John Lindqvist - Let The Right One In aka Let Me In

"But this time I'm going to…"

"You can always dream. You start."

Four crosses and three circles into the match there was a knock at the front door. Shortly thereafter it opened and Oskar could hear thuds from someone stamping the snow off their feet.

"Hello, hello!"

Dad looked up from the paper, leaned back in the chair, and looked out into the hall. Oskar pinched his lips together.

No.

His dad nodded at the new arrival. "Come in."

"Thank you."

Soft thumps from someone walking through the hall with woolen socks on their feet. A moment later Janne came into the kitchen, said: "Oh I see. Well aren't you two having a cozy evening."

Dad gestured toward Oskar. "You've met my boy."

"Sure," Janne said. "Hi Oskar, how's it going?"

"Fine."

Until now. Go away.

Janne thudded over to the kitchen table; the woolen socks had slid down his heels and were fluttering out in front of his toes like deformed flippers. He pulled out a chair and sat down.

"I see you're playing tic-tac-toe."

"Yes, but the boy is too good for me. I can't beat him anymore."

"No. Been practicing in town? Do you dare play against me, then, Oskar?"

Oskar shook his head. Didn't even want to look at Janne, knew what he would see there. Watery eyes, a mouth pulled into a sheep-grin; yes, Janne looked like an old sheep and the blond curly hair only strengthened the impression. One of Dad's "friends" who was Oskar's enemy.

Janne rubbed his hands together, producing a sound like sandpaper, and in the backlight from the hall Oskar could see small flakes of skin fall

to the floor. Janne had some kind of skin disease that flared up in the summer that made his face look like a rotten blood orange.

"Well, well. It sure is cozy in here."

You always say that. Go away with your revolting face and your old stale words.

"Dad, aren't we going to keep playing?"

"Of course, but now that we have a guest…"

"Go on, play."

Janne leaned back in his chair and looked like he had all the time in the world. But Oskar knew he had lost the battle. It was over. Now it would turn out like always.

Most of all he wanted to scream, break something, most of all Janne, when Dad walked over to the pantry and brought out the bottle, picked up two shot glasses and put them on the table. Janne rubbed his hands so the flakes danced.

"Well, well. What have we here…"

Oskar looked down at the paper with its unfinished game.

He was going to put his cross there.

But there would be no more crosses tonight. No circles. Nothing.

There was a light gurgling sound as Dad poured out the shots. The delicate upside-down cone of glass was filled with transparent liquid. It was so little and fragile in Dad's hand. It almost disappeared.

And still it ruined everything. Everything.

Oskar crinkled up the unfinished game and put it in the woodstove. Dad made no protests. He and Janne had started talking about some acquaintance who had broken his leg. Went on to talk about other cases of broken bones that they had experienced or heard about, refilled their glasses.

Oskar stayed where he was in front of the stove, with the doors open, looking at the paper that burst into flames, blackened. Then he got the other games and put them in the fire as well.

Dad and Janne took the glasses and the bottle and moved to the living room. Dad said something to Oskar about '"come and talk a little" and Oskar said "later, maybe." He sat there in front of the stove and stared into the fire. The heat caressed his face. He got up, got the graph paper from the kitchen table, tore unused pages out of it and put them in the fire.

When the whole pad with cover and all was blackened he took the pencils and threw them into the fire as well.

There was something uncanny about the hospital at this time of night. Maud Carlberg sat in the reception and looked out over the almost empty entrance hall. The cafeteria and kiosk were closed; only the occasional person came through, like a ghost under this high ceiling.

Late at night like this she liked to imagine that it was she and only she who was guarding this enormous building that was Danderyd Hospital. It wasn't true, of course. If there was any kind of a problem she only had to push a button and a night guard would turn up within three minutes.

There was a game she liked to play to get these late-night hours to pass.

She thought of a profession, a place to live, and the basic outline of a person's background. Perhaps an illness. Then she applied all this in her mind to the next person who approached her at the desk. Often the result was… amusing.

For example, she could imagine a pilot who lived on Gotgatan and had two dogs that a neighbor took care of when the pilot was away on his or her flights. The neighbor was secretly in love with the pilot, whose biggest problem was that he or she saw little green men with red caps swimming around in the clouds when he or she was out flying.

OK. Then all she had to do was wait.

Maybe after a while a woman with a ravaged appearance turned up. A female pilot. Had been drinking too much on the sly from those tiny liquor bottles they give you on the planes, had seen the little green men, had been fired. Now she sat at home with her dogs all day. The neighbor was still in love with her, however.

Maud kept going like that.

Sometimes she lectured herself about her game, because it prevented her from taking people seriously. But she couldn't help herself. Right now she was waiting for a minister whose passion was expensive sports cars and who loved picking up hitchhikers with the motive of trying to convert them.

Man or woman? Old or young? How would someone like that look?

Maud rested her chin in her hands and looked toward the front doors. Not a lot of people tonight. Visiting hours were over and new patients who turned up with Saturday-night injuries-mostly alcohol-related in one way or another-were brought to the emergency room.

The revolving doors started to turn. The sports car minister, perhaps.

But no, this was one of those cases where she had to give up. It was a child. A waif-like little… girl, about ten or twelve years old. Maud started to imagine a chain of events that would eventually lead this child to become that minister, but quickly stopped herself. The girl looked unhappy.

She walked over to the large map of the hospital with the color-coded lines marking the routes you had to take to go to this or that place. Few adults could make sense of that map, so how would a child be able to?

Maud leaned forward and said in a low voice: "Can I help you?"

The girl turned to her and smiled shyly, went over to the reception. Her hair was wet, the occasional snowflake that had not yet melted shone white against the black. She didn't keep her gaze glued to the floor as children often did in a foreign environment. No, the dark sad eyes stared straight into Maud's as she walked over to the counter. A thought, as clear as though it were audible, flashed through Maud's head.

I have to give you something. But what?

In her mind, stupidly, she quickly went through the contents of her desk drawers. A pen? A balloon?

The child stopped in front of the counter. Only her neck and head reached over the top of it.

"Excuse me… I'm looking for my father."

"I see. Has he been admitted here?"

"Yes, although, I don't know for sure…"

Maud looked past her at the doors, looked quickly around the hall, and then fixed on the girl in front of her, who was not even wearing a jacket. Only a black knitted turtleneck where drops of water and snowflakes glittered in the light of the reception area.