‘Hi,’ he said, nodding at Theres. ‘You’re Tesla, aren’t you?’
Theres, who appeared completely unmoved by the attitude of the men, nodded and came out with her usual response, ‘We. I sing. Teresa writes the words.’
‘Yeah, right.’ said the man. ‘Because you’re such a pretty girl.’ He nudged Teresa’s shoulder, as if she were something in his way. ‘Why would you bother with a bag of spanners like her otherwise?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Theres.
‘No. It does look that way, like you don’t really get it.’
‘What do you want?’ said Teresa. ‘Get lost. We haven’t done anything to you.’
The man pointed at Teresa. ‘You. Shut the fuck up. It’s her I’m talking to.’ He gestured to one of the other men, who came and crouched down next to Teresa, while the first man went over to Theres.
The man who was now so close to Teresa that she could smell the mouthwash on his breath held up his big hands, showing her the weapons at his disposal. He looked less than intelligent, bordering on mentally challenged, and Teresa had no doubt that he did exactly as he was told. Out of the corner of her eye she could see some of the other girls approaching, but they were some distance away.
‘You sing well,’ said the first man, towering over Theres. He pointed into Skansen. ‘And you’re going to sing here in a couple of weeks, aren’t you?’ When Theres didn’t reply, he said it again, but with greater emphasis.
When the men first came over Teresa had quickly considered the possibility that they had something to do with Max Hansen, then dismissed the idea as being too over the top. But it was actually true. He had found himself some muscle to carry out what his written threats had failed to achieve.
When Theres still didn’t reply, the man grabbed her under the arms and lifted her with no effort, pinning her up against the fence with her face on a level with his, her feet dangling several centimetres off the ground. Teresa tried to get up, but her gorilla placed his heavy hands on her shoulders, pressing her down while snorting as if he were calming a horse. The girls had broken into a run, but they were still at least a hundred metres away.
The first man pulled Theres closer, then thrust her back against the fence, making the wire netting rattle.
He shook Theres so that her head banged against the fence. Tears of rage scalded Teresa’s eyes as she scratched the gorilla’s arms: she was making no more impression than a swarm of midges. She would have kicked, screamed, fought to the very last drop of blood,
‘Yes!’ she yelled. ‘Yes! She’ll be there! Leave her alone! Let go of her!’
The man who was holding Theres nodded. ‘I want to hear it from you, little girl. I’m asking you nicely-now are you going to do what you’ve been asked to do?’
The two Annas, Miranda, Cecilia and Ronja had arrived. The third man walked towards them, his arms raised. ‘OK, OK. Let’s just stay here girls, nice and calm now.’
Ronja aimed a kick at his kneecap, but he kept his balance, grabbed hold of her and threw her down on the grass. The other four stood irresolute, staring at Theres who nodded and said, ‘Yes. I’ll sing.’ Two seconds later her teeth had closed on her attacker’s eyebrow.
His roar brought everything to a stop. His friends, completely paralysed, followed what was happening over by the fence with their mouths agape. The man spun around as if he were dancing with Theres, at the same time trying to push her away. When he succeeded it was at the expense of a few grams of body weight. Theres spat something out of her mouth and blood poured down into the man’s eye as he held her at arm’s length.
He bellowed like an injured animal, and hurled Theres at the fence with all his strength. She bounced against the wire and fell head first on the ground. As the man gathered himself to deliver a kick to her stomach, the one who had been holding on to Teresa shouted, ‘We weren’t supposed to hurt her!’
The man came to his senses, pressed one hand to his injured eyebrow and contented himself with tipping Theres over onto her back with the toe of his shoe, whereupon he grabbed hold of her crotch with his other hand and hissed, ‘You need to be bloody careful from now on. I might come back and play with you again one of these days!’
Then they left. They were followed by curses and empty threats, mainly from Ronja and Teresa, but they left. All the girls gathered around Theres, whose lip had split. Her mouth was smeared with a mixture of blood and saliva, and no matter how she struggled, a billowing mass of arms and hands covered her, stroking and wiping and supporting. Only when she put her arms over her head and shouted, ‘Stop touching me!’ were the helpful limbs withdrawn, and the girls stood with their hands empty, not knowing what to do with them.
‘Fuck!’ said Ronja. ‘Fucking hell, fuck fuck fuck! There were
She ripped off a low-hanging branch and started whipping the tree trunk as curses poured from her lips and her body jerked as if she were having a fit. Teresa thought she might flip into real hysteria, but after a minute or so she threw down the branch, hit herself on the head with clenched fists a few times, then lowered her hands and exhaled.
The rest of the girls had arrived, and they all stood around with their heads lowered during Ronja’s outburst, some of them stroking their piece of wolf skin as if to console something within themselves, to apologise. When Ronja came and sat down on the blanket, her hands still shaking, Teresa said, ‘OK?’
Several times they had discussed spending a whole weekend together, and now it had become absolutely essential. They could talk and identify themselves with wolves as much as they liked, but when it really mattered they had not acted as a pack, but had splintered into individual, frightened little people. It could not be allowed to happen again.
Beata’s parents had a little place in the forest outside Akersberga. They wouldn’t be going out there until July, and Beata knew where the key was. The problem was that it was a good five kilometres from the nearest bus stop. However, it turned out that both Anna L and Ronja had passed their driving test, and that Anna actually had a car.
None of the others had thought of themselves as the kind of group where someone had a driver’s licence, but when it turned out to be the case, a heady feeling of liberation quickly took hold. They had a place to be, they had a way of getting there. Together they had resources and opportunities which they lacked when they were alone.
Teresa was sitting as close to Theres as possible without touching her while the others made plans for the coming weekend. Times, food, sleeping bags and so on. Theres seemed unmoved by the incident with the men, and only her swollen lower lip bore witness to the fact that something had happened. She didn’t join in the discussion until the question of food came up. The girls were discussing pasta and yoghurt when Theres said, ‘I don’t eat that kind of food.’
As usual, the slightest utterance from Theres brought all conversation to a halt. Everyone turned to her, some with an embarrassed expression as if they were ashamed of having forgotten about her for a few minutes.
Cecilia asked, ‘So…what do you eat, then?’
‘Stuff in jars. It’s called Semper. And Nestle.’
‘You mean like…baby food? Why do you eat baby food?’
‘I’m little.’
‘We’ll sort it,’ said Teresa. ‘No problem.’
There was a brief silence as the group digested this new information. Then Linn looked around and stated with unusual firmness, ‘In that case, we’ll all eat the same thing.’
Some laughed with relief at this elegant way of slicing through a knotty problem, and the planning took another direction. What flavours, what size jars, how many, and who could do the shopping?
By the time they parted, everything was decided. The following Friday afternoon they would take the subway, the Roslagen line, then the number 621 bus to Grandalsvagen in Akersberga. Then Anna L would run a shuttle service in her car to transport them to the cottage next to Lake Trastsjon. They would bring sleeping bags and bedrolls, they were going to eat baby food for two days and they were going to become a real pack.
The other girls waved as they headed for the bus stop, leaving Theres and Teresa sitting on the blankets. Teresa went for a little walk, found the lump of flesh Theres had bitten out of the man’s eyebrow, and ground it into the soil with the sole of her boot. Then she sat down again.
‘Will it be OK?’ she asked. ‘Next weekend?’
