John Lindqvist - Little Star

Her voice held, the producer was happy, and Laila caught the bus back to Norrtälje without really understanding what she had done. But it had been fun. A new environment where everybody had been nice to her; that was a novelty for a start.

In April the girl’s first tooth came through. Otherwise it was as if her development had come to a standstill. She made no attempt to crawl or shuffle along. She wasn’t interested in hiding games, or peep-bo. She didn’t imitate actions or movements; the only thing she reciprocated was sound: notes and melodies.

Sometimes Lennart took her out into the garden at night. On the odd occasion Laila was allowed to do it she would take the opportunity to whisper and talk to the girl as much as she could. She got nothing back-not a sound.

At the end of May, ‘Bearing Capacity: 0’ by DDT featuring Laila was released, and nothing happened. At first. Then something did happen, and then something else happened. In June it entered the Tracks chart, and climbed to number seven. People starting calling, wanting to interview Laila. She was given very specific instructions from DDT’s record company on what to say about the lyrics. That was what she said.

The attention made Lennart nervous, but there was no need for him to worry. In a few weeks it was over. However, it did lead to a call from an agency wanting to book Lennart and Laila for a few gigs. Lennart decided they would try one as an experiment, in Norrtälje in August. It was a motor show for vintage car enthusiasts, a mixture of a family day out and a meeting for boy racers.

‘So what are we going to do with the girl?’ asked Laila.

‘Well, it’s only in Norrtälje. She’ll be OK on her own for a couple of hours. It won’t be a problem.’

It was a hot afternoon in the middle of July. They were sitting at the table outside drinking coffee. Perhaps it was the unexpected success or the fact that she had been able to get out and about a bit that gave Laila courage. A very simple question had been grinding away in her head for several months. Now she put it into words.

‘Lennart. What’s going to happen with the girl?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you must have thought about it. What’s going to happen in the future. She’s growing. She’ll be walking soon. What are we going to do with her?’

It was as if a veil came down over Lennart’s eyes and he moved a long way away, even though he was still sitting at the table fingering his coffee cup.

‘She’s not going to be part of all that,’ he said. ‘She’s not going to be destroyed.’

‘No. But…from a purely practical point of view? How’s it going to work?’

Lennart folded his arms and looked at Laila as if from a great distance.

‘I’m not going to say this again. So listen carefully. We are going to keep her here. We are not going to let her out. We are going to train her so that she adapts to that way of life. She won’t be unhappy, because she won’t have seen anything else.’

‘But why, Lennart? Why?’

With exaggerated care, Lennart raised the cup to his lips, took a sip of the lukewarm coffee and placed the cup back on the saucer without making a sound.

‘I do not want to hear these questions again. I will answer you now. But never again. Is that clear?’

Laila nodded. Even Lennart’s voice had changed, as if a different version of him was speaking through his mouth. A person made from a heavier material, from his solid core. There was something compelling about the voice, and Laila sat there motionless, her eyes fixed on Lennart’s lips as he said:

‘Because she is not an ordinary child. She will never be an ordinary child. Or an ordinary person. She is white. Completely white. The only thing the world will do to her is to destroy her. I know this. I have seen inside her. People might regard it as a bad thing, keeping a child shut in. But it’s the best thing for her. I’m sure of that. She is pure music. The world is a dissonance. She would go under. Instantly.’

‘So it’s for her sake? Are you sure?’

Lennart returned to the table. As if everything was pared away at once, his expression was suddenly fragile and hesitant. A lonely child in the forest. Laila couldn’t remember when she had last seen that look, and it stabbed her in the heart.

Lennart said, ‘And for mine. If she disappeared…I’d kill myself. She is the last. The last chance. There is nothing after her.’

They sat motionless. The needle in Laila’s heart twisted around and around. A sparrow landed on the table, pecking at a few cake crumbs. Afterwards Laila would realise that they had been standing at a crossroads, and that a decision had been made. In silence, like all important decisions.

His parents hadn’t said a word about the gig, but Jerry had seen the posters. He had been thinking of going to the motor show to meet up with some old friends but when he saw that Lennart and Laila would be playing, he changed his mind. There was something else he would much rather do.

The gig was due to start at two o’clock. At half past one Jerry jumped on his motorbike and rode over to the house. He reckoned that his parents would need a good half hour for the sound check and at least that to pack up and drive home, so he had a couple of hours on his own in the house. He calculated that they wouldn’t have taken the kid with them.

The front door was no problem; he could have opened it with a credit card in his sleep, but he’d taken a screwdriver with him just to be on the safe side. It took him ten seconds to push back the old-fashioned catch and step into the hallway. Without taking off his boots he clattered down the cellar steps, shouting, ‘Toot, toot!’

He gave a start when he walked into his old room. The child was standing upright in the cot with her hands resting on the frame, staring straight at him. There was something horrible about the way that kid looked at you, as if it could see straight through everything. But it was still just a kid in a red babygro with its nappy bulging out at the back. Not exactly something to be scared of.

Jerry had understood completely what this kid meant to his father. Forty times more than he himself had ever meant. It was quite upsetting. He didn’t get it. What was so special about this little bastard that just stood there staring?

When Jerry seized the child under the arms and lifted it out of the cot, it just hung there limply; it didn’t even kick its legs. Jerry poked it tentatively in the stomach and said, ‘Toot, toot.’ Not a smile, not even the hint of a frown. Jerry poked harder, really pushed this time. Nothing. It was as if he didn’t exist, as if nothing he did or said could make an impression.

Playing hard to get, are you, you little bastard?

He laid the child down on the spare bed and pinched its arm, pinched hard. The soft baby skin was squeezed together and he could feel his fingers touching through the fabric and the skin. When nothing happened he moved on to the thighs, both thighs. Hard pinches that would have had any seven-year-old screaming the place down. The kid simply carried on staring straight through him without making a sound. Jerry had had enough. He was going to get some kind of fucking reaction.

He gave the child a resounding smack across the face. Smack. The little head jerked to the side and the cheek began to redden. But still not a peep out of her. Sweat broke out on Jerry’s hairline, and a black lamp began to glow in his chest.

OK, maybe the little bastard was deaf and dumb and fuck knows what else, but it must surely have the capacity to feel pain ? There ought to be tears, a grimace, something. Jerry’s inability to make any impression on the child made him furious. He was going to get some kind of response.