The Circle (Hammer) Read online

  The principal’s voice sounds increasingly distant, as if she were speaking under water.

  ‘I have to …’ Rebecka murmurs.

  Gustaf understands. As always. He helps her up and leads her discreetly towards the door. She notices heads turning in their direction, but she doesn’t care. She needs air.

  As soon as they emerge from the auditorium the dizziness subsides. She takes a deep breath.

  ‘Do you want to go outside?’ Gustaf asks. ‘Shall I get you a glass of water?’

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, and gives him a hug, pressing her nose against his neck and taking in his smell. ‘It’s better now. I just felt a bit light-headed.’

  ‘Have you had anything to eat today?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘Why do you ask?’

  They’ve never talked about her problem, but Rebecka is sure that Gustaf senses something. It comes across in glances and pauses, as if he’s building himself up to ask but doesn’t know how to.

  ‘I just thought … You said you were feeling light-headed.’

  She shouldn’t be annoyed. He’s just showing he cares.

  But can’t you ask me straight out? she thinks. Can’t you just ask what you’ve been wondering for months? Is it true what they say about Rebecka? That she throws up after lunch? That she passed out during PE at the beginning of last year because she hadn’t eaten?

  And why can’t you tell him about it? a little voice asks. He’s your boyfriend. You love each other.

  Rebecka already knows the answer.

  She’s afraid he’ll disappear. How could he stand to be with someone who’s such a pain? Who’s so disturbed she won’t eat, then eats too much, throws it all up and goes back to not eating. Someone who lives in constant fear of falling apart. Boys don’t want girls with hang-ups. They want girls who are relaxed, cheerful and laugh a lot. It’s not hard to be like that with Gustaf because he makes her happy. She’s been able to conceal the other side so far.

  Why wouldn’t he be able to love that side, too? the voice asks. Let him in and you’ll see. Tell him what you’ve never told anyone else.

  Rebecka savours those words and the relief she knows she would feel. Then she remembers the anxiety that would return as soon as she’d told him. To confide is to make oneself vulnerable. She remembers how in the past secrets were used as weapons in the endless personal wars that broke out. How even the most innocent things could be turned into poison in other people’s hands.

  But Gustaf wouldn’t do that, would he?

  Not knowingly. But all it takes is one careless comment to someone during football practice – how he’s worried about her – to get the gossip mill churning.

  No, she decides. Better to keep it inside. Only then can she be sure where her secret is.

  ‘I probably had too little breakfast,’ she says. ‘I was out running this morning so I should have had a bit extra.’ Surely that’s not something you’d say if you really had a problem?

  Gustaf looks relieved, if not completely convinced. ‘You have to look after yourself,’ he says. ‘You mean so much to me.’

  Rebecka kisses his unbelievably soft lips. ‘You mean everything to me,’ she whispers, thinking that that wasn’t quite true because the others mean something, too – her mum and dad, her brothers and sisters – but it feels nice to say it. Somehow it captures the immensity of what she feels for Gustaf, which she finds impossible to put into words.

  ‘Want to go back inside?’ he asks.

  She nods. It would be wrong to run off.

  When they step back into the auditorium, the principal is still at the lectern. Now students of all ages are crying, people who didn’t even know Elias existed. No one looks at Rebecka and Gustaf as they take their seats.

  ‘Now we’re going to listen to a poem, after which we’ll observe a minute’s silence for Elias,’ the principal says softly. ‘Then we’ll go out into the playground and watch as the flag is flown at half-mast.’

  The principal makes way for a fair-haired girl, who has mounted the stage.

  Rebecka’s mouth is instantly dry. It’s Ida Holmström.

  ‘I don’t believe this …’ Gustaf mumbles.

  But no one else seems to react. And why would they? Most of them probably didn’t know how mean Ida could be.

  Nobody was forcing Elias to dress like that and wear makeup to school.

  The words echo in Rebecka’s head. Ida leans forward and accidentally breathes too close to the microphone, generating a blast of feedback from the loudspeakers. The snivelling fades out.

  ‘My name is Ida Holmström and I’ve been in Elias’s class since I was nine. He was really nice and we tried to be there for him when he was down. It feels so empty now he’s gone. I’d like to read this poem on behalf of his friends.’

  Rebecka glances at Gustaf, who is clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw muscles tense visibly.

  ‘When I am dead, my dearest,

  Sing no sad songs for me;

  Plant thou no roses at my head,

  Nor shady cypress tree …’

  Ida clears her throat as her voice quivers. Is she moved? Or putting it on? The sniffling has started up again. It’s a beautiful poem, but nothing could be more wrong than Ida Holmström reading it to Elias.

  I mean, he could have made more of an effort to fit in and act more normally.

  Rebecka turns discreetly and glances at Linnéa, perhaps Elias’s only real friend in this packed auditorium.

  Linnéa isn’t trying to hide her hatred. Rebecka has never seen a look like that before, and she knows instantly that something is going to happen.

  ‘Be the green grass above me,

  With showers and dewdrops wet;

  And if thou wilt, remember,

  And if thou wilt, forget.’

  Ida looks at the audience as if she’s expecting applause. Then she adds: ‘Now let us observe a minute’s silence for Elias.’

  The hall is silent, but only for a few seconds. Rebecka hears the spring-loaded folding seat snap shut against the backrest when Linnéa stands up. ‘You’re such a fucking hypocrite!’ she says loudly.

  There is a rumbling in the auditorium as several hundred students turn around.

  ‘You stand there pretending you cared about Elias. You’re one of the people who used to bully him, for Christ’s sake!’

  Ida stares back from the lectern like a deer caught in headlights.

  The principal gets up. ‘Linnéa …’

  But Linnéa steps out into the aisle, approaches the stage and raises her voice above the principal’s: ‘In year eight Erik Forslund, Robin Zetterqvist and Kevin Månsson cut Elias’s hair off …’ She continues speaking as she heads resolutely towards the stage, where Ida is standing, gripping the lectern. ‘There were only a few tufts left when they’d finished with him. And his head was bleeding. You gave them the scissors, Ida. It was you! I saw it! And so did the rest of you, you sick fucking hypocrites!’

  Shouts of support are heard from the back where a few more outcasts are sitting.

  Ida leans towards the microphone. ‘It was really sad that Elias was bullied,’ she says, her voice sounding unusually shrill, ‘but that’s not true.’

  The whole thing happens so quickly that no one has a chance to react. Suddenly Linnéa is on the stage bearing down on Ida, who lets go of the lectern and backs away.

  ‘Linnéa!’ the principal shouts, a note of panic in her voice.

  And Rebecka thinks, Something terrible’s going to happen. Someone has to stop this – now!

  The next moment there is a creaking sound from the ceiling. The metal beam to which the stage spotlights are attached shudders. Then it collapses on to the lectern with a crash, landing on the floor between Linnéa and Ida. Shards of glass explode across the stage from the lamps as they shatter.

  Ear-piercing feedback screeches from the speakers, and everyone claps their hands over their ears until the caretaker pulls out the plug. Then everything is
quiet. Deathly quiet. People drop their hands, but no one says a word.

  Linnéa and Ida stare at each other, stock still. Eventually Ida loses the wordless battle. She flees the stage and runs for cover in the front row among her friends.

  The murmuring begins again. The principal tries to speak to Linnéa, but she steps down from the stage and runs towards the exit.

  Rebecka looks at the dust that is still floating in the air, at the glass scattered across the floorboards.

  I did that.

  It’s an insane notion, but she doesn’t doubt it. She had caused it to happen. It was impossible and yet it had happened. It had happened in front of everyone.

  ‘Keep calm,’ the principal shouts from the stage. ‘The front rows leave first, then the rest of you. We’ll assemble outside in the playground.’

  Rebecka can’t take her eyes off the metal beam. She’s never believed in the supernatural, never been able to take ghost stories and horoscopes seriously.

  Now she doesn’t just believe. She knows.

  Anna-Karin is among the last to leave the auditorium. She’s been sitting at the very back, as far away as possible so that no one will notice her. It felt especially important to do so on a day when she had decided to leave Pepper at home. Or maybe Pepper had made the decision: just as she was about to pick him up, he had shot under the sofa and holed up in there until she had to leave for the bus.

  She had felt hurt – and frightened. Anna-Karin has always had a way with animals. They love her.

  But now reality seems to have gone haywire, when she considers Pepper’s behaviour and her mother losing her voice mid-sentence –it hadn’t come back by the time Anna-Karin had left – her strange dreams and the fact that she’d woken up two days in a row with her hair smelling of smoke. Somehow the chaos on the stage is connected with all of that.

  She moves robotically down the stairs and outside. Through a gap in the throngs of students, she sees the caretaker go up to the flagpole. In the background she glimpses the principal. Her face is taut.

  The flag is slowly raised, and then lowered again. It comes to rest two-thirds of the way up the pole, hanging limply.

  They stand there for a few minutes, uncertain what to do. A few start crying again, but it all feels a little half-hearted after the drama in the auditorium. The principal says something and those closest to the flagpole start to disperse and head inside to where classroom discussions await them with teachers and psychologists. ‘It’s important to gather up all the emotions experienced when something like this happens,’ the principal said in her speech. As if negative emotions were as easy to tidy away as litter in the playground.

  Anna-Karin gazes at the flag. Poor Elias, she thinks. But at least he had some friends like him.

  Anna-Karin has never been part of a group. She’s never liked any particular kind of music or had any particular style. There’s nothing to distinguish her at all.

  ‘That little bitch Linnéa …’

  The voice to her right is all too familiar. She turns. It’s Erik Forslund, with Kevin Månsson and Robin Zetterqvist. The boys Linnéa said attacked Elias with a pair of scissors.

  ‘We should teach that fucking dyke a lesson,’ Robin hisses.

  The others nod.

  Anna-Karin’s anger starts to build. She stares at them until Erik Forslund notices her. Anna-Karin realises that this is the first time she’s looked him in the eye since primary school. Back then she hadn’t learned to stare at the ground wherever she went, that that was how you got through life in one piece.

  ‘What the fuck are you looking at, BO Ho?’ he jeers.

  It’s as if all those years of rage wash over her. Only this time she doesn’t direct it at herself. She’s not angry with herself for being ugly, worthless, fat, disgusting and pathetic. She’s angry with Erik instead. She hates him – a nice feeling: it fizzes up through her like soda.

  Piss in your pants!

  She’s gazing straight into Erik’s eyes when it happens. Something shifts in them. Suddenly a dark spot expands across the crotch of his jeans.

  He glances around in a panic. So far no one has noticed. There’s still time for Erik to save himself.

  And that’s when Ida walks by, with Julia and Felicia in tow. She has just been humiliated in front of the whole school and now sees an opportunity to deflect the attention to somebody else. She looks at Erik, then glances down. She can’t hold back a smile. ‘Oh, baby, what have you done? Have you wet yourself?’ she bursts out, in a fake-caring voice. She says it just loudly enough that the people closest to her swing around. And then the people closest to them. Everybody laughs. One of those real tension-releasing belly-laughs and it’s just what they need.

  ‘Oh, gross!’ a voice says.

  Anna-Karin relishes every passing instant as her dream comes true before her eyes. Erik looks at Robin and Kevin in desperation, but they just laugh with everyone else. In the confusion he meets Anna-Karin’s gaze again. ‘Erik Pisspants,’ she says calmly.

  Erik runs away. At each step his shoes squelch. Anna-Karin watches him hurry off with a growing feeling of exultation. It’s as though a thousand angel choirs have burst into song.

  All her life she’s listened to Grandpa’s tales of ghosts and supernatural phenomena. About dowsing, the Sami noaidi, the old man who could stem the flow of blood with his mind. Why shouldn’t it happen to her? Who is more deserving of magical powers than Anna-Karin Nieminen, the eternal victim? Isn’t this perfect justice?

  9

  SLOWLY VANESSA TAKES off her clothes, one item at a time. Her body is aglow in the light from the campfire. Lucky lets out a raunchy whistle, and Wille punches his arm, a little harder than necessary. Vanessa smiles.

  God, she loves being drunk. All the sharp edges disappear and problems fade into insignificance. The freaky shit that happened in front of the mirror and at Jonte’s house – none of it matters. The fact that Linnéa Wallin still calls Wille doesn’t matter. Soon nothing will matter at all. In two years she’ll be an adult. In two years she’ll leave school. Then she’ll get into a car, leave this town and never look back, not once. Until then she plans to enjoy life to the hilt.

  Vanessa is down to her bra and pants now. She snatches the bottle of home-brew and Coke from Wille’s hand and has a few gulps. Then she starts dancing, slowly, as if she can hear some sexy melody inside her head and just has to move to it. She wishes Michelle and Evelina were here, but on the other hand it’s fun being the only girl.

  ‘Christ! Do you have to put on a strip show in front of everyone?’ Wille mutters.

  She ignores him and turns to the others. ‘Anybody got a cigarette?’

  All five dig in their pockets. Mehmet, good-looking but too short, holds out a lit one. As she takes it from him, she accidentally brushes his fingers. He sniggers nervously. She can almost hear his erection.

  ‘Isn’t Jonte coming?’ Lucky asks, without taking his eyes off Vanessa.

  ‘He didn’t feel like it,’ Wille tells him.

  ‘Good,’ says Vanessa. ‘I’m so fucking tired of Jonte.’

  Scattered laughter among the boys. Wille looks irritated.

  ‘I’m going for a swim,’ she says, and heads for the water. The full moon is lit up like a huge spotlight above the lake. The nights have taken on a deep autumnal blackness and the air smells of earth and fungi.

  Vanessa flicks away her cigarette, which fizzles when it hits the water. Then she pulls off her bra and pants, tosses them behind her and dips her foot into the water. It’s colder than she expected, but she wades out. When the water reaches her waist, she dives in.

  Dammsjön Lake swallows her. The coldness of the water clears her head a little, and she swims a few strokes. It’s dark and silent. The water caresses her body as she glides towards the surface and breaks through it.

  Vanessa takes a deep breath. She treads water and runs her fingers through her hair, pressing it flat against her head. Then she looks back at the beac
h. The campfire is a little speck of light in the encompassing darkness. The forest is a compact mass swaying slowly in the wind.

  Wille’s white T-shirt glows in the dark as he walks towards the water’s edge. ‘Come back!’ he shouts.

  ‘You come here,’ she shouts back, and fends off the mosquito buzzing around her head.

  ‘It’s fucking freezing!’

  She doesn’t answer, and instead dives again. Her body has got used to the cold now. She does underwater somer saults, tumbling over and over until she barely knows which way is up. When the air in her lungs is almost exhausted, she launches herself upward and almost feels the first twinge of panic before she finally breaks the surface. She was deeper than she’d thought. She looks towards the beach again.

  Wille has stripped to his underwear, and is standing knee-deep in the water.

  ‘For fuck’s saaake!’ he shouts, and Vanessa laughs.

  ‘You’re such an old woman,’ she yells back.

  Wille wades out further and sinks down till the water reaches his shoulders. He keeps on swearing.

  ‘It’ll feel really good once you’re in, I promise,’ she calls teasingly.

  ‘You always make promises you can’t keep!’

  That makes Vanessa think of Linnéa. How Wille had promised they weren’t in touch any more.

  Vanessa isn’t the jealous type, except when it comes to Linnéa. Because she knows that it was she who dumped him. If she hadn’t, maybe they’d still be together. But Vanessa has no intention of mentioning the phone call. She won’t let anyone see that Linnéa makes her feel insecure. Besides, she despises girls who secretly check their boyfriends’ mobiles.

  Wille takes big strokes. She can make out his features now. Soon he reaches her and puts his arms around her. Their wet faces meet and she kisses him. Their bodies glide easily towards each other beneath the surface.

  ‘You’re so fucking sexy,’ Wille whispers, in that voice. The one that makes her feel warm inside.