John Lindqvist - Little Star

Laila didn’t understand what had happened, but from odd words the girl said she began to piece things together, and eventually she pinned Lennart down: What had he actually said?

Lennart told her about his story, but left out the worst bits. In the end Laila agreed not to correct the girl’s view of the world. She didn’t like what Lennart had done, but since she was unable to come up with a better idea, the girl could go on living with her misconceptions.

Lennart also had his doubts about whether it had been a wise move. The incident with the Mora knife was only the beginning. When Lennart locked it away, she fetched a chisel, a screwdriver, a saw. She placed the tools around her on the bed like an arsenal of weapons at the ready for when the Big People arrived. When Lennart tried to take them away, she let out a single, heart-rending scream.

He had to be a little more cunning. He swapped the most dangerous tools one at a time for less dangerous items. The saw for a hammer, the chisel for a file. They were hardly suitable toys, but the girl never hurt herself. She just wanted the tools as a kind of magic circle, a spell surrounding her as she sat on the bed.

If she moved to the floor, she took the tools with her and arranged them neatly around her. They had become her new friends; she sang to them, whispered to them and patted them. She was never calmer than when she was lying curled up inside her circle with a Mozart adagio on the CD player. Sometimes she would fall asleep like that. After one slip-up, Lennart learned that he must always move the tools with her when he put her to bed, otherwise she woke up screaming.

Time passed, and the girl’s fear moderated to anxiety which in turn moderated to watchfulness. The quantity of tools was reduced. One day when Lennart had left the drill out, he came into the girl’s room to find her sitting with it on her knee, talking quietly to it. From time to time she would press the button and the drill would buzz in response, whereupon the conversation would continue.

It became her new favourite, and Lennart let her keep it, because she allowed him to remove all the rest. It enabled her to move about more as well. She was once again brave enough to set off on small journeys of discovery, but always with the drill in her hand.

Lennart had to smile as he watched her sneaking around the cellar with the tool at the ready, as alert as the sheriff waiting for the black hats to ride into town. She couldn’t sleep unless she was clutching the drill.

The girl had reached the age of seven by the time she showed an interest in the drill’s normal function. Each day she came one step closer to Lennart as he stood at the workbench in the cellar. She didn’t protest when he picked her up and sat her on the bench; instead she clutched the drill to her chest and watched what he was doing.

He had just finished yet another nesting box, and showed it to the girl. She had been staring intently at it while he was working, but looked away when he held it up in front of her. That was normal.

Lennart picked up the new drill he had bought after he let the girl keep the old one. Just for fun he revved the motor a couple of times, pretending that his drill wanted to talk to hers. She wasn’t interested.

He had a size 10 bit in the chuck, and Lennart finished off the box as he usually did. ‘Right, now we’re going to drill the entrance hole. This is where the birds will go in and out. Cheep, cheep. Birds.’

The girl watched as Lennart drilled out the hole, then sat staring at it as if she were waiting for something. When Lennart lifted her down from the bench, she growled and walloped him across the shoulder with her drill. He put her back and she leaned close to the hole, whispering, ‘Cheep, cheep,’ as she continued to stare at it.

A feeling of sorrow plummeted through Lennart’s stomach. He decided to make an exception.

Early next morning he took the girl out into the hallway. When he opened the front door, her eyes widened. She struggled to free herself from his grip, and filled her lungs with air ready to scream. Lennart just had time to say, ‘Ssh! SSH! They can hear us!’

The girl’s mouth snapped shut and her little body began to shake as Lennart cautiously opened the door and pretended to peer out into the garden. ‘Quiet,’ he said. ‘Careful. Not a sound.’

He bundled the girl out through the door, but had to pick her up in order to get her to the nearest tree where there was a nesting box. Her body was clenched, as hard as ice.

It was a May morning, and the birdsong was cascading through the shrubs and trees. Lennart lifted the girl’s head towards the box, which was exactly the same as the one he had made the previous evening.

Suddenly her mouth opened and she relaxed in his arms. A robin emerged from the hole and sat there for a moment looking around with rapid, jerky movements before it flew away. The girl followed it with her eyes and a dribble of saliva ran down her chin.

Lennart had no idea how she might interpret what she had just seen. Did she think drilling holes made the birds appear, or disappear, or did she in fact understand perfectly?

He put her down on the ground and said, ‘The birds live in there, they fly around-’

But he had hardly begun the sentence before she raced back to the house and slammed the front door behind her.

By February 2000 greed had got its claws into Jerry after all, and it was all Apple’s fault. The Power Mac G4 with the 500 MHz processor was finally due for release after the initial hassle with Motorola, and was going to cost around thirty thousand kronor. So far, so good. He had the money, he’d started to save a year ago when he picked up the first rumours.

But then there was Cinema Display. Along with the release of the new G4 there was to be a 22-inch flat screen with the best definition and the slickest design ever. And that would cost around thirty thousand as well.

The dumpy iMac on Jerry’s computer desk suddenly felt like something from the stone age. He’d started messing around with Cubase 4 for writing songs, but it was so slow. He wanted to upgrade to 4.1, he wanted to run it through the 500 processor and he wanted to see it on that big, flat screen.

It became an obsession. Jerry imagined that when he had that silver chassis standing underneath his desk and that stylish screen with its transparent frame sitting on top, everything would be perfect. There would be nothing more to strive for. He longed for that computer as a believer longs for redemption. When it was his, when it was all in place, he would feel a peace and purity that would wipe every trace of dirt from his life.

But to achieve this state of bliss some fancy footwork would be required. He had to sell more cigarettes. He had already doubled his order with Ingemar in December, and in January he took one hundred and fifty cartons, and also put the price up by ten kronor from the previous month.

The demand from his regular customers couldn’t meet Jerry’s supply, however gallantly they puffed away. Mats, who ran the billiard hall, had discovered Jerry’s activities, and he now dealt from home. He asked his regulars to spread the word among their connections that there were cheap fags available at Jerry’s address.

The connections duly turned up, and soon their connections came as well. By February Jerry had managed to scrape together twelve thousand kronor in addition to the thirty thousand he already had, and placed another big order with Ingemar.

A week or so later he had a visitor at the billiard hall. A guy of his own age came in-shaved head, tribal tattoo snaking up his neck beneath the biker jacket-and leaned on the bar. He looked Jerry in the eye and informed him that his business activities would cease immediately.