When the Devil Holds the Candle (6 page)

***

The woman moaned and carried on. She was oblivious to everything, to the fact that she was shivering or that the child might get cold because she was standing there holding him. She was all alone with the little bundle with the wet mouth, the thing she loved more than anything else. Sobs! A faint bleating. She could hardly breathe as she listened. He wasn't breathing. She shook him and took a few steps, and finally air filled his lungs. And he started crying again.

She stumbled around among the rocks until the child calmed down. Then she carefully took off his hat and found a scrape on his bald head. With one arm she hugged the child to her breast as hard as she dared, and with her free other hand she struggled to pull the stroller up the slope. She slid back, dug her feet hard into the ground to steady herself, gasping in desperation. When she finally reached the top, she was soaked with sweat. Her arms ached. She put the baby in the stroller and spread the quilt over him. One of the wheels was bent and it was difficult to push. Luckily she had her keys in her coat pocket. When she reached home, she lifted the carrying cot out of the frame, put it on the backseat of the car, fastened it with a seat belt, and drove to the emergency department. She cursed the two men who had robbed her. Hatred and anger came and went in her body like tongues of fire. May terrible things happen to them! May they crash their car on the way to town, suffer a head injury and be paralyzed from the waist down!

The baby was sleeping, safe and sound—but he had that mark on his head. A tiny scrape. It took her eleven minutes to drive to the hospital. She lifted him out of the carrying cot and took him inside.

A doctor examined the cut. Took off most of the baby's clothes and shone a light into the dark pupils of his eyes. The baby drooled and flailed his arms.

"He looks fine," the doctor said. "You should report the handbag snatching."

"No," she said wearily. "The only thing that's important is my baby."

"What's his name?"

She smiled shyly. "He hasn't been baptized yet. I'll know his name day when I find a name. None of them are good enough," she said proudly. The doctor wrote out a bill, since her cash had been stolen. It was really just a token amount. Forty kroner.

Then she went home and nursed the baby for a long time. She sat next to his cot, couldn't make herself leave him. Then she changed her mind and carried him to her own bed. Spread the quilt over both of them and turned off the light. Tried to calm down, but couldn't. She didn't believe in God. She had formally withdrawn from the state church. But in the dark, lying under the quilt, she sensed the contours of some kind of purpose. This overwhelmed her: the fact that they did mean something after all, she and the baby, something beyond what she meant to herself when she thought clearly about her own life. Something was keeping them company as they lay there together. She felt herself observed. And later, another thought came: someday she would die, or the boy would, and that this
might happen suddenly. She placed her hand on the child's head. It fitted perfectly in the palm of her hand. He didn't move. He was sound asleep.

Zipp and Andreas were busy drinking up her money. Zipp was hunched over like an old man; it had all been too much for him. Andreas was rocking his chair back and forth, silently making his point. Whoever mentioned the baby first—that awful, unexpected event which had befallen them—would ruin the evening.

They had planned a quick and easy play, over in a couple of seconds. Wham! Four hundred kroner. No harm done.

Andreas studied the fan on the ceiling. It was revolving slowly, reminding him of a scene in a film that he liked. They drank some more, patiently waiting for intoxication to spread over their brows like a cool rag. Life began to look better as time passed, the girls were prettier, the future brighter. Zipp wiped the foam from his upper lip. And then it slipped out.

"What do you think happened to the baby?"

Andreas uttered a huge, world-weary sigh. He set down his glass without a sound.

"Babies are soft like rubber. The skull hasn't even grown together, it's elastic."

He met Zipp's frightened eyes. "It's made up of soft plates that slide over each other under pressure. Clever, huh?"

"You're making that up!"

Zipp's eyes flickered. Andreas always had an answer, but he could be a shameless liar. At the same time, that's what he wanted: to have an answer at all costs. The woman with the stroller had been a bad choice. The beer tasted just as good as always; that wasn't it. But that baby, God damn it, he was just a tiny bundle. Zipp pressed against the edge of the table and tried to steady his heart. He could still see it: That ridiculous blue plush vehicle on its way over the edge. The way it shook and
lurched downward before ramming into a rock, tipping forward, and toppling over. The tiny hands flailing helplessly. A deserted kiosk, an abandoned car, shit, that was nothing. But a live human being!

"If anything happened, it'll be in the papers tomorrow."

"Cut it out, Zipp. Just relax!"

Andreas stared up at the fan again. It was revolving in slow motion and did nothing to keep the smoke away. But he liked the way it moved, the steady pace, the big blades like a propeller overhead. The sight made him hum under his breath that song by the Doors, about never again being able to look into his friend's eyes.

Zipp cleared his throat. "We'll watch a video later. At my house. OK?"

He gave Andreas an imploring look. He needed to forget the episode by the sea. Three or four pints and an action film. And then to bed. Soon it would be behind them. They would stick to kiosks from now on.

"
Blade Runner,
" Andreas said curtly. "If they have it."

"No, not that one. Not again!"

"You don't get it.
Blade Runner
is the best." Andreas was resolute.

"But I've seen it so many times," Zipp complained. "I know what's going to happen."

"Tonight something different will happen," Andreas said. "That film has a life of its own. Layers on top of layers. You can't take it in all at once."

Zipp felt depressed as he emptied his glass.

"You have to develop your mind, man. That's what's wrong with you," Andreas said, wiping off the wet ring left by his glass on the table. "You don't realize that time is passing."

Zipp grimaced. Andreas was obsessed with
Blade Runner.
He'd seen it a hundred times and could never get enough. He quoted from it at regular intervals. Zipp studied the other guests in the bar. Usually he could manage to attract the attention of some girl, if she wasn't sitting too far away. He would immediately feel a prickling in his crotch. He loved that prickling; it made his blood rush and his head feel giddy. A girl was staring back at him. Andreas followed his gaze and rolled his eyes. A little chick in tight clothes. A striped jumper, too short at the waist, so her midriff was on show. And a tiny little ring in her navel. Her tits poked out like two tennis balls.

"Silicone," Andreas said. "What a fucking bunch of shit girls have under their clothes these days."

"I don't give a damn," Zipp said with a grin. "As long as I get to touch them. You can't tell the real ones from the fake ones, not on young girls like that. What about your Woman?" he went on. "I'll bet she's got breasts that hang down to here. You have no idea what breasts look like on a young girl. It's about time you checked out the situation. She has a friend with her. See, here she comes. Been out to the bathroom to change her panty liner, that's what I reckon. I know girls like her. They get wet if you just look at them."

Andreas regarded the girl's friend with dull eyes. Zipp couldn't see it, but the girl did—the lack of interest in his pale gaze. She turned her back to him, clearly discouraged because she hadn't made an impression.

"They hang around like grouse," Andreas muttered. "They spread their legs before even a shot is fired."

"We're never going to get those ladies to watch
Blade Runner,
" Zipp said, sounding worried. "What about
Independence Day?
"

"Over my dead body."

Andreas went over to the bar. Pulled one of Gina's hundred-kroner notes out of his shirt pocket. He didn't so much as glance at the two girls.
Come and get us, come and get us!
their rounded shoulders begged. Unbelievable! He left a generous tip and carried the glasses back to the table.

"What's so bad about her friend?" Zipp asked.

"Everything," Andreas said. "Up in that head of hers there's only one thing going on."

"Jesus, you're so full of it!"

"There's one tape inside that keeps playing. It's been playing ever since the girl had tits the size of plums. It says: 'Like me, like me, for God's sake, please like me!' And every time that doesn't happen, she's so surprised. It's fucking incredible."

"You're incredible, too," Zipp said. "What's the deal with those old bitches you like so much? What does their tape say?"

Andreas took a sip.

" 'I like you, I like you.' That's the difference."

They gulped down the ice-cold beer. They had forgotten all about the baby, which was what they had wanted. Later they sat in Zipp's basement room and stared at
Blade Runner.
Andreas was totally infatuated. Zipp was thinking about the girl in the tight jumper.

"That guy there who's folding shapes out of paper," Zipp said, nodding at the screen. "He's one of the bad guys, right?"

Andreas groaned. "I thought you said you remembered everything?"

"I remember it now. The androids. Replicants. That only live for four years."

"Right, Zipp. So be happy with your allotted time."

Andreas tore off the corner of a magazine lying on the table.

"I can fold a little cock for you."

He leaned closer to the screen. "Now he's ordering a Tsing-tao. Shit, this is good. Salome and the snake."

"I've seen it before," Zipp grumbled.

"The way she dies," Andreas said, waxing emotional. "It's so fucking beautiful. The way she sails through the glass."

"That's called slow motion. Not especially innovative."

"You don't get it," Andreas said angrily. "Look at her! Wearing only a see-through raincoat. And the blood inside the
plastic when the bullets hit—that's pure genius. Salome's death. It's magnificent, plain and simple. And that part's great!" he went on. "'Can the maker repair what he makes?'" He looked at Zipp. "Pressing the eyeballs into the head of a man with your bare thumbs—could you do that?"

Zipp didn't think so. But it occurred to him that Andreas could very possibly be a replicant. Who only livened up at the sight of his own kind, with implanted memories and a built-in emotional response, like Roy Batty. An advanced design from the Tyrell Corporation, "Nexus 6 fighting model." Soon he'd fall victim to reversing cells. He even wanted to sit through the music of Vangelis during the credits. By then Zipp was on the verge of sleep.

"Wake up," Andreas said, pounding Zipp on the shoulder. "Time to die."

***

I want to be left in peace. The price I pay is that I no longer count—I'm not seen, not considered important. Wearing this brown coat, I'm not taken seriously. And yet, if people only knew, God forbid, but the worst of all...

The doctor tells me that I'm healthy, that there's nothing wrong with me. Strong as a horse. That animal keeps plaguing me. I have a brisk gait and move with ease, even though I'm big-boned. Some people would say chubby, but at least I've kept my figure. I'm not tall, which suits me fine because women should be petite. It's strange how different other people are from me. I'm almost invisible: no one ever notices me. They veer aside if they're heading toward me in the street, but they don't notice whom they're avoiding; I'm just a shadow at the corner of their eye. It doesn't bother me, since I've never known anything else. Oh yes, I have a son: Ingemar. I carried him around when he was
little, rocked him, caressed him. I felt almost astonished that he was mine, that he was dependent on me, that he would die if I dropped him. That made Irma blossom—she was needed by another human being. She was life or death to him! But it didn't last. Nothing lasts. He grew up, passed me by, looked at my feet when he spoke. Then he moved away. That's how it goes. I'm invisible, so dreadfully ordinary, so terribly different. I know only a few people, and I know them better than they know me. They think they know me, but they're wrong. By all reckoning, they're wrong.

Several days passed before they reported Andreas missing in the newspapers. His colleagues at work had come forward to say flattering things about him, as they always do. No one wants to be embarrassed later, in case he should be found dead. That word hovers between the lines in the paper like toxic bacteria. No one dares to say it out loud, since it might turn out to be true. Did they think he had committed suicide? No, no, for God's sake, not Andreas. He sauntered through life. He wouldn't leave it of his own free will, and he didn't have any enemies. Yes, it's true that he took chances, innocent kinds of things, the way boys do. A beer or two on a Saturday night. But that's not a crime, surely? We're terribly worried. They pose for the newspaper photographer, loving the spotlight, the fact that they know someone who might have died under mysterious circumstances. If he suddenly shows up, safe and sound, if he's just been out partying on the Danish ferryboat, what a letdown that would be, when it could have been something exciting. I haven't disappointed them.

I've turned off the lights in most of the house. But there's a light on in the bathroom. Soon Andreas will start to decompose, like a piece of meat that's been left out on the countertop. It changes color, gets soft and jellylike, and then it starts to smell. At some point the meat becomes poisonous. I'm poisonous now, too—perhaps I've started to smell different. I, who am so careful about things like that. I always use soap and deodorant. I wash my hair frequently. And my floors. My windows are shiny. All my door handles are polished and clean. But I myself have become a piece of spoiled meat. I didn't want that to happen.