"Excuse me, but..."

She glanced at his worn clothes, put on an aloof air, said: "Yes?"

"I was just wondering. Virginia . . . Virginia Lind who you . . . admitted a while ago . . ."

The nurse nodded, looked positively dismissive now. Had perhaps been present when they . . .

"Well, I was just wondering . . . her blood type."

"What about it?"

"Well, I saw there's a big A on the bag that... but she doesn't have that."

"I'm afraid I'm not following this."

"You see ... uh ... do you have a moment?"

The nurse looked around down the corridor. Perhaps to check if there was help to be had if this deteriorated into something, perhaps to underscore that she had more important things to do, but she did agree to accompany Lacke into the room where Virginia lay with closed eyes, the blood slowly dropping down the tube. Lacke pointed to the bag of blood.

"Here. This A, it means that..."

"That it contains type A blood, yes. There is such a shortage of blood donors these days. If people knew how-"

"Excuse me, yes. But she has blood type B. Isn't it dangerous to ..."

"Of course it is."

The nurse was not unfriendly, exactly, but her body language suggested that Lacke's right to question the competence of hospital staff was minimal. She shrugged lightly, said: "If one has blood type B. But this patient does not. She has AB."

"But... the bag says A ..."

The nurse nodded, as if she was explaining to a child that there were no people on the moon: "People with the blood type AB can receive blood from all blood groups."

"But... I see. Then she has changed her blood type." The nurse raised an eyebrow. The child had just claimed that it had been to the moon and seen people up there. With a hand gesture, as if she were slicing a ribbon, she said: "That's just not possible."

"Is that a fact. Well, she must have been wrong, then."

"She must have been. If you'll excuse me I have other things to attend to."

The nurse checked the catheter in Virginia's arm, adjusted the IV stand slightly, and with a last look at Lacke that said that these were important things and G.o.d save him if he so much as looked at them, she left the room with energetic steps.

What happens if you get the wrong kind of blood? The blood... coagulates. coagulates.

No. It must have been Virginia who couldn't remember correctly. He walked to a corner of the room, where there was an armchair, a small table with a plastic flower. Sat down, looked around the room. Bare walls, shining floor. Fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Virginia's bed of metal tubing, over her a pale yellow blanket printed with COUNTY ADMINISTRATION.

This is how things end up.

In Dostoevsky, illness and death were almost always dirty, impoverished affairs. Crushed beneath wagon wheels, mud, typhus, bloodstained handkerchiefs. And so on. But d.a.m.ned if that weren't preferable to this. Slow disintegration in a polished machine.

Lacke leaned back into the armchair, closed his eyes. The chair back was too short, his head slumped back. He straightened up, put his elbow on the armrest, and leaned his head in his hand. Looked at the plastic flower. It was as if they had put it there simply to emphasize the fact that no life was allowed here; here order reigned.

The image of the flower stayed on his retina when he shut his eyes again. It transformed into a real flower that grew, became a garden. A garden attached to the house they were going to buy. Lacke stood in the garden, looked at a rosebush with shining red flowers. From the house came the long shadow of a person. The sun set hastily and the shadow grew, became longer, stretched out over the garden . . .

He jumped and was suddenly awake. His palm was wet with saliva that had run out of the corner of his mouth as he was sleeping. He rubbed his mouth, smacked his lips together, and tried to straighten his head. Couldn't. His neck had seized up somehow. He forced it to straighten out with a crackling of the ligaments, stopped.

Wide open eyes staring right at him.

"Hi! Are you ..."

His mouth closed. Virginia was lying on her back, restrained by the straps, with her face turned toward him. But her face was much too still. Not a flicker of recognition, joy. . . nothing. Her eyes didn't blink. Dead! She is... Dead! She is...

Lacke flew up out of the armchair and something cracked in his neck. He threw himself on his knees next to the bed, grabbed the metal tubing, and moved his face close to hers as if to will her soul back into her face, from her depths, by the sheer force of his presence.

"Ginja! Can you hear me?"

Nothing. And yet he could have sworn that her eyes in some way looked back into his, that they were not dead. He looked for her, all the way through them, casting hooks from deep within himself, into the holes that were her pupils, in order to reach through the darkness for . . . Her pupils. Is that what you look like when you ... Her pupils. Is that what you look like when you ...

Her pupils were not round. They were stretched lengthwise, to little points. He made a face when a cold stream of pain washed over his neck, put his hand on it, rubbed.

Virginia blinked. Opened her eyes again. And was there.

Lacke gaped idiotically, still rubbing his neck mechanically. A wooden click as Virginia opened her mouth, asked: "Are you in pain?" Lacke removed his hand from his neck, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn't be.

"No, I just... I thought you were . . ."

"I'm tied down."

"Yes, you . . . put up a bit of a fight before. Wait a second and I'll..." Lacke put his hand in between two of the bars on the bed frame and started loosening one of the straps.

"No."

"What?"

"Don't do it."

Lacke hesitated, the strap in his fingers.

"Are you planning to do some more fighting?"

Virginia half-closed her eyes.

"Don't do it."

Lacke dropped the strap, didn't know what to do with his hands now they had been robbed of their task. Without getting up he turned on his knees, pulled over the little armchair to the bed-with a new burst of pain in his neck as a result-and clumsily crawled up into it. Virginia nodded almost imperceptibly. "Have you called Lena?"

"No. I can-"

"Good."

"Do you want me to?. . ."

"No."

A silence fell between them. The kind of silence that is particular to hospitals and that stems from the fact that the very situation-one person in the bed, sick or injured, and a healthy person at her side-says it all. Words become small, superfluous. Only the most important can be said. They looked at each other for a long time. Said what could be said, without words. Then Virginia turned her head in line with her body, stared at the ceiling.

"You have to help me."

"I'll do anything."

Virginia licked her lips, breathed in, and let out the air with a sigh so deep and long that it seemed to draw on hidden reserves of air in her body. Then she let her gaze slide up Lacke's body. Searching, as if she were taking a last good-bye of the body of a loved one and wanted to imprint his image in her mind. She rubbed her lips against each other and finally got out the words.

"I am a vampire."

The corners of Lacke's mouth wanted to pull up into a silly grin, his mouth say something soothing, perhaps funny. But the corners of his mouth didn't move and the comment took a wrong turn somewhere, never got anywhere near his lips. Instead all he got out was a: "No!" He ma.s.saged his neck in order to change the atmosphere, to break the stillness that made all words the truth. Virginia spoke in a low voice, controlled.

"I went to Gosta. To kill him. If it hadn't happened. What happened. I would have killed him. And then ... drunk his blood. I would have done that. It was my intention. With it all. Do you understand?" Lacke's gaze wandered over the walls of the room as if it were searching for the mosquito, the source of the insufferable, buzzing sound that in the silence was tickling his brain, making it impossible to think. Finally stopped at one of the overhead lights.

"That d.a.m.ned sound."

Virginia looked up at the light, said: "I can't stand light. I can't eat. I have horrible thoughts. I'm going to hurt people. You. I don't want to live."

Finally something more concrete, something he could respond to.

"You can't say things like that," Lacke said. "Ginja, you are not allowed to talk like that, you hear? Do you?"

"You don't understand."

"No, I probably don't. But you are not going to die, d.a.m.n it. Here you are, you're talking, you are ... it's OK."

Lacke got up out of the chair, took a few aimless steps over the floor, held his arm out.

"You're not allowed to ... you're not allowed to say those things."

"Lacke. Lacke?"

"Yes!"

"You know. That it's true. Don't you?"

"What?"

"What I'm talking about."

Lacke snorted, shook his head while his hands patted his chest, his pockets. "Need a smoke. That..."

He found the crumpled cigarette packet, the lighter. Managed to get out the last cigarette, put it into his mouth. Then he remembered where he was. Took the cigarette out.

"d.a.m.n, they'll have me out on my behind if I..."

"Open the window."

"Now you're telling me to jump, too?"

Virginia smiled. Lacke walked over to the window, opened it all the way, and leaned out as far as he could.

The nurse he had talked to could probably catch the whiff of a cigarette a mile away. He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, making an effort to exhale the smoke so it didn't blow back in the window. Looked up at the stars. Behind him, Virginia started to talk again.

"It was that child. I've been infected. And then ... it has grown. I know where it's centered. In my heart. The whole heart. Like cancer. I can't control it."

Lacke blew out a column of smoke. His voice echoed between the tall buildings around them.

"Nonsense. You seem . . . normal."

"I'm making an effort. And they've given me blood. But if I let go. At any moment I could let go. And then it would take over. I know it. I feel it." Virginia took a few deep breaths, continued, "You are standing there. I'm looking at you. And I want to . . . eat you."

Lacke didn't know if it was the kink in his neck or something else that sent a shiver down his spine. He suddenly felt vulnerable. He quickly stubbed out the cigarette against the wall, flicked the b.u.t.t away in an arc. Turned back into the room.

"This is complete utter insanity."

"Yes, but that's how it is."

Lacke crossed his arms over his chest. With a forced laugh he asked: "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to . . . destroy my heart."

"What? How?"

"However you want."

Lacke rolled his eyes.

"Can you hear yourself? How this sounds? It's crazy. Like I should ... drive a stake into you or something."

"Yes."

"No, no, no. You can forget about it in that case. Have to think of something better." Lacke laughed, shaking his head. Virginia looked at him as he walked to and fro across the room, with his arms still folded across his chest. Then she nodded gently.

"OK.".

He walked over to her, took her hand. It felt unnatural that it was .. . restrained. He didn't even have enough room to put both his hands around it. But her hand was the warm one, squeezed his. With his free hand he stroked her cheek.

"Are you sure I shouldn't undo these things?"

"No. It can . . . come back."

"You're going to get well. It'll work out. I only have you. Do you want to know a secret?"