Handling The Undead

17 August

Svarvargatan 07.30

David went out to stand vigil in the hall at twenty-eight minutes past seven, right beside the front door. At exactly half past he heard the elevator come up, and then a hesitant knock. The precaution was strictly speaking unnecessary. David had already ascertained that Magnus was asleep, but a certain measure of secrecy was appropriate to birthdays. At least when you were nine years old.

Sture, David's father-in-law, was standing outside the door with a cat carrier in his hand. Sture was rarely seen in anything other than blue trousers and a cardigan, but now he was dressed in a red and orange plaid shirt, and somewhat too-tight dress pants. Dressed up.

'Welcome, Sture.'

'Hello.'

Sture raised the cat box a couple of inches and nodded at it.

'Great,' David said. 'Come in, come in.'

Sture was six foot four inches tall, and broad-shouldered. His presence transformed the apartment from a roomy two-bedroom to a functional prison. Sture needed expanses around him, trees. As soon as he had stepped into the hall, he did something very unexpected: he put down the cat box and hugged David.

It was not a hug intended to give or receive comfort, it was more about taking on a shared fate. Like a handshake. Sture took David into his arms, held him there for five seconds and then let go. David did not even have

time to consider laying his head against Sture's chest; only when Sture let go did he think it would have felt nice.

'Well,' Sture said. 'Here we are then.'

David nodded and did not know how to answer. He lifted the lid of the container. A small grey rabbit was curled up on the bottom, staring into the wall. A couple of lettuce leaves were strewn in one corner, some black pellets in the other. He knew the acrid smell that wafted up would soon impregnate the entire apartment.

Sture scooped up the rabbit in his enormous hands. 'Do you have the cage?'

'My mother's bringing it over.'

Sture stroked the rabbit's ears. His nose was redder than when David had last seen him and there was a network of veins under the skin of his cheeks. David caught the smell of whisky, probably from the night before. Sture would never under any circumstances get behind the wheel drunk.

'Would you like some coffee?'

'That would be good, thank you.'

They sat down at the kitchen table. The rabbit was still resting in Sture's hands, secure and vulnerable. The tiny nose was twitching, trying to comprehend the new place that it had come to. Sture drank his heavily sugared coffee with some difficulty, one hand otherwise occupied. They sat quietly in this way for a while. David heard Magnus moving in his bed. He probably had to go pee, but didn't want to get up and break the enchantment.

'She's much better,' David said. 'Much better. I talked to them last night and they say she… there have been great strides.' Sture slurped some coffee from the saucer.

'When does she get to come home?'

'They couldn't say. They're still working it out and… they have

some kind of rehabilitation program.'

Sture nodded, said nothing and David felt dimly idiotic using their language to defend their actions, becoming some kind of spokesman.

But the neurologist he had spoken with had been vague when David asked the same question: When will she get to come home?

'It's too early to say,' he had answered. 'There are still some… problems that we should discuss tomorrow. When you've seen her. It's difficult to convey over the phone.'

'What kind of problems?'

'Well, as I said…it's difficult to understand if you haven't… experienced it. I'll be at the Heath tomorrow. We'll take this up again then.'

They had agreed to meet early. The Heath would open at twelve o'clock and David was planning to be there before that.

There was another quiet knock on the door and David went to let his mother in, with the rabbit cage. She had-to his amazementtaken the news of Eva's accident relatively well, not smothering him with excessive pity as he'd feared.

The cage looked good but there was no sawdust. Sture said that newspaper was just as good and cheaper. He and David's mother set about furnishing it as David stood beside them, the rabbit in his hands.

He and Eva had joked many times about how they ought to fix up their parents, two lonely individuals. The idea foundered on its impracticality; they were far too unlike and both cemented into their respective lives. Now, as he stood watching them whisper and tear up newspaper.and fill a bowl with water, it no longer seemed so unreasonable. For a moment their roles were reversed: they were a couple, he was alone.

But I'm not alone. Eva will get well.

The gaping hole in her chest.

David blinked hard, opened his eyes and concentrated on the rabbit, which was nibbling a shirt button. If it hadn't been for Eva's accident there would not have been a rabbit. Both he and Eva thought it was wrong to keep animals in the city, caged. But now…

Magnus deserved to be happy. At least on his birthday.

'We are so happy, ha hal

That you are born, fallera!

That you were born, fallera!

On just this day!

Hurray hurray!'

David felt a lump in his throat as they entered Magnus' room. Magnus wasn't curled up and sleeping, or pretending to sleep. He was lying ramrod straight on his back with his hands on his stomach, looking gravely at them, and David felt as if he and the others were performing for an audience that was refusing to play along.

'Congratulations, darling.'

David's mother was the first one to reach the bed and the serious look in Magnus' eyes softened when the packages were laid across his feet. For a while he seemed to forget. There were Pokemon cards, Legos and movies. Finally they brought in the cage.

For a while, David had been afraid that Magnus had decided simply to humour them but there was no mistaking his enormous, unfeigned joy as he lifted the rabbit up into the bed, stroking its head and kissing it on the nose. The first thing he said after he had cuddled it for a while was: 'Can I bring it to show Mummy?'

David smiled and nodded. Since the day after the accident, Magnus had hardly mentioned Eva and when David fished a little he had realised that Magnus resented Eva for disappearing. As if Magnus himself saw that this was an unreasonable attitude and was ashamed of it, he refused to talk about Eva at all.

Therefore: if he wanted to bring the bunny, he could bring the bunny.

Sture rubbed Magnus on the head and asked, 'What do you think it's called?'

Magnus answered immediately, 'Balthazar.'

'I see,' Sture said. 'Lucky that it's a boy.'

The cake was brought in. David had bought a ready-made marzipan cake in a bakery and Magnus said nothing about it. Coffee and hot chocolate were poured. The munching of the sugary treat, the silence between the mouthfuls would have been difficult to bear if it hadn't been for Balthazar. He hopped around on Magnus' bed, sniffing the cake and getting cream on his nose.

Instead of talking about Eva, whom they couldn't talk about, they talked about Balthazar. Balthazar was the fifth living creature: Balthazar replaced Eva. They laughed at his antics, discussed the challenges and joys of

rabbits.

After David's mother had left, David and Magnus played a couple of Pokemon matches so that Magnus could use the new cards. Sture followed the game with interest, but when Magnus tried to explain the complicated rules he shook his head.

'No, that's too hard for me. I'll stick to snap and gin rummy.'

Magnus won both of the matches and went into his room to play with Balthazar. It was half past nine. No more coffee could be drunk without courting indigestion and they had almost two hours to kill before they could set off. David was about to suggest a game of snap, but felt it would seem contrived. Instead he sat down emptyhanded across the kitchen table from Sture.

'I see you're performing tonight,' Sture said.

'What? Tonight?'

'Yes, or that's what it said in the paper anyway.'

David took out his calendar and checked. 17 August. NB 21.00. Sture was right. He also saw to his dismay that he had a corporate gig in Uppsala on the nineteenth. Mission: to joke, clown, make people laugh. He rubbed his face.

'I'll have to call and cancel.'

Sture's eyes narrowed, as if he were squinting at the sun. 'Should you really do that?'

'Well you know, standing up there and… prancing around. No. I can't.'

'Maybe it would be good for you to get out a little.'

'Yes, but my routine. It'll be like having a mouth full of rocks. No.'

He could have added that a fair percentage of the audience would know what had happened to him after the story on TV4. The dead woman's husband performing. Most likely Leo had already cancelled him but forgotten to pull the ad.

Sture interlaced his fingers on the table. 'I can watch the boy if you like.'

'Thanks,' David said. 'We'll see. But 1 don't think so.'

Bondegatan 09.30

Saturday morning the doorbell rang at Flora's apartment. Maja, one of her few friends from school, was standing outside. She was a head taller than Flora, maybe thirty kilos heavier. On the lapel of her army surplus greatcoat there was a button that said, 'I bitch & I moan. What's your religion?'

'Come out for a bit; she said.

Flora was happy to. The apartment felt breakfast-stuffy, the smell of toast an unhappy reminder of absent harmony. In addition, Flora only really smoked when she was with Maja-and she had a hankering to smoke.

They strolled aimlessly on the street as Maja lit up the first of the day and Flora took a couple of puffs.

'We've been talking about doing something at the Heath; Maja said, and held out the cigarette.

'We?'

'Yeah, the group.'

Maja belonged to a sub-group of Young Left-mostly girls-

who considered themselves creative. When cafe magazine had their tenth birthday party on a boat, Patricia had poured out ten buckets of wallpaper paste on the docks in front of the gangplank and put up a sign, 'WARNING! SPERM!' The guests had been forced to wade through the grey-white mess until, with some effort, it was scrubbed away.

'What kind of thing?' Flora asked and gave the rest of the cigarette back. She had had enough.

'It's just…' Maja said and pointedly averted her gaze from a girlygirl in white linen pants who was out on a morning walk with a Maltese terrier,

'it's sick what they're doing with them. First they use them as some kind of guinea pigs and now they're going to herd them into a bloody ghetto.'

'Sure,' Flora said. 'But what's the alternative exactly?'

'Alternative? It doesn't matter what the alternative is. This is wrong. Society can only be judged… '

'… by how it treats its weakest members,' Flora filled in. 'Yes, I know, but… '

Maja waved her cigarette impatiently. 'There's never been a weaker group than the dead.' She gave a laugh. 'When was the last time you heard the dead speak up for their rights?They have none. The authorities can do what they want with them, and that's what they're going to do. Did you read that thing in DN, what the philosopher-bitch said?'

'Yes,' Flora said, 'and I get that it's wrong. I agree with you, so calm down. I'm just wondering…'

'You can wonder later. You identify the wrong, you do something to put it right. As soon as there's something new, you have to work out who has the power to make use of it. Let's say they do come up with an antidote to death, OK? What do you think they'll use it for? Make sure the population of Africa can live forever? I don't think so. Let every black person die of AIDS first, and we'll see what we can do with Africa after that. You've got to understand that the spread of AIDS is largely controlled by American pharmaceutical companies.' Maja shook her head. 'Ten to one they're out there sniffing around the Heath too.'

'I'm planning to go out there when it opens,' Flora said.

'Where? The Heath? I'll come with you.'

'1 don't think you'll get in. Only family… '

'That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. How are you going to prove that you're family, then?'

'I don't know.'

Maja put out the cigarette by rolling it between her index finger and thumb. She stopped, cocked her head to one side and squinted at Flora.

'And what reason do you have to go there, anyway?'

'I don't know. 1 just… I have to go. Have to see what it's like.' 'You've got a thing about death, haven't you?'

'Hasn't everyone?'

Maja looked at her for a couple of seconds and then said, 'No.'

'Yes.'

'No.'

Flora shrugged. 'You have no idea what you're talking about.' Maja grinned and sent the butt flying in an arc towards a rubbish bin. Amazingly, it went in. Flora applauded and Maja put an arm around her shoulders.

'Do you know what you are?' Flora shook her head. 'No.'

'Pretentious. A little bit. I like it.'

They walked around and talked for another couple of hours. Then they parted and Flora took the subway to Tensta.

Taby Municipality 09.30

'We have to take the chance to argue our case when there are this many people gathering.'

'But will anyone listen to us?'

'I'm certain they will.'

'How will they hear us?'

'They'll have loudspeakers.'

'Do you think we'll be allowed to use them?'

'Let me put it this way: when Jesus drove the moneylenders out of the temple, do you think he asked permission? Excuse me, do you mind if I push this table over?'

The others laughed and Mattias folded his arms across his chest, pleased. Elvy was standing with her head resting against the door post, watching them in the kitchen, discussing the day's strategy. She did not take part. The last couple of days she had been feeling weak. It came from sleeplessness and the sleeplessness came from doubt.

She lay awake at night and struggled to hold on to her vision, to stop it from fading and receding into the jumble of images. Tried to understand.

Their only salvation is to come to me…

After the modest success of the first evening, the fishing for souls

had stalled. Once the first shock had died down and it appeared that society was in fact capable of handling the situation, people were less willing to come on board. Elvy had only participated that first day. On the second day she was too tired.

'What do you think, Elvy?'

Mattias' round, childlike face turned toward her. It took Elvy a couple of seconds to understand what he was asking. Seven pairs of eyes watched her. As well as Mattias, the only man among them, there was Hagar, Greta, the neighbour woman and the other woman who had come the first evening. Elvy could not remember her name. Then there were two sisters, Ingegerd and Esmeralda, who were friends with the nameless woman. They were the ones who were here for the morning meeting. Other sympathisers would join them later.

'I think… ' Elvy said. 'I think…I don't know what I think.'

Mattias frowned. Wrong answer. Elvy absentmindedly rubbed the scab on her forehead.

'You'll have to decide what you think is best and then… that's what we'll do. I think I have to go and lie down.'

Mattias caught up with her outside her bedroom door. He gently

grabbed her shoulder.

'Elvy. This is your conviction, your vision. That is what we are here for.'

'Yes, I know.'

'Don't you believe in this anymore?'

'Yes. It is just that…1 don't quite have the energy.'

Mattias put his hand on his cheek, his gaze sliding over Elvy's face. From the cut to her eyes, back to the cut.

'I believe in you. I believe you have a mission, an important one.'

Elvy nodded.

‘Yes. It’s just that…I don’t quiet know what it is’

‘Why don’t you lie down for a while. We’ll take care of this. We’re leaving in one hour Have you seen the flyers?’

'Yes.' Mattias stood there, waiting for something more. Elvy added, 'They look very good,' and went to the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Without undressing, she crawled in under the bedspread and pulled it up to her nose. Her eyes wandered around the room. Nothing was changed. She held her hands up to her eyes.

These are my hands.

She wiggled her fingers.

My fingers. They're moving.

The telephone rang in the hall. She could not be bothered to get up and answer. Someone, perhaps Esmeralda, picked up the receiver and said something.

There is nothing special about me.

Was it always like this?

The saints, the ones who had fought and died in the name of the Lord, Francis dancing eagerly before the pope, Birgitta burning with a holy fire in her cell. Did they have such doubts? Were there days when Birgitta thought she had misunderstood something, that she had made the whole thing up? Times when Francis just wanted to send his disciples away with a 'leave me in peace, I have nothing of value to say'?

There was no one to ask, they were all dead and settled into legend, their humanness long gone.

But she had seen.

Perhaps there were others who had seen, thousands through the ages. Perhaps what set the saints apart-the holy women and men-was that they held fast to what they had seen, not allowing their realisation to fade and

die, but they held on, held on and refused to let go, saw forgetfulness as a tool of the devil and held on. Maybe this was the secret.

Elvy took hold of the bedspread, squeezing it hard.

Yes, Lord. I will hold on.

She shut her eyes and tried to rest. By the time her body finally

started to relax, it was time to go.

Koholma 11.00

Elias had made progress. Great progress.

The first day he had not shown the slightest interest in the exercises from the book that Mahler tried to go through with him. Mahler had held out a shoe box and said, 'I wonder what there is in here?' and Elias had not moved, either before or after he opened the lid and showed him the little stuffed dog.

Mahler had put a brightly coloured top on Elias' night stand and set it in motion. The top spun itself out and then fell to the floor. Elias did not even follow it with his gaze. But Mahler kept going. The fact that Elias reached out for the bottle when it was brought to him indicated that he was capable of reacting, if he had a reason.

Anna did not object to the training program, but showed no enthusiasm either. She sat with Elias for hours; slept on a mattress on his floor. But she did nothing concrete, Mahler felt, to improve his condition.

It was the remote-controlled car that broke the ice. The second day Mahler put in fresh batteries and directed it into Elias' room, hoping the sight of the toy he had been so fond of would bring something in him to life. It did. As soon as the car banged into the room something happened to the way Elias held his body. Then he followed the car in its journey around the room. When Mahler brought it to a stop, Elias put his hand out for it.

Mahler did not give it to him, he let it drive around a couple more times. Then what Mahler had been hoping for happened. Slowly, slowly, as if he were wading through mud, Elias started to get up out of bed. When the car stopped, Elias halted for a moment, then continued to make his way up.

'Anna! Come take a look!'

Anna came up in time to see Elias drag his legs over the edge of the bed. She clapped her hand over her mouth, screamed and ran over to him.

'Don't stop him,' Mahler said. 'Help him.'

Anna held Elias under his arms and he got to his feet. With Anna's support he took a tentative step toward the car. Mahler drove it up a few centimetres, then back again. Elias took another step. When he was almost there and held out his hand, Mahler drove the car away, to the door.

'Let him take it,' Anna said.

'No,' Mahler said. 'Then he'll stop.'

Elias turned his head in the direction of the car, turned his body in the direction of his head and walked toward the door. Anna followed, tears streaming down her cheeks. When Elias reached the door, Mahler drove the car into the hall.

'Let him have it,' Anna's voice was muffled. 'He wants it.'

Mahler continued to steer the car away as soon as Elias caught up with it, until Anna stopped, with Elias straining in her arms.

'Stop,' she said. 'Stop. I can't keep doing this.'

Mahler let the car stop. Anna held Elias under his chest with both hands.

'You're making him into a robot,' she said. 'I don't want to be part of it.'

Mahler sighed and lowered the remote control.

'Would you rather he was just a lump? This is fantastic.'

'Yes,' Anna said. 'Yes it is. But it's… wrong.' Anna sank down onto the floor, shifted Elias onto her lap and took the car, giving it to him. 'Here, sweetheart.'

Elias' fingers flew across the plastic details on the car, as if searching for a way in. Anna nodded, stroking his hair. His hair had grown stronger and had stopped falling out, but there were a couple of bald spots from the first few days.

'He's wondering how it can be moving,' Anna said, and drew teary mucus into her nose. 'He's wondering what it is that has made it move.'

Mahler put down the remote control.

'How do you know that?'

'I just know,' Anna answered.

Mahler shook his head, walked out into the kitchen and got himself a beer. There had been several times since they had come here that Anna reported things that she just knew about what Elias wanted, and it irritated Mahler that she was using this supposed ability to slow down his training.

‘Elias doesn't like that top… Elias wants me to apply the cream… '

When Mahler asked her how she could know that, he always received the same answer: she just knew. He opened the beer, drank half and looked out the window. The tropical rain had not been enough to save the trees. Many were losing their leaves even though it was only the middle of August.

This time he thought Anna was right. Many of Elias' old toys had not stirred the slightest interest, so probably it was the movement inside the car that had awakened him. What use could they make of that?

Anna left Elias on the floor with the car and came into the kitchen.

'Sometimes,' Mahler said, still looking out of the window, 'sometimes I don't believe you want him to get better.'

He heard Anna draw breath to reply, and knew more or less what she was going to say. Before she had time to say it she was interrupted by a sharp crack from the hall.

Elias was sitting on the floor with the car in his hands. Somehow he had managed to break away the entire upper part of the chassis, so that parts and wires were revealed. Before Mahler could stop him he got hold of the battery pack and tore it away, holding it up to his eyes.

Mahler threw his arms out, looked at Anna.

'Well,' he said. 'Are you happy now?'

Elias had taken apart another battery-operated car before Mahler thought of getting a Brio train set with wooden pieces. The engine that came with it was so neatly made, with so few moving parts, that it resisted the attempts of Elias' still-weak fingers to deconstruct it.

That morning he had been in Norrtalje and bought yet another engine. Now he attached a strip of masking tape across the middle of the kitchen table in order to create a demarcation, two zones, and placed a tank engine in One. The first step of the autism training described in the book was a mimicking exercise. He laid three straight track pieces in each zone and then carried Elias out from the bedroom, placing him on a kitchen chair.

Elias looked at the window, toward the garden where Anna was mowing the lawn.

'Look,' Mahler said and held his engine out toward Elias. No reaction. He put the engine down on the table and started it. It made a hollow buzzing sound as it moved slowly across the surface. Elias turned his head toward the sound, reached his hand to it. Mahler took the engine away.

'There.'

He pointed at the identical engine in front of Elias. Elias leaned over the table and tried to get a hold of the engine still buzzing in Mahler's hand. He turned it off and pointed to Elias' engine again.

'There. That one is yours.'

Elias fell back in the chair, expressionless. Mahler stretched out his arm and clicked the on button of the engine in Elias' zone. It droned on across

the table until Elias clumsily put his hand over it, grabbed hold of it, lifted it to his eyes and tried to pry off the turning wheels.

'No, no.'

Mahler walked around the table and managed to coax the train out of Elias' stiff hand, and placed it back on the table.

'Look.'

He put his own engine out on the other side of the table and turned it on. Elias stretched for it.

'There,' Mahler pointed to Elias' stationary train. 'There. Now you do that.'

Elias heaved his entire upper body across the table, grabbed hold of Mahler's engine and started trying to take it apart. Mahler did not like standing at this angle; there was a hole in Elias' head where his ear had been. He rubbed his eyes.

Why don't you understand? Why are you so stupid?

The engine made a crunching sound as Elias unexpectedly managed to break it open. The batteries fell to the floor.

'No, Elias. No!'

Mahler grabbed the pieces out of Elias' hand, angry despite himself; he was starting to get so awfully tired of all this. He smashed his own engine into the table and pointed with pedantic precision at the on button.

'Here. You start it here. Here.'

He turned it on. The train inched its way over to Elias and he took it, breaking off one of the wheels.

I can't bear it. He can't. He can't do anything.

'Why do you have to break everything?' he said out loud. 'Why do you have to destroy…'

Suddenly Elias bent his hand back and threw the engine at Mahler's face. It struck him right across the mouth, splitting his lip, and from behind a red membrane he heard it bounce against the floor as the metal taste rose inside his head. He stared at Elias with a swelling anger. Elias' dark brown lips were pulled back in a grin. He looked… mean.

'What are you doing?' Mahler said. 'What are you doing?'

Elias' head was going back and forth as if shaken from behind by an invisible force and the legs of the chair teetered, hitting the floor. Before Mahler had time to do anything Elias collapsed, completely floppy. He collapsed on the chair and slid down on the floor as if his skeleton had suddenly been transformed into jelly. In slow motion, Mahler saw the chair fall after him, had time to realise that the back of it was going to strike Elias across the cheek before a whining sound pierced his skull like a dentist's drill and forced him to shut his eyes.

His hands went up to his temples and pressed, but the whining noise disappeared, as quickly as it had come. Elias was lying on the floor with the chair over him, absolutely still.

Mahler hurried over and lifted the chair away. 'Elias? Elias?'

The door to the verandah was opened and Anna entered. 'What are you…'

She threw herself on her knees beside Elias, stroking his cheeks.

Mahler blinked, looked around the kitchen, and a shiver crawled up his spine.

There is someone here.

The whining returned, weaker this time. Switched off. Elias lifted his hand to Anna and she took it, kissing it. She looked angrily at Mahler, still turning his head this way and that to catch sight of someone he could not see. He licked his lip, which was already starting to swell up, the skin slick as plastic.

Gone.

Anna tugged on his shirt. 'You aren't allowed to do that.'

'I'm not allowed to… what?'

'Dislike him.'

Mahler's fingers flickered, pointing indeterminately toward different areas of the kitchen. 'There was someone… here.'

The perception of a presence was still palpable in the skin of his back. Someone had been watching him and Elias. He stood up, walked over to the counter and rinsed his face with cold water. Once he had wiped himself with a kitchen towel his head felt clearer. He sat on a stool.

'I can't handle this.'

'No,' Anna said. 'I can tell.'

Mahler picked up the half-destroyed engine and weighed it in his hand. 'I don't just mean… this. I mean… ' his eyes narrowed, he looked at Anna. 'There is something. There is something I don't understand. Something else is going on here.'

'You don't want to listen,' Anna said. 'You've already made up your mind.'

She shifted Elias to the side so that he was lying on the rag rug in front of the stove. When you looked closely it was unmistakeable: Elias might have made some progress, nearing a kind of consciousness, but his body had shrunk further. The arms poking out of the pyjamas were just bone covered in parchment-like skin, his face a skull, painted and garnished with a wig. It was impossible to imagine a soft, wet, working brain inside.

Mahler made a fist and banged it against his leg.

'What is it I don't understand? What is it. I don't. Understand?'

'That he is dead,' Anna said.

Mahler was about to argue the point when there was the clomp of clogs on the stoop and the front door opened.

'Yoo-hoo in there!'

Mahler and Anna's eyes met and for a second they were united in panic. Aronsson's clogs thundered on into the house and Mahler rushed up from the table, placing himself as an obstacle in the kitchen doorway.

Aronsson looked up and pointed to Mahler's lip. 'Well, well. Been in a fight, have you?' He laughed at his own wit and removed his hat, fanning his face. 'How are you holding up in the heat?'

'OK,' Mahler said. 'It's just, we're a bit busy right now.'

'I understand,' Aronsson said. 'I won't interrupt. I just wanted to hear if they'd picked up your garbage.'

'Yes.'

'I see. But not mine. Not for two weeks. I've called and complained and they say they're coming out, but they don't come. And in this heat. They can't keep carrying on like this.'

'No.'

Aronsson knit his brows. He sensed something. In theory, Mahler could simply have wrapped his arms around him, carried him to the door and thrown him out. Later he would wish that this was what he had done. Aronsson peered past him.

'Fine company, I see. The whole family. That's lovely.'

'We were just going to eat.'

'I see, I see. Well, don't let me interrupt. I just want to say hello…'

Aronsson tried to get past, but Mahler put his hand against the door post so that his arm created a barrier. Aronsson blinked. 'What's wrong with you, Gustav? I just want to say hello to the girl.' Anna got up quickly, intending to greet Aronsson in the doorway so he wouldn't have to enter the kitchen. When Mahler lowered his arm to let her past, Aronsson ducked in.

'Well, goodness me,' he said and held out his hand to Anna. 'It's been a while hasn't it?'

His sharp eyes scanned the room and Anna didn't bother to say hello; it was too late anyway. Aronsson caught sight of Elias and his eyes widened, locking on like a radar that has finally found its target. His tongue appeared, licking his lips, and for one second Mahler debated whether or not he should hit him in the head with the cast iron pot holder.

Aronsson pointed to Elias. 'What is… that?'

Mahler grabbed him by the shoulders, dragging him into the hall. 'That is Elias, and now you have to go home.' He took the hat out of Aronsson's hands and pushed it onto his head. 'I could ask you to keep quiet, but I know there's no point. Go away.'

Aronsson wiped some spittle from his mouth. 'Is he… dead?'

'No,' Mahler said as he forced Aronsson toward the front door. 'He is reliving and I was trying to help him get better. But that's the end of that, if I know you.'

Aronsson backed out onto the porch with an inscrutable little smile pasted on his face. He was most likely figuring out who exactly he should call to turn them in.

'Well, good luck then,' he said and left, still backing up. Mahler slammed the door.

Anna was sitting on the kitchen floor with Elias in her lap.

'We have to leave,' Mahler said, expecting resistance, but Anna simply nodded. 'Yes. I guess we do.'

They tossed everything in the refrigerator into a cooler and packed Elias' things in a gym bag. Mahler was careful to include the engine and the other toys. The cell phone, some extra clothes. They didn't have sleeping bags or a tent, but Mahler had a plan. The past couple of days, particularly before he fell asleep, he had run through various scenarios, what they would do if this occurred, or this. Now this had occurred and in the plastic bag with the clothes he included a hammer, a screwdriver and a crowbar.

Past summers when they had gone out to sea for a whole day, the packing had taken over an hour. Now, when they were going to stay away indefinitely, it took ten minutes and probably they had forgotten about half of what they needed.

So be it. Mahler could return to the mainland at a later point and get provisions if needed. The thing was to get Elias out of the way.

They walked slowly through the forest. Anna was carrying the bags, Mahler had Elias. His heart wasn't giving him any trouble, but he knew this was one of those occasions when he could very well suffer an attack if he did not take it easy.

Elias was a statue in his arms. No sign of life. Mahler trod carefully, unable to look down, feeling his way with his feet over the roots that crossed the path. Sweat stung his eyes.

All this work. For this little scrap of life.

Svarvagatan 11.15

Sture's Volvo 740 was newly washed but a strong smell of wood and linseed oil still clung to it. Sture was a carpenter, and he lived in a hexagonal cottage with an extension at the front, designed by himself

for summer guests.

Magnus crawled into the back seat and David handed him the basket with Balthazar, then sat down in the passenger seat. Sture rifled through the maps that he had torn out of the phone book, scratching his head and trying to locate the place.

'The Heath, the Heath…'

'I don't think it's on the map,' David said. 'It's jarva field. Towards

Akalla.'

'Akalla…'

'Yes. North-west.'

Sture shook his head. 'Maybe it's better if you drive.' 'I'd rather not,' David said. 'I feel…1' d rather not.'

Sture looked up from the page. A smile flickered at the corner of his mouth and he leaned forward, opening the glove compartment.

'I brought these.' He gave David two wooden dolls, about fifteen centimetres tall, and started the car. 'I'll drive out to the E20 and then we'll see.'

The dolls were silken as only wood sanded down by hands and fingers can be. They were a boy and a girl, and David knew their story.

When Eva was little Sture had worked as a construction carpenter in Norway two weeks on, one week off. On one of his weeks at home he had

carved the dolls and given them to his then six-year-old daughter. To his delight they had become her favourite toys, even though she had both Barbie and Ken and Barbie's dog.

The funny thing was that she had given the dolls names: they were called Eva and David. Eva told him this story a couple of months after they met.

'It was inevitable,' she said. 'I've been fated to be with you since I was six years old.'

David closed his eyes, rubbing his fingers over the dolls.

'Do you know why I made them?' Sture asked, his gaze on the road.

'No.'

'In case I died. It wasn't completely without risks, that job. So I thought that if… that she would have something left.' He sighed. 'But I wasn't the one who died.' He sounded wistful. Eva's mother had died of cancer six years earlier and Sture was affronted, somehow, that it had not been him, the less valuable person.

Sture glanced at the dolls. 'I don't know. I probably thought… something that would get her to remember.'

David nodded, thinking about what he would leave for Magnus. Piles of paper. Videos of himself performing. He had never made anything with his hands. Nothing worth keeping, at least.

David directed Sture through the city as best he could. Many times people honked at them, since Sture was driving so slowly. But they reached their goal. At ten minutes to twelve they parked on the field close to a hastily erected parking sign. Hundreds of other cars were lined up. Sture turned off the engine and they remained seated.

'We don't have to pay for parking, at least,' David said to break the silence. Magnus opened his door and got out, the basket in his arms. Sture's hands were still resting on the steering wheel. He looked out at the crowds of people outside the gates.

'I'm afraid,' he said.

'I know,' David said. 'Me too.'

Magnus rapped on the window. 'Come on!'

Sture took the dolls before he left the car. He held them in tightly

clenched fists as they walked toward Eva.

The area was bordered by a newly erected fence that raised the uncomfortable association of a concentration camp, which was what, in the purely literal sense of the term, it was. A gathering place. The perspective was distorted by the fact that the hordes of people were located outside the fence while the area on the inside was empty. Only the grey buildings scattered on the field, fenced in.

There were two gates and at each gate there were four guards.

Even if they had not had rifles or even batons, but were placing their trust in the self-control of the masses, it was difficult to see how this could be Sweden. David was tormented less by the repressive aura of the fence or the crowd than the general impression of carnival. An audience agog, eager to see what was concealed beyond the barriers. And that Eva was somewhere at the heart of this circus.

A young man came over and put a piece of paper in his hand.

DO YOU DARE TO LIVE WITHOUT GOD?

THE WORLD WILL CEASE TO EXIST MAN WILL BE OBLITERATED PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE TURN TO GOD

BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

WE CAN HELP YOU

The flyer was well made; an elegantly printed text superimposed onto the pale background figure of the Virgin Mary. The man handing it out looked more like a real estate agent than a fanatic. David nodded thanks and walked on, holding Magnus by the hand. The man took a side step to stand in front of them.

'This is serious,' he said. 'This…' he pointed at the flyer and shrugged. 'This kind of thing is hard to express. We aren't an organisation, no church, but we know, OK? All of this…' His arm swept in the direction of the fence, 'all of this will go to hell if we don't turn to God.'

He threw a pitying glance at Magnus, and if David had been charmed for a couple of seconds by the man's humble words and his please, please, please, then thIs look convinced him that even if the guy was right, he was disgusting.

'Excuse us,' David said and pulled Magnus along. The man made no further attempts to stop them.

'Crackpot,' Sture said.

David thrust the paper in his pocket and saw others lying scrunched up, scattered in the grass. Something was happening in the crowd: a thickening, an increase in concentration. There was a puffing sound that David knew well; someone was testing a microphone.

'One, two…' They stopped.

'What are they doing?' Sture asked.

'No idea,' David answered. 'Someone must be… going to perform.'

It was starting to look more and more like a festival of some kind.

Soon Tomas Ledin would climb up on stage and belt out a couple of numbers. David felt his stomach cramp up, his anxiety spreading to encompass the whole situation. The possibility of the whole thing coming apart; the agony of watching a comedian dying onstage.

The Minister of Social Affairs approached the microphone. There were scattered boos that died down when they received no support. David looked around. Despite the TV and newspapers covering little else but the reliving over the past few days, he had not been able to view this as anything but his own personal drama. Now he realised this was not the case.

Several TV cameras were sticking up out of the crowd, even more were gathered at the front by the podium where the minister was now straightening his suit jacket and leaning forward, tapping the mike-ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls-and said:

'Welcome. As a representative of the government I want, first and foremost, to apologise. This has taken far too long. Thank you for your patience. As you understand, this situation took us by surprise and we made a series of decisions that in hindsight can perhaps be judged as not the most enlightened… '

Magnus pulled on David's hand, and he bent down.

'Yes?'

'Dad, why is that man talking?'

'Because he wants everyone to like him.'

'What is he saying?'

'Nothing. Do you want me to take Balthazar?'

Magnus shook his head and gripped the basket more tightly. David thought his arms must be tired, but let it go. He saw that Sture was standing with his arms folded over his chest, scowling. Perhaps David's fears of a disastrous performance had not been so far off the mark. Luckily the minister had the presence of mind to bring things to a rapid close and give the word to a man in a lightweight suit who introduced himself as the head of the Department of Neurology at Danderyd Hospital.

From his first words it was clear that he was critical of the whole carnival atmosphere, even though he did not say as much.

'So to my real point. There has been much speculation and many rumours, but the fact is that people can read each other's thoughts in the proximity of the reliving. I'm not going to dwell on how we have all tried to avoid facing these facts, to rationalise them or soft-pedal the issue. The fact remains… ' he pointed toward the enclosed area with a gesture that David

felt was unnecessarily theatrical, 'when you pass through these gates you will hear what people around you are thinking. We still don't know how it is possible, but you must be prepared for the fact that the experience is not altogether… pleasant.'

The neurologist went silent for a moment and let his last words sink in, as if he half expected people to split off from the crowd and start leaving, for fear of the unpleasant experience. This did not happen. David, whose profession it was to sense an audience's emotions, could feel a growing impatience. People were stirring restlessly, scratching-arms and legs. They were not interested in caveats, they wanted to see their dead.

The neurologist, however, was not finished.

'The effect is less noticeable now that your reliving have been separated-that is one of the reasons that we are here-but it is still present, and I would ask you, as much as humanly possible…' he tilted his head and said in a lightly jocular tone, 'try to think nice thoughts. All right?'

People looked around at each other, some smiled as if to confirm how nice their thoughts were already. The growing pain in David's stomach signalled impending calamity, and he crouched down, his hands clasped around his middle.

'Well, that was all I had to say,' the neurologist said. 'At the gates you will be informed of the exact location of the person you are looking for. Thank you.'

David heard a rustle of clothing as the mass of people started to move forward. If he moved, he would soil himself.

'Dad, what is it?'

'Just a little stomach ache. It'll be fine.'

Yes. The pressure momentarily subsided and he could straighten up, look out over the thousands of heads now dividing into two more compact masses around the gates. Sture shook his head, said, 'It's going to take hours like this.'

Eva, are you there?

Testing, David sent out the strongest thought he could muster, but received no answer. That field they were talking about-where exactly did it start, and why was it only the living could hear each other, not the reliving?

A police officer wandering around, underemployed in the wellmannered crowd, came up to them and said hello. They returned the greeting and the policeman pointed to the basket in Magnus' lap. 'What do you have there?'

'Balthazar,' Magnus answered.

'His rabbit,' David answered. 'It's his birthday today and… ' he fell silent, sensing that an explanation wouldn't matter either way.

The policeman smiled. 'Well, congratulations! Were you planning to bring it in? The rabbit?'

Magnus looked up at David.

'That's what we'd been thinking, yes,' David said. He didn't dare lie for fear that Magnus would contradict him.

'I don't think that's such a good idea.'

Sture took a step closer. 'Why not?' he asked. 'Why can't he bring the animal?'

The policeman held up his palms, Only following orders. 'There aren't supposed to be any animals in there, that's all I know. Sorry.'

The policeman walked away and Magnus sat down on the ground with the basket on his lap. 'I'm not going in.'

Sture and David looked at each other. Neither of them was going to stay outside with Magnus, and leaving Balthazar in the car was probably out of

the question. David stared angrily at the policeman who had wandered on with his hands clasped behind his back, wishing he had been able to pulverise him with his thoughts.

'Let's walk around a bit,' Sture said. They moved around the outskirts of the crowd in a wide quarter circle until they left it and arrived at a forested area where, to his relief, David spotted a couple of portaloos. He excused himself, selected the one with the least graffiti, sat down and exploded with freedom. When he was done he discovered that there was no toilet paper. He tried to use the flyer but the shiny paper was only good for smearing. He removed his socks, used them and tossed them into the hole.

All right… now…

David felt better. Everything was going to go well. He tied his shoe laces on his bare feet and walked out. Sture and Magnus were looking secretive.

'What is it?' David asked.

Sture lifted his jacket a little like a black market dealer and showed the inner pocket with Balthazar's head sticking up. Magnus giggled and Sture shrugged: it was worth a shot anyhow. David had no objections. He was cleansed inside now, unbound and light of heart. Just as the neurologist had requested.

They walked back to the gates. Sture complained that Balthazar was nibbling on his shirt and Magnus laughed. David glanced at Sture, who was struggling exaggeratedly with his jacket, and felt enormous gratitude. It would not have been possible without him. The tension around smuggling Balthazar in appeared to have distracted Magnus completely from the visit ahead of them.

They reached the gates in time for another speech. The crowd had shrunk considerably in their absence, so presumably the guards were not particularly strict about verifying relatives' identities. Before they had reached the queue, something happened up on the podium.

Two elderly women got up on stage and switched on the PA. Before anyone had time to react, one of them approached the microphone.

'Hello?' she called out and was startled by the strength of her own voice, taking half a step back. The other lady put a hand to her ear. The one who had spoken summoned her courage, stepped up again and repeated, 'Hello! I just want to say that all of this is a mistake. The dead have awakened because their souls have returned. This is about our souls. We are all lost if we do not… '

She did not get any further. The PA was turned off and her prescription for how to avoid being lost could only be heard by those closest to the stage. A very large man in a suit, most likely security, got up on stage, ushered the woman firmly away from the microphone and led her to the ground. The other woman followed.

'Daddy?' Magnus asked. 'What is a soul anyway?'

'Something that some people think we have inside of us.' Magnus felt with his hands over his body.

'Where is it, then?'

'Nowhere in particular. It's like an invisible ghost where all the thoughts and feelings come from, sort of. Some people think that when we die it flies out of the body.'

Magnus nodded. 'I think so.'

'Yes,' David said. 'But I don't.'

Magnus turned to Sture who was holding a hand over his heart as if he was having a heart attack. 'Grandad? Do you believe in the soul?'

'Yes,' Sture said. 'Absolutely. I also believe I'm getting a hole in my shirt.

Can we go?'

They got in line. There were still a couple of hundred people ahead of them but the line was moving rapidly. In ten minutes they would be inside.

The Heath 12.15

When Flora reached the Heath and saw the great mass of people and how quickly it was shrinking, her hope of getting in increased. She did not have the same last name as her grandfather and no way to prove her status. She had called Elvy that morning to get a signed document, but as usual she only got to talk with a lady who said that Elvy was busy.

She went and stood in one of the lines snaking up toward the gates. Over the last few days she had spoken several times to Peter, who had avoided discovery during the clear-out and managed to stay in his basement. The evening before, however, his battery had gone flat and he had no possibility of getting out to where there was electricity as long as the feverish activity in the area continued.

Damn, how they must have worked.

Just the feat of putting up at least three kilometres of fence to encircle the area. In two days. One of the few times that Peter had dared to go out he had reported that the area was swarming with military personnel and that the work was continuing round the clock. The press had either been excluded or come to some kind of arrangement, and nothing had been written about the Heath until the Prime Minister made his announcement.

Flora moved slowly forward, straightening the backpack full of fruit that she had brought for Peter. In her head she counted prime numbers-one, two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen – since it was almost unbearable standing here among all these people.

The whiff of fear she could pick up on the streets was nothing to what she found here. Wherever she turned her attention she caught the same signals. People looked as they usually did, possibly somewhat more abstracted in their gaze, a little more purposeful, but there were deep-sea creatures swimming inside them, the terror of confronting the completely unknown; the other.

nineteen, twenty-three…

Unlike her, most of the people here had never seen one of the undead. They were here because relatives had awakened in morgues, their dearly departed had been plucked out of the earth by the military and transported to sealed wards. There were good reasons to fear the worst, and that was exactly what people were doing. Flora tried to shut her brain from the ever-present horror and could not understand why people had decided to enact their reunions in this way.

She lowered her head and tried to escape through concentration.

Twenty-nine, thirty-one… thirty-seven… to show they have everything under control… thirty-nine, no… mum rotten face fingers· bone… forty-one… forty-one…

'Hello?'

A voice echoed through the fog of thoughts, a voice she knew well. She opened her eyes, lifted her head and saw her grandmother for the first time in four days. On stage, with Hagar standing right behind her.

She was so flabbergasted that she lost control of the Power and was overwhelmed by a wave of jumbled, frightened thoughts that drowned out the sound of her Nana's voice. She caught something about 'souls' before Elvy was forced down from the stage. Flora ran over.

A guard was holding Elvy by the shoulders, but he let go just as Flora arrived, his attention now directed at a besuited man by the sound equipment. The guard raised a finger at the man, at the amplifier, '… get the hell away from those things. You stay right here.'

'Nana!'

Elvy looked up and Flora winced. Elvy had aged so much since they last saw each other. Her face was grey and sunken; she had dark circles under her eyes as if she had not slept in several days. The arms that embraced Flora were slack and thin.

'Nana, how are you?'

'Fine.'

'You don't look well.'

Elvy fingered a scab on her forehead. 'Perhaps I'm a little… tired.'

The guard shoved the younger man over to Elvy and said, 'Now you get away from here, right now.'

Many people had assembled around them, mostly older women who walked over to Elvy, patting her and whispering among themselves.

'Nana,' Flora said. 'What are you doing?'

'Hi,' the younger man held out his hand and Flora shook it. 'Are you Flora?'

Flora nodded and dropped the man's hand. She could not read him through the murmur, which was both an unusual and disconcerting feeling. Hagar came over and patted Flora's arm. 'Hello dearie. How are you?'

'I'm fine,' Flora said and gestured at the stage. 'What was that?'

'What? Oh, sorry,' Hagar fiddled with something behind her ear. 'What did you say?'

'I'm just wondering what you're doing.'

The man answered for Hagar.

'Your grandmother,' he said in a tone that implied that Flora should be proud to be her granddaughter, 'received a message that people need to be saved. That there isn't much time. That it has to be done now. We are her assistants in this struggle. Are you a believer?'

Flora shook her head and the man gave a laugh.

'That's almost comical, isn't it? From what 1 understand you ought to have been the first to sign on after what both of you experienced that evening in the garden…'

Flora felt creeped out that the man knew about an experience that she herself had not shared with anyone. Elvy was being taken care of by her old ladies and for a moment Flora had a vision that her haggardness was because those helping hands were in fact sucking the life out of her.

'Nana? What is the message you have received?'

'Your grandmother…' the man started, but Flora ignored him and walked over to Elvy, laying a hand on her arm. Perhaps because they were so close to the reliving Flora found a sharp image projected into her head: a woman in a television screen, surrounded by a bright light.

… Their only salvation is to come to me…

The television turned off, the image faded and Flora stared into Elvy's tired eyes.

'What does that mean?'

'I don't know. Just that I have to do something. 1 don't know.'

'But you can't handle it. I can see that.'

Elvy closed her eyes half-way and smiled.

'Oh, I think I can handle it.'

'Why don't you answer when I ring you?'

'I will. I'm sorry.'

One of the women came over and stroked Elvy's back.

'Come along, love. We'll have to think of something else.'

Elvy nodded faintly and allowed herself to be led away. Flora called out to her, 'Nana! I'm going in to see Grandpa.'

Elvy turned around. 'You do that. Give him my best.'

Flora stayed where she was, her arms hanging, unsure what to do. When all of this was over, when she had seen what there was to be seen she would go out to Elvy's and…free her? Well, do something. But not now. Now she had to see.

She joined the line, trying to recall the image that Elvy had sent to her. She did not understand. Was it a television program? She thought she vaguely recognised the woman, but could not place her.

An actress? Daddy all the flowers his hand the lid the earth

It was impossible to think logically with all of these people around. She was forced to put her thoughts in a sealed box, which floated and bobbed around in the others' streams; she could not focus.

In front of her there was a child holding a man by the hand. Next to them was an older gentleman, fidgeting. The incomprehensible image of a rabbit flashed through her head. It hopped around for a couple of moments in the streams and was washed away by coffins, earth, vacant eyes, guilt.

Their only salvation is to come to me.

Yes, Flora thought. People needed some kind of help, that much was clear. She was almost up at the gates now and could see with her normal vision how the people around her were becoming grimmer, more determined; she felt how they tried, and failed, to damp down their fear. Like children on their way into the ghost train for the first time: what is it in there, anyway?

Someone pushed her in the back, she heard a woman's voice: 'Lennart, what is it?'

The man's voice was throaty, 'Well, I don't know…1 don't know if I… can handle this…'

She turned around and saw a man being supported by a woman.

The man's face had a greyish cast, his eyes were wide. The gaze met Flora's and he pointed into the area and said:

'Dad…I didn't like him. When I was little, he used to…'

The woman pulled on the man's arm, shushing him and smiling apologetically at Flora who instantly saw their whole marriage, the man's childhood. What she saw made her turn away from them with a shudder.

'Eva Zetterberg.'

It was the man in front of her who spoke, the man with the child. The guard with the lists asked, 'And you are?'

'Her husband,' the man replied and pointed to the boy and the older man. 'Her son, her father.'

The guard nodded and flipped through to one of the last pages in his packet, running his finger down the column.

The rabbit, the rabbit…

Bruno the Beaver. And a rabbit. A baby rabbit in a pocket. Even the boy, Eva Zetterberg's son, was thinking about a rabbit. The same rabbit. This is what they looked like, her family. And they were thinking about a rabbit.

'17C,' the guard said and pointed into the compound. 'Follow the signs.'

The family set off quickly through the gates. Flora caught a sense

of relief and she memorised 17C. The guard looked sternly at her.

'Tore Lundberg,' Flora said.

'And you are?'

'His granddaughter.'

The guard looked appraisingly at her, evaluating her clothing, her black-painted eyes, her big hair and she realised she would not be let in.

'Can you prove it?'

'No,' Flora said. 'Afraid not.'

It was meaningless to engage in a debate; the guard was thinking about cobblestones, youths prying up cobblestones.

She walked away from the gates and followed the fence, letting her fingers trail across the chain links. The streams of thoughts faded away, becoming fainter the farther away she got and it was like coming inside after a storm. She continued until the people inside her died away then sat down in the grass, taking a mental breather.

When she felt OK again she continued along the fence until the angle of the buildings shielded her from the guards at the gate. The fence looked perverse, quite disconnected from the people it was supposed to keep out or keep in. A military neurosis.

There would be no real problem climbing it, the problem was the open area between her and the buildings. It surprised her that there were no other guards on; if it had been a concert, for example, they would have been posted every twenty metres. Maybe they hadn't been counting on people wanting to sneak in.

So why the fence?

She heaved her backpack over, grateful that her favourite sneakers had fallen apart and she'd worn her boots; their narrow points fit perfectly into the wide links and she was over in ten seconds. She crouched down on the other side-pointlessly, since she stood out like a swan on a telephone wire-and eventually concluded that her break-in didn't seem to have triggered any activity. She wrestled her pack back on and walked toward the buildings.

Koholma 12.30

Mahler had been prepared for the situation they now found themselves in. The boat at the dock was bailed out and fuelled up. He laid Elias down, stepped into the boat and took the bags and the cooler Anna held out to him.

'Life jackets,' Anna said. 'We don't have time.'

Mahler saw the vests hanging on the hooks in the shed, saw also that Elias had outgrown his.

'He's lighter now,' Anna said.

Mahler shook his head and stowed the bags. Together they made a bed for Elias on the floor with a blanket and Anna cast off while Mahler tried to start the engine. It was an antique twenty horsepower Penta and as Mahler pulled the cord he wondered if there were any statistics on exactly how many heart attacks troublesome outboard motors had caused through the ages.

… don't av… ight… ack… elker

After eight futile attempts he had to take a break. He sat in the stern and rested his arms on his knees.

'Anna? Did you just say, "You don't have the right knack, Mr Melker?'"

'No,' Anna said. 'But I was thinking it.'

'Ah.'

Mahler looked at Elias. His shrivelled face was unmoving, the half-closed black eyes staring at the sky. During their walk down to the dock Mahler had felt very clearly what he had earlier only guessed: that Elias was lighter, much lighter since that night four days ago when he had risen from his grave.

There was no time to think. How long would it take before Aronsson called, before someone came? He rubbed his eyes; a faint headache was starting.

'Take it easy,' Anna said. 'I'm sure it'll take at least half an hour.'

'Can you please stop,' Mahler said.

'Stop what?'

'Stop… being in my head. I get it. You don't have to prove it.'

Anna said nothing as she crawled down from the bench and sat down on the blanket next to Elias. The sweat ran into Mahler's eyes, stinging. He turned to the motor and jerked so forcefully on the rope that he thought it would snap. Instead the engine roared into life. He eased the choke, put it in drive and they glided off.

Anna sat with her cheek lightly resting against Elias' head. Her lips were moving. Mahler brushed the sweat out of his eyes and felt there was a secret here he was not privy to. He had read about the telepathic phenomena with regard to the reliving but he couldn't read Anna. Why not, when his own consciousness was an open book to her?

The wind, as promised by the shipping forecast, was weak to moderate. The waves clucked against the plastic hull as they zoomed out of the sound. Occasional breakers could be seen out in the bay.

'Where are we headed?' Anna shouted.

Mahler did not reply, simply thinking Labbsle.ir Island in defiance.

Anna nodded. Mahler turned the throttle up full.

It wasn't until they reached the Finland ferry route and Mahler had checked that there were no ferries around that he realised he had forgotten to bring the map. He closed his eyes and visualised their course.

Fejan… Sundsledr… Remmargrundet…

As long as they could follow the ferry route there were no problems. And he seemed to remember that the radio mast on Manskar would be right ahead of them until it was time to turn south. Then it got harder. The waters around Harnnskar were treacherous and lined with reefs.

He glanced at Anna and received an inscrutable look in return. She knew that they did not have the map and were in danger of getting lost. Probably she also saw the outline of the map he was trying to sketch inside his head. It was unpleasant, like being watched through a two-way mirror. He didn't like the fact that she could read his thoughts. He didn't like the fact that she could read that he didn't like the fact that she could read his thoughts. He didn't like the fact that…

Stop it!

That's just how it is. For an instant when he had started the motor he had heard her. Why only then? What had he done in that moment that had led to…

He looked up and felt his heart lurch. He did not recognise their surroundings. The islands gliding past were nondescript, unfamiliar. A couple of seconds after he thought this, Anna sat up and looked over the railing. Mahler's gaze roved across the blurring landmasses with growing panic. Nothing. Just islands. It was like waking up in an unfamiliar room where you'd passed out drunk: complete disorientation, the feeling of being in another world.

Anna pointed across the port railing and shouted, 'Is that Botveskar?'

Mahler squinted through the sun glitter, saw the white dot at the very tip of the island. Botveskar? In that case the dot straight ahead was Rankarogrund and… yes. The map fell into place. He veered east and within a minute he was back in the main passage again. He looked at Anna, thought thank you. Anna nodded and returned to Elias.

After travelling in silence for a quarter of an hour they drew close to Remmargrund. Mahler was looking south, trying to find the inlet where they should turn in, when he heard a sound through the roar of the motor.

A deep, bassy thumping sound. He looked around but there was no sign of the ferry he was expecting to see.

Foumfoumfoum.

Was it in his head? The sound was completely different from the whining that had shot through him in the kitchen. He turned back again and this time he managed to glimpse the source of the sound: a helicopter. The instant he formed the mental picture helicopter, Anna sank to the floor and pulled the blanket over Elias.

Mahler tried to sift through various courses of action and found there was only one: sit still and do nothing. They were alone in a little boat out at sea. It was not possible to hide or defend themselves in any way. The helicopter-a military helicopter, he now saw-was almost overhead and movie images began to flash through his head: a thumb on the trigger, rockets, cascades of water, the boat shattering, the three of them flying metres up into the air, perhaps catching a glimpse of the earth from another perspective before everything went black.

Sweden, he thought. Sweden. That sort of thing doesn't happen here.

The helicopter passed them and Mahler tensed, expecting a voice in a megaphone, Turn off the engine or something, but the helicopter continued, turning abruptly southward and becoming smaller and smaller. Mahler laughed with relief as he simultaneously cursed himself.

The islands. Freedom. Indeed. And less than a nautical mile from the outermost part of the archipelago which housed the large military base at Hamnskar. But did that matter?

Where do you hide the letter that mustn't be found? In the waste basket, of course.

Perhaps it would be an advantage.

He kept his gaze trained on the shrinking helicopter and then spotted the inlet, swerved and followed in the tracks of the enemy.

The water level was so low that many of the most hazardous reefs stuck up above the surface, or appeared as greenish patches over which the waves broke differently. To his amazement, he remembered the way quite well. After another twenty minutes at half-speed they were there.

His biggest concern was that there would be people in the cottage. Mahler didn't think it was likely at this time of year, but he couldn't be certain. He throttled back, gliding through the narrow sound between the islands at a couple of knots. No boat was tied to the dock and that was more or less cast-iron proof that no one was there.

The trip had taken almost an hour and Mahler had become chilled by the wind. He turned the motor off and floated in to the dock. Here between the islands there was almost no wind and the silence was wonderful. The afternoon sun glittered in the still water and everything breathed peace.

They had been here a couple of times before; eaten sandwiches on the rocks and swum. He liked this stark island, almost at the edge of the Aland sea. Mahler had fantasised about one day being able to buy one of the two fishing cottages, the only buildings on the island.

Anna sat up and peered over the railing. 'It's beautiful.'

'Yes.'

The naked rocks down by the water were covered, farther in towards the island, in a blanket of low junipers. Meadows of heath; the occasional alder. The island was small, you could walk around it in fifteen minutes and not find much variety in the vegetation. A little world; one that could be known completely.

They tied the boat up in silence, carried Elias and their things to one of the cottages. Mahler had done most of the talking for the past few days. When he no longer needed to speak, it was quiet.

They laid Elias wrapped in the blanket on a patch of heath and started to look for the key. They checked the pit toilet fifty metres behind the house and noted that the waste at the bottom was dried up. No one had been

here for a long time. They looked under the loose stones around the steps, in hollowed-out spaces, under logs. No key.

Mahler laid the tools out on a rock, looked at Anna and received her assent. He jammed the crowbar in the crack of the door, bashed it in deeper with the hammer and applied pressure. The lock gave way immediately. The door frame was somewhat rotten-the mortice was ripped off and the door flew open.

A gust of stale air rushed out, so the cottage was not as drafty as you might have imagined. A good sign if they had to stay here for any length of time. Mahler examined the lock. A large piece of the door post had come away and it would be difficult to repair for whoever owned the place. He sighed.

'We'll have to leave a little money for them.'

Anna looked around, took in the island basking in the afternoon sun and said, 'Or a lot of money.'

It was a two-room house, approximately twenty metres square. There was no electricity or running water, but in the kitchen there was a stove with two hot plates connected to a large propane gas tank. A water container with a tap sat on the kitchen counter. Mahler lifted it. Empty. He slapped his forehead.

'Water,' he said. 'I forgot water.'

Anna was carrying in Elias into the next room to put him to bed.

She paused. 'You know, I don't get it.' She nodded at Elias. 'Why don't we give him ordinary sea water?'

'Sure,' Mahler said. 'We probably can. But what about us? We can't drink sea water.'

'There's no fresh water at al1?'

While Anna was tucking Elias in Mahler searched the kitchen.

He found a number of the things he had expected to, and had not bothered to bring along: plates and cutlery, two fishing rods and a net. But no water. Finally he opened the refrigerator, also hooked up to a gas tank, and found a bottle of ketchup and a couple of cans of sardines in tomato sauce. He hesitantly unscrewed the gas tank and found it was empty.

The tank for the stove hissed forcefully when he tried it and he

immediately shut it off.

Water.

He had forgotten it for the same reason that they needed it: it was

so basic. There was always water. There is no Swedish house without a well, or a well within walking distance.

Except in the archipelago, of course.

He stood in the middle of the kitchen and saw a troll painting in front of him. A pair of trolls grilling fish over an open fire. He'd had an almost identical picture over his bed when he was a child. Although… no, that wasn't right. The trolls were painted long after his childhood.

His gaze travelled across the kitchen one last time but no water

appeared anywhere.

Anna had put Elias in one of the beds and was leaning over it,

studying a painting on the wall. The painting depicted a couple of trolls grilling fish over an open fire.

'Look,' she said. 'I had an almost identical one…'

'Over your bed when you were little,' Mahler said.

'Yes. How did you know? I didn't think you ever came to see me and Mum at our place.'

Mahler sat down on a chair.

'I heard it,' he said. 'I hear things [romtime to time.' 'Do you hear… ' she nodded at Elias, 'him?'

'No, that is…' he stopped.

'Do you?'

'Yes.'

'Why haven't you said anything?'

'I have told you.'

'No, you haven't.'

'Yes, I have. You didn't want to listen.' 'If you'd said straight out that…'

'Listen to yourself,' Anna said. 'Even now, when I'm telling you that yes, 1 can hear Elias, I know what is going on inside his head, even now you don't ask what it is, you just try to put me in my place.'

Mahler looked at Elias, tried to make himself empty, receptive; a blank slate for Elias to write on. His head was buzzing, fragments of images flashed by, disappearing before he could grab hold of them. They could just as easily be his own thoughts. He got up, opened the cooler and took out a carton of milk, drinking a couple of gulps directly from it. He felt Anna's eyes on him the whole time. He held the milk out to her, thought: want some?

Anna shook her head. Mahler wiped his mouth and put the milk back.

'What does he say, then?'

The corners of Anna's mouth were pulled up. 'Nothing you want to hear.'

'What do you mean?'

'Just that he talks to me, he tells me things that aren't meant for you to hear and therefore I'm not going to tell you, OK?'

'This is ridiculous.'

'Maybe so, but that's how it is.'

Mahler took a couple of steps through the room, picking up the guest book that was on the bureau and turned some pages compliments about the cottage, thanks for letting us stay-and wondered if they were going to write anything before they left. He turned around.

'You're making it up,' he said. 'There is nothing…I haven't heard anything about the dead being able to… communicate with the living. This is something you're imagining.'

'Maybe they haven't wanted to.'

'Oh for pity's sake, what does he say?'

'Like I said… '

Anna was sitting on the edge of the bed giving him a look that he. felt was… pitying. Rage boiled up inside him. It wasn't fair. He was the one who had saved Elias, he was the one who had worked the whole time at trying to make him better while Anna had simply… vegetated. He took a step toward her, and raised his finger.

'You shouldn't… '

Elias sat straight up in the bed, staring at him. Mahler caught his breath, backing up. Anna did not move.

What is this…

A sharp bang inside his temple, as if a blood vessel had burst, made him teeter, almost tripping on the rug. He leaned against the bureau and the raging headache he'd felt coming on immediately retreated, disappeared.

Instinctively he held his hands out in front of him, saying, 'I won't…I won't…' He had no idea what he wasn't going to do.

Anna and Elias were sitting next to each other, looking at him.

An intense distaste gripped him and he backed out of the room with his outstretched hands protective in front of him. Kept going away from the cottage, over the rocks.

What is happening?

He left the cottage as far behind as possible. His feet ached from the weight of his heavy body on the rock. He crawled out of the wind behind a wall of rock where he could not be seen from the house and sat there looking out at the sea. The occasional gull sailed out there; no prey to dive for. He rested his face in his hands.

I'm… locked out.

They did not want him. What had he done? It was as if Anna had been biding her time before she let the bomb drop, allowed him to understand that he was not wanted. Took her chance as soon as they got here, when there was no possibility of flight.

He picked up a stone, tossed it at a gull and missed by several metres. A white sail sliced the horizon like a shark fin in the distance. He slapped his hand against the rock face.

Let them try to manage on their own. Let them just try.

He blocked the thought, tried to erase it. Could they hear him? The insight that, on top of everything else, he had to be careful what he was thinking was even more enraging. He was alone, and could not even be alone in peace.

This was not how he had imagined it. Not at all.

The Heath 12.50

With each step Flora took toward the buildings, she could feel the field grow stronger. If the sensation outside the gates had been of streams running through her head, this was more like wandering into a gradually thickening fog. And just as fog magnifies sound, she could hear single individuals' thoughts faintly but clearly, distant cries. When she reached the area between the buildings she stopped, and took it in.

She had never before experienced anything like this field. It consisted of consciousness, many consciousnesses, but they were simply there: a strong presence, thinking no thoughts. There were thoughts, though. Mental exclamations of horror could be heard within the field, causing it to grow in intensity, just as an electric conductor grows warm when power flows through it.

The more you fear us, the bigger we get.

She leaned against a wall and it was as if there was not enough space for her. There was a micro version of everything happening in the area right now inside her head, and mainly it was terror, despair-the base human emotions, the reflexes of the reptilian mind, and she could feel them everywhere so strongly that she thought the field ought to be visible, billowing in the air like waves of heat rising from the asphalt.

This is not good, this is… dangerous.

She took a couple of steps with her hands around her head and looked in through a balcony window on the ground level. She saw a living room without furniture. Sitting in the middle of the floor there was a figure in a blue hospital gown and pants. A figure, because it was almost impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman. Almost all the hair had fallen from the head, the features had withered away and the yellowing skin was smeared onto the skeleton as though a temporary cover had been applied for the sake of decency. No meat, no muscles. The person on the floor had about as much identity as a head that has spent a couple of weeks on a spike.

Even so the body had not collapsed. It sat rigid, tense, legs jutting out; staring at a point straight ahead. The eyes were too deeply sunk into the skull for it to be clear where the gaze was directed, but the head was turned to the front.

A frog was hopping between its legs. For a moment Flora thought it was a real frog but when she'd watched the mechanical hopping for a couple of seconds she realised it was a toy. Up and down, up and down the frog jumped and the dead person sat with gaping mouth, following its movements. A soft clicketyclack, clicketyclack could be heard through the windows.

The movements became slower, the frog's hopping more feeble.

Finally there were only small death twitches in its legs, then it stopped completely.

The dead person leaned over and put a hand on the frog, hitting it a couple of times. When nothing happened the frog was lifted to eye level and the dead person studied it, bony fingers working across the frog's smooth metallic surface. Found the key and turned it over and over and over. Put the frog back down on the ground, where it resumed its hopping, observed with exactly the same interest.

Flora turned away from the window and shook her head, which still rang with the anguished cries of a suffering that was in her, but was not hers. She walked into the nearest courtyard, saw the grey facades, the rows of repaired windows, the emptiness between the front doors now that people had gone in to see their own.

Hell. This is Hell.

She had thought this place was creepy before: all the garbage, people quarrelling in bombed-out apartments, but that was nothing compared to what she felt now. Every speck of dirt had been removed from the walkways and a smell of disinfectant hovered in the air. The apartments had been set up nicely, cleaned; the dead had been given somewhere to live and it was simply new graves. Sit still in the grave, staring at an endlessly repeated motion. Hell.

Flora walked out into the middle of the yard where once a playground might have been planned, but they had got no further than the swing supports and a couple of benches. She sat down heavily, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw exploding suns.

But the field… the presence…

A couple with hunched shoulders walked out of a building. A man and a woman. The man was thinking something about regard her as dead and the woman was a little girl, clambering up into her mother's lap.

Flora put her backpack down next to the bench and curled herself up. Peter's building was a couple of hundred metres away and she didn't have the energy to get there. She wished the field would fade back just a little, but there was intense motion everywhere, a cacophony of revulsion and denial that just fed it.

Somewhere behind her glass broke. She looked, but was only in time to see the flash of shards falling to the ground, shattering. There was a scream from somewhere. Oddly enough, she found it calming. The pressure was starting to find release. She smiled.

It is starting.

Yes. It was starting like a distant hum, a swarm of mosquitoes on a summer evening that you can hear but not see. It came closer, slicing through all the other sounds.

Something was coming.

The sharp sound, piercing now, assumed physical form, became a force that was directed at her, pushing her head down and to the right.

Was it her gift? She found she could pinpoint the exact location of the sound; it came from a spot ten metres to the left of her and she understood its significance: she was not allowed to look at that place.

The source changed position, moving away from her.

I am not afraid!

With the muscles of her neck straining, as if she were straightening up under a heavy load, she turned her head up to the left. And saw.

She saw herself moving away from herself.

The girl walking across the yard had a too-large outfit exactly the same as hers. The same backpack, the same straggly red hair. The only thing different was the shoes. The girl was wearing her favourite shoes, the sneakers that had broken; but on her they were intact.

The girl stopped, as if she had felt Flora's eyes in her back. The screech of grinding metal in her head did not let up, and there was no possibility that she could get up and follow the girl when she started moving again, going on down the path to the next courtyard. All the strength in her legs was gone. Flora collapsed on the bench, sobbing and averting her gaze. The screeching stopped.

She closed her eyes, lying down on the bench with her backpack as a pillow, turning her back in the direction she had seen the girl, hugging herself.

I saw it, she thought. It was here and I saw it.

The Heath 12.55

It was not easy to find 17C. New hospital-style signs had been put up but no one had removed the old ones. The result was a contradictory mixture of directions to different street names between identical blocks of houses. It was like a maze, with people wandering around like lab rats and no one to stop and ask the way.

It was hard to collect your thoughts, too; hard to concentrate. As soon as David thought he had understood the system, other people's confusion broke into his own-other numbers, other consciousnesses-and it was like trying to do mental arithmetic next to someone reciting random numbers. And if it wasn't numbers, searching, then it was fear, a great trepidation rumbling at the base of it all.

A drink. Alcohol. Calm.

An incredible desire for alcohol sank its claws into him and he did not know if this longing was his own, or Sture's. It was probably a mixture of the two; a conjectural mix of wine and whisky sloshed around in a conjectural mouth.

The disconcerting thing about the telepathy was not so much the fact that he could read Sture's thoughts, Magnus' thoughts, other people's thoughts, as the fact that he didn't know which thoughts were his own. Now he understood why the situation at the hospital had been untenable.

Here, the thoughts of others were mostly fainter, a background murmur of voices, images. After ten minutes of aimless wandering he started to identify his own consciousness in the hubbub. But when the reliving had been closer together it must have been almost impossible, all the 'I' and 'me' flowing in and out of each other like watercolours.

'Dad, I'm tired,' Magnus said. 'Where is it?'

They were standing in a passageway between two courtyards.

People were walking in and out of buildings, most of them appeared to have found the right place. Sture was looking at the numbers nailed to the

wall, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. 'Idiots,' he said. 'They needn't have bothered with the numbers. Ouch!'

Sture made a fist and raised it to his chest, stopping.

'Should I take him?' David asked.

'Yes.'

Sture looked around and opened his jacket. There was a large hole in his shirt above his heart. Balthazar was writhing inside the pocket, trying to get out. David took the rabbit, now struggling wildly between their hands, and put it into his own inside pocket, where it continued to kick.

'Are we nearly there?' Magnus asked.

David crouched down.

'We'll find it soon,' he said. 'How is everything… ' he pointed at Magnus' head, 'in here?'

Magnus rubbed his forehead. 'It's like there's a lot of people talking.'

'Yes. Is it bothering you?'

'Not so much. I'm thinking about Balthazar.'

David kissed him on the head and stood up. Paused. Something had happened. The voices were muted, almost disappeared. Inside his head he saw something he could not at first identify. Tall, yellow bending stalks and a soft warmth. The warmth came from a body right up close.

Sture stood in place, gaping and turning around and around.

He is seeing the same thing, David thought. What is it?

Sture looked at David, holding his head.

'Is this… ' he said and his eyes widened in terror. David did not understand. What he was feeling was a great sense of comfort, of calm. He could feel the heartbeat of the warm body close by-rapid heartbeats, over one hundred per minute, but nonetheless comforting.

'All these thoughts,' Sture said. 'It makes you crazy… '

Now David saw what the yellow stalks were. He had not recognised them because their size was so distorted. Even though they were as thick as fingers, it was hay. He was lying in hay next to a warm body, and the hay was so large because he himself was so little.

Balthazar.

It was the rabbit's consciousness, making a backdrop to his own. The warm body with the rapid heartbeat was its mother.

Sture came over with his hand outstretched.

'I'm happy to take him again,' he said. 'I'd rather deal with that.'

'What is it?' Magnus asked. 'Come on… '

David signalled to Sture and all three of them crouched down, forming a small circle concealing them from the world. David took Balthazar out of his pocket, holding him out to Magnus.

'Here,' he said. 'Feel.'

Magnus took the rabbit, held him up against his chest and stared unseeing into space. Sture opened his jacket, sniffed his pocket and made a face. A few dark streaks of rabbit urine could be seen on the light lining of the jacket. They sat like that for half a minute, until tears slowly rose in Magnus' eyes. David leaned forward.

'What is it, buddy?'

Magnus' eyes were shiny, he looked at Balthazar and said, 'He doesn't want to be with me. He wants to be with his mum.'

David and Sture exchanged glances and Sture said, 'Yes. But he would not have been able to do that even if he had been wild. The mother drives out the young.'

'What do you mean drives out?' Magnus asked.

'So that they have to manage on their own. Balthazar was lucky he could come to you instead.'

David did not know if this was true, but it soothed Magnus a bit. He pressed Balthazar harder against his chest and spoke as if he were talking to a baby, 'Poor little Balthazar. I will be your mother.'

Incredibly, it seemed that this declaration soothed even Balthazar. He stopped struggling and rested calmly in Magnus' hands. Sture looked around. 'Probably best if I take him anyway.'

Balthazar was put back in Sture's pocket and they continued their search. They caught sight of the number they were looking for in a courtyard, quite by chance. A sign above a door: 17 A-F.

Some minutes had passed as they sat in the passageway. The atmosphere in the area had changed, and as they walked toward the entrance they could hear glass shattering, a door slamming somewhere, isolated cries. People around them were moving more rapidly, looking over their shoulders, and a sound like a swarm of gnats somewhere nearby was growing.

'What is it?' Sture asked, staring up at the sky.

'I don't know,' David said.

Magnus tilted his head, said, 'It's a big machine.'

They could not place the sound, what it was or where it was coming from but, as Magnus had said, it sounded as if a large machine had been turned on. Perhaps a computer, the high-frequency whirring of enormous fans.

They walked through the entrance.

Instead of the usual smells of cooking, sweat and dust there was only a sterile combination of hospital and disinfectant. Everything had been wiped down until it shone and there were letters pasted on the worn doors. A and B on the ground floor. They continued up stairs slick with cleaning fluids.

Magnus moved like a sleepwalker, putting both feet on each step. David felt his fear and adjusted his own steps to match. On the landing between the two floors Magnus stopped and said, 'I want Balthazar.'

Balthazar was handed over and Magnus held him tightly to his chest so that only his little nose was visible, sniffing. The last few steps up to apartment C he walked as if under water.

The doorbell did not work, but before David knocked he tried the handle and found the door was unlocked. He stepped into an empty hallway with Sture and Magnus following behind.

'Hello?'

After a couple of seconds an elderly man appeared, carrying the evening paper. He looked like a caricature of an absentminded professor: short and thin, with tufts of grey hair sticking out above his ears, glasses perched on his nose. David liked him immediately.

'Well, well,' the man said. 'Are you…' He removed his glasses and slipped them into his chest pocket as he stepped forward, his hand outstretched. 'I'm Roy Bodstrom, We were the ones who… ' he held up his index and pinky finger to his ear to indicate a telephone.

They shook hands. Magnus drew back toward the door and tried to hide Balthazar with his arms.

'Hello,' Roy said. 'What's your name?'

'Magnus,' Magnus whispered.

'Magnus, I see. What do you have there?'

Magnus shook his head and David stepped in.

'It's his birthday today and he got a rabbit that he wanted to bring along and show… Eva. She is here, isn't she?'

'Of course,' Roy said and turned back to Magnus. 'A rabbit? Yes, well then I certainly understand if you want…I would also want to. Come.'

Without further ceremony he waved fro them to follow him and led them into the room from which he had appeared. David took a deep breath, put his hand on Magnus’ shoulder and followed.

The room echoed with the quiet and the scattering of the hospital equipment highlighted the emptiness. There was only a bed with a nightstand on which there was a machine, and next to the bed was a simple armchair. On the floor next to the armchair were a couple of issues of Journal of American Medcine. Sitting on the bed, Eva.

The bandage that had covered half of her face had been replaced with a stocking of thick gauze that emphasised the damage beneath. The blue hospital gown curved in on one side of her chest. A number of cables ran from her head to the machine on the nightstand. The bed was raised in a sitting position and both of Eva's hands rested on the institutional blanket, her one eye directed at the door through which they came.

David and Magnus slowly approached the bed. David felt Magnus' body tense: watchful. Eva's eye did not look anything like it had in the hospital-the grey membrane had just about dissolved and the eye looked almost healthy. Almost. On the other hand she looked as if she had lost quite a few kilos in the past few days; the healthy cheek had lost its curve and collapsed toward the oral cavity. When the corners of her mouth pulled up into a smile it looked more like a grimace.

'David,' she said. 'Magnus. My boy.'

The voice still had something of its hoarseness but David would have recognised it anywhere as Eva's. Magnus stopped, David let go of his shoulder and walked up to the bed. He didn't dare hug Eva for fear that her body would break, so he just sat on the edge of the bed putting his hands on her shoulders.

‘Hello, my darling,’ he said. ‘We are here now’.

He pressed his lips to keep from crying, and waved to Magnus to come forward to the bed, which he did, hesitantly. Even Sture walked up, a step behind Magnus. Eva's eye travelled between them.

'My dearest,' she said. 'My family.'

There was silence for a moment. There was so much to say that they could say nothing. Roy came up with his hands clasped on his stomach as if to show that he was not going to do anything and he nodded at the machine.

'So I'm just measuring EEG,' he said. 'It's nothing dangerous. Just so you… ' He backed away again, with yet another unfinished sentence hanging in the air. David looked at the machine, where a number of almost-straight lines floated through blacked space, only interrupted by occasional blips, bumps.

Should it look like that?

He looked at Eva again. Her eye was appraising, calm and not at all frightening. And it sent a shiver through him. It took him a couple of seconds to realise what it was: inside his head he felt Magnus, Sture, Balthazar and Royall in a messy jumble, but of Eva he felt nothing.

He looked straight into her eye and thought: Darling, my darling,

where are you? but received no answer. When he really tried he could conjure up a faint image, a contour of what Eva was to him, but it was completely drawn from memory and had nothing to do with the person in

front of him. He carefully took her hand. It felt cold even though it was surely the same temperature as the room.

'It is Magnus' birthday today,' he said. 'There was no pancake cake. I didn't know how to make one so I bought a cake instead.'

'Happy birthday, my dear Magnus,' Eva said.

David saw that Magnus made a decision, overcoming what he actually felt, and he stepped up to the bed, displaying Balthazar.

'I got a rabbit. His name is Balthazar.'

'It is very nice,' Eva said.

Magnus put Balthazar down on the bed and he took a couple of tentative hops, sitting between Eva's emaciated thighs and nibbling on the tufts on the blanket. Eva did not appear to take any notice of him.

'His name is Balthazar,' Magnus said. 'Balthazar is a nice name.'

'He's not allowed to sleep in my bed, is he?'

David opened his mouth to reply but realised that the question was directed to Eva and kept quiet. As if stating a fact, Eva said, 'He is not allowed to sleep in your bed.'

'Why not?'

'Magnus… ' David put a hand on his shoulder.

'Please stop.'

'So is he?'

'We'll talk about it later.'

Magnus frowned and looked at Eva. Roy cleared his throat, took a step forward.

'Actually,' he said, 'there was a little thing 1 was wondering about.'

David stroked the back of Eva's hand with his finger, stood up and followed Roy a couple of steps from the bed, making space for Sture. Before he stood up he glanced at the EEG screen and saw that the bubbles on the lines had become slightly larger, spaced slightly closer together.

When they had moved away from the bed David asked, 'Was that what you meant? That she is sort of like a… ' David could not bring himself to say 'machine', but that was how he felt. Eva answered all their questions, said completely reasonable things but she did it mechanically, like a rote behaviour.

Roy nodded.

'I don't know,' he said. 'It will probably get better. Like 1 said, there has been great progress and… ' He did not complete the sentence, but started a new one. 'What I'm wondering about is: the Fisher. Does rh.u mean anything to you?'

'The Fisher?'

'Yes. If I ask her about herself then… we always end up back at

the Fisher. There's something that frightens her.'

Sture got up from the bed and came over. 'What are you talking about?' he asked.

'The Fisher,' David said. 'It's something Eva says, but we don't know what it is.'

Sture turned to the bed, where Magnus was saying something to Eva as he pointed to Balthazar, who had just crawled up on her belly. 'I know what it is,' he said and sighed. 'Does she talk about it?' Roy nodded and Sture said, 'I see. Yes. That was something that happened when she was little, you see. She was seven and… well, I guess you could say it was my fault for not keeping a good enough eye on her. She came very close to drowning. Very close. It was right on the edge. If my wife hadn't known exactly what to do, then…' Sture shook his head at the memory. 'Anyway. Once we had… brought her back to life, then…'

'Daddy, Daddy!'

David heard Magnus' shriek inside his head one second before it reached his ears. No, the scream inside his head came from Balthazar and just as Magnus' voiced scream died against the walls there was another, a sound more like a bird cry, then a light cracking.

David lunged for the bed, but it was too late.

Balthazar's body was still lying in Eva's lap but she had his head in one hand, moving it up to her eye in order to examine it. She twisted and turned the little rabbit head where the nose still twitched and the eyes stared in terror. In her lap the legs on the headless body were still kicking and a trickle of blood found its way along a fold in the blanket, dropping to the floor.

Balthazar's legs jerked one last time and froze. Eva's eye looked closely at the rabbit's eye; two black pools reflecting in each other.

Magnus screamed, 'I hate you I hate you!' and hit Eva across her arm, her shoulder, his arms flailing, tearing loose the cables attached to her head. David managed to get a last glimpse of the EEG peaks before they went out: tightly clustered spikes. He took hold of Magnus from behind, locked his arms in a tight hug and carried him out of the apartment, whispering words of comfort to no effect.

'I don't understand… she has never…' Roy was twisting his hands and swaying on his feet, hesitant to approach the bed where Eva was examining Balthazar's head and sticking her finger into the bloody, mucus-filled throat, its lining of tendons and ligaments hanging down in threads.

Sture walked up and gently extracted the head from Eva's dark red hands, placing it on the night stand. He closed his eyes against Magnus' inner screams, took out the two wooden dolls and placed these in her hands instead.

'Here,' he said. 'Your dolls. Eva and David.'

Eva took the dolls, holding them in her hands and looking at them.

'Eva and David,' she said. 'My dolls.'

'Yes.'

'They are very nice.'

The tone of her voice frightened Sture more than what she had done to Balthazar. It sounded like his daughter, and not like her. It sounded like someone imitating her voice. He could not bear to listen to it and he left Eva sitting there with the dolls in her lap.

David was carrying Magnus, Sture what was left of Balthazar. Some tufts of blotchy fur that no longer dreamed of hay. Outside the front door they were confronted by a policeman waving his arms in the direction of the exit.

'I have to ask you to leave the area immediately.'

'What is it?' Sture asked.

The policeman shook his head. 'Figure it out for yourself,' he said and ducked in through the door to continue the evacuation.

They had been so preoccupied by what had happened with Eva that they had ignored the warning cries from the field. David's mind was filled with Magnus' despair, but when Sture turned his attention to the outside he heard-thought-the sound of a large tree just before it falls to the axe. Sharp cracks, the trunk swaying-which way will it fall?

Thousands of consciousnesses in such panic that no thoughts could be distinguished, an ant-war going on at full volume and through it all that whining, piercing sound. Sture made a face and grabbed David's shoulder.

'Come,' he said. 'We have to get out of here. Now.'

They walked as fast as they could to the gates. Any thoughts of their own were sucked up by the field. More people were pouring out of doors and running toward the exit like they were fleeing from a fire, a war, an approaching army.

The Heath would never again be open to the public.

The Heath 13.15

Flora lay on the bench, curled up like a foetus. She hugged her backpack. Inside the world was coming to an end. Everything was exploding in demented fireworks. She shut her eyes as tightly as she could, as if to prevent her eyeballs from popping out. She couldn't move, she could only wait for it to end, to be over.

Large numbers of dead people were having an effect on the minds of the living, but the large numbers of the living were also affecting the dead. As if through a system of prisms, emotions were being enlarged, reflected in each other, reinforced, and this went on until the force field was unbearable.

After five minutes it started to abate. The horrible thoughts dissipated and ebbed away. After ten minutes she dared to open her eyes, and realised that she had been overlooked. A couple of police officers were just leaving the courtyard. A man was sitting outside a door, weeping. He had scratches in his face and splotches of blood on his shirt collar. As Flora watched, an emergency worker came over to attend to the man's cuts.

Flora lay absolutely still. In her black clothes she was a shadow on the bench. If she moved she would become a human, and humans had to leave.

Once the wounds had been dressed, the paramedic supported the man under an arm and led him away. The man walked as if there was a yoke across his shoulders and he was thinking of his mother, her love, and her nails-polished and painted a cherry red. She had always been particular about her nails, even during her years of illness. When all other dignity was taken from her bit by bit she still insisted that her nails be groomed and painted cherry red. These nails. One of them had been broken off when she scratched him.

Flora waited until they had left the courtyard and then peeked out. The Power told her there was no living being close by, but everything was so

strange here she could not be sure.

No person in sight. She crawled out and ran through the passageway to the next courtyard. She had to wait a couple of minutes there for a few more people to leave. One of them was a psychologist or something like that, and she was seriously considering suicide when she got home. Inject herself with an overdose of morphine. She had no family. Neither here nor anywhere else.

It was a quarter to two when Flora gently knocked on Peter's window and was let in. By that time there was not a single living consciousness left in the area.

[Daily Echo 14.00J

… have no explanation for the events at the Heath. Police and medical personnel were forced to evacuate the area shortly after one o'clock. Twelve people sustained injuries-three seriouslyafter having been attacked by the reliving. The Heath will remain closed to the public for the time being…

Summary [Dept. Soc. Affairs; CLASSIFIEDJ

… in short, it is our conviction that the reliving are using up their intracellular resources at a rapid pace. If the present rate is taken as a guideline, it can be predicted that the resources will be exhausted in at most a week, in certain cases significantly earlier.

That is to say, if nothing is done, the reliving will be burned out in one week-for want of a better terminology.

At present we have no solution.

It may be added that we wonder if such a solution is to be wished for.

[Daily Echo, 16.00J

… have placed the Heath under a similar quarantine. A few medical personnel will remain in the area, but at present there are no plans for continued rehabilitation.