LITMIR.BIZ

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walk. He was two years old and still crawling everywhere. She would scold him and then tease him when he cried. Said he looked like a baby. Benjamin would try to walk, take a few steps, but then the terrible pain would force him to lie down again.

      They didn’t know then that he had a blood disorder, that the blood vessels in his joints burst when he stood up.

      Once Benjamin had been diagnosed with von Willebrand’s disease, it was Erik who took over the care the condition demanded, not Simone. It was Erik who gently moved Benjamin’s joints back and forth after the night’s immobility, in order to reduce the risk of internal bleeding; Erik who carried out the complex injections, where the needle absolutely must not penetrate the muscle but must be emptied carefully and slowly beneath the skin. The technique was far more painful than a normal injection. For the first few years, Benjamin would sit with his face pressed against his father’s stomach, weeping silently as the needle went in. These days he went on eating his breakfast without looking, just offering his arm to Erik, who swabbed it, administered the injection, and put on a dressing.

      The factor preparation that helped Benjamin’s blood to coagulate was called Haemate. Simone thought it sounded like a Greek goddess of revenge. It was a horrible and unsatisfactory drug that was delivered in the form of a yellow, freeze-dried, granular powder, which had to be measured, dissolved, mixed, and warmed into the correct dosage before it could be administered. Haemate greatly increased the risk of blood clots, and they lived in constant hope that something better would come along. But with the Haemate, a high dose of desmopressin, and Cyklo-kapron in a nasal spray to prevent bleeds in the mucous membrane, Benjamin was relatively safe.

      She could still remember when they had received his laminated alert card from the Emergency Blood Service, adorned with Benjamin’s birthday photo: his laughing four-year-old face beneath the message:

      I have von Willebrand’s disease. If anything happens to me, please call the Emergency Blood Service immediately: 040-33-10-10.

      Since meeting Aida, Benjamin always wears his mobile phone hanging around his neck from a black strap with skulls on it. They text each other far into the night, and Benjamin still has the phone around his neck when Erik or Simone wakes him up in the morning.

      Simone searches carefully among all the papers and magazines on Benjamin’s desk. Then she opens a drawer and moves aside a book about World War II, unearthing a scrap of paper with the imprint of a pair of lips pressed upon it in black lipstick and a telephone number below. She hurries into the kitchen and punches in the number, waits while the line rings, and is throwing a stinking sponge into the waste bin when someone finally picks up.

      A faint, croaking voice, breathing heavily.

      “Hello,” says Simone. “I’m sorry to disturb you. My name is Simone Bark. I’m Benjamin’s mother. I was wondering if—”

      The voice, which seems to belong to a woman, hisses that she doesn’t know any Benjamin and this must be a wrong number.

      “Wait, please,” says Simone, trying to sound calm. “Aida and my son usually hang out together. I was hoping you might know where they could be. I really need to get hold of Benjamin.”

      “Ten … ten—”

      “I’m sorry, I can’t make out what you’re saying.”

      “Ten … sta.”

      “Tensta? Aida’s in Tensta?”

      “Yes. That bloody … tattoo.”

      Simone thinks she can hear an oxygen machine working slowly, a rhythmic hissing noise in the background.

      “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Tattoo?” she pleads.

      The woman snaps something and ends the call. Simone sits there staring at the telephone, decides to ring the woman back, then suddenly understands what she meant. She quickly calls information and gets the address of a tattoo parlour in the shopping centre in Tensta. Simone’s entire body shudders as she pictures Benjamin at this very moment succumbing to temptation, allowing his skin to be pierced for a tattoo; the blood begins to flow and cannot coagulate.

       20

       tuesday, december 8: lunchtime

      Simone stares out the window of the underground train. She is still sweating after leaving the empty flat and running to the station.

      She ought to have taken a cab, but she tells herself that nothing has happened; she always worries unnecessarily.

      A man opposite her fusses with a newspaper. From the reflection in the window she can see that he glances at her from time to time.

      “Hey,” says the man. His voice is irritatingly insistent.

      She ignores him, looking out the window.

      “Hello-o?” says the man.

      She realises he has no intention of giving up until he has her attention.

      “Hey, don’t you hear me? I’m talking to you!” the man persists.

      Simone turns to him. “I can hear you perfectly well,” she says calmly.

      “Why don’t you answer me, then?” he asks.

      “I’m answering you now.”

      He blinks a couple of times, and here it comes. “You’re a woman, aren’t you?”

      “Is that all you want to know?” she asks, turning back to the window.

      He moves across to sit beside her. “Wait, listen to this. I had a woman, and my woman, my woman—”

      Simone feels a few drops of spittle spatter her cheek.

      “She was like Elizabeth Taylor,” he goes on. “You know who she was?” He lays two fingers on her arm, confidentially. “Do you know who Elizabeth Taylor was?”

      “Yes,” says Simone impatiently. “Of course I do.”

      He leans back, satisfied with her answer. “She was always finding some new man,” he whines. “Wanting better and better all the time, diamond rings and presents and necklaces.”

      The train slows down and Simone sees that they’ve arrived in Tensta.

      “This is my stop. I need to get off,” she says. She stands up.

      “I bet you do,” the man says, placing himself in her way. “Come on, give me a little hug. I just want a little hug.”

      Stiffly, through clenched teeth, she excuses herself and moves his arm away. She feels his hand on her butt, but at the same moment the train stops and the man loses his balance and falls back against the seat.

      “Whore,” he says calmly, as she moves away.

      She steps off the train, runs out of the station, over a Plexiglas-covered bridge, and down the steps. In the middle of the square, inside the shopping centre, there’s a huge board, a directory, and a floor plan that lists all the different shops. Breathing heavily, Simone goes through it until she finds Tensta Tattoos. It’s at the far end of the mall. Simone heads in the direction of the escalator.

      In her mind’s eye, she imagines a circle of kids surrounding a boy lying on the ground. She pushes her way through the crowd and realises that it’s Benjamin, bleeding endlessly from some tacky unfinished tattoo.

      She takes the escalator two steps at a time, reaching the top quickly. Stepping off, she catches sight of an odd movement at the other end of the centre, in a deserted area where the shops are all vacant. It looks as if someone is hanging over the barrier.

      She sets off in that direction, and as she gets closer she can see clearly what is happening: two boys are holding another child, a little girl, over the second-floor barrier. It’s a fall to the lower level of at least thirty feet. A tall figure is walking nearby, flapping

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