Part 9 (1/2)

”You should turn off the TV if it's bad,” Eva said. ”Don't you have any homework?”

”The math teacher is sick. It's great.”

”Don't you have a sub?”

Hugo shook his head.

Eva returned to the bathroom and put in a load of wool delicates. With regard to her neighbors it was actually too late, but a wool cycle did not take long. She would have to do the rest the next day.

She wondered if she should call Patrik, but decided to wait until ten o'clock.

By a quarter to eleven. Patrik had still not come home. His cell phone went to voice mail and Eva recorded a message. At eleven she called again but the result was the same, just voice mail. Patrik had still not come home. His cell phone went to voice mail and Eva recorded a message. At eleven she called again but the result was the same, just voice mail.

Hugo had reluctantly gone to bed.

Eva sat in the kitchen and checked the time on the wall clock at regular intervals. He usually called when he was going to be late. She stood up and walked to the window. In the building across the courtyard most of the windows were dark. In Helen's place, on the first floor of building seven, the light was on. She was probably sitting up knitting. Perhaps she was waiting for her husband. Sometimes he worked nights, or at least claimed to.

She leaned her forehead against the windowpane. If only he would come home soon, she thought, and glanced at the clock again.

She did not know exactly where Zero lived and she did not have his telephone number. She had seen Zero's mother at a meeting at the school, but from what Eva could tell she did not speak Swedish.

It struck her that maybe Hugo had Zero's cell phone number and she gently tiptoed up to the door of his room.

”What is it?” Hugo called out immediately.

”I thought maybe you had Zero's cell phone number,” Eva said and tried to sound as normal as possible.

”I've already called,” Hugo mumbled. ”There's no answer.”

The first thing Eva saw was the blood. As if the rest of Patrik did not exist. It was when he closed the door behind him that all of him appeared. was the blood. As if the rest of Patrik did not exist. It was when he closed the door behind him that all of him appeared.

”What have you done?”

The question that all parents in all times and cultures ask their children. Thrown out with an anger that conceals the first gnawing anxiety and even finally the fears of the worst.

”I fell,” Patrik said.

”Fell?! Your whole head is bleeding.”

She saw that he had made an attempt to wipe away the worst of it, but even so his forehead and one cheek were covered. At the hairline he had lumps of clotted blood and his lower lip was swollen.

For a moment they stared at each other. Patrik had that expression in his eyes from a long time ago, before he imperceptibly and then all the more clearly changed into someone else. Eva a.s.sumed it was the teenager's way of developing, distancing himself in order to find himself, but she still missed the old connection and closeness.

Now it was there again for a few seconds and Eva realized she had to tread carefully.

”I'll put on some tea,” she said.

Patrik took off his jacket, which was covered in blood, and held it indecisively in his hand.

”I'll take care of it later,” Eva said. ”Drop it on the floor.”

A jacket, she thought, bought for a couple hundred kronor-what does it matter? Her whole body trembled at the sight of him. At that moment the door to Hugo's room opened.

”What is it?”

Eva knew he must not have slept a wink.

”It's okay,” she said. ”Go back to bed.”

Hugo looked bewildered and a little frightened at his brother.

”No, I take that back, you can have tea with us.”

While the water was heating up, Eva wiped Patrik's face clean. The wounds were not so large: one three-centimeter cut at the hairline, a scratch across his right eye, and a swollen lip. up, Eva wiped Patrik's face clean. The wounds were not so large: one three-centimeter cut at the hairline, a scratch across his right eye, and a swollen lip.

She wondered if the cut at his hairline needed stiches, but decided in the end that it didn't. It would heal fine and a small scar, concealed by his bangs, wouldn't matter.

Patrik winced every time she dabbed at the cut with disinfecting solution. He smelled of sweat. His hair was sticky and his face pale.

Hugo had put out mugs. At the center of the table on a small plate were three tea bags, all with different flavors. Now he was standing at the window in his robe, looking out.

”Do you think he's coming here?” Hugo asked.

”Who?”

”Zero.”

”I don't think so, and we don't know what's happened. Are you afraid of him?”

Hugo shook his head while Patrik sat at the kitchen table.

Eva poured out the water.

”Tell us about it,” she said.

Fourteen.

Manuel's grandfather had been a a bracero bracero, one of those who traveled around the United States in the 1940s in order to fill the gaps left by the men who had been called up to war. Most of them had done well for themselves, returning from Idaho and Was.h.i.+ngton with colored s.h.i.+rts, leather shoes, and cash.

This created an impression that life in the United States was easy, that one could quickly ama.s.s a fortune there. Many followed the pioneers. Manuel's father was one of these. He returned, thin and worked to the bone after three long years, and with a gaze that alternated between an expression of desperation and optimism. Two years later he died. One day his carotid artery burst and he was dead within minutes.

In 1998, two days before he turned twenty-two, Manuel made his first trip.

It was easy to be impressed by the land in the north. What Manuel noticed first were all the cars, then he saw how he, as a Mexican, was not regarded as fully human. He worked for a year, saved four hundred dollars, and returned to the village.

Patricio worked out that if all three brothers worked for two years in the fields to the north, they would be able to rebuild the house and buy a mule, and so they set off together.