Little Star

That evening, Johannes rang.

The voices of her parents and her brothers had been reduced to meaningless background noise, whether they were speaking to her or not. She had nothing to do with them. So how come Johannes’ voice could still be heard?

‘Hi Teresa.’

Teresa. That name. She did remember it, she knew that in some way it meant her. Yes. When Johannes said it she could remember that other girl. Before Theres, before ‘Fly’, before Max Hansen and before Urd. Poor little Teresa with her poor little poems and her poor little life.

She spoke in Teresa’s voice. It was still there. In a way it was pleasant to speak in that voice. Teresa wasn’t suffering from this tearing hunger, Teresa didn’t have a bloody task to carry out. Teresa was Johannes’ friend, and always would be.

‘Hi Johannes.’

She lay down on the bed, closed her eyes and had a perfectly normal conversation with Johannes. They talked about Agnes, about people in school, about the alterations to the library. For a while Teresa pretended that these things were important, and it was nice.

After a while they slipped into talking about memories. Teresa allowed herself to be led, without resisting, to their cave, their bike rides, the places where they went swimming, the sheep. They talked for over two hours, and when Teresa picked up the drill and weighed it in her hand after saying goodbye, the whole thing seemed impossible.

She lunged, raced the motor and simulated resistance, her limbs flailing as she screamed, ‘Urd!’

Urd.

She managed to get a few hours’ sleep that night, lying in bed with the drill and squeezing the wonderful, soft grip that fitted her hand as if it had been made for her.

***

A person can think murderous thoughts and hide them behind a smile, she can fantasise about blood flowing and brain matter splattering as she eats her muesli, humming quietly to herself. But even if nothing concrete shows on the outside, people around her will notice something sooner or later. It leaks out like radiation or osmosis, seeping out of her very being.

Teresa’s parents had started to be afraid of her. You couldn’t put your finger on anything definite that she said or did, but there was a kind of shimmer around her, a black aura that made them feel uncomfortable as soon as she walked into a room.

When Teresa asked for a lift to Osteryd more than an hour before the train was due to leave, no one asked any questions. They knew she was going to Stockholm to meet that friend of hers, but that was all they knew. If she wanted to go to Osteryd first, then she could go to Osteryd.

Teresa’s rucksack looked heavy, but when Goran offered to help her carry it she just looked at him in a way that made him lower his hands. They got in the car in silence, and they drove into Osteryd in silence. When Teresa told him where she wanted to be dropped off, Goran said, ‘Isn’t that where Johannes lives?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you going to see him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh good! It might…brighten you up a bit.’

‘I hope so.’

Teresa got out of the car and grabbed her rucksack, then stood there with her head lowered. She didn’t close the door. When she looked at Goran a flash of pain passed through her eyes. He leaned over the passenger seat and held out his hand. ‘Sweetheart…’

Teresa backed away from his touch and said, ‘I’m not sure if I’m going to Stockholm. It depends. I’ll ring you if I don’t go.’ Then she slammed the door shut, turned away and walked towards the door of Johannes’ apartment block.

Goran sat there with his hands resting on the wheel. When Teresa had disappeared inside he let out a sob and lowered his head. His forehead hit one of the horn buttons, and the sound made him jump and look around. A man of about his own age with two supermarket carrier bags in his hands was standing looking at him. He waved, started the car and drove off.

Teresa hesitated before ringing the doorbell. This could be very, very painful. She hadn’t even turned around when she left her father, but before she could do anything else she just had to say goodbye to Johannes. Then whatever was going to happen could happen.

Her thumb hovered over the white plastic button as if it was wired to those Cruise missiles that could start a world war. The worst thing was that she didn’t know which action would start the chain of events: to push or not to push.

She pushed the button. No roar of engines going through twelve litres of rocket fuel per second, no terrified screams from the entire population of the world. Just a quiet ding dong, then footsteps in the hallway.

Johannes opened the door looking exactly the same as Teresa thought he had looked ever since his transformation. A pink T-shirt and khaki shorts, and he already had a tan even though the summer had hardly started. His eyes sparkled, and before Teresa could stop him he had flung his arms around her.

‘Teresa! It’s so good to see you!’

‘You too,’ she mumbled into his shoulder.

He took a step back, still holding onto her arms, and looked her up and down.

‘How are you? You don’t look too good, actually.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Oh, you know what I mean. Come in.’

Teresa took her rucksack with her into the living room and sat down in an armchair. The apartment looked like it had been decorated by several different people, all with appalling taste. Nothing matched anything else, and a standard lamp that looked like a valuable antique was standing next to a huge plastic flower on a Perspex box.

Johannes had mentioned how busy his mother was these days, how she didn’t have time to bother about what the apartment looked like.

Teresa looked around and asked, ‘Has Agnes’ mother been here?’

Johannes laughed out loud and told her a long story about how Clara, Agnes’ mother, had reacted the first time she came to dinner, how she had paused in front of a picture of a weeping child and eventually said, ‘Well, that’s certainly…a classic.’

When Teresa didn’t even smile at his anecdotes, he sighed and sat down on the sofa, tucked his hands between his knees and waited. Teresa shuffled forward to the edge of the armchair, as close to him as possible. Then she said, ‘I’ve killed people.’

Johannes grinned. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’ve killed two people. One by myself, and one with other people.’

His smile grew rigid then disappeared as he looked her in the eye. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘I am serious. And today I’m going to kill some more.’

Johannes frowned as if she were telling him a joke he just didn’t get, then he snorted. ‘Why are you saying this? Of course you’re not going to kill people. Of course you haven’t already killed people. What’s going on, Teresa?’

She opened her rucksack. On the dark brown coffee table she placed the drill, a hammer, a carving knife and a small pair of bolt cutters. ‘These are the tools we’re going to use. The others have got the same. More or less.’

‘What others?’

‘The others who are going to be with me. My pack.’