Jagannath Part 2

"I already went through my d.a.m.ned test. I can't deal with all this c.r.a.p." She hung up.

The string of attempts with pills, razor blades, and ropes started after that. She would call me after every attempt. I took her to the hospital the first few times. After making sure she didn't have any life-threatening injuries (and she never did), they sent her home with a priest in tow. Eventually, Rebecka wouldn't call me until a day or so after she'd done something. Then I'd visit to clean up the mess while she hid in her bed.

The Lord tells us we must have patience with our fellow men, especially those who are being tested. Rebecka was being tested. Around the time when I had just met her, she had been raped and tortured by her husband, rest his soul. She had never recovered.

"People who hurt others are the ones with the best imagination," Rebecka said.

We were walking along the quay from Old Town to Slussen, watching the commuter boats trudge across Lake Malaren. It was November. There were no tourists waiting for the boats this time of year, just some pensioners and a kindergarten group in bright snowsuits. I didn't mind the cold, but Rebecka was bundled up. We each had a cup of coffee, Rebecka occasionally pulling down her scarf from her face to take a sip. I couldn't help but look at her scarred lips as she did so.

"I don't follow," I said.

"Would you get the idea to cut a pregnant woman open with a breadknife and take the baby out?" She was talking through her scarf again, voice m.u.f.fled.

I shuddered. "Of course not."

"Or poke someone's eyes out with a paper clip?"

"Come off it."

"Three days, Sara."

Of course. This was what she was on about. Karl.

"He used everything he could get his hands on."

"I know, Becks. You've told me everything."

She went on as if I hadn't said anything. "You couldn't imagine the things he came up with, not in your worst nightmares. Get it? And you know something else?"

"What?" I said, although I knew what she was going to say.

"How could He let it go on for three days before He decided to do something about it?"

"He did deal with him," I said, as I usually did.

"Yeah, after three days. Why did He wait so long?"

"I don't know."

We were quiet for a while, sipping coffee.

"And I'm still here," Rebecka said. "It's like I'm being punished too."

"I don't think you are," I said. "You're not being punished. He doesn't do that. Like I said before, maybe it's a test."

We went through the motions like that, until I said I had to go home and dropped her off at Slussen, where she would take the subway.

She didn't take the subway. She tried to throw herself in front of it. It was in all the morning papers: Rebecka jumped from the end of the platform, so that the train would hit her at full speed. The driver later told reporters that he'd had a sudden impulse to brake before he was supposed to. The train had stopped a meter from where Rebecka was lying on the tracks.

"Maybe now you'll believe me when I tell you," she said across the kitchen table the following day. "Listen, I'm ashamed for all the times you've had to come and clean me up."

"It's all right," I said.

"No, it's not. I know you think I'm a coward who's afraid to really go ahead and kill myself. I know you wish I could make up my mind and either die or start living again."

I couldn't meet her eyes then.

"It's always been for real," she said. "It really has. I can't sleep through a single night without waking up because Karl is there. He's standing at the foot of the bed, and I know he's about to do all those things to me. I want it to stop. I want to sleep." She looked at me. "Every time I went for my arms with the razor they stopped bleeding. Every time I took pills and alcohol I started throwing up. I never once stuck my fingers down my throat. I promise. I just started throwing up. And if I didn't, absolutely nothing would happen even though I should be pa.s.sing out."

"So what are you saying?" I said.

"It's getting worse. I don't even get injured anymore. I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills yesterday, you know?"

"And...?"

"They came out the other end this morning. Whole. The Lord is f.u.c.king with me."

"Don't swear," I said.

"I'm telling you. The Lord is f.u.c.king with me. I hate Him. He won't take the nightmares away. Or the scars, all the scars. But He won't let me kill myself either. It's like He wants me to suffer."

"Rebecka, we've been through this one before."

"Would you stop taking His side all the time?" she shouted. "I'm your best friend!"

"Rebecka," I said.

"I know what you're going to say. He's not my nanny."

"That wasn't what I was going to say."

"If He thinks I'm supposed to deal with this myself, He could have just not come back in the first place. That way I would have known what to do. But now, this is the way things are. And I really don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"Me neither," I said.

The next time Rebecka called it was early morning.

"You have to come over," she said. "We have to talk."

I took the bike over to her apartment, expecting to see another scene of a failed suicide attempt. Her face was pale under the scarring when she opened the door.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," I said. "I've taken the day off."

She let me in. There wasn't anything on her or in the apartment to indicate she had done anything to herself, just the usual mess. I sat down by the kitchen table while she poured tea. The blue tablecloth was crusted with cup rings. I traced them with a finger.

"You had me worried," I said. "What's going on?"

"I've realized what I have to do." She put a steaming cup in front of me and sat down in the opposite chair. A smoky Lapsang smell wafted up from the cup. Rebecka rested her elbows on the table and leaned towards me.

"I'm serious about not coping anymore," she said. Her tone was matter-of-fact. "I want to die, Sara."

"I don't want you to," I said.

"Are you sure?"

"I really don't want you to."

"Well, it's not for you to decide anyway." She took a sip from her cup. I didn't know what to say, so I drank my tea. It was sweetened with too much honey.

"I suppose you're going to tell me," I said eventually.

"The Lord isn't going to do anything," Rebecka said. "I know that now."

There were white dregs at the bottom of my cup.

"Rebecka, what did you put in my tea?" I said.

Her face was set, almost serene. "I'm going to make Him listen," she replied. "I'm going to do something he can't ignore."

I was naked when I woke up in her bed. My wrists and ankles were tied to the bedposts. Rebecka was sitting on a chair beside me, a toolbox at her feet.

"I love you," I said.

"I know," she said.

Herr Cederberg.

Herr Cederberg preferred leaving the office to have lunch outside. He would sit on a bench next to the fountain on Mariatorget, reading the newspaper with a sandwich or two, especially now that the weather was nice. It was June, and the flowerbeds were full of giddy insects that every now and then buzzed over to Herr Cederberg to make sure he wasn't a flower. Other office workers populated the adjacent benches with their lunch boxes, and some even stretched out on the lawns, drinking the first summer sun like pale lizards.

Herr Cederberg was vaguely reading an article on the national economy when feet crunched by on the gravel, and a girl's voice mumbled, ". . . like a b.u.mblebee."

Another voice t.i.ttered. He didn't have to look up to know they were talking about him. He was already very aware of his swelling thighs and bulging stomach, and that his feet were not quite touching the ground. The most common simile was pig, followed by panda, koala, and b.u.mblebee, in no particular order. Herr Cederberg looked up from his newspaper. Two rosy and adolescent faces quickly looked away and leaned towards each other. The one who had giggled continued: "Oh, I love b.u.mblebees, they're so neat. You know how the laws of nature says they shouldn't be able to fly, right, but they fly anyway?"

"Yeah, but how?" asked the first girl.

"Because they don't know they're not supposed to!"

The girls burst into shrill laughter. Herr Cederberg couldn't summon the energy to say anything. They had no idea of their own idiocy and wouldn't for years to come, if ever. He looked at the fat little insects b.u.mping around in the tulips, their wings, if one could see them in slow motion, oscillating in a beautiful figure-of-eight pattern. He imagined himself fluttering his arms in the same fashion, slowly ascending into the sky.

Herr Cederberg had long ago converted his garage into a workshop. His first pa.s.sion had been for model planes, but the last few years he had been experimenting with different types of kites. His finest work to date, a Balinese dragon, covered the ceiling in bright red and gold.

He surveyed the little s.p.a.ce. There was plenty of material to work with. He rolled up his shirt sleeves, took off his jacket, and started sketching a framework.

Herr Cederberg finished the machine on an early morning in the second week of August. At first glance, it resembled a stubby winged canoe on wheels. The c.o.c.kpit had a corduroy seat with a safety belt. A pair of bicycle pedals stuck out of the floor. It had felt a little ba.n.a.l to use pedals to power the wings, but they turned out to be the perfect method for creating the oscillating pattern he wanted. The cha.s.sis was covered with a layer of oilcloth, painted with black-and-yellow stripes. Herr Cederberg realized he hadn't given the craft a name.

After a long blank moment, he patted the cha.s.sis and said, "b.u.mblebee." He blushed at his own lack of imagination.

It was time to go. He folded the wings along the sides and pushed b.u.mblebee out of the garage, toward the forest.

Herr Cederberg stood sweaty and winded on the edge of a cliff in the forest outside the suburb. Far below lay the lake and the dark green sea of the pine forest. Next to him, the craft sat with its wings extended and a couple of wedges under its wheels to keep it from running off the edge. Herr Cederberg put his goggles on and crawled into the c.o.c.kpit. He fastened his seatbelt and waited.

The morning wind was too gentle, but after midday it finally picked up speed. A low pressure front was heading in, and the chubby c.u.muli fused and inflated as they wandered the horizon. When the draft finally arrived, Herr Cederberg tore the wedges off and cheered quietly as the craft rolled forward, lifted its nose, and slid out over the edge. He pedaled as fast as his legs could manage. The wings were sluggish at first, but picked up speed, and when an updraft shot up along the cliff b.u.mblebee really took off. The air rushing by made Herr Cederberg's cheeks flutter. He rose higher and higher at a steep and determined angle.

The low pressure front came in straight ahead. The c.u.muli had gained height and metamorphosed into an enormous c.u.mulonimbus, an anvil-shaped ma.s.s that stretched up into the higher layers of the atmosphere. Herr Cederberg looked down at the ground. He looked up at the cloud. Then he smiled and pedaled faster.

At first, the suction of the c.u.mulonimbus felt like a faint increase in wind. Then suddenly, it was as if someone had grabbed the craft, as the cloud greedily started sucking in all air in its vicinity. Herr Cederberg saw the dark belly of the cloud stretch out like a bruised ceiling. The wind howled in his ears. The cloud ceiling soon filled his entire field of vision.

The forward motion turned into a violent updraft, and the air darkened around him. b.u.mblebee began to shudder and shake. A wing abruptly tore away and pulled half of the oilcloth with it. Herr Cederberg clung to the edges of the c.o.c.kpit with whitening knuckles as the cold and dark closed in around him. Ice crystals flocked to his eyelashes and moustache. The other wing fell away into the fog. Herr Cederberg unfastened his safety belt and kicked away from the c.o.c.kpit. The craft's remains disappeared under him. The fog brightened slightly. He closed his eyes.

Some time later, the light became almost unbearably bright, and the wind quieted down. Herr Cederberg opened his eyes again. He was floating just above the top of the c.u.mulonimbus cloud. Above him, a hard little sun shone in a sky colored dark violet. Little cirrus clouds powdered the stratosphere. White hills billowed away in all directions. The cold was deep and quiet. Herr Cederberg oscillated his arms, like a b.u.mblebee.

Who is Arvid Pekon?

Despite the well-known fact that it's the worst time possible, everyone who needs to speak to a governmental agency calls on Monday morning. This Monday was no exception. The tiny office was buzzing with activity, the three operators on the day shift bent over their consoles in front of the ancient switchboard.

On Arvid Pekon's console, subject 1297's light was blinking. He adjusted his headset, plugged the end of the cord into the jack by the lamp and said in a mild voice: "Operator."

"Eva Idegrd, please," said subject 1297 at the other end.

"One moment." Arvid flicked the mute switch and fed the name into the little computer terminal under the wall of lamps and jacks. Subject 1297 was named Samuelsson, Per. Idegrd, Eva was Samuelsson's caseworker at the unemployment insurance office. He read the basic information (1297 unemployed for seven months), listened to the voice sample, and flicked the mute switch again.

"Gothenburg unemployment insurance office, Eva Idegrd," Arvid said in a slightly hoa.r.s.e alto voice.

"Hi, this is Per Samuelsson," said Per. "I wanted to check what's happening with my fee." He rattled off his personal registration number.

"Of course," said Arvid in Eva Idegrd's voice.

He glanced at the information in the registry: last conversation at 1.43 PM, February 26: Subject's unemployment benefits were lowered and insurance fee raised because of reported illness but no doctor's certificate. (Subject did send a doctor's certificate-processed according to randomized destruction routine 2.4.a.) "You'll have to pay the maximum insurance fee since we haven't received a doctor's certificate," said Arvid.

"I sent two of them in the original," said Per. "This isn't right."

"I suppose one could think that," said Arvid, " but the fact remains that we haven't received them."

"What the h.e.l.l do you people do all day?" Per's voice was noticeably raised.