"It's a Rubik's Cube."

"What did you say?"

This time Oskar overenunciated the words.

"Ru-bik's Cube."

"And what's that?"

Oskar shrugged.

"A toy."

"A puzzle?"

"Yes."

Oskar held the Cube out to her.

"Want to try it?"

She took the Cube from his hand, turned it, examined it from all sides. Oskar laughed. She looked like a monkey examining a piece of fruit.

"You really haven't seen one before?"

"No. What do you do?"

"Like this . . ."

Oskar got the Cube back and the girl sat down next to him. He showed her how you turned it and that the point was to get the sides to be one color. She took the Cube and started to turn it.

"Can you see the colors?"

"Naturally."

He snuck glances at her while she was working on the Cube. She was wearing the same pink top as yesterday and he couldn't understand why she wasn't freezing. He was starting to get cold from sitting still, even though he was wearing his jacket.

Naturally.

She talked funny too, like a grown-up. Maybe she was older older than him, even though she was so puny. Her thin white throat jutted out of her turtleneck top, merged with a sharp jaw bone. Like a mannequin. But now the wind blew in Oskar's direction and he swallowed, breathed through his mouth. The mannequin stank. than him, even though she was so puny. Her thin white throat jutted out of her turtleneck top, merged with a sharp jaw bone. Like a mannequin. But now the wind blew in Oskar's direction and he swallowed, breathed through his mouth. The mannequin stank.

Doesn't she ever take a bath?

The smell was worse than old sweat; it was closer to the smell that came when you removed the bandage from an infected wound. And her hair ... When he dared to take a closer look at her-she was completely absorbed by the Cube-he noticed that her hair was caked together and fell around her face in matted tufts and clumps. As if she had put glue or ... mud in it.

While he was studying her, he happened to breathe in through his nose and had to suppress the urge to vomit. He got up, walked over to the swings, and sat down. Couldn't be close to her. The girl didn't seem to care.

After a while he got up and walked over to where she was sitting, still preoccupied with the Cube.

"Hey there, I have to go home now."

"Mmm..."

"The Cube ..."

The girl paused. Hesitated for a moment, then held the Cube out to him without saying anything. Oskar took it, looked at her and then handed it back.

"You can keep it until tomorrow."

She didn't take it.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I may not be here tomorrow."

"Until the day after tomorrow, then. But you can't have it for longer than that."

She thought about it. Took the Cube.

"Thanks. I'll probably be here tomorrow."

"Here?"

"Yes."

"OK. Bye."

"Bye."

As Oskar turned and left he heard softs creaks from the Cube. She was going to stay out here in her thin top. Her mother and father must be . .. different, letting her go out dressed like that. You could end up with a bladder infection.

Where have you been?" "Out."

"You're drunk." "Yes." "We agreed you wouldn't do this anymore."

"You agreed. What's that?"

"A puzzle. You know it isn't good for you-"

"Where did you get it?"

"Borrowed it. Hakan, you have to-"

"Borrowed-from who?"

"Hakan. Don't be like this."

"Make me happy, then."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Let me touch you."

"Alright, but on one condition."

"No. No, no. Not that."

"Tomorrow. You have to."

"No. Not one more time. What do you mean, 'borrowed'? You never one more time. What do you mean, 'borrowed'? You never borrow anything. What is it anyway?" borrow anything. What is it anyway?"

"A puzzle."

"Don't you have enough puzzles? You care more about your puzzles than you do about me. Puzzles. Cuddles. Puzzles. Who gave it to you?

Who gave it to you?, I said!" I said!"

"Hakan, stop it."

"What do you need me for anyway?"

"I love you."

"No, you don't."

"Yes. In a way."

"There is no such thing. You either love someone or you don't."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"In that case I have to think about it."

SAt.u.r.dAY.

24, OCTOBER.

The suburban mystique is the absence of riddles.

-Johan Eriksson Three thick bundles of advertising catalogs lay outside Oskar's apartment door on Sat.u.r.day morning. Mom helped him fold them. Three different pages in every package, four hundred and eighty packages total. For each package he made about fourteen ore. ore. In the worst case he only got one page to deliver, yielding seven ore. In the best case scenario (or the worst in a way, since it involved so much folding prep) he received up to five pages a package yielding twenty-five ore. In the worst case he only got one page to deliver, yielding seven ore. In the best case scenario (or the worst in a way, since it involved so much folding prep) he received up to five pages a package yielding twenty-five ore.

He was helped by the fact that the large apartment buildings were included in his district. He could dispatch up to one hundred and fifty packages there per hour. The whole round took about four hours, including a trip home in between to fill up on packets. If it was a day when there were five papers per packet he needed to go home twice. The packets had to be delivered by Tuesday at the latest but he usually did it all on Sat.u.r.day. Got it over and done with.

Oskar sat on the kitchen floor, his mom at the kitchen table. It wasn't fun work but he liked the chaos he made in the kitchen. The large mess that bit by bit transformed into order, into two, three, four overstuffed paper bags full of neatly folded packets.

His mom put one more pile of packets into one of the bags, then shook her head.

"Well, I really don't like it." "What?"

"You can't... I mean, if someone were to open the door or something ... I don't want you to .. ." "No, why would I?"

"There are so many crazy people in the world." "Yeah." They had this conversation, in some form or another, almost every Sat.u.r.day. This Friday evening his mom had said she didn't think he should make any deliveries this Sat.u.r.day, on account of the murderer. But Oskar had promised to scream to high heaven if anyone so much as said "hi" to him, and then his mom had given in.

No one had ever tried to invite him in or anything like that. Once an old guy had come out and yelled at him for filling his mailbox "with this garbage" but since then he had just avoided putting anything in the man's mailbox.

The man would have to live without knowing he could get a haircut with highlights for that special event for only two hundred kronor at the hair salon this week.

By eleven-thirty all the pages were folded and he set off on his rounds. There was no point in stuffing the bags into the garbage can or something; they always called and checked up on him, made random tests. They had made that perfectly clear when he called up and signed up for the job six months ago. Maybe it was a bluff, but he didn't dare take the chance. And anyway, he didn't have anything against this kind of work. Not for the first two hours, at least.

He would pretend, for example, that he was an agent on a secret mission, out to spread propaganda against the enemy occupying the country. He sneaked through the hallways, on guard against enemy soldiers who could very well be dressed up as old ladies with dogs.

Or else he pretended that each building was a hungry animal, a dragon with six mouths whose only source of nourishment was the virgin flesh-made to look like advertis.e.m.e.nts-that he fed it with. The packet screamed in his hands when he pressed it into the jaws of the beast. The final two hours-like today, just after the second round-he was overcome by a kind of numbness. The legs kept walking and the arms kept moving mechanically.

Put the bag down, place six packets under his arm, open the downstairs door, arrive at the first apartment, open the mail slot with his left arm, put a packet in with his right hand. Second door, and so on.... When he finally came to his own complex, to the girl's door, he stopped outside and listened. He heard a radio on, low. That was all. He put the packet in the mail slot and waited. No one came to get it.

In the usual way, he ended with his own door, put a packet in the mail slot, unlocked the door, picked up the packet, and threw it in the garbage.

Done for the day. Sixty-seven kronor richer.

Mamma had gone to Vallingby to do the shopping. Oskar had the apartment to himself. Didn't know what to do with it.

He opened the cabinets under the kitchen sink, peeked in. Kitchen utensils and whisks and an oven thermometer. In another drawer he found pens and paper, recipe cards from a cooking series that his mom had started subscribing to, and then stopped since the recipes called for such expensive ingredients.

He continued on into the living room, opened the cabinets there. His mom's crochet-or was it knitting?-things. A folder with bills and receipts. Photo alb.u.ms that he had looked at a thousand times. Old magazines with unsolved crossword puzzles. A pair of reading gla.s.ses in their case. A sewing kit. A little wooden box with his and his mom's pa.s.sports, their government-issued identification tags (he had asked to be allowed to wear his but his mom had said only if there was a war) a photograph and a ring.

He went through the cabinets and drawers as if he were looking for something without knowing exactly what it was. A secret. Something that would change things. To suddenly find a piece of rotting meat in the back of a cabinet. Or an inflated balloon. Anything. Something unfamiliar.

He took out the photograph and looked at it.

It was from his christening. His mom was holding him in her arms, looking into the camera. She was thin back then. Oskar was dressed in a white gown with long blue ribbons. Next to his mom was his dad, look-ing uncomfortable in his suit. Looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands and had therefore let them fall stiffly by his side, almost like long blue ribbons. Next to his mom was his dad, look-ing uncomfortable in his suit. Looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands and had therefore let them fall stiffly by his side, almost like he was standing at attention. Was looking straight at the baby. The sun was shining on the three of them. he was standing at attention. Was looking straight at the baby. The sun was shining on the three of them.

Oskar brought the image closer to his eyes, studied his dad's expression. He looked proud. Proud and very... unpracticed. A man who was happy to be a father but who didn't know how to act. What you did. You could have thought it was the first time he had seen the baby, even though the christening was a full six months after Oskar's birth.

His mom, however, held Oskar in a confident, relaxed way. Her look into the camera was not so much proud as . . . suspicious. Don't come any closer, her look said. I'll bite you in the nose.

His dad was leaning forward slightly, as if he wanted to get closer without really daring to. It was not a picture of a family. It was a picture of a boy and his mother. And next to them there was a man, presumably the father, judging by his facial expression. But Oskar loved his dad, and so did his mom. In a way. In spite of everything. How everything had turned out.

Oskar took out the ring and read the inscription: Erik 22/4 1967. Erik 22/4 1967. They had divorced when Oskar was two. Neither of them had found another partner. "It just didn't work out that way." They had both used the same expression. They had divorced when Oskar was two. Neither of them had found another partner. "It just didn't work out that way." They had both used the same expression.

He replaced the ring, closed the wooden box, and put it back on the shelf. Wondered if his mom ever looked at the ring, why she kept it. It was made of solid gold. Probably ten grams worth. Worth about four hundred.