She no longer felt the need to please anyone who bought her three beers in a pub,
and she did not experience the slightest degree of self-fulfilment by going home
with some drunk whose name she could not remember. During the past year she
had had only one regular sex partner—hardly promiscuous, as her casebook
entries during her late teens had designated her.
For her, sex had most often been with one of a loose group of friends; she was not
really a member, but she was accepted because she knew Cilla Norén. She met Cilla
in her late teens when, at Palmgren’s insistence, she was trying to get the school
certificate she had failed to complete at Komvux. Cilla had plum-red hair streaked
with black, black leather trousers, a ring in her nose, and as many rivets on her belt
as Salander. They had glared suspiciously at each other during the first class.
For some reason Salander did not understand, they had started hanging out
together. Salander was not the easiest person to be friends with, and especially not
during those years, but Cilla ignored her silences and took her along to the bar.
Through Cilla, she had become a member of “Evil Fingers,” which had started as a
suburban band consisting of four teenage girls in Enskede who were into hard
rock. Ten years later, they were a group of friends who met at Kvarnen on Tuesday
nights to talk trash about boys and discuss feminism, the pentagram, music, and
politics while they drank large quantities of beer. They also lived up to their name.
Salander found herself on the fringe of the group and rarely contributed to the talk,
but she was accepted for who she was. She could come and go as she pleased and
was allowed to sit in silence over her beer all evening. She was also invited to
birthday parties and Christmas glögg celebrations, though she usually didn’t go.
During the five years she hung out with “Evil Fingers,” the girls began to change.
Their hair colour became less extreme, and the clothing came more often from the
H&M boutiques rather than from funky Myrorna. They studied or worked, and one
of the girls became a mother. Salander felt as if she were the only one who had not
changed a bit, which could also be interpreted as that she was simply marking time
and going nowhere.
But they still had fun. If there was one place where she felt any sort of group
solidarity, it was in the company of the “Evil Fingers” and, by extension, with the
guys who were friends with the girls.