‘Theres,’ said Jerry, who couldn’t get past the massive backs, ‘Theres, they’re not dangerous. They’re helping us.’
Theres moved into the almost empty living room. She cast a panic-stricken glance at the balcony door, and for a moment he thought she was going to throw herself out.
‘Theres. What a lovely name,’ said one of the twins, distracting her sufficiently to stop her making a dash for the balcony door before that particular escape route was blocked. Instead, like the very small child she resembled at that moment, she threw herself on the sofa and pulled the blanket over her head.
Mats and Martin looked at one another, grinned and said, ‘OK, kid-here we go.’ Before Jerry could stop them they each picked up one end of the sofa. Incapable of coming up with a better solution, he dashed out onto the landing and positioned himself so that he was blocking the view from the spy hole in Hirsfeldt’s door as Mats and Martin carried the sofa downstairs. He didn’t dare to imagine what Theres must be feeling as she lay there quivering under her blanket, unceremoniously carted out of her safe haven.
When the twins had placed the sofa in the van and Jerry had managed to persuade them to stop trying to coax Theres out, he sat down beside her and whispered, ‘Sis? Sis? Everything’s fine. I’m here and they’re not dangerous, I promise.’ He fumbled under the blanket and found her hand, squeezed it. A gesture that would have been unthinkable just a week ago.
When the twins had brought down the last of the boxes and were ready to set off, Theres refused to leave her cocoon. Jerry tried to get up, but she squeezed his hand harder and hissed, ‘Don’t go. Don’t go.’
Jerry weighed up the situation, then asked the twins: ‘Is it OK if we ride with you? In the back?’ The twins shrugged and said well, it was against the rules really, but…Jerry seized the moment and said they could add an extra couple of hours to the invoice. It had been cheaper than he expected anyway, because the twins had worked so fast.
He dug out another blanket and wrapped himself in it, then found the torch in one of the boxes. When the doors closed and he switched on the torch, he thought it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. They could avoid the midnight taxi ride Jerry had been planning to get Theres out of Norrtalje without the risk of being spotted by anyone he knew.
When Jerry was young, he had had the usual fantasies about leaving Norrtalje and returning many years later to great acclaim, giving major interviews to the local press. He’d given all that up long ago, and resigned himself to becoming quietly embalmed in his desolate apartment.
Even though he was now travelling in a dark removal van like a thief in the night, at least he had finally escaped. Good or bad? Difficult to say, but as the van bumped along and Jerry tried to visualise the places they were passing, he felt a small stirring of excitement. He was on his way. At last.
When they had been on the road for about quarter of an hour, Theres poked her head out. She looked around the dark interior, and Jerry swept the beam of the torch around to show her no dangers were lurking. She said something and Jerry had to lean closer to hear her over the roar of the engine. ‘What did you say?’
‘The big people,’ said Theres. ‘When are the big people going to make Little One dead?’
‘Listen, sis…’ Jerry moved closer to her, but Theres retreated into the far corner of the sofa. When Jerry shone the light on her he saw that she was at least as terrified as she had been up in the apartment. He switched off the torch to avoid dazzling her, and spoke into the darkness.
‘Sis, this whole business with the big people-it’s all just made up. It’s not true. It was just some crap Dad made up because…because he didn’t want you to run away.’
‘You’re lying. The big people have hate in their heads. You said it too.’
‘Yes, but that was just so that you’d…forget it. But nobody’s going to kill you. You don’t need to be scared.’
They sat in silence in the darkness for a long time. The sound of the engine was soporific, and Jerry might have fallen asleep if he hadn’t started to feel really cold. He wrapped the blanket more tightly around him and stared at a thin strip of light along the bottom of the doors. The feeling of being on the way had been replaced by a sense that he was being
‘No,’ said Jerry. ‘That’s going a bit far. That’s not what I said. Most of them are nasty bastards, if they get the chance. I’m just telling you they’re not going to kill you. Or hurt you.’
Jerry added silently:
When the doors opened Jerry was blinded by the white winter light. Theres had crawled back under her blanket, and Martin and Mats were waiting outside with their arms folded.
‘It’s the third floor, isn’t it?’ said one of the twins, pointing at Theres. ‘I think you’d better try and get the girl to go up with you. It was a bit of fun once, but…’
Jerry asked them to back off a little and leaned over Theres, whispering where he thought her ear might be, ‘Come on, sis. Everything’s fine. I’ll hold your hand.’ A few seconds passed and Jerry had begun to consider carrying Theres wrapped in the blanket, when a hand emerged. He took it and gently folded back the blanket, then led her out of the van.
She walked with her head bent, as if she expected a devastating blow to the back of her neck at any moment. When it didn’t come, she stole a quick glance at the twins. They waved in unison with exactly the same expression on their faces, like something out of a cartoon. Jerry wondered if they lived together as well.
He held his head high as they walked towards the door, because there was no longer anything to hide, and he didn’t want it to look as if there might be. There were always watchful eyes. Here comes a father with his daughter to take over their new apartment, nothing odd about that. Theres, however, was playing her role very badly, and her fingers were squeezing his hand like pincers.
She relaxed slightly once they were inside the small lift, and looked around in confusion when they came out onto the landing; she couldn’t understand how they had got there. Jerry unlocked the door of their apartment and left it open, then led Theres to her new room.
‘This is where you’re going to live,’ he said. As Theres looked suspiciously around the completely empty room, he added, ‘With furniture, and stuff, of course. We’ll have to buy a bed and…’
Theres went and sat on the floor in the corner, drew her knees up to her chin and looked as if she wasn’t entirely displeased with the current state of the room. Jerry heard a bang and a muffled curse from the stairs and said, ‘Listen, they’re bringing the furniture up now, so…’
Theres hugged herself even more tightly and stayed where she was, unassailable. A minute or two later the twins came lumbering in with the sofa, and Jerry asked them to put it in Theres’ room. She would have to sleep on it until he managed to get a bed. The girl followed the movements of the two big men with her eyes wide open, her fingers constantly intertwining. The twins seemed to have accepted that they couldn’t make any contact with Theres, and placed things in her room in silence.
Each time they came in Theres slackened the grip around her knees a fraction, and by the time they brought in the last two little boxes containing her clothes, she was on her feet.
‘So,’ said Mats, or Martin, looking around the apartment where the paltry furnishings echoed in the emptiness. He seemed to be searching for something positive to say, but had no success. Instead he finished off with, ‘There we are, then.’
‘Yes,’ said Jerry. ‘There we are.’
A couple of days after they had moved into the apartment, Theres started her first period. Jerry was sitting at the computer trying to make a bit of money in a poker game when Theres came out of her room and said, ‘How did it get to be open?’
Jerry was so preoccupied with the game that he didn’t look away from the screen as he asked, ‘How did what get to be open?’
Theres came and stood next to him and said, ‘It’s coming out. Who did it?’
Jerry gave a start when he saw her. Then he understood. Her knickers and T-shirt were spattered with red, and blood had trickled down her left leg, all the way to the ankle. Theres wasn’t afraid, just puzzled as she stood there staring at her sticky fingers.
