Little Star

ALL THE GIRLS

What does it take to break a person?

Torturers and interrogators would be able to provide statistics. This many nights without sleep, this many needles, this much water, this voltage of current on this many occasions.

But there is considerable variation in people’s ability to withstand torture. Sometimes one can achieve the desired result simply by showing the instruments and explaining what is to be done with them. Sometimes it takes weeks; one may be forced to restart a heart which has given out from the pain, and even then one may not manage to break the subject down.

However, it is presumably possible to discern some kind of average. This many needles, this many blows to the soles of the feet, before most people are sufficiently destroyed to give up what they once held most dear.

But in everyday life?

After all, even a normal life contains its quota of pain and disappointment. The difference is that these are not mechanically applied, but are mainly to be found on the emotional plane, and are therefore even more unpredictable. Some people seem able to tolerate just about anything, while others fall apart at the least setback. You never know. Something which is devastating to one person can be no more than a shrug of the shoulders to another, who in turn is shattered by something that others perceive as trivial.

On top of all this, the situation can vary from day to day, even for the same person. It must be hell to be a torturer with only the instruments of everyday life as your resources for finding the breaking point.

Teresa did not fall down dead, nor did she do anything to make that happen. She shuffled her clumsy body along, bought a ticket at the central station, rang home and asked to be picked up in Österyd. Then she sat and stared at the arrival and departure board. She didn’t read anything, she didn’t listen to any music, she didn’t think.

If anyone who didn’t know her had seen her getting on the train, that person would have seen a girl getting on the train. If anyone who knew her had seen her taking her seat, that person would have seen Teresa taking her seat. After all, nothing had really happened from the world’s point of view, except that a girl had given up all hope. Hardly even worth mentioning.

When she arrived in Österyd, she didn’t do a very good job of playing the role of herself. Göran was worried, and asked if she’d taken her tablets. She had taken her tablets. She would always take her tablets. That was what she would do from now on: she would eat, drink, sleep and take her tablets.

When she sat down at the computer in her room, she didn’t weigh up the pros and cons. She simply did it. She knew Theres’ password, and she hacked into her email account. As she suspected there were hundreds of messages from a couple of dozen addresses. Girls who had heard ‘Fly’ and got in touch with Theres, and Theres had replied and invited them to Svedmyra.

The tone of the messages became more reverential as time went on. It was clear that these girls looked up to Theres as an idol in the original meaning of the word. An icon, a focus for prayer.

From a few odd sentences such as, ‘I’d kill my parents too if I only had the nerve’ and ‘I feel as if I grew up in a cellar too’, Teresa realised that Theres had told them. Everything she had shared only with Teresa was now public property. At least for those who worshipped Theres.

Teresa took out the DVD of Max Hansen in the hotel room and sat for a long time, looking at herself in its shiny surface. She would post the film on the net. She had no idea what the consequences would be, but in the end it would probably harm Theres. Create problems for her. Make her into something other than the lovely girl singing the beautiful song that wasn’t even her own.

Teresa slipped the DVD into the computer and double clicked to open it. Click, click. A few more clicks and everything would change for Theres.

Instead she took out the DVD, meticulously scratched it all over with a ballpoint pen, then threw it in the waste paper basket. She took out her mobile and deleted every picture of Theres. She logged into her own email account and deleted all the old messages from Theres. A new one had arrived an hour earlier. She deleted that one without even reading it.

Then she leaned forward on her chair, rubbing her temples as she tried to delete the images of Theres from the hard drive in her brain. It was more difficult, and the effort made her start thinking about Theres. She would have to live with the images. They would probably fade, little by little.

The images did not fade. Teresa lived through the days and weeks that followed with a Theres-shaped space inside her that just grew and grew. In the end the space was the same shape as her body, and it was empty. The emptiness was nothing new, it was the emptiness that had put her in bed, sent her to the psychiatric unit and given her pills to take.

But even emptiness has its topography, its smell and its taste. This was a different emptiness. It echoed with Theres, and it hurt. Sometimes it felt as if Teresa consisted only of pain and absence, as if they were what kept her upright.

She tried out what remedies she could think of. She tried self-harming. Sitting in the old cave where she used to spend time with Johannes, she cut herself with pieces of glass she found in the forest. It gave her a moment’s relief, but after a few days she gave up. It didn’t last.

She tried starving herself, hiding away the food served up at the kitchen table, until she was found out. Then she started sticking her fingers down her throat in the bathroom after she had eaten. That brought no relief either, and she gave up the experiment.

She tried taking more tablets, eating more food, drinking more soft drinks. The soft drinks helped a bit. The moment she put a glass of cold Trocadero to her lips everything felt OK, and went on feeling OK for the first few gulps. She drank more fizzy drinks.

While all this was going on, she kept up with her school work. She developed the trick of creating a tunnel from her head to the teacher or the book. As long as she managed to keep the tunnel intact, she could maintain her concentration.

At the end of March there was the class party. Not the kind that’s arranged by the school, where the adult gaze damps down the festivities, but a real class party. Mimmi’s parents had gone to Egypt for a week and she had the house to herself. Perhaps the party was a kind of revenge; Mimmi would have liked to go with them but she had to stay at home because of her poor grades.

The whole class was invited, along with a few other people, and it didn’t occur to anyone to exclude Teresa. Jenny might have her hangers on, but not everyone thought it was a bad thing that her nose had been rearranged, and despite the fact that Teresa didn’t have anyone she could call a friend, a few people at least had a silent regard for her as the dark point that allows the rest of the picture to shine. She could come to the party.

Teresa went to the party for the same reason she did everything these days. Because she could. Because it was there. Because it made no difference what she did in any case. She might as well sit on a sofa at Mimmi’s house as on a chair in her bedroom.

As she approached the house she heard ‘Toxic’ pulsating through the walls, and through the living room window she could see a couple of Britney clones moving slowly, like water weed in an aquarium. Jenny and Ester. Teresa felt neither unease nor anticipation, but an exhaustion came over her. She just didn’t have the strength.

She put down the plastic bag containing a bottle of Trocadero and two cans of beer and sat down on the steps. ‘Toxic’ was followed by that song by The Ark that everybody thought was going to win Eurovision next weekend. Teresa sat listening, surrounded by cheerful pop songs about angst, then got up to go home. She heard a whistle behind her.

The light was on in the garage and the door was open. Micke was sitting just inside, waving her over. He had a cardboard box next to him. As Teresa went over, he pointed at her plastic bag. ‘What have you got?’

Teresa showed him her cans of beer and her Trocadero. Micke shook his head and told her to sit down, then took a bottle out of his box, opened it and handed it to her. Teresa looked at the label. Bacardi Breezer with melon.

‘I thought it was only girls who drank this stuff,’ she said.

‘What the fuck do you know about it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Exactly.’

Micke clinked his bottle against hers, and they drank. Teresa thought it was delicious, even nicer than Trocadero. When they had emptied the bottles, Micke said, ‘Okaaay. So are you ready to partaaaay?’

‘No.’

Micke laughed. ‘OK. Let’s have another then.’

He gave her a cigarette, and this time Teresa didn’t even have to make an effort not to cough. The alcopop had smoothed a soft channel in her throat, and the smoke slid down without prickling.

‘You know what, Teresa,’ said Micke. ‘I like you. You’re kind of weird. You’re completely different from…Chip ‘n’ Dale, for example.’

‘Chip ‘n’ Dale?’

‘You know. Jenny and Ester. Chip ‘n’ Dale. With their bunches and all the rest of it. Bling-bling and the whole fucking Christmas tree thing going on.’

Teresa hadn’t thought it could happen; she was so completely unprepared for the laugh that burst out of her that she started coughing as it collided with a swig of alcohol on the way down. Micke thumped her on the back and said, ‘Nice and calm, nice and calm now.’

They finished their cigarettes and emptied their bottles, and the incredible thing was that that was exactly how Teresa felt: nice and calm. Bearing in mind all the different kinds of alcohol Göran had at home, it was strange that Teresa had never considered it as a drug to ease her troubles. She looked at the bottle in her hand. Strange, bordering on idiotic. This actually worked.

She didn’t feel drunk, just elated; she couldn’t remember when she had last felt like this. When they got up to go in and join the party, Teresa grabbed hold of Micke’s hand, and he moved away with a grin.

‘Get it together,’ he said. ‘You’re cool aren’t you?’

No, Teresa wasn’t cool. But it didn’t really matter. She stayed a little way behind Micke as they went up the steps and into the party, then they split up. Five minutes later Teresa sneaked into the garage and quickly knocked back another Bacardi Breezer. Then she went inside again.

Johannes was sitting on his own on the sofa, and Teresa flopped down next to him.

‘Hi. Where’s Agnes?’

Johannes folded his arms. ‘She’s coming later. I think.’

‘Why isn’t she here now?’

‘How the fuck should I know? I don’t know what she’s doing.’

‘Of course you do. You’re an item.’

‘And what if we’re not? Are you pissed, by the way?’

‘No.’

‘You sound pissed.’

‘I’m just a little bit happy. Aren’t I allowed to be a little bit happy?’

Johannes shrugged, and Teresa grabbed a handful of cheese puffs out of a bowl, munching them as she sank back on the sofa and looked around the room. With a few exceptions they weren’t too bad after all, the people in her class. She looked at Leo and remembered the time he helped her fix her bicycle chain when it came off. She looked at Mimmi and remembered they’d quite enjoyed doing a Swedish project together. And so on.

For the first time in ages a faint longing stirred inside her. She wanted to join in, if only a little bit. Get closer, be part of things, do what the others did. A part of her knew that she actually didn’t want to and couldn’t anyway, but right now that was the way she felt and because it was pleasant, she stayed with the feeling.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ said Johannes, who hadn’t spoken for a while.

‘What?’

‘What would have happened if I hadn’t moved house.’

Teresa waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she helped him out. ‘You turned into a bit of a dude after that.’

Johannes gave a stiff little smile. ‘Not really. I just did what I had to do to fit in, kind of. Sometimes I think…shit, if only I’d been able to stay there. We had fun sometimes, didn’t we?’

‘Do you really think about this?’

‘Yes. Sometimes.’

Teresa swallowed a lump of soggy cheese puffs. Then she swallowed again and said, ‘Me too.’

They were sitting close together. By this stage Teresa was so familiar with every form of sorrow that she could pick the different kinds with the precision of a car spotter. As soon as they got close, she could identify the model. This was melancholy. Grieving for something that has been and can never be again.

But it was a pleasant sorrow, a Moomintroll sorrow so unlike the one she carried around in her everyday life that she welcomed it like a warm, woolly blanket. There was an ache in her breast, and when Johannes put his arm around her, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

Johannes.

She closed her eyes and gave herself up to her dizziness and her lightly borne melancholy. She was almost happy. There was a flash and she opened her eyes. Karl-Axel had crept up close and taken a picture of them with his mobile. Johannes didn’t seem to care, and Teresa closed her eyes again.

Johannes. If only everything had been different.

That time on the rocks. If she had let him put his tongue in her mouth, if she hadn’t pushed him away. If he hadn’t moved house, if she hadn’t…perhaps she wouldn’t have got so fat, perhaps she wouldn’t be taking the pills now, perhaps…

‘Hi.’

Teresa opened her eyes again. Agnes was sitting next to her on the sofa. Even though Johannes didn’t take his arm away, Teresa sat up straight as if she had been caught in the middle of some forbidden act. Or thought.

Agnes was looking shyly at Johannes. Teresa couldn’t understand how anyone could resist such a look; she would gladly have sacrificed a finger to look like Agnes for just one day.

No. Not one day. One week. One month. Her little finger for one month. Not her index finger. Her index finger for one year. Her whole hand for her whole life? Her left hand, in that case.

Johannes touched her shoulder. ‘What’s the matter?’

Teresa didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there caught up in thoughts about looks and body parts, but when she came out of them she could feel that something had changed in the atmosphere between Agnes and Johannes, and she was sitting between them like a third wheel. She got up and went into the kitchen.

On the worktop she found half a glass of red wine and knocked it back. She thought it tasted peculiar, as if it had been mixed with spirits.

Her right hand for Johannes. Special offer-one kidney, her right hand and twenty kilos of flesh. Shylock. The Merchant of Venice. A pound of flesh. What does that mean?

She went for a wander around the house. People were sitting in groups, and she felt slightly sick when she realised they were just talking lumps of flesh. Jenny was posed unnaturally against a door frame, twisting a strand of hair around her finger as she talked to Albin, whose hand was resting on her hip.

They’re going to fuck. Everybody’s going to go off and fuck.

Teresa’s gaze locked onto Jenny’s hip, and she thought about the set of exclusive chef’s knives she had seen on a magnetic holder in the kitchen. Shylock. If she sliced away Jenny’s hips, Albin wouldn’t have anything to hold onto.

‘What are you looking at, headcase?’ Jenny hissed at her and Albin adopted a stance that suggested he would defend his fuck if necessary. Teresa pulled a face at them and wobbled into the living room. Agnes and Johannes were snogging the face off each other on the sofa. Teresa hadn’t really thought they were capable of such a thing. Particularly Agnes, who was always so cool when it came to expressions of affection, but now she was half lying on top of Johannes, her tongue slurping away in his mouth as her hand squeezed his inner thigh.

Teresa stood staring at them. Johannes seemed to be having some difficulty keeping control of his hands; a couple of fingers slipped inside the waistband of Agnes’ jeans at the back, but didn’t dare go any further. They were among other people, after all. Instead they rubbed themselves against one another, licking and sucking and enjoying themselves inside their bubble of arousal.

Teresa stared. Alternate streams of hot and cold liquid flooded her body. The stereo was playing that song about dying.

We’re gonna die at the same time, you and I

We’re gonna die-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie…

She tore herself away. She moved through the house as if she were underwater, towards the front door. There was only one thing she wanted. She managed to get down the steps and over to the garage, where she fell to her knees next to the box, took out a bottle of Bacardi Breezer and drank. Relief, for a few seconds. She emptied the bottle in thirty seconds then remained on her knees for a long time, swaying back and forth with her head in her hands.

‘For fuck’s sake, are you pinching my supplies?’

Micke was standing in front of her, a drunken smile playing around his lips. When Teresa opened her mouth to apologise, he waved dismissively and said, ‘It’s cool. What’s mine is yours and all that shit.’ He leaned against the door frame and lit a cigarette. When he offered Teresa the packet, her eyes filled with tears.

‘Micke. You’re so bloody nice. So kind.’

‘Sure I am. You want one or not?’

‘Can’t you fuck me? Now?’

Micke gave a snort. ‘Pull yourself together. You’re pissed.’

‘I’m not pissed. Everybody else is pissed. They’re all pissed and they’re going to fuck.’

Micke was standing directly in front of her. Teresa placed one hand over his crotch, squeezed his cock. Micke waved her hand away half-heartedly, but when she began to rub she could feel him growing hard.

‘For fuck’s sake, Teresa. Pack it in.’

But she didn’t want to pack it in. She wanted to be fucked and snogged like everybody else and she wanted to be close and part of it all. Through the water billowing all around her and making everything blurred, she shuffled forward on her knees. She watched her hands like two alien fish as they undid Micke’s belt and pulled down his zip.

When she took his semi-erect cock in her mouth, Micke groaned out loud. A couple of thrusts in and out and he was completely hard, and there were no more protests. He placed his hand on her head, buried his fingers in her hair and pressed her towards him.

For a little while she enjoyed the unfamiliar feeling. The warm piece of flesh in her mouth, the sounds Micke was making. Then the veil of water was drawn aside, and she saw what she was doing. This wasn’t her. Not here, not like this. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to stop now, she wanted to go home.

She tried to pull away, but Micke whispered, ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop’, pressing her head closer so that his cock touched the back of her throat. A violent wave of nausea crashed through her body, surging up until she vomited. Alcopops, red wine and cheese puffs spurted out of her in a red slop that went all over Micke’s cock, hands and jeans, and the garage floor. He backed away towards the wall, shaking the revolting mess off his hands as he yelled, ‘What the fuck are you doing? That’s so fucking disgusting!’

Teresa collapsed and threw up again, a pool forming beneath her on the cement floor. On the edge of her vision she could see Micke ripping off a long length of kitchen towel from a holder on the wall. When had wiped the worst of the mess off himself, he handed her a bundle.

‘Here. This wasn’t such a good idea, was it?’

Teresa wiped her mouth as she mechanically shook her head. An acrid stench hit her nostrils and she blew her nose and took a couple of deep breaths. She heard a snigger and turned towards Micke, who was looking out into the garden.

It took a couple of seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then she saw that there was a little group standing behind a low shrub five metres away from the garage. Jenny, Albin and Karl-Axel.

Micke said, ‘What the hell are you doing, you fucking idiots?’

Karl-Axel held up his mobile. ‘Nothing. Just made a little film. Real hardcore stuff. It’s just that the ending’s a bit disgusting.’

Teresa hid her face in her hands. She heard the sound of running footsteps, screams and laughter. When she raised her head a long time later, she was alone. She got to her feet and looked around. Her red vomit splashed up the walls, the pool at her feet made the garage look like a slaughterhouse. A slaughterhouse.

She rang Göran on her mobile and asked him to come and pick her up. Then she went and sat on the pavement and waited for him, staring down through the grating over a drain. Behind her the party went on.

Somewhere there has to be rock bottom, a limit to how far a person can fall. It is possible that Teresa had reached this point when she woke up at half past eight on Saturday morning. She started the day by going to the toilet and spewing up everything that hadn’t already come up. Then she lay in her bed with her arms around her belly and just wanted to die. Really die. Be obliterated, not exist any more, not take one more step in this world.

She had thought it was unnecessary to remove all sharp objects from her room; her problems had never had anything to do with taking her own life. Now her thoughts were focused on nothing else. She lay there wondering whether she had the strength or the courage to sharpen a pencil and hold it upright on the desk in her clenched fist, then slam her head down onto the point so that it penetrated her eye and went into her brain.

No. It was too gruesome, and there wasn’t even any guarantee that she would die. But she wanted to die. Her memories of the previous evening were blurred and disjointed, but she remembered the most important bits, which made her want to fill her mouth with earth, cover her body with earth.

The bottle of Fontex tablets was on her bedside table. She knew they weren’t an option, that they wouldn’t work. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been allowed to have them there. Out of habit she reached for the bottle to take her morning tablet, but let her hand drop.

If she stopped taking her tablets, perhaps she really would become mentally ill. Perhaps they would come and take her away. Lock her up. It was an alternative to dying, and almost the same thing. Only the earth in the mouth was missing, but you could always eat that anyway.

That was the way her thoughts went on Saturday morning.

When she got up to go to the toilet again, Maria was sitting in the armchair on the landing, knitting. She never usually sat there. She was keeping watch.

‘Hi,’ said Teresa.

‘Hi. Have you taken your tablet?’

‘Mm.’

Sitting on the toilet, she made her decision. She really would stop taking her tablets, she would see if she went crazy. Give it a month. If that didn’t work she would come up with a way of killing herself that didn’t feel too horrible. Her hope was that she would go mad without actually noticing.

Just after twelve she went downstairs to keep up appearances. She ate a bread roll with cheese; it tasted like ash. The radio was on in Olof’s room because he was listening to Tracks. As the song that was bubbling under this week was introduced, Teresa stopped in mid-bite to listen to Kaj Kindvall: ‘A studio version of a track that’s already had considerable success on MySpace and YouTube has now been released. The artist calls herself Tesla, and apart from a couple of appearances and an early exit from the latest series of Idol, we don’t know too much about her. Perhaps that will all change now. This is “Fly”.’

The song began, and Teresa resumed her chewing. They had added strings and made the song more showy. It no longer had anything to do with her. She finished her sandwich and had a glass of milk. Then she felt sick and had to go and throw up again.

At three o’clock her mobile beeped to tell her that she had a message. It said, ‘Film of the year! Check this out!’ A film clip was attached.

Since she already had her face pressed firmly to the ground, she had a look. The picture quality was surprisingly good. Karl-Axel’s father had an excellent job. He gave his son excellent presents. For example an excellent mobile with excellent definition and excellent video and sound recording. The film might even have been even more excellent and more detailed than Teresa’s crappy mobile was capable of showing.

They had been standing there right from the start, and they had filmed the whole thing, right from Teresa’s, ‘Micke. You’re so bloody nice. So kind.’ Teresa saw and understood. No shadow would fall over Micke. He was a boy, and she had practically attacked him. Forced herself on him, then thrown up all over him.

She knew how it worked. The film would spread. Right across the world. In a couple of days people in Buenos Aires would be sitting laughing at the most disgusting thing they had ever seen, then they would send it on to their friends. She couldn’t quite take it in.

Teresa sat down at her desk; her hands were ice-cold. Her mobile rang. She automatically pressed the reply button and put it to her ear.

‘Yes?’

‘Teresa? Hi, it’s Johannes.’

‘Hi, Johannes.’

There was silence at the other end. Then Johannes sighed, making a crackling sound in her ear. ‘How are you feeling?’

Teresa didn’t reply. There was no simple answer to that question.

‘I saw the film,’ said Johannes. ‘Well, not all of it, but…I just wanted to…I feel really sorry for you.’

‘Don’t.’

‘But I do. It’s not right. You’ve had such a…I just wanted to say that…I’m here. Just so you know.’

‘How are things with Agnes?’

‘What? Oh, fine. And she says the same.’

‘Are you back together?’

‘Yes. But Teresa, try to…try…Oh, I don’t know. But I’m here, OK? And Agnes. And we’re very fond of you.’

‘I know you’re not. But thanks anyway. It was kind of you.’

Teresa rang off. When the phone rang again she rejected the call. She lay down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Something gets dirty. A towel. Then it gets dirtier. And even dirtier, so dirty that it begins to fall apart. It is trampled in the mud, picked up, rolled into a ball. There is a breaking point in the state of dirtiness where the object that is dirty ceases to be itself. It becomes something else. The towel no longer looks like a towel, it cannot be used as a towel, it is not a towel. The same thing applies to a human being. Oh, the capacity for reflection might get in the way, the capacity to miss what that person once was. Human, detergent-scented, usable.

But it disappears, very gradually. It disappears.

During the afternoon and evening she received a number of suggestive or downright unpleasant text messages which she saved after reading them. The telephone rang twice; the first time it was somebody making slurping noises, the second time somebody whispering, ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop.’

When Teresa went to bed, she was incapable of sleeping. She tried reading some Ekelöf, but couldn’t concentrate for more than two lines at a time.

She re-read the disgusting texts: have a nice weekend slag; suck and swallow; World Championship in cock sucking and spewing, along with those who had made a little more effort.

She couldn’t get enough. It was two o’clock in the morning when she sat down at the computer to see if she had received any emails. She had. More of the same from unfamiliar addresses; the little film had already spread far and wide, and had fired certain people’s imagination and limited ability to articulate their thoughts.

There were several messages from Theres as well, spread over the past few weeks. When she opened one of them she almost expected it to contain some variation on the cock/suck/spew theme.

‘you must come here you have to be here’ one of them said. In another, older message, ‘why did you run away tell me why you didn’t stay’. The oldest, apart from the one she had deleted, said, ‘jerry says you misunderstood i don’t understand how you misunderstood you have to tell me’. The most recent message had arrived on Friday evening while Teresa was at the party, ‘you have to write i don’t like it when you’re gone’.

Teresa copied the phrases from fourteen messages in total and pasted them in chronological order into one single document, which she read over and over again. If she had still had the ability to cry, she would have done so. Instead of tears a couple of phrases by Ekelöf welled up and forced their way out.

She clicked on reply, and at the top of the message she wrote, ‘I live in another world, but you live in the same one.’

She looked at the sentence. That was really all she had to say. But still her fingers began to move over the keys. She imitated Theres’ elided style, which made it easier to write. She didn’t make any effort to be anything other than honest.

Theres. I haven’t gone. I exist. But I don’t exist. Everyone wants to hurt me. Everyone hates me. I ran because I love you. I want you to be with me. Not with other people. You don’t know how unhappy I am. All the time. I’m empty. There is nowhere I can be. Forgive me. I live in another world now.

She sent the message. Then she went back to bed. Her own darkness melted into the darkness of the room, and she fell asleep.

When she woke up at nine o’clock, there was a reply from Theres in her inbox.

you must live in this world you must come to me now would be good but next weekend jerry is going to america so you will come then i will show you what to do

For a message from Theres, it was practically a novel. As usual there was a fair amount that needed interpreting, but that didn’t bother Teresa. She had written, and she had received a reply. She would go to Stockholm, and she would go without any particular hopes. It wasn’t an act of will that made her think that way. It was simply a fact.

On Sunday afternoon, when Teresa was taken ill, nothing could have been more welcome. Her temperature shot up above thirty-nine degrees and it felt cool and refreshing. Her body was exhausted, her thoughts pleasantly fuzzy. All of her real pain was absorbed in the inconsequential aching of her muscles, and as her temperature approached forty degrees and the fever made her body levitate from the sheets there was even a hint of pleasure.

She took some ibuprofen and her temperature came down during the night, allowing her to sleep, but it was still so high when Maria checked on Monday morning that there was no question of Teresa going to school. As if she would have anyway. She switched off her mobile and lay in bed, doing nothing but savouring her illness, giving herself up to it. That was what she had.

All the time she was conscientiously taking her pills out of the Fontex bottle and throwing them away. When Maria pressed her to take her tablet, she hid it under her tongue until Maria had left the room.

Her temperature was back to normal on Thursday morning and Maria thought she could go back to school, but Teresa said, ‘No. I’m going to stay at home and rest today and tomorrow. I’m going to Stockholm at the weekend.’

‘You are not.’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Last time you came home a complete wreck and now you’ve just been ill, so if you think I’m letting you go off there again, you’re wrong.’

‘Mum. There’s nothing you can say or do to stop me. Because it doesn’t matter. If you don’t let me go, I shall just lie here in bed until I die. I won’t eat. I won’t drink. I’m serious.’

It didn’t surprise Teresa that Maria actually listened to what she said, because something had happened to Teresa’s voice. She wasn’t speaking from her mouth any longer, but from her sternum, and she could only say what was true. Maria could obviously hear this too. For a long time she just stood and stared at Teresa. Then she vacated the dangerous plateau on which they found themselves and inclined her head. ‘Right!’ she said. ‘If that’s the way it’s going to be, then you can pay for your own ticket.’

On Saturday morning Göran gave her a lift to the station. They didn’t speak much in the car, and the few words Teresa did say just seemed to make Göran uncomfortable. Teresa understood. It was her voice, she could hear the timbre herself. Perhaps this was how ghosts spoke, or vampires: creatures without a soul.

The train took her to Stockholm and the subway took her to Svedmyra and the lift took her to Theres’ door. She felt nothing. When Theres opened the door she walked past her into the apartment and sat down at the kitchen table. Theres sat opposite her.

Teresa had no desire to say anything, but she had come here, after all. She said, ‘Is Jerry in America?’

‘Yes. With Paris. Why are you unhappy?’

‘Because of what I wrote.’

‘I didn’t understand.’

‘There’s a lot you don’t understand.’

‘Yes. A lot. Do you want some food?’

‘No. Your song is on Tracks.’

‘I know. We’ll listen. To see if it wins.’

‘What does it matter if it wins?’

‘Then more people will want to listen to it.’

‘Why do you want more people to listen?’

‘My singing is good. Your words are good. Why are you unhappy?’

‘Because I’m fat and ugly and lonely and nobody likes me. For a start.’

‘I like you.’

‘Perhaps. But you like so many people.’

‘I like you best.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are lots of girls. But I like you best.’

‘Is anyone coming today?’

‘Not today. And not tomorrow.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m going to be with you. Why are you unhappy?’

Teresa got up from the table and took a walk around the apartment. It was like revisiting a place you’ve been away from for so long that everything has become unfamiliar. There was the computer they had played on. There was Theres’ bed where they had sat, the sofa where they had watched horror films. Everything was true and not true. They belonged to someone else. Next to the computer lay her own notebook with lyrics in it. She read a couple of them and couldn’t understand why she had written them.

At twelve o’clock she helped Theres put the radio on, then they sat in silence on the sofa as song after song was played. Teresa listened behind the music, behind the words. There was nothing there. Yet another song was introduced as a really great track from an exciting new band, and the only thing it expressed was its complete lack of content.

It was a few minutes away from two o’clock when a crackling, buzzing sound was heard. The jingle for this week’s Bullet: the highest new entry, ‘Fly’, by Tesla. The song had gone from nowhere straight to number two, beaten only by The Ark with ‘The Worrying Kind’.

When Teresa switched off the radio, Theres said, ‘We didn’t win.’

‘Maybe next week.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Why are you unhappy?’

‘Can you stop asking me that?’

‘No. I want to know.’

Teresa took out her mobile, scrolled through until she found the clip from the garage, pressed play and gave it to Theres, who held the little screen close to her eyes as she carefully followed the course of events. When it was over she gave the phone back to Teresa and said, ‘Being sick is not good.’

‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’

Theres pondered for a couple of seconds, then asked, ‘Why did you do that? With the boy?’

‘I was drunk.’

‘You’d been drinking alcohol.’

‘Yes.’

‘Alcohol is not good. Why are you unhappy?’

Something had been silently building up and now Teresa jerked as a clearly audible ‘click’ reverberated through her body. A switch was flicked on, a hatch opened. She leapt to her feet and screamed.

‘Why can’t you understand anything? Can’t you understand that’s just about the most disgusting, ugly, revolting thing you can do and it’s on film and it’s me who’s doing it and every single fucking person in the entire fucking world can watch it and see how ugly and how completely fucking disgusting I am throwing up all over his cock and I already felt like shit beforehand and I thought I was totally empty then I had a drink so I wouldn’t be empty any more and then that happened and it turned out that it’s actually possible to be even more fucking empty. It’s possible to be so fucking empty that you really don’t exist any more and I don’t exist any more and this isn’t me standing here and this isn’t me talking and you don’t know me any more and I don’t know you.’

During this entire screaming monologue, Theres sat straight-backed with her hands resting on her knees, listening attentively. When Teresa flopped down in the armchair, her face bright red, and wrapped her arms tightly around her body, Theres said, ‘Those were good words. That you wrote.’

‘Which fucking words?’

‘I live in another world, but you live in the same one.’

‘And do you understand what that means?’

‘No. But I laughed.’

‘I’ve never heard you laugh.’

‘I’ve started.’

‘What do you mean, you’ve started?’

‘Some of the girls laugh. Then I laugh too. Sometimes. Otherwise they get scared.’ Theres looked over at the window. ‘We’re going now.’

‘Going where?’

‘I’ll show you what to do.’

Five minutes later they were standing by the loading bay at the back of the local shop, which had closed at two o’clock. Teresa looked at the hammer Theres had brought with her from home, and which was now dangling from her hand.

‘Are we going to break in?’

‘No. He’s coming now. I know.’

Just as Theres uttered the last word, the door opened and a man in his forties came out. He looked remarkably like Teresa’s English teacher. The same sparse beard and slightly bulging eyes, the same clothes: jeans and a check shirt. In his hand he was holding a small metal box, presumably the day’s takings. He caught sight of Theres and Teresa as soon as he opened the door.

‘Hi girls, and what-’

He didn’t get any further before Theres smashed the hammer into his temple. He staggered backwards a couple of steps into the shop, then went down full length on his back. Theres grabbed the door before it swung shut, and walked in. Teresa followed her. She had not yet begun to feel anything.

The heavy metal door closed behind them, and the room was in semi-darkness. Only the light from the shop windows filtered in through a doorway. Teresa found the light switch, and a couple of fluorescent tubes on the ceiling came on. The man was lying on the floor with his mouth open, one hand pressed to his temple. A small amount of blood was seeping through his fingers.

Theres gave the hammer to Teresa and said, ‘Make him dead.’

Teresa weighed the hammer in her hand and looked at the man. She tried a practice blow in the air. The man started to scream. Inarticulate noises at first, and then with words.

‘Take the money! There’s almost eight thousand! Take it and get out of here! I’ve never seen you, I don’t know who you are, my mother’s ill, she needs me, you can’t, please don’t do anything stupid, just take the money…’

Theres found a roll of packing tape and tore off a strip, which she wound twice around the man’s mouth. Teresa was surprised that he offered no resistance, but his hands were moving in an odd, jerky way. Presumably the blow to the head had sabotaged something to do with his bodily functions. The man snorted and snot ran out of his nose and down over the packing tape. It looked a bit like Hostel. That was probably where Theres had got the idea of the tape from.

Teresa took a step towards the man and his feet scrabbled on the floor as he tried to move backwards. She raised the hammer; asked herself how she felt. Then she held it out to Theres.

‘I can’t.’

Theres didn’t take it. ‘No. You have to do it.’

‘Why?’

‘You say you’re empty. You need to.’

Theres turned to face Teresa and looked her in the eyes. Teresa gasped. She stared into those dark blue voids as Theres’ voice flowed into her ears. ‘You make him dead. Then you take him. There will be a little bit of smoke. Red smoke. You take it. Then you’re not empty. Then you’ll be happy and you’ll want to do things again.’

Theres’ voice had taken on something of the same quality as Teresa’s; it was coming from a different place in her body, not from her mouth, and everything she said was true. When Teresa turned back to the man, he had managed to turn on his side and grab hold of something on the floor. A Stanley knife for opening boxes. He was holding it up with the blade pointing at Teresa as he tried to get to his feet. His eyes were staring insanely and snot kept spurting out of his nose.

Teresa gritted her teeth and raised the hammer. The man’s hand flew out and the blade sliced through her top, making a superficial cut on her stomach. The movement overbalanced the man, and he fell on the floor again. Theres stamped on his hand until he dropped the knife.

Teresa looked at the blood tricking down towards the waistband of her trousers, drew her index and middle fingers through it and stuck them in her mouth. It turned red inside, and the colour billowed up in her head until that too was red on the inside. Colour. She had colour. When she ran her tongue over her teeth, it felt as if they had been sharpened into points.

She quickly squatted down and slammed the hammer straight into the man’s forehead. There was an echoing crunch and a sound like a heavy foot stamping on a frozen puddle. The man’s body arched upwards and his hip brushed against Teresa’s hip before he collapsed and lay flat on his back again. His hands and feet were shaking, and the blood vessels in his eyes burst.

The smells. Teresa was aware of the smells. The sweat of fear from the man’s body, the iron smell of the blood and all around her a miasma of storeroom odours, floating through the air. Rotting bananas, fresh mushrooms, printer’s ink and stale beer from the container of cans for recycling. She recognised them all, she could identify them and tick them off. They melted together with the red, cascading colour inside her head and became one single experience, one single thought going around and around: I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive.

She hit the man on the temple, on the head. She smashed his teeth and she knocked out one eye. She hit his forehead as hard as she could several times until a hole opened up in his skull, and she was able to creep close to him, quivering with excitement, and watch the lone thin curl of smoke rise from deep inside. No, she didn’t see it, but she knew it was there, she could smell it; sense its presence.

She drew back her lips and growled softly as it flowed into her and became a part of her.

They took a walk through the closed shop. Teresa picked up a bar of chocolate, took a bite without opening it, then threw it away. She opened a packet of crisps and ate two, then poured the rest all over the contents of the freezer. She barked and bit off a piece of Falun sausage, chewed it to a soggy mess then spat it out over the tomatoes. Meanwhile Theres fetched two plastic bags and filled them with as many jars of baby food as she could carry.

They went back to the storeroom. An irregular pool of blood had flowed from the man’s head, and on the edge of the pool lay the hammer. Teresa picked it up, went over to the sink and rinsed it under the tap. She caught sight of herself in the mirror.

Her face was spattered with blood and a few small, more solid lumps of human tissue were stuck to her cheeks. Streaks of blood had trickled down over her forehead from her hair. She turned to Theres.

‘Theres. Do you think I’m beautiful now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you like to kiss me?’

‘No.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

The cut on her stomach had begun to hurt, but was no longer bleeding. However, both her top and the knees of her trousers were so blood-soaked that no one could have seen her without getting suspicious. She washed her face, then they waited until it was dark before they left.

The last thing they did was to take the notes from the cash box. Then they walked back to Theres’ apartment at normal speed. They didn’t meet a single person on the way.

That night Teresa dreamed about wolves.

First of all she was a human child, a helpless little creature cast out into the forest. Out of the darkness the pale eyes approached, creeping towards her between the trunks of the fir trees. Paws moving silently across the carpet of needles. The circle closing in. She wanted to run, but had not yet learned to walk.

Then rough tongues were licking her body all over. They were in the lair, and the wolves licked and licked her skin. As the tongues rasped over her stomach, it hurt so much that she cried out. Layer after layer of skin was peeled away, and the pain was unbearable. Then the fur began to appear beneath the skin. The pain diminished and the wolves left her.

A small amount of moonlight shone in through the opening of the lair, and she saw herself from the outside. She was lying on the earth floor, wet from the wolves’ saliva, trembling with cold because the sparse fur was not yet able to protect her.

The scene changed, and from the all-seeing perspective of the moon she saw a wolf running through the forest. A crippled or sick wolf with its fur in clumps, a pitiful creature terrified of the least sound. She was in the moon and in the wolf at the same time, she was drifting in the sky and crawling over the ground through the same pair of eyes.

Then time must have passed, because the ground was covered in snow. She was racing through the forest, and every leap was an expression of joy. There was strength in her muscles, and she saw that her front legs were covered in thick, smooth fur. She was following a trail of blood. Dark patches were visible in the snow at irregular intervals, and she was hunting a quarry that was already injured.

She dashed up a hill, the snow whirling up around her paws. When she reached the top she stopped and stood, her tongue hanging out. She was panting and her breath turned to smoke in the cold air. In front of her the pack was gathered around the injured deer whose hooves still moved beneath the mass of grey fur.

The leader of the pack turned to her. The deer stopped moving, a blown eye reflecting the sky. As the whole pack turned like one single creature, focusing their attention on the lone wolf, she showed her submissiveness. She exposed her throat and lay down on her back, waving her paws; she was a wolf cub, lowest in rank of them all.

They moved closer. She whimpered like the cub she now was, displaying her helplessness, not knowing if they were coming to accept her into the pack or to rip her to shreds.

‘Theres? When you dream-what do you dream about?’

‘I don’t know how to do that.’

‘Don’t you dream?’

‘No. How do you do it?’

Teresa was lying on the mattress next to Theres’ bed, watching the dust bunnies quiver as she breathed out. She rolled onto her back. The T-shirt she had borrowed from Theres was so small that it stopped just above the wound on her stomach. She ran her hand over the scab that was beginning to form, and it hurt. She stroked it again. If it hadn’t been for the cut, she would have been able to fly. Tell herself she hadn’t done what she had done.

But the cut was there. Inflicted with a Stanley knife, the kind used to open boxes. By someone who worked in a shop. Who was now dead, beaten to death with a hammer. By Teresa. She stroked the cut and tried to make the act real. She had done it, she would never be able to get away from the fact that she had done it. So it might as well be real. Otherwise everything would be wasted.

‘How do you do it?’ Theres asked.

‘It just happens,’ said Teresa. ‘You can’t make it happen. It’s not something you can learn. I don’t think so, anyway.’

‘Tell me how you do it.’

‘You sleep. And pictures come into your head. You don’t have any control over it, it just comes. Last night I dreamed I was a wolf.’

‘That’s not possible.’

‘In a dream it is.’ Teresa propped herself up on her elbow so that she could see Theres, who was staring up at the ceiling. ‘Theres? Do you ever imagine stuff? I mean, do you have, like pictures and actions in your head that you think about?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No, I didn’t think you would.’ Teresa blew out a puff of air and the dust bunnies danced away under the bed. ‘That thing we did yesterday. To the man in the shop. Do you think about that?’

‘No. It’s over. You’re happy now.’

Teresa curled up as best she could in Theres’ clothes, which were much too tight. They had shoved her own blood-soaked clothes into two plastic bags and thrown them down the rubbish chute the previous evening.

Happy? No, she wasn’t happy. She was a stranger to herself, she was presumably still in shock. But alive. She could feel that she was alive. Perhaps that was the same thing as being happy, according to Theres’ way of looking at things.

Teresa opened and closed her hands. There was a little bit of coagulated blood underneath the nail of one of her little fingers. She stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked and licked until the blood was gone. Her hands felt bigger, stronger than the previous day. Capable hands. Terrible hands. Her hands.

It was just after eleven, and her train was due to leave at two-thirty. Every normal activity, such as getting on a train and showing her ticket, seemed absurd. She felt so light, as if she would have floated away like a helium balloon if her heavy hands had not been keeping her on the ground.

She looked at herself. Theres’ clothes made her look like a sausage stuffed into a skin that was too small. This was a minor problem under the circumstances, but she couldn’t go home looking like a clown. There would be questions if nothing else.

‘Theres,’ she said. ‘I think we’re going to have to go into town.’

In H &M on Drottninggatan Teresa grabbed the first suitable pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater in her size, then went to the changing room and put them on. When she came out she saw that two girls aged about twelve were edging towards Theres.

‘Excuse me,’ said one of them. ‘You’re Tesla, aren’t you?’

Theres pointed at Teresa, who had come over and was standing next to her. ‘We,’ she said. ‘I sing. Teresa writes the words.’

‘Right,’ said the girl. ‘Well, anyway, I think “Fly” is absolutely brilliant.’ She chewed her lip, trying to think of something else to say, but seemed unable to come up with anything. Instead she offered Theres a notebook and pen. Theres took them. Then nothing happened. The girls looked anxiously at one another.

‘She wants your autograph,’ said Teresa.

‘And yours, I suppose,’ said the girl.

Teresa opened the book at a blank page and wrote her name. Then she gave the pen to Theres, who shook her head. ‘What am I supposed to write?’

‘Just put Tesla.’

Theres did as she was told, then handed the book back to the girl, who pressed it to her chest and turned to her friend, who hadn’t said a word from start to finish; she had just gazed at Theres with big eyes. She had nothing to add. Then the girl who had done the talking did something totally unexpected. She gave a little bow. The other girl did the same. The gesture seemed so out of place that Teresa laughed out loud.

Then Theres laughed too. Her laughter sounded unnatural and barely human, more like something you might hear from a laugh bag in a joke shop. The girls stiffened and scurried off towards the accessories department with their heads close together, whispering.

‘Theres,’ said Teresa. ‘I think you should give up laughing.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it sounds weird.’

‘Aren’t I any good at laughing?’

‘That’s one way of putting it. No.’

At the till Teresa took out her wallet; she didn’t recognise it, because it was so fat. Then she remembered. The takings. The metal box they had broken open with a screwdriver. Seven thousand eight hundred kronor, mainly in five-hundred-kronor notes.

But it wasn’t real money. You worked for real money, or you were given it, as a gift or as pocket money, a little bit at a time. This was a bundle of bits of paper that had been lying in a drawer, and had ended up in Teresa’s wallet. She was disappointed when the assistant told her, after scanning and tugging off the security tags, the amount she had to pay for the clothes. She would have liked to give away more of the bits of paper, got rid of them.

Drottninggatan was packed. Street vendors were demonstrating battery-driven toys and rubbish made of plastic and glass. They were all made of flesh and blood. A well-placed blow could make the flesh burst and the blood pour out.

Teresa didn’t feel too good. She would have liked to hold hands with Theres for support. The feeling of being so light that she might blow away was starting to become acute. It was just like when she had had a high temperature; perhaps she still had it. She felt hot and dizzy.

In a side street Teresa stopped outside a shop window. It was a shoe shop, and in the window there were a couple of dozen different designs of Doc Martens, heavy boots with a high lace-up. A bright red pair with thick soles had caught Teresa’s eye.

She had never been interested in clothes, never had any style. When the girls in her class sat sighing over the latest magazine and some jacket that was just ‘sooo cool’, she didn’t understand it at all. It was a jacket, it looked more or less the same as any other jacket. She had never seen an item of clothing and simply known that it was right.

But now she was standing here, and the boots were glowing at her. They were hers, to the point where she could have stuck her hand through the glass and taken them. Going through the normal procedure of making a purchase felt unnatural, but she did it. When it turned out that they didn’t have any in her size, she asked if she could try on the pair in the window, and they fitted perfectly. Of course. They were made for her feet, and cost only three bits of paper.

When they got outside, the world looked different. As if the extra height the soles gave her changed her perspective totally, even if it was only two centimetres. Teresa walked differently, and therefore she saw differently. The boots gave weight to her entire body, and whereas before it had felt as if people could pass right through her, now they stepped aside, the crowds parting before her.

A plump woman in folk costume was playing a reedy tune on a recorder. Teresa went and stood directly in front of her. The woman’s eyes were weary, and she was so small that Teresa could have swallowed her with one bite. Instead she placed one of the bits of paper in the hat that was on the ground in front of the woman. Her eyes opened wide; a long harangue of gratitude in some East European language came pouring forth. Teresa stood motionless, unmoved, tasting the moment and her own weight.

‘Now you’re happy,’ said Theres.

‘Yes,’ said Teresa. ‘Now I’m happy.’

They took the subway to Svedmyra. The weight of the boots worked even when Teresa wasn’t standing up. Sitting there next to Theres, who had settled deep in the corner as usual, a protection zone was formed around them, and no one came to sit in their square.

‘Those girls,’ she said to Theres. ‘The ones who come to visit you. What are they like?’

‘At first they’re happy. Then they say they’re unhappy. And scared. They want to talk. I help them.’

Teresa looked around the carriage. Mostly adults. A few girls and boys of their own age were sitting with earphones in, tapping away on their mobile phones. They looked neither unhappy nor scared. Either they were hiding it well, or they were just a different kind of person from the ones who found their way to Theres.

‘Theres, I want to meet those girls.’

‘They want to meet you.’

Two police cars were parked outside the local shop; blue and white tape between the lamp posts cordoned off the street. As Theres and Teresa went past they could see there was an ambulance round the back, by the loading bay. Teresa resisted an impulse to try to peer in through the window-the perpetrator always returns to the scene of the crime-and carried on with Theres towards her apartment. When they were out of earshot, she said, ‘You do realise we can’t say anything about this, don’t you? Not to those other girls either.’

‘Yes,’ said Theres. ‘Jerry said. You go to prison if you get into trouble. I know.’

Teresa glanced back at the shop. The loading bay was hidden from view, and she didn’t think anyone had seen them going to or from the shop. But she wasn’t sure. If it hadn’t been for the boots, her knees might well have given way. Instead she kept on walking, her footsteps firm and steady.

She didn’t have much time if she was going to catch her train after saying goodbye to Theres, but she stopped dead when they got to the apartment.

Something was wrong.

She looked around the hallway. The clothes hangers, the rug, Jerry’s clothes, her own bag. She had a distinct feeling that someone had been here. Perhaps the rug was slightly out of line, perhaps a pen had been moved on the hall table. Something. They had left the door unlocked, and anyone could have got in.

And could still be here.

Something that would have felt horrible just a couple of days ago now happened quite naturally. Teresa went into the kitchen and fetched the biggest carving knife, then marched through the apartment with the knife held in front of her, ready to attack. She opened every wardrobe, looked under the beds.

Theres sat on the sofa with her hands on her knees, following Teresa’s movements as she secured the area. Only when Teresa was convinced no one was hiding anywhere and came back to the living room did she ask a question: ‘What are you doing?’

‘Someone’s been here,’ said Teresa, putting the knife down on the coffee table. ‘And I don’t understand why. It bothers me.’

Her train was leaving in twenty-five minutes, and she would need to be lucky with the subway if she was going to catch it. But still she stood absolutely motionless for ten seconds, breathing in through her nose. Sniffing the air. There was something there. A scent. Something she couldn’t place.

She grabbed her bag and told Theres to lock the door behind her. Then she raced down the stairs and ran all the way to the subway station. She saw a train coming in, and just managed to slip through the doors before they closed.

The train to Österyd was full, and she got on two minutes before it was due to leave. Since she didn’t have a seat reservation, she pushed her way through to find an empty space. As she moved into the next carriage, she became aware of the same scent again. She stopped and sniffed, looked around.

A group of men in their forties and fifties were sitting on one side of her. There were a few beer cans on the table, and they were talking loudly about someone called Birgitta on reception, and whether she had fake tits or not. The scent of aftershave was coming from the men, and suddenly she knew.

There was an empty seat in the buffet car, and the counter hadn’t opened yet. As soon as she sat down she heaved her bag up onto the table so that she could get out her mobile and ring Theres. She found her phone, and at the same time discovered that something else was missing. With gritted teeth she hit speed dial, and when Theres answered she said, ‘It was Max Hansen who was in your apartment. And he’s pinched my MP3 player.’

Max Hansen was on a steep incline. He had lost his grip, and he was sliding. Downwards. It didn’t matter to him, because there was a conscious decision behind it. He was being carried to the bottom of his own free will; he was completing his downhill race in slow motion, as if he were enjoying a skiing holiday. There was pleasure along the way, and he hoped he would be able to brake before the crash came.

The catalyst, the first shove in the back had happened on Christmas Day.

He had dedicated Christmas Eve to drinking and grinding his teeth at Tora Larsson’s stupidity. The record company lost interest in his master tape once they found out about the video clip on MySpace. His cash cow had escaped from her stall, and was offering her udders to anyone who wanted a drink. Free to everyone, come along and have a taste.

There was absolutely nothing he could do. The fact that there was no contract, the gamble that was going to make his fortune, had instead become his misfortune. It had been a calculated risk, but he couldn’t have imagined that it would go down the pan in this particular way, and that bothered him. In his drunken misery he had taken out Robbie and was on the point of hurling him from the balcony, but managed to stop himself.

Before he passed out on the sofa he spent a long time weeping and patting Robbie’s shiny nose, begging for forgiveness for what he had almost done.

On Christmas Day he rang Clara. She was a Danish woman he thought he had pulled at Café Opera a year or so ago. He had hauled out what Danish he could still remember, talked jokingly about their homeland, then taken her back to his place. It had all been just a bit too easy, and when it was all over, it turned out she expected payment. She got her money and Max got her phone number.

In spite of the fact that Clara, at around thirty, was a bit old for him he had used her services a couple of times. Since he wasn’t particularly attracted to her, it had to be a hand job or a blow job, which was cheaper anyway.

This time she made it clear that she would be charging holiday rates, in other words a supplementary fee of five hundred kronor as it was Christmas Day, but there was nothing Max could do. He needed her.

When she arrived at his apartment he had already sunk a couple of whiskies and was feeling sentimental. He tried speaking Danish to her, the childish expressions he remembered, but Clara made it very clear that she just wanted to get this over with. She wanted to get home to her daughter.

So Max took off his clothes and sat down in the armchair. Clara started working on him with her hand. Her practice was not to work with her mouth unless he was wearing a condom. But of course the first task was to get it up so that she had something to put the condom on. She kneaded and stroked, and whispered encouragement in Danish.

Not a twitch. Not a tingle. Nothing.

He had never had problems with Clara before. On the contrary. The fact that everything was clearly agreed from the start and that there was no uncertainty about it usually relaxed him; usually, he would get a hard-on as soon as she touched him. Not this time. It was just like when he watched his films. He had lost something after the experience with Tora Larsson. At that moment, as he sat staring at his dormant cock, he realised it would never come back. He was impotent.

Clara sighed and scrabbled at his pubic hair with her fingers. ‘Come on, there’s a good boy, up you get for Clara.’ Max pushed her hand away and threw his head back. There was a faint cracking noise and suddenly he knew what he wanted.

‘Bite me,’ he said. When Clara didn’t react, he pointed to his shoulder. ‘Bite me hard. Here.’

Clara, who presumably wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the scenario, shrugged her shoulders, leaned over him and nipped his shoulder. Max whispered, ‘Harder.’ She bit harder, almost drawing blood, and something soft and pleasant flooded through Max’s body. He told her to bite him in a couple of other places. When she didn’t want to do that any more, he told her to slap him across the face. And again, harder.

His ears were ringing and his penis was still lying there like a trampled snake, but he had the same sense of satisfaction, of peacefulness, as after intercourse. When he paid Clara she said she wasn’t all that keen on this kind of thing, but she had a colleague called Disa who was more of a specialist. She gave Max Disa’s number. Merry Christmas.

After she left, he sat in the armchair and examined his feelings. So this was what it had come to. This was the way of things now. Max closed his eyes and let go of what he had been, or what he thought he had been. Began to slide. There was no point in keeping up a respectable facade or chasing after the status that might lead him to his sexual pleasures. Let go.

Let go.

The following day he went to the address-he had only sent letters there to that point-and had the conversation with Jerry. He was going to salvage what could be salvaged by whatever means were available. As if on cue, Ronny from Zapp Records rang the day before New Year’s Eve; they were still kind of interested, in spite of everything. The huge popularity of the song couldn’t be ignored. A professional recording had its value. Was it Max who owned the rights?

He played the tape. They could draw their own conclusions.

Then things began to happen. The song became a big hit, and the interest in Tesla was huge. Unfortunately Max hadn’t been paid any big advance. The royalties would trickle in, but that was a long way off and Max was in a hurry. He was on thin ice; he had to grab as much as possible before it gave under him.

The record company wanted a whole album, and they were prepared to cough up a decent amount of money in advance. Other companies got in touch, and after several conversations back and forth with Ronny, Zapp were ready to cough up so much they were on the point of haemorrhage. Everything was going Max’s way, and he slithered along on the treacherous ice and threw himself down the ski run and any other metaphor he could think of to describe the basic problem: he didn’t have the songs.

He hadn’t even managed to establish contact with Tora Larsson. He had phoned, he had written, he had emailed both her and the freak without getting any response. He knew they had more songs, but how the hell was he going to get hold of them if they refused even to answer?

It was so frustrating he thought he was going to lose his mind. One day he sat for a long time, staring at Disa’s telephone number. Clara had told him the woman was a dominatrix; she would bring her gear round and hurt him any way he wanted.

Max tried to picture the scenario. Bound, perhaps. A whip flicking across his back. The pain. He saw himself and his own thoughts, and only then did he realise what he was actually looking for. He fumbled with his arm and felt at the scars on his back, the ones he could reach.

Something decisive had happened to him that day in the hotel room with Tora Larsson. It had been terrible, but when he closed his eyes and stroked the smooth surface of the scars, he realised he missed it. This was what he wanted to experience again.

This is not good. Pull yourself together, Max.

He weighed up his options, and considered them one by one. There was Jerry and the contract and legal procedures, the use of intermediaries or a straight Tesla copy, letters he could write, phone calls he could make. In the end, Ockham’s Razor won out: If several possibilities exist, choose the simplest.

He needed Tora Larsson’s music. She didn’t want to give it to him. When you were on the downward slope anyway, the solution was obvious.

He bought a scruffy second-hand Canada Goose jacket, a pair of thermal trousers and a warm hat. Then he started to watch the front door of Tora’s apartment block. This was a tricky exercise, because there wasn’t anywhere to hide, and it would arouse suspicion if people saw him wandering up and down the street for too long.

Ockham again. He bought a six-pack of beer and sat down on a bench a hundred metres from the door. Because he was in full view, he became invisible. An old drunk that nobody wanted to look at. He couldn’t manage more than a few hours a day, but he had Robbie in his pocket: his luck had to be in at some point, for fuck’s sake.

During the course of five mornings he saw neither Jerry nor Tora leave the apartment. What he did see was girls going into the apartment block; sometimes he caught a glimpse of them or Tora up at the window. He came to the conclusion that Jerry wasn’t home.

Sometimes his mobile rang. Girls he had made a half-hearted play for ages ago or more recently, old acquaintances who wanted to check out the situation. Presumably the word was out that he was the man behind Tora Larsson, and he had become someone it might be worth keeping in touch with. He could hear the clink of crockery or the murmur of conversation in the background when they called from restaurants or cafés, the impersonal, obsequious tone in their voices.

He sat on his bench and shivered, held the phone well away from his ear and said Hi and How’s it going and Cool, and he despised every last one of them. They were little pack animals, lemmings gathering kudos as they hurtled towards the abyss, squeaking as they ran.

He raised his can of ice-cold beer to Tora Larsson’s window. He loathed her and he respected her. As he sat here on his bench and she wandered around her apartment, there was a bond between them, an invisible trail of blood running from his feet to her door, through her letterbox and into her body. A shudder ran down his spine as he thought about it.

Finally, on the sixth day, Tora came out with the freak. Max gripped his beer can with both hands and stared down at the ground as if he was too drunk to look up when they walked past him, just a few metres away. He watched them disappear in the direction of the subway and waited a few minutes before entering the building and taking the lift up to her apartment.

With stiff hands he took Robbie out of his pocket and pressed him to his forehead. Then he tried the handle. The door wasn’t locked. He just stood there for while staring into the wide-open apartment as if he was afraid a trap might suddenly slam shut. He just couldn’t be this lucky.

He steeled himself and slipped into the hallway, closing the door behind him. Quietly he said, ‘Hello? Anyone home?’ No reply and no time to lose. He headed for the computer in the living room and bit his lower lip when he saw that it was switched off. He started it up, whispering, ‘Come on, come on, come on, please…’

His luck was out. He needed a password to get into the system. He tried ‘Tora’ and ‘Tesla’ and a number of other words. Finally he hammered in ‘fuckinghell’, but that particular curse didn’t work either. He shut down the computer and went hunting.

In a bag in the hallway he found what he was looking for. He recognised the cheap MP3 player from his second meeting with Tora. He started to sweat in his thick jacket as he scrolled through the playlists, and under ‘Theres’ he found ‘Fly’ along with another twenty or so songs. He put the earphones in and was able to confirm that he had struck gold.

Theres?

He slipped the MP3 player in his pocket and stood by the door, unsure what to do next. The girls had gone off somewhere on the subway; he was bound to have some time left.

Theres?

This was probably his only chance to find out something about the girl who had come to rule his life. He undid his jacket so that he could cool down, locked the door from the inside and started searching the apartment with fresh eyes.

In the drawer of the bedside table next to what was presumably Jerry’s bed, he found a folder with documents relating to the sale of a house. Jerry had inherited it from his parents, Lennart and Laila Cederström. The estate inventory indicated that they had both passed away on the same date. Max vaguely recognised the name Lennart Cederström, but couldn’t place it. Something to do with music. He stored the name in his memory.

In the desk drawers he found more rubbish, the kind you might expect. Old bills and guarantees, documents from Idol and the very first letter he had sent. What struck him as he went through rental agreements and bank statements was that there wasn’t a single document anywhere relating to Tora. Nothing from any school or authority, no mementoes.

Her own room was spartan, like a cell in a refugee hostel. A CD player, a few CDs and Bamse the Bear comics. A bed. On the bedside table lay an ID card. Max picked it up and studied it carefully.

Angelika Tora Larsson. So far, so good. But there was absolutely no chance that the girl in the photograph was the Tora he knew. He held the card up to the light, looked at it side-on. Someone had altered it. The card was battered and scratched, but it was obvious that something had been done to the numbers indicating the date of birth.

Angelika. Tora. Theres.

He wasn’t one jot closer to understanding who the girl calling herself Tora Larsson actually was, but two things he did know. One: there was something very suspect going on here. And two: he ought to be able to use it to his advantage.

He had been in the apartment for over an hour, it was almost eleven o’clock and he decided not to tempt fate any longer. Before he left he checked that everything looked just the same as when he arrived. He closed the door behind him and listened to make sure no one was coming up the stairs, then hurried down and out into the street. As he headed for the subway he noticed that there were a couple of police cars parked outside the shop, right next to the bench where he would no longer need to sit. He was done here. He had found what he was looking for, and a lot more.

As soon as he got home he poured himself a large celebratory whisky. Then he transferred the songs from the MP3 player to his computer, and sat down to listen to them.

Gold. Pure gold. Five of the songs were definitely in the same class as ‘Fly’, and the rest were perfectly OK. The lyrics weren’t always that brilliant, but he couldn’t think of many Swedish artists who wouldn’t be proud to be associated with this album.

Yes, album. He had already started thinking about it like that. The files that were now on his computer would have to be run through the desk a few times, the production had to be sorted out and they needed to be tidied up a bit, but he had everything he needed for a real smash.

However, there was a problem. Tora Larsson would never agree to the project, and he didn’t know what she might do when she found out what he was up to. It was a dilemma, to put it mildly.

With the help of the computer Max started checking the information he had found in the apartment. He soon discovered that no one with Tora’s ID number existed. However, Angelika Tora Larsson did exist, and she had the same number if you altered just one digit.

Max found the really juicy information when he did a search on Lennart and Laila Cederström. He read the articles about the Swedish pop stars who had been brutally murdered, their son Jerry, and the strange room the police had discovered in the cellar. He put this together with what his back knew about Tora’s capacity for violence, and suddenly his dilemma was no longer a dilemma.

He no longer had a problem; it was Tora Larsson who had a problem. He could do exactly what he wanted, and she wouldn’t be able to say a word.

On Monday morning Teresa went to school. Heads turned to look at her as she got on the bus. She went straight to the back, and sat with her feet in their Doc Martens on the back of the seat in front of her. People looked at her and sniggered. As soon as she looked them in the eye, they looked away.

Eight members of her class had arrived before her. They were standing around waiting for the first lesson to start. One of them was Karl-Axel, the documentary film maker. Teresa was completely calm inside as she met his gaze from some distance away. She walked steadily along the corridor, the boots giving her footsteps weight and power.

When she was a couple of metres away from the group, Karl-Axel grinned and said, ‘Morning Teresa’, then grabbed the side of his cheek and pulled it in and out a couple of times so that it made a smacking, slurping noise. A couple of the lads gave a dirty laugh.

Teresa could have sat down right at the end of the bench outside the classroom and ignored the whole thing. Someone would say how disappointing it was that stuffed cabbage leaves weren’t on the lunch menu today, someone else would say they hoped she hadn’t eaten too much for breakfast. Something along those lines. She could have sat there with her eyes firmly fixed on the floor, pretending she couldn’t hear them. But she had thought the situation through, and it just wasn’t an option.

Instead she grinned back at Karl-Axel as if he done something really clever, then took a step forward and kicked him in the groin. The boots had a reinforced steel toe-cap, and her aim was more or less perfect. Karl-Axel went down as if a stopper had been pulled out, doubled over on the floor and started shaking before he even worked out how to yell. His mouth was opening and closing, and all the colour had left his face. Teresa leaned over him.

‘What are you saying? What is it you’re trying to say, Karl-Axel?’

Something between a squeak and a whisper emerged from Karl-Axel’s mouth, and Teresa thought she heard him say, ‘Only joking…’ She placed her foot on his cheek, pressed his face down on the floor and turned to the others.

‘Anyone else feel like joking?’

Nobody volunteered, and Teresa removed her foot. The sole had left a pattern on Karl-Axel’s cheek. His body jerked as he pressed his hands to his groin, making inarticulate hissing noises. She looked at him and felt no pleasure. He was just a scared, pathetic little boy, and she actually regretted kicking him quite so hard.

But there was nothing she could do about that. Teresa sat down on the bench and folded her arms, waiting for this minor incident to be over. There would no doubt be more, but she had gone back to her idea about simplicity, and her plans for the day were simple. As soon as someone said or did something derogatory about her, she would kick them. The girls on the shin, the boys on the cock, if possible. That was all.

Several more students arrived, and Karl-Axel was still refusing to get up. Whispered conversations took place as the new arrivals were told what had happened.

Agnes arrived only a minute or so before the lesson was due to begin. By that time Karl-Axel had managed to struggle up into a sitting position, leaning against the lockers. She tilted her head to one side and asked, ‘Why are you sitting there?’

Karl-Axel shook his head, and Patrik said, ‘Teresa kicked him. Between the legs. Really fucking hard.’

Agnes turned to Teresa with the hint of an ambiguous smile on her lips. At first Teresa thought it was a kind of approval, but when Agnes didn’t sit down next to her as usual, she suspected it was just for want of anything else to do.

Teresa’s plan succeeded beyond all expectation. Everyone in the class avoided her, but nobody said anything else during the course of the day. Not even Jenny managed to come out with a spiteful comment when Teresa was within earshot. She concentrated on her inner wolf, and remained unmoved.

It was only during the lunch break that her defences wobbled. Nobody came to sit by her, but as she sat there with her lunch she could feel the eyes on her, hear the whispers. What was Dirty Teresa going to do with the food? What was Puky Teresa going to stick in her mouth now?

She looked at her plate, on which two pieces of crumbed fish lay next to four potatoes with a few slices of tomato around the edge. A lump rose from her stomach, stuck in her throat and turned to nausea. She could kick anyone who stood in her way, but she couldn’t eat this.

She thought about getting up, going over to the slop bucket, scraping all the food off her plate and leaving the dining room. Everybody laughing behind her back. Oh what fun they would have.

Smoke rose from the plate. The quarry’s flank ripped open, the steaming blood meeting the cold air. She cut a piece of potato and bit through the skin. Her jaws tensed as she chewed through muscle and sinew. The dying twitches of the crumbed fish, then the bite that extinguished all life. The red juice of the tomatoes, running down her throat. Not a scrap would be left for the crows.

When she got up and carried her empty plate over to the counter, the white skeleton she handed over had been scraped clean. A successful hunt, a meal which would keep the body alive for the rest of the day. She had won.

And so it went on. Day after day Teresa went to school in her red boots, fearing nothing and no one. Nor did she feel any longing or regret. When she met Micke, she nodded to him and he nodded back. There was nothing to say, and she was done with emotions. They had died along with her childhood, spilt in red pools on a cement floor.

She could have grieved, but did not do so because her emotions had been replaced by perceptions. Her senses were at full stretch; liberated from her brain’s struggle with itself, Teresa experienced every impression with much greater intensity.

She could walk down corridors and enjoy the murmur of voices behind closed doors, the colours of the cupboards and the walls, the smell of paper, cleaning materials and drying clothes. She could enjoy all the impressions that, taken together, made her a part of the world, someone who was walking around and who was alive. Such an obvious fact that she had managed to ignore for fifteen years: she was alive.

Therefore, she did not grieve for what she had lost, but instead rejoiced at what she had gained and what she had become. It was that simple. It may not have showed on the outside, but she was happy.

On Tuesday evening she spent a while exchanging emails with Theres, making plans for the weekend’s meeting with the other girls. They settled on Sunday at twelve o’clock, but as Jerry was back it couldn’t be in Svedmyra. They could meet outdoors, but where? They would give the matter some thought; nothing was decided.

Teresa surfed various sites on wolves, read some new posts on the forum, and ended up on an auction site where someone was selling a wolf skin. The starting price was six hundred kronor; the auction was due to end in a couple of hours, and so far nobody had put in an offer.

She looked at the photograph of the grey pelt, laid out on an ordinary kitchen table. Once upon a time it had been part of a real wolf, the hunter of the forest. Muscles had worked beneath that fur, it had rubbed up against other coats, loped across the snow and howled beneath the stars. If someone bought it, it might end up on the floor in front of a fire, something soft for the kids to sit on.

Without giving it any further thought, Teresa put in a maximum bid of one thousand kronor. Five minutes later she went back and raised it to two thousand. That was all the money she had in her account. She had given the bits of paper from the metal cash box to Theres.

She lay down on her bed and read some Ekelöf. The rapport she had felt when she came out of hospital was no longer there, and she caught herself thinking Ekelöf was weak. A weakling. A little worm of a writer. But still. She read these lines several times:

The silence of the deep night is great

It is not disturbed by the rustle of the people

eating one another here on the shore

It was the word ‘rustle’ she liked. That was all. A rustling sound as flesh is consumed.

She put down the book and lay with her hands behind her head, missing her MP3 player. She didn’t like the idea that Max Hansen might be sitting wearing her earphones at this very minute, listening to the songs she and Teresa had made together. She didn’t like it at all. It was like knowing there was a pig in the wardrobe, a snout snuffling around among your clean clothes.

Her mobile rang, and when Teresa answered she expected to hear that slimy voice from the depths of the sty, but it was Johannes. After a few introductory phrases he asked how she was, and she said she was absolutely fine.

‘It’s just that I’ve got a feeling you’re…I don’t know, that you’re not there, kind of.’

‘I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m here.’

‘So why are you avoiding me, then?’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, you are. Do you think I haven’t noticed?’

‘What does it matter? You don’t want anything to do with me.’

There was a long sigh at the other end of the phone. Then Johannes said, ‘Teresa, just stop that. You’re my oldest friend. Don’t you remember what we said? That we’d be friends. No matter what.’

Teresa had a strange, rough feeling in her throat, but her voice sounded perfectly normal when she replied, ‘We said a lot of things. When we were little.’

‘Are you thinking about anything in particular?’

‘No.’

Johannes gave a snort, as if he were smiling at some memory. ‘I just thought about that time…when we were lying in the cave, do you remember? When we said we were going to be dead?’

The rough feeling in her throat had begun to take on the form of a lump, and Teresa said, ‘Listen, I’ve got things to do.’

‘OK. But can’t you come over one day, Teresa? It’s such a long time since we had a proper chat. And listen, we can play Tekken! I’ve got a…’

‘Bye Johannes. Bye.’

She ended the call. Then she wrapped her arms tightly around her stomach and leaned forward, then down as far as she could until there was a rushing noise in her head and it started to hurt. She straightened up and it flowed away. Her skull emptied as the blood poured back down her body and her anxiety abated.

She tore a sheet of paper into tiny, tiny pieces which she pushed in her mouth and chewed. When the paper had turned into a soggy ball, she spat it out into the waste paper basket. She was grateful that she was alone. Her defences were weak; if anyone had wanted to harm her, this would have been the perfect opportunity.

It was quarter past eleven, and the auction was over. She checked her messages and found an email from the website telling her she had won. No one else had put in a bid, and the wolf skin was hers for six hundred kronor.

She knew exactly what she was going to do with it, and where she was going to suggest for Sunday’s meeting.

‘He wrote. Max Hansen.’

‘What did he write?’

‘That he knows. About Lennart and Laila. And the room. When I was little. How they ended up dead.’

‘So what’s he going to do, then?’

‘An album. With our songs.’

‘No, I mean what’s he going to do with what he’s found out. About you.’

‘Nothing.’

‘What? Is that what he wrote, that he’s not going to do anything at all?’

‘If I don’t do anything, he won’t do anything. That’s what it said.’

They were sitting right at the back of the number 47 bus from Sergels Torg. A few families with children were sitting towards the front, but the seats closest to them were empty. It was the middle of April, and the streams of tourists heading for Djurgården had not yet got under way. Teresa leaned forward, resting her elbows on the full rucksack at her feet as she tried to think.

It was hardly likely to be in Max Hansen’s interests to reveal what he knew about Theres; it was just an empty threat.

Or was it?

The girl who grew up in a cellar and turned into a cold-blooded murderer. It was just the kind of story people loved. Teresa had never thought about Theres’ story in that way before, but she could see it now. The newspaper screamers. Day after day. A story that would run and run, and plenty of free advertising for the album. Could Max Hansen be such an evil bastard? Could he?

As the bus crossed the bridge Teresa straightened up and took a deep breath, drumming the heels of her boots on the floor. It was pointless to speculate. She would concentrate on what was happening now.

Twelve girls had said they were coming. The youngest was fourteen, the oldest nineteen. Theres had told her a little bit about each of them, but Teresa found it difficult to separate the monosyllabic accounts and link them to the names. Miranda and Beata and Cecilia and two Annas and so on.

She remembered Miranda from that time in the apartment, and Ronja was the name of a girl Theres said had tried to kill herself three times, once by eating glass. That had stuck in Teresa’s mind, because it was so extreme. Ronja. No doubt her parents had had something else in mind when they chose the name.

They got off outside Skansen. Teresa heaved the rucksack onto her back and headed for the Solliden entrance. Theres didn’t follow her. She was stuck outside the main entrance, gazing up at the sign. When Teresa turned back, Theres asked, ‘Is this Skansen?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’

‘A zoo. And some old buildings, that kind of thing. Why do you ask?’

Theres frowned. ‘I’m going to sing here.’

‘What? Or rather…when? How come?’

‘I don’t understand. Am I going to sing to the animals?’

Teresa looked at the big, ornate letters above the entrance. She knew there were concerts here sometimes, and so of course…

‘Just hang on a minute,’ she said. ‘When are you going to sing here?’

‘In the summer. Max Hansen wrote. Sing Along at Skansen. Good publicity.’

‘You’re performing at Sing Along at Skansen?’

‘Yes. Otherwise he’ll tell about Lennart and Laila.’ Theres’ tone of voice altered slightly, and Teresa sensed that she was just regurgitating something Max Hansen had written when she went on, ‘Then Jerry will go to prison. I’ll end up in the loony bin with all the other nutters. Why am I going to sing to the animals?’

Teresa took off her rucksack and put it on the ground. Then she sat down on it and asked Theres to sit next to her. She took her hand.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘First of all. You’re not going to sing to the animals. There’ll be people there. Thousands of people. Adults and kids and teenagers. It’s shown on TV. Millions of people watch it. That’s what it’s about, OK? Sing Along at Skansen.’

Theres nodded. Then she shook her head. ‘That’s not good. A lot of people is not good. I know.’

‘No. And secondly. You are not going to end up in a loony bin. And if you do, I’ll be coming with you. We’re both just as screwed up, OK? Whatever happens to you, happens to me. That’s just the way it is. But this business with Max Hansen…I don’t know what we’re going to do.’

‘We’ll have to make him dead.’

Teresa laughed. ‘I should think he’ll be bloody careful around us from now on. But we’ll have to think of something.’

‘Yes. That’s good. Now let go of my hand.’

Teresa didn’t let go. When Theres tried to pull away, she held on more tightly. ‘Why don’t you like it when I take your hand?’

‘You’re not to take my hand. It’s my hand.’

The leap of logic distracted Teresa, and Theres pulled away and stood up. Teresa stayed where she was, looking at her own hands. Take my hand. People took things from one another. She was not to take Theres’ hand. Of course.

She hoisted up the rucksack again and went ahead of Theres along Sollidsbacken, outside the railings. On the miniature map she had printed off from the internet the distances had looked quite short, but when they reached the Solliden entrance she realised they had almost a kilometre still to go. A bus passed on Djurgårdsvägen; presumably the buses went all the way. She would bear that in mind for next time. If there was a next time.

They turned off onto Sirishovsvägen. Teresa looked at her map, and once they had passed the Bellman gate they walked another hundred metres along the wire fence, peering through the netting.

‘They’re not here,’ said Theres.

Teresa looped her fingers through the wire and slowly scanned the terrain. She had imagine a more open area, but the wolf enclosure was a landscape of trees with new leaves, bushes and stones strewn over hillsides. Their natural environment. She knew there should be seven wolves in there, but there was no sign of any of them.

Her gaze stopped at an oddly shaped rock, and she gasped. It was a block of stone, but its strange shape was due to the fact that there was a wolf lying right on top. It was lying completely still, looking in their direction.

‘There,’ she said, pointing it out to Theres. ‘There.’

Theres stood right next to her, pressing her body against the fence so that she could get as close as possible. They were caught in the wolf’s field of vision, and a faint breeze was blowing towards their backs. Presumably the wolf had picked up their scent. Teresa’s stomach flipped over. Right now you’re thinking about us. What are you thinking? How do you think?

They stood there for a long time, clinging to the fence and looking at the wolf looking back at them. They were together. Then the wolf began to lick the fur on its paws, and left them.

‘Why are you unhappy?’ asked Theres.

Only then did Teresa discover that her eyes were wet, and tears had run down her cheeks.

‘I’m not unhappy,’ she said. ‘I’m happy. Because I’ve arrived.’

They spread blankets on the ground in front of the wolf enclosure. Before Teresa pulled the wolf skin out of her rucksack, she glanced over at the rock. The wolf had left its post, which was a good thing, because as she placed it in the centre it felt like a kind of blasphemy. As if she were not worthy.

She and Theres sat down on the blankets with their backs to the fence and waited. In the message calling everyone to the meeting, they had explained that Teresa who wrote the lyrics would also be coming. She didn’t feel like Teresa who wrote the lyrics. She was a little lone wolf, and a strange pack was moving closer.

‘Theres?’ she asked. ‘Have you played them all the songs?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you told them about yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Lennart and Laila and…everything?’

‘Yes. Everything.’

It was as she suspected, and there was really only one question she wanted to ask. She was afraid of the question because she was afraid of the answer, but she asked it anyway.

‘Theres. What is it that makes me different from them?’

‘You came first. You wrote the words.’

‘But otherwise we’re similar?’

‘Yes. Very similar.’

Teresa lowered her head. What had she thought? That she was unique and the only person in the whole world with whom Theres could have contact, the only person who could love Theres? Yes. That’s exactly what she had thought, until she walked into Theres’ apartment and found the pack gathered. Now she had the final confirmation that she had been an idiot.

Very similar.

The first group of seven girls was approaching from the bus stop. There was one consolation to be found in Theres’ painful honesty: perhaps the pack wasn’t as alien as she had thought. She watched the seven girls, and even from a distance there was already something she recognised in their movements, the way they walked, as if their footsteps might damage the ground.

Teresa undid her boots, pulled the laces tighter and said, ‘But they haven’t made anyone dead, have they? None of them?’

‘No.’

‘And do you think they could?’

‘Yes. All of them.’

Teresa looked at the little group who had now reached the fence, and her eyes narrowed. A new plan took its first uncertain steps in her brain. Then she waved and smiled.

All of them.

When the girls came over to say hello, Teresa felt elevated in a way she had never experienced before. She was treated with respect, as if she were giving an audience. She couldn’t help it; she enjoyed it. She had never been the focus of so much positive attention.

They praised certain phrasing or individual lines, some said that her lyrics described exactly how they felt themselves, and that they wished they could write like that. After a few comments in that vein Teresa sought refuge in false modesty, and said that it wasn’t really anything special, anyone could have…and so on.

In spite of the fact that the other girls regarded her as an authority, they still spoke the same language. It was a different matter with Theres. They treated her like something made of the finest porcelain, speaking quietly and not daring to touch her. When Theres spoke they listened, their bodies tense with concentration.

What Theres said was nothing remarkable, but of course Teresa knew how it worked. Theres had the ability to say exactly the right thing to the right person, the self-evident truth that that particular person needed, expressed with that elusive, subjugating tone in her voice that made it into more than truth, into The Truth.

After exchanging greetings and chatting for a while, the girls sat down around the wolf skin and immersed themselves in their own thoughts, or ventured some tentative comment.

Teresa hadn’t expected it, but when they were all assembled and she looked around the group-how they sat, the way they moved their hands, how they looked-she concluded that she was probably the strongest person there. She had nothing to be afraid of.

On the other hand, she was the one who had known Theres the longest, the one sitting by her side. What would she have been without Theres? A little grey mouse, scurrying along by the wall and trying to be invisible. Maybe. Or maybe not. In any case, she looked at the others with tenderness in her eyes. When little Linn started to look as if she might burst into tears, Teresa felt no jealousy as Theres crept over to her and whispered in her ear until she was calm again.

Apart from Ronja, none of these girls would pick up much support in the voting for prom queen. Several of them were a few kilos overweight, like Teresa, and about half had piercings: lips, nose or eyebrows. Beata’s appearance was Asiatic, and she was the only one who seemed to have naturally black hair; both Annas, Linn and Caroline had different-coloured roots.

Only Cecilia was actually fat, and she hid her body in coarse military clothing, but most of the others were dressed in bulky clothes that hid their shape. As for make-up, it covered the entire spectrum-from Melinda, who had birds’ wings drawn in pen at the corners of her eyes, to Erika who wasn’t wearing any make-up at all, and who was so colourless in general that she was almost invisible. Teresa guessed that hardly any of them were joiners: they wouldn’t be members of any club or society.

But Ronja was the exception. She was the oldest in the group at nineteen, and looked like the sporty type: football, probably. She was wearing Adidas trousers and a windbreaker, she was slender and her hair was blonde and straight. A more athletic, socially adept version of Theres. Not the prettiest girl in the class, but a perfectly acceptable candidate to wear the crown. And she was the one who ate glass.

A common denominator united them, and it was probably only Teresa who was aware of it: the scent of the girls. They all smelled more or less the same. Hardly any of them used perfume, and those few did so sparingly. But that wasn’t the scent they had in common, it was what lay beneath it. Fear.

It had been Teresa’s own bodily odour for so many years that she recognised it immediately. She could probably have sniffed her way to each and every one of these girls if they were on the same bus. A bitter, sweetish smell with a hint of flammable liquid. Coca-Cola mixed with petrol.

As the girls shuffled closer to one another and the conversations got going, there was a change in the air around them. The security of the pack made the scent diminish. Their bodies, their skin, ceased to exude fear as the conversations intertwined to form a single, unified melody.

‘…and I can feel the whole thing just falling apart…my mum’s got a new bloke and I don’t like the way he looks at me…they said I couldn’t come even if I paid…he came home in the middle of the night and he had a knife…and even though I try my best in every way…shook my little brother and he ended up with brain damage…have to wear earphones all the time so nobody can hear…and when I’m walking along, it’s as if it’s somebody else walking along…that I was completely worthless, that I had no chance…tried to hide under the bed, which was just so fucking stupid…the music I listen to, my clothes, how I look, everything…that noise, when I hear that noise I know…as if I didn’t exist…little tiny pinpricks all the time…just to walk away, leave it all behind…nobody but me…’

Teresa turned towards the enclosure just in time to see the wolf clambering up onto his rock once more, folding its paws in front of it then looking down on the group of girls with its ears pricked, as if it were listening to their conversations. Teresa turned back to the others and pointed.

‘That wolf,’ she said. ‘It’s looking at us. It’s wondering who we are. Who are we?’

The conversations died away, and they all looked up at the grey figure lying calmly watching them. Judging by the size, Teresa guessed it was a female.

‘Because we are something, aren’t we?’ she went on. ‘Together we are something, although we don’t know what it is yet. Do you feel it too?’

While the girls were talking, Theres had sat there humming quietly to herself, but now the humming turned into words, flowing out of her mouth like a song. Her gaze was turned inwards, and her hands hovered in front of her as if she were carrying out some complex invocation of which her voice was a part. In a second they were all swept up in its rhythm, and several of the girls began to sway in time with the melody of her speech.

‘All those who are afraid must stop being afraid. No one has done wrong. No one will be alone. The big people want us. They will not have us. I do not understand. But we are strong now. I do not understand we. We. We. I am small. We are not small. We are the red that comes out. We are what they want. No one will be allowed to touch us.’

When the flow of words ceased, there was absolute silence, and all the girls sat gazing into space with unseeing eyes. Then the silence was broken by a muted clapping. It was Ronja, bringing her palms together three times, applauding.

Teresa pulled the wolf skin towards her and took the plate shears out of her rucksack. She cut a strip off the skin and gave it to Linn, who whispered, ‘Thank you,’ and rubbed the coarse fur over her cheek. Teresa carried on cutting and handing out strips until everyone had a piece. Some put it in their pocket, but most sat stroking the grey, dense hair as if it really was a body they held in their hands.

‘From now on,’ said Teresa, ‘we are the pack. Anyone who harms one of us, harms us all.’

The girls nodded and stroked the wolf skin they now shared. Suddenly Ronja laughed out loud. She rocked back and forth, howling with laughter and waving the strip of skin around. Teresa looked at her, listened to the sound of her laughter and recognised something from her time in the psychiatric unit, from the other inmates. Ronja was a combination of letters, a diagnosis. She had some kind of mental illness that Teresa couldn’t put a name to.

When Ronja had finished laughing, she kissed the piece of skin several times, then knotted it around her arm with the help of her teeth before turning to Teresa.

‘You said just now that we are something, although we don’t know what it is yet. I can tell you what we are. We’re a gang of losers who like your songs. And we’re dangerous. Seriously fucking dangerous.’

Over the next few weeks the group tried to find its direction. Apart from Theres and Teresa’s songs, there wasn’t much that linked them, no interest or activity on which to focus. They only thing they had was the feeling of necessity, the sense that they needed to meet and be together, but in every other way they were a drifting pack with no definite goal.

All of them wanted to be close to Theres. A contradictory mixture of the urge to defend and take care of this fragile girl, and the urge to venerate and fear her as something sent from heaven. They thirsted for her words, her voice when she occasionally sang, her mere presence.

And they thirsted for each other. Gradually they all spoke of the scent Teresa had been aware of during their first meeting. This was the only group where they felt safe. The fear that ruled their everyday lives faded away when they sat down together.

Teresa had begun to regard these Sunday gatherings as her real life, and the group as her family. The other days of the week were merely incidental; she longed constantly for the weekend when she would be with her family.

And yet there was something missing. Ronja said they were more like an encounter group than a pack. They all had their piece of wolf skin, some had even sewn it on their jackets, but where was this pack actually going, what was it going to do?

The third time they met, Linn, who had begun to pluck up the courage to speak, told them that she sometimes pretended she was dead. She mentioned it in passing, but struck an unexpected chord. It turned out that they had found a very clear common denominator. All of them, every single one of the girls, played that particular game.

So they began to play it together. Lying on the grass outside the wolf enclosure, they held each other’s hands, closed their eyes and whispered chants such as: ‘The grass is growing through our hearts’, ‘Our bodies are rotting and the worms are eating us from the inside’, ‘We are sinking through the earth and all is silent’. They could lie like that for a long time, and when they rose from their graves it was as if the world had become more alive.

Theres said it was good, but not right. When Teresa asked what she meant, the reply was that Teresa already knew.

Yes. She knew. But it was not the kind of knowledge she could share with the others. Irrespective of how much she valued their affinity, she dared not trust them in the same unconsidered way that Theres did.

Teresa would have liked to tell them, talk about her own experience and show them the scar on her stomach. How she had come to life and how her senses had been heightened, how ever since she had lived in a present that had not been accessible before. How this allowed her to sit in the group and really be there, to leave the group and still feel the quiver of life in the rustle of the leaves, the smell of exhaust fumes and the play of colours.

But she dared not tell them. The others were not in the same place as her. When they met it always took a while before they found their common voice, before the fear was driven out. The other six days of the week were stuck firmly to them, and in spite of everything they were just other people with parents and classmates.

So difficult to stay alive! She often thought about it, and remembered what she had been like. Never really there. She had caught sight of herself only in fleeting glimpses between her troubles and her thoughts, as someone who breathes and lives and can experience the moment. Then it was gone.

So different now. Teresa would have liked to tell them. But it was too dangerous. Yet.