He walked past the patients who hung out near the hospital doors, longing for home, along the corridor with a constant traffic of people on their way somewhere else, and stepped into one of the big shiny lifts where a recorded voice informed you sweetly which floor you were on.
He’s only got himself to blame. It’s his own fault.
Jochum had his own mantra. He used the same ritual every time, knew it would work.
He’s only got himself to blame.
He knew where to find him. General Medicine. Floor 6. Ward 2.
He moved quickly now. It was a job and he wanted to be done with it.
The room was much too quiet. The others were practically asleep, just two of them, an old boy in the bed opposite and a lad who looked more dead than alive. Hilding didn’t like silence, never had. He looked around nervously, stared at the door, waited.
He saw his visitor the moment the door opened. His clothes were soaked. It must be raining outside.
‘Jochum?’
His heart was pounding. He clawed at the sore on his nose and tried to ignore the fear that tore at his insides.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
Jochum Lang looked exactly the same as before. Just as fucking big and bald. Hilding felt all sorts of things. He didn’t want to feel them, but couldn’t help himself. No way. All he wanted was some Stesolid. Or Rohypnol.
‘Sit up.’
Jochum was impatient, his voice low but clear.
‘Sit up.’
Jochum grabbed the wheelchair by the older man’s bed, released the brake and pushed it across to Hilding, waiting until he was sitting on the edge of the bed.
He pointed from the bed to the wheelchair.
‘I want you to sit in this.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Can’t say here. Got to get you to the lifts.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Fucking sit here!’
Jochum pointed at the wheelchair again, his hand close to Hilding’s face. He’s only got himself to blame. Hilding’s eyes had closed. His thin body was weak; only a few hours earlier he had collapsed in a photo booth. It’s his own fault. He was obeying now, slowly, stopping to scratch at the sore, the blood running down his chin.
‘I didn’t. Didn’t say a word.’
Jochum stood behind him, then started to wheel him out, past the man and the boy, both asleep by now.
‘I mean. Listen, Jochum, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t talk. Do you hear me? The pigs asked, sure, had me in for an interview and wanted to know about you, but I didn’t say a thing.’
The corridor was empty. Blue-green floor, white walls. And cold.
‘I believe you. You wouldn’t have the guts.’
They met two nurses, who nodded a kind of greeting to the patient in the wheelchair. Hilding wept like he hadn’t done since he was a child, since before the heroin.
‘But you’ve been dealing in cut speed. And flogged it to the wrong punters.’
They had left the wards now and entered the lift area. The corridor was wider here and the colours had changed; it had a grey floor and yellow walls. Hilding’s body trembled violently. He had no idea fear could hurt like this.
‘The wrong punters?’
‘Mirja.’
‘Mirja? That slag?’
‘She’s Mio’s niece. And you’re so fucking stupid that you sold her half-half Yugo whizz and washing powder.’
Hilding tried to stop crying. The tears seemed weird, nothing to do with him.
‘I don’t get it.’
They stopped in front of the lifts. Four lifts, two on their way up.
‘I don’t get it.’
‘You will. You and me. We’re going to have a little chat.’
‘Jochum! Fuck’s sake!’
The lift doors. He could reach them, grab hold of them and maybe hang on.
He couldn’t tell.
Couldn’t tell why the fucking tears kept coming.
Alena Sljusareva ran along the quay at Vдrta Harbour.
She stared down into the dark water. It was raining, had been raining all morning; what could have been a sunlit blue sea was black. The waves crashed against the cement walls of the quay. It was more like autumn than summer.
She was crying and had been for nearly twenty-four hours, from fear at first, then from rage and now from a frail sense of longing mixed with hopelessness.
During the past twenty-four hours she had relived the three years since she and Lydia had boarded the Lithuanian ferry. Two men had escorted them, their hands politely opening doors and their mouths smiling and telling the two young women how lovely they looked. One of the men had been a Swede, who spoke good Russian and had false passports ready and waiting, the key to their new life. Their cabin was really big, larger than the Klaipeda bedroom she had shared with three others. Alena had been laughing and happy then. She and her new friend were leaving the past behind.
She had been a virgin.
The ship had barely left the harbour.
She could still feel the sensation of the blood running down the inside of her thighs.
Three years. Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oslo, Copenhagen, then back to Stockholm. Never fewer than twelve men. Every day. She tried to recall just a few of them, see their faces in her mind’s eye, any of them, the ones who liked hitting or humping you or simply looking at you.
She couldn’t remember a single one.
All faceless.
Like Lydia felt about her body, but the other way round. Lydia said her body wasn’t there, something that Alena had never understood. She was aware of her body all the time, knew it was being violated, counted the number of times; she’d lie there naked and calculate the total of twelve times a day for three years.
She had a body, no matter how hard they tried to take it away from her.
For her, they didn’t have faces, that was how she coped.
She had tried to warn Lydia, calm her down. Nothing worked. It was as if she changed the moment she had seen the newspaper article. Her reaction had been so strong, her eyes glowing with hatred. Alena had seen Lydia humiliated, resentful, but never like this, so full of hate. She regretted having shown Lydia the newspaper, should have hidden it instead, or thrown it away, as she had thought at first.
Lydia had stood up to Dimitri, straight-backed in front of him and said that from now on she intended to hold on to the money, it was her they screwed and she deserved to keep what they paid. He’d struck her in the face at first, it was his usual reaction and Lydia must have expected it. She hadn’t backed off, just told him that she didn’t want any customers for a bit, no one lying on top of her, she was too tired and didn’t want to do it any more.
Lydia had never protested before. Not aloud to Dimitri, that is. She had dreaded the blows, the pain and the gun he sometimes pointed at their heads. Alena sat down on the edge of the quay with her legs dangling. Three years. She missed Janoz so much it tore at her. Why had she gone away, why hadn’t she told him that she was going?
She had been a child.
Now she had grown into someone different.
It had happened suddenly, in that ship’s cabin. The Swedish man had held her down and spat in her face, twice, while he forced himself into her. The change had continued afterwards, a little more for every time someone stole from inside her.
She had stood in the doorway of her room, watching. When he got the whip out and held it in front of Lydia’s face, she had rushed in and jumped on him. Dimitri had never beaten them with the whip, only threatened to. When she tried to grab it, he kicked her in the stomach, shoved her into her room and locked the door, shouting that she’d get hers later.