The Circle (Hammer)

6



RAIN IS PATTERING against the kitchen window. Minoo likes the sound, the feeling it gives her of being cocooned inside a secure house. Billie Holiday’s voice is filtering through the speakers in the living room. The low-hanging kitchen lamp casts a warm glow over her parents’ tired, anxious faces.

‘How are you feeling, darling?’ her father asks.

That’s the third time he’s asked since he came home. ‘Okay,’ she answers briefly.

More than anything, she just feels incredibly tired and drained. She’s talked to her mother for a few hours, but she doesn’t know how she’s ‘feeling’. All she knows is that she’s too exhausted to think.

‘Are you going to write about it?’ she asks.

Her father scratches the bridge of his nose, making his glasses bob up and down. ‘We’ve discussed it. If the poor boy had killed himself at home, of course we wouldn’t. But as it happened at school … The whole town already knows about it.’

Her mother shakes her head. ‘You’ll be criticised for writing about it.’

‘We’ll be criticised if we don’t.’

Minoo’s father is the editor of a local newspaper. It only comes out a few times a week and mostly offers up exciting headlines like ‘New Traffic Circle Inaugurated on Gnejsgatan’. Three-quarters of the town’s house holds subscribe to the Engelsfors Herald. Everyone knows who Minoo’s father is.

‘Cissi has written an article,’ he continues. ‘I had to cut half of it, of course, get rid of all the gory details. You know what she’s like. But suicide is a sensitive topic, no matter how we tone it down.’

Minoo stares at her plate. She has barely touched her food and the meat sauce suddenly looks repulsive. ‘Are the police sure it was suicide?’ she asks.

‘There’s no doubt about it,’ her father answers. ‘But –and this stays between us, all right? Not a word about this to anyone at school?’

‘Of course not.’ Minoo sighs. She has never given him reason to doubt her ability to keep quiet. Minoo learned early on that most people collect information so that they can pass it on, but that the only way to get your hands on really interesting information is to be trustworthy.

‘Elias died yesterday some time after four thirty. He had just been to see the principal. He’d been missing school and the principal wanted to “nip it in the bud”, as she put it. They spoke for half an hour.’

It suddenly dawns on Minoo what Linnéa had meant when she accused the principal. What had happened at that meeting? ‘What did the principal have to say?’ she asks.

‘She’s shocked, of course.’

‘And she saw nothing to suggest he was suicidal?’ her mother asks.

‘Of course that’s the question that’ll be asked. Why didn’t she?’

‘Poor woman. She’s barely been there a year and this happens.’

‘Naturally the school’s responsibility is going to be aired. Especially since the way he did it seems to have been intended as a kind of message to the school itself.’

‘Erik,’ her mother says, ‘maybe you don’t want to remind Minoo of …’

‘That wasn’t my intention, for God’s sake,’ her father hisses.

‘Can’t we talk about something else?’ Minoo asks.

Her parents stare at her anxiously and exchange looks.

‘I can’t bear to listen to any more about Elias,’ she mumbles.

‘I understand,’ her mother says calmly.

While they finish their meal, they talk about cutbacks at the paper. Occasionally Minoo makes a comment. Yet she doesn’t remember a word of the conversation once dinner’s over.



Anna-Karin’s mother lights a cigarette while she’s still chewing her last mouthful, always eager to fill her lungs with nicotine and tar. The food is something she wants to get out of the way so she can have that delicious after-dinner smoke. Anna-Karin gave up complaining about it a long time ago. Her mother feels that cigarettes are the only luxury she allows herself, and that’s why she intends to ‘damn well smoke without feeling guilty about it’.

Rain is pelting the window. Puddles are forming in the garden in front of the house.

The potato salad and smoked pork loin swells in Anna-Karin’s mouth. It doesn’t feel like there’s room for anything in her stomach except stress. She tried to study for a while before dinner, but found herself reading the same paragraph over and over again.

She’s afraid she won’t be able to handle the natural sciences course. If she wants to become a vet, she’ll need top grades. She can’t fall behind so early in her first term of year eleven.

‘I had a phone call,’ Grandpa says, all of a sudden, and looks at Anna-Karin, ‘from Åke. His son works as a para medic. Åke was wondering how you were. If you knew the boy.’

‘What’s this?’ Mama asks, between puffs.

They stare at her. Might as well get it over with.

‘A boy died at school today. Elias. He killed himself.’

Mama takes a long drag from her cigarette, then shrouds the table in ultraviolet smoke with a single exhalation. ‘And you’re only telling me now?’

Anna-Karin looks at Grandpa helplessly.

‘It wasn’t Helena’s son Elias, was it?’ Mama continues.

‘Helena who?’

‘The priest! What was Elias’s last name?’

It’s easy to forget that Mama once had another life. It’s only when she starts talking about old friends and acquaintances that Anna-Karin remembers.

‘Malmgren,’ answers Anna-Karin.

‘Good Lord, it is him.’ Mama puts out her cigarette and immediately lights another one. She looks elated. She’s always like that when there’s a tragedy or an accident. It’s the only time she ever stops wallowing in her own misery. ‘Poor Helena,’ she says. ‘Isn’t that typical? She works as a spiritual guide to others, but I suppose you can still be blind to what’s going on in your own home. How did he do it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But he did it at school?’

Mama is excited now. For once she’s alert and bursting with energy. She leans towards Anna-Karin as if they were two friends gossiping over coffee.

‘Who found him?’

‘Two girls. One of them is in my class. Minoo.’

‘The newspaper man’s daughter,’ Mama says.

Grandpa has been sitting there without saying a word. Now he reaches across the table and pats Anna-Karin’s hand. ‘Was this Elias a friend of yours?’

‘No. I just knew who he was.’

‘When you’re young you think the world revolves around you and that every little setback is a catastrophe,’ Mama says. ‘You don’t understand how good you’ve got it. All the responsibility you’re spared.’

‘Young people don’t have it easy these days,’ Grandpa remonstrates.

‘No? They expect to have everything done for them.’ Mama snorts.

Anna-Karin has trouble swallowing again. Her anger is stuck, like a lump, in her throat. She puts down her knife and fork.

‘With his whole life ahead of him,’ Mama continues. ‘I can’t understand it.’

But I can! Anna-Karin wants to scream.

She’s thought so many times how easy it would be to end it all. The first occasion was when she was eight and had told her teacher about her living hell. He tried to talk to the kids who were bullying her, but they responded by stripping her down to her T-shirt and pants and leaving her in the playground in the middle of winter. ‘Next time we’ll kill you, farm girl,’ said Erik Forslund. When her mother came and picked her up, Anna-Karin said that they had been playing. If Mama had probed a little, she would have told her the truth. But instead she had scolded her for making her drive all the way to school to pick her up.

Yes, Anna-Karin knows how it feels to want to die. For eight years she’d thought about it almost every day, then put it out of her mind. Because Grandpa’s here. And the animals. And the holidays when she doesn’t have to go into town. And sometimes, when she dares to think that far ahead, the dream of another life takes form – a life in which she’s a vet and can buy a farm of her own, in the middle of the forest, far away from Engelsfors.

‘There’s probably a lot we don’t know about how the boy was doing,’ Grandpa says to Mama, in his diplomatic manner.

‘It can’t have been easy, of course, with those parents.’ Mama nods, misunderstanding Grandpa as usual.

Sometimes Anna-Karin doesn’t know which of them annoys her most: Grandpa, who won’t judge anybody, or Mama, who judges everyone except herself.

‘I mean, Helena’s always worked a lot, and Krister –don’t get me started on him. The great government boss – I don’t suppose he has time for anything so mundane as his family. Oh, yes, things aren’t always as perfect as they appear.’

Mama relishes the misfortune of successful people and makes no attempt to hide it.

‘Of course, I don’t want to say that it’s somehow the parents’ fault, but you can’t help wondering. When children enter this world, they’re like blank pages. It’s we adults who fill them. And when your father left us, I said to myself, “Anna-Karin shouldn’t have to …”’

Mama continues to talk, but Anna-Karin can’t bear to listen any more. You’re f*cking evil, she wants to scream. You don’t know anything about Elias’s family, you don’t even know anything about your own family, and still you sit there judging them. You don’t have the right to say anything.

JUST SHUT UP!

Anna-Karin’s heart is pounding in her chest. Suddenly she notices the silence.

Mama has stubbed out her cigarette. The butt lies in a crumbled V-shape on the edge of her plate, but is still smouldering. She’s staring at Anna-Karin, wide-eyed. She clears her throat and tries to say something, but all that comes out is a hiss.

Anna-Karin glances at Grandpa. He looks concerned.

‘Are you all right, Mia? Is there something stuck in your throat?’ he asks.

Mama reaches for her glass of water and gulps. She hawks loudly, but still can’t speak.

‘Mama?’ Anna-Karin says.

‘I’ve lost my voice,’ she mimes.

She gets up and shuffles out of the kitchen holding her cigarettes. Soon afterwards the TV comes on in the living room.

Grandpa and Anna-Karin stare at each other. Anna-Karin starts to giggle uncontrollably.

‘It’s nothing to laugh at,’ Grandpa reproaches her, and she goes quiet.

But it is, she wants to say. It’s hilarious.



Minoo spits out the toothpaste, rinses her brush and wipes her mouth with a towel. She looks at herself in the mirror and feels a shiver down her spine. The glass surface is hard, shiny. Would she be able to smash it with her hand? Is that what Elias did?

She’s got to stop thinking about it.

She leaves the bathroom and goes into her room. The little round lamp with the green shade is casting a warm glow from the bedside table. Minoo is wearing her pyjamas, dressing-gown and slippers, but she’s still shivering. She goes to the window to check that it’s closed properly.

She remains standing there.

The tops of the trees and bushes are swaying uneasily in the wind. It’s stopped raining. The paved street is glistening in the light from the streetlamps. A bush casts a strange shadow.

No. Someone’s standing there. In the darkness, just beyond the reach of the streetlamp.

She draws the curtains and peers through the narrow gap between them. She is absolutely sure now. A person is standing in the shadows, looking straight at her house.

Minoo sees the figure move away. When it reaches the next lamppost and passes through the cone of light, she sees the person’s back. A black sweater with the hood pulled up.

Minoo stands stock still until the figure has disappeared.

Suddenly she hears the creak of footsteps behind her, and the panic she has been carrying all day explodes. Minoo screams in terror. When she turns, her mother is in the doorway.

‘Minoo …’ she says.

The tears come. In the next moment, she feels warm arms around her and breathes in her mother’s scent. Minoo sobs until she has no more tears.

‘Bashe azizam,’ her mother says comfortingly.

That night her mother sits on the edge of the bed until Minoo has fallen sleep.



Vanessa is dreaming about Elias. He is standing in front of the dead trees in the playground, watching her. When she sees him, she feels sad. Elias Malmgren is dead and will only be remembered as the boy who killed himself in the school toilets.

She is woken by Wille’s phone vibrating hard against the floor. Damn it. They had fallen asleep on a mattress in Jonte’s house. Is it the middle of the night? It’s hard to tell with the blinds pulled down.

Wille’s telephone is still ringing when she lifts it to see what time it is. She rejects the call, but registers the name on the screen.

Wille has taken all the bedclothes as usual and she shivers. She lays her hand on Wille’s midriff and feels the warmth of his skin. He’s moving around uneasily – he looks so different when he’s asleep. It’s as if she can see him as a boy and as a very old man at the same time. Vanessa spoons against him and pulls the covers over them.

‘Linnéa W,’ it had said on the screen.

Linnéa Wallin.

Elias Malmgren’s best friend.

Wille’s ex.