom's tomorrow morning and not say anything about it.

Then Dad would get his lesson without turning it into a catastrophe. Great. And then . . . Great. And then . . .

Oskar walked down into the ditch and picked up the rubber boots, crumpled them up into his pockets, and kept walking along the road. Now everything was good. Now Oskar was the one who decided where he was going and the moon shone kindly down on him, lighting up his way. He lifted his hand in greeting and started to sing.

"Here comes Fritjof Andersson, it's snowing on his hat..." Then he didn't know any more of the lyrics so he hummed instead. After a couple hundred meters, a car came. He heard it from far away and slowed down, holding out a raised thumb. The car drove past him, stopped, and backed up. The door to the pa.s.senger side opened; there was a woman in the car, a little younger than Mom. Nothing to be afraid of.

"h.e.l.lo. Where are you headed?"

"Stockholm. Well, Norrtalje."

"I'm also on my way to Norrtalje, so ..."

Oskar leaned into the car.

"Oh my, do your mom and dad know you're here?"

"Yes, but Dad's car has broken down and . . . well. . ." The woman looked at him, seemed to be thinking something over.

"OK, why don't you get in."

"Thanks."

Oskar slid into the seat, closed the door behind him. They drove off.

"Do you want to be dropped off at the bus stop?"

"Yes, please."

Oskar sat back in the seat, enjoying the warmth rising in his body, especially across his back. Must be one of those electric chairs. To think it was this easy. Lit-up houses flickered by.

Go on, sit there.

And with a song, with a game we go to Spain and ... somewhere.

"Do you live in Stockholm?"

"Yes. In Blackeberg."

"Blackeberg ... that's somewhere to the west, isn't it?"

"I think so. They call it the Western Suburbs, so it must be."

"I see. Is there something important waiting for you?"

"Yes."

"Must be something extra special for you to set off like this."

"Yes. It is."

It was cold in the room. His joints felt stiff after having rested so long in an uncomfortable position. The guard stretched and his joints creaked. He glanced at the hospital bed and was suddenly wide awake.

Gone . . . the cold. . . d.a.m.n!

He got to his feet unsteadily, looked around. Thank G.o.d. The man had not escaped. But how the h.e.l.l had he managed to get over to the window? And . . .

What is that?

The murderer stood leaning against the windowsill with a black lump on one shoulder. His naked backside was visible under the hospital gown. The guard took a step toward the window, stopped, caught his breath. The lump was a head. A pair of dark eyes met his.

He fumbled for his weapon, realized he wasn't carrying one. For security reasons. The nearest weapon was kept in the safe out in the corridor. And anyway, this was just a child, he saw that now.

"You there! Keep absolutely still!"

He ran the three paces to the window and the child's head rose up from the man's throat.

At the same moment the guard reached them the child jumped from the windowsill and disappeared upward. The feet dangled for a moment in the upper corner of the window before they vanished.

Bare feet.

The guard stuck his head out the window, managed to catch sight of a body making its way across the roof, out of sight. The man by his side wheezed.

G.o.d almighty. f.u.c.k it.

In the weak light he could see the man's shoulder and back were darkly stained. The man's head was hanging down and there was a fresh wound on his neck. Up on the roof he heard the light thuds of feet making their way across the sheet metal. He stood up, paralyzed.

Priorities. What were the priorities?

He could not remember. Save life first. Yes. But there were others who could ... he ran to the door, punched in the combination and ran slipsliding out into the corridor, shouting: "Nurse! Nurse! Come here! This is an emergency!"

He ran to the fire stairs while the night nurse came out of her office, jogging in the direction of the room he had just left. When they pa.s.sed each other she asked: "What is it?"

"Emergency. It's an . . . emergency. Get people in here, there's been a ... murder."

The words didn't want to come. He had never experienced anything like this before. He had been a.s.signed to this boring guard duty because he was inexperienced. Replaceable, so to speak. As he ran to the stairs he pulled out his radio and alerted the station, called for reinforcements.

The nurse tried to prepare for the worst: a body lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Hanging by a sheet from a hot water pipe. She had seen both.

When she walked into the room she saw only an empty bed. And something by the window. At first she thought it was a heap of clothes laid on the windowsill. Then she saw it was moving.

She rushed over to the window in order to stop him, but the man had gotten too far. He was already up on the windowsill, halfway out the window, when she started to run. She got there in time to catch a corner of his hospital gown before the man rolled his body off the sill, the IV pulling out of his arm. The sound of ripping fabric and then she stood there with a piece of blue cloth in her hand. After a couple of seconds she heard a distant, dull thud when the body hit the ground. Then the high-pitched alarm from the IV stand.

The taxi driver pulled around in front of the emergency room entrance. The older man in the back seat who, during the whole trip from Jakobsberg had entertained him with his medical history of heart trouble, opened the door and remained seated, expectantly.

OK, OK.

The driver opened his door, walked around the side, and put out his arm to support the old man. Snow fell inside the collar of his jacket. The old one was about to take his arm but his gaze fixed on a point somewhere in the sky, and froze.

"Come on. I'll help you."

The old man pointed up. "What is that?"

The driver looked where he was pointing.

A person was standing on the roof of the hospital. A small person. With a bare chest, arms held tightly along the side.

Alert someone.

He should send out an alert via the radio. But he just stood there, unable to move. If he moved some kind of balance would be upset and the little person would fall.

There was a pain in his hand where the old one gripped him with clawlike fingers, digging his nails into his palm. But still he didn't move. The snow fell into his eyes and he blinked. The person on the roof spread his or her arms, brought them up overhead. Something was suspended between the arms and the body, some kind of membrane ... webbing. The old man pulled on his hand, got up out of the car, and stood next to him.

At the same time as the old man's shoulder touched his, the little person ... the child ... fell straight out. He gasped and the old one's fingers again dug into his hand. The child fell straight at them.

Instinctively they both ducked, putting their arms up over their heads. Nothing happened.

When they looked up again the child was gone. The driver looked around, but all they could see around them was the falling snow in the glow of the street lamps. The old man drew a rattling breath.

"It was the angel of death. The angel of death. I will never leave this place alive."

SAt.u.r.dAY.

7 NOVEMBER [NIGHT].

Habba -Habba-soudd-soudd!"

The very vocal group of boys and girls had gotten on at Hotorget. They were maybe Tommy's age. Drunk. The guys howled from time to time, fell on top of the girls, and the girls laughed, beating them off. Then they sang again. The same song, over and over. Oskar looked at them in secret.

I'm never going to be like that.

Unfortunately. He would have liked to. It looked like fun. But Oskar would never manage to be like that, do what the guys did. One of them stood up on his seat and sang loudly: "A-Huleba-Huleba, A-haHuleba..." An old man who was dozing in a handicapped seat at one end of the subway car shouted out: "Keep it down, will you? I'm trying to sleep." One of the girls gave him the finger.

"You can sleep at home."

The whole gang laughed and started in on the song again. A few seats away there was a man reading a book. Oskar craned his neck so he could read the t.i.tle, but could only see the name of the author: Goran Tunstrom. n.o.body he had ever heard of. In the nearest block of two-seaters facing each other there was an old woman with a handbag on her lap. She was talking to herself in a low voice, gesturing to an invisible interlocutor.

He had never taken the subway this late before. Were these the same people who in the daytime sat quietly and stared in front of them, or read newspapers? Or was this a special group that only appeared at night?

The man with the book turned the page. Strangely enough Oskar had no book with him. Too bad. He would have wanted to be like that man, reading a book, oblivious to everything around him. But he only had his Walkman and the Cube. Had been planning to listen to the KISS tape he had gotten from Tommy, had tried it a little on the bus but got sick of it after only a couple of songs.

He took his Cube out of his bag. Three sides were solved. Only an insignificant amount needed to be done on the fourth. Eli and he had spent one evening working on it together, talked about how you could do it and since then Oskar had become better. He looked at all sides and tried to think up a strategy but couldn't get past thinking of Eli's face. What will she look like?

He wasn't afraid. He was in a state of... yes... he could not be here, at this time, could not be doing what he was doing. It didn't exist. It wasn't him. I I don't exist and no one can do anything to me. don't exist and no one can do anything to me.

He had called his dad from Norrtalje and his dad had cried on the phone. Said he would call for someone to go and pick up Oskar. It was the second time in his life Oskar heard his father cry. For a moment Oskar was about to give in. But when his dad had gotten worked up and started yelling about how he had to have his own life and be allowed to do as he d.a.m.n well pleased in his own house, Oskar had hung up on him. That was when it had really started, that feeling that he didn't really exist.

The group of boys and girls got off at Angbyplan. One of the guys turned around and shouted into the subway car: "Sweet dreams, my . .. my . .."

He couldn't think of the word and one of the girls pulled him back with her. Just before the doors closed he tore himself away and ran over to them, holding one open and shouting: "... fellow pa.s.sengers! Sweet dreams, my fellow pa.s.sengers!" He let go of the door and the subway car started to go. The reading man lowered his book and looked at the young people on the platform. Then he turned to Oskar and looked him in the eyes. And smiled. Oskar smiled back briefly, then pretended to turn his attention back to the Cube.

In his chest a feeling of having... pa.s.sed muster. The man had looked at him and transmitted the thought, You're alright. What you're doing is You're alright. What you're doing is good. good.

He didn't dare look up at the man anymore. He felt like the man knew. knew. Oskar turned the Cube one click, then turned it back. Oskar turned the Cube one click, then turned it back.