Part 1 (2/2)

”Naw... I mean, I've read a lot and stuff.”

The policeman nodded.

”Now there's a good thing. Reading.” He shook the little bag. ”You won't have much time for it if you get into this, though. How much do you think this little bag is worth?”

Oskar didn't feel the need to say anything else. He had been looked at and spoken to. Had even been able to tell the cop he read a lot. That was more than he had hoped for.

He let himself sink into a daydream. How the policeman came up to him after cla.s.s and was interested in him, sat down next to him. Then he would tell him everything. And the policeman would understand. He would stroke his hair and tell him he was alright; would hold him and say...

”f.u.c.king snitch.”

Jonny Forsberg drove a hard finger into his side. Jonny's brother ran with the drug crowd and Jonny knew a lot of words that the other guys in the cla.s.s quickly picked up. Jonny probably knew exactly how much that bag was worth but he didn't snitch. Didn't talk to the cop. It was recess and Oskar lingered by the coat rack, indecisive. Jonny wanted to hurt him-what was the best way to avoid it? By staying here in the hallway or going outside? Jonny and the other cla.s.s members stormed out the doors into the schoolyard.

That's right; the policeman had his car parked in the schoolyard and anyone who was interested could come take a look. Jonny wouldn't dare beat him up when the policeman was there.

Oskar walked down to the double front doors and looked out the gla.s.s window. Just as he thought, everyone in the cla.s.s had gathered around the patrol car. Oskar would also have wanted to be there but there was no point. Someone would knee him, another pull his underpants up in a wedgie, policeman or no policeman.

But at least he was off the hook this recess. He went out into the schoolyard and snuck around the back of the building, to the bathrooms. Once he was in the bathroom he listened, cleared his throat. The sound echoed through the stalls. He reached his hand into his underpants and quickly pulled out the p.i.s.sball, a piece of foam about the size of a Clementine that he had cut out of an old mattress and put a hole in for his p.e.n.i.s. He smelled it.

Yup, he had p.i.s.sed in his pants again. He rinsed it under the tap, squeezing out as much water as possible.

Incontinence. That was what it was called. He had read about it in a pamphlet that he had sneaked from the drugstore. Mostly something old women suffered from.

And me.

There were prescription medicines you could get, it said in the pamphlet, but he did not intend to use his allowance so he could humiliate himself at the prescription counter. And he would definitely not tell his mother; she would feel so sorry for him it would make him sick.

He had the p.i.s.sball and it worked for now.

Footsteps outside, voices. p.i.s.sball in hand, he fled into the nearest stall and locked the door at the same time as the outer door opened. He soundlessly climbed up onto the toilet seat, curling into a ball so his feet wouldn't show if anyone looked under the door. Tried not to breathe. Pig-gy?

Jonny, of course.

”Hey Piggy, are you here?”

Micke was with him. The worst two of the lot. No, Tomas was worse but he was almost never in on stuff that involved physical blows and scratches. Too smart for that. Was probably sucking up to the policeman right now. If the p.i.s.sball were discovered, Tomas was the one who would really be able to use it to hurt and humiliate him for a long time. Jonny and Micke, on the other hand, would just beat him up and that was fine with him. So in a way he was actually lucky. . . .

”Piggy? We know you're in here.”

They checked his stall. Shook the door. Banged on it. Oskar wrapped his arms tightly around his legs and clenched his teeth so he wouldn't scream.

Go away! Leave me alone! Why can't you leave me alone?

Now Jonny was talking in a mild voice.

”Little Pig, if you don't come out now we have to get you after school. Is that what you want?”

It was quiet for a while. Oskar exhaled carefully.

They attacked the door with kicks and blows. The whole bathroom thundered and the lock on the stall door started to bend inward. He should open it, go out to them before they got too mad, but he just couldn't.

”Pi-ggy?”

He had put his hand up in cla.s.s, a declaration of existence, a claim that he knew something. And that was forbidden to him. They could give a number of reasons for why they had to torment him; he was too fat, too ugly, too disgusting. But the real problem was simply that he existed, and every reminder of his existence was a crime.

They were probably just going to ”baptize” him. Shove his head into the toilet bowl and flush. Regardless of what they invented, it was always such a relief when it was over. So why couldn't he just pull back the lock, that was in any case going to tear off at the hinges at any moment, and let them have their fun?

He stared at the bolt that was forced out of the lock with a crack, at the door that flung open and banged into the wall, at Micke Siskov's triumphantly smiling face, and then he knew. That wasn't the way the game was played.

He couldn't have pulled back the lock, they couldn't simply have climbed over the sides of the stall in all of three seconds, because those weren't the rules of the game.

Theirs was the intoxication of the hunter, his the terror of the prey. Once they had actually captured him the fun was over and the punishment more of a duty that had to be carried out. If he gave up too early there was a chance they would put more of their energy into the punishment instead of the hunt. That would be worse.

Jonny Forsberg stuck his head in.

”You'll have to open the lid if you're going to s.h.i.+t, you know. Go on, squeal like a pig.”

And Oskar squealed like a pig. That was a part of it. If he squealed they would sometimes leave it at that. He put extra effort into it this time, afraid they would otherwise force his hand out of his pants in the process of punis.h.i.+ng him and uncover his disgusting secret.

He wrinkled up his nose like a pig's and squealed; grunted and squealed. Jonny and Micke laughed.

”f.u.c.king pig, go on, squeal some more.”

Oskar carried on. Shut his eyes tight and kept going. Balled his hands up into fists so hard that his nails went into his palms, and kept going. Grunted and squealed until he felt a funny taste in his mouth. Then he stopped and opened his eyes.

They were gone.

He stayed put, curled up on the toilet seat, and stared down at the floor. There was a red spot on the tile below. While he was watching, another drop fell from his nose. He tore off a piece of toilet paper and held it against his nostril.

This sometimes happened when he was scared. His nose started to bleed, just like that. It had helped him a few times when they were thinking about hitting him, and decided against it since he was already bleeding. Oskar Eriksson sat there curled up with a wad of paper in one hand and his p.i.s.sball in the other. Got nosebleeds, wet his pants, talked too much. Leaked from every orifice. Soon he would probably start to s.h.i.+t his pants as well. Piggy.

He got up and left the bathroom. Didn't wipe up the drop of blood. Let someone see it, let them wonder. Let them think someone had been killed here, because someone had had been killed here. And for the hundreth time. been killed here. And for the hundreth time.

Hakan Bengtsson, a forty-five-year-old man with an incipient beer belly, a receding hairline, and an address unknown to the authorities, was sitting on the subway, staring out of the window at what was to be his new home.

It was a little ugly, actually. Norrkoping would have been nicer. But having said that, these western suburbs didn't look anything like the Stockholm ghetto-suburbs he had seen on TV: Kista and Rinkeby and Hallonbergen. This was different.

”NEXT STATION: RACKSTA.”.

It was a little softer and rounder than those places. Although, here was a real skysc.r.a.per.

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