Eli and Hakan Bengtsson after his transformation

Eli and Hakan Bengtsson’s relationship turns on a devastating reversal: Hakan, once the older man who lived with and cared for Eli, returns in a transformed state that makes their former dependence impossible to sustain. The novel sets the intimacy of their shared past against a final encounter in which Eli must defend himself, then contain Hakan rather than restore their earlier life together.

Shared Life and the News of Hakan’s Escape

Oskar is the first to make the immediate danger explicit. When Eli approaches and takes his hand, Oskar interrupts his attempt to speak and asks whether he knows that the old man has escaped. Eli’s question in response makes clear that he has not understood which old man Oskar means. Oskar identifies him as the man who had called himself Eli’s father and had lived with him. The exchange compresses several parts of their history into a few words: Hakan’s place in Eli’s household, the father-like identity he presented, and the fact that Oskar knows enough of their shared life to identify him to Eli.

Oskar then tells Eli that Hakan has been sought throughout the day without being found. Eli’s immediate question is where. The exchange changes the meaning of their history from a story of domestic closeness into an urgent problem of whereabouts and safety. Eli is not given a gradual warning or a clear account of what Hakan has become; instead, the news arrives through Oskar, who has reconstructed events from papers and is angry at what he sees as Eli’s silence. Eli’s personal knowledge and Oskar’s gathered information meet in this tense moment, but they do not yet produce a shared understanding of Hakan’s condition.

Eli’s Knowledge of Infection and His Will to Live

Eli’s past experience gives the relationship’s crisis a larger context, though it does not supply an easy explanation for Hakan’s actions. After becoming infected, Eli had met only one other infected person: a grown woman whose outlook was as cynical and empty as that of the man with the wig. Their meeting answers Eli’s question about whether many others share his condition: the account suggests that infected people are rare. The woman also offers Eli a way to end his existence, but Eli flees from the proposal, as he had before and would do again. He reflects that perhaps being a child helped keep him from ending his life, and that his will to live outweighed his pangs of conscience.

That recollection matters to Eli and Hakan’s relationship because it distinguishes survival from uncomplicated acceptance. Eli has continued living despite having encountered another infected person who treated death as a possible solution. In the present, he still acts to preserve life and protect others, even when survival requires him to face the consequences of Hakan’s transformation. The text does not present Eli’s past encounter as a direct cause of Hakan’s condition; rather, it shows the difficult history through which Eli approaches the danger now represented by someone once central to his daily life.

A Caretaking Bond Reversed

On the night Hakan does not appear, Eli goes to check on Tommy. He wants to make sure Tommy has recovered and has not become infected, specifically for Oskar’s sake. This brief act of care places Eli within a wider chain of responsibility: Oskar is worried about Tommy, and Eli responds by checking on him. Eli also knows the cellar route, having previously left a piece of paper in the lock so the door would stay unlatched. The practical detail links his present movement through the building to an earlier visit with Oskar and gives him access to the space where the confrontation will unfold.

When Hakan reaches the shelter door, Eli is waiting with a stake, but the door offers little protection. The body outside prevents it from opening fully at first, then forces it wider. Eli asks what Hakan wants. The transformed man produces only a damaged, rasping attempt at speech and an involuntary movement. Eli cannot tell what Hakan feels or whether he can feel fear, but he himself experiences fear of pain in the face of the threat. The former relation of care has become unreadable: Hakan is physically present, yet no longer communicates in a way Eli can understand.

Eli is so occupied by a strange imagined comparison that he does not notice Hakan entering the room without invitation. The suddenness of the breach makes their changed roles unmistakable. Hakan’s attack leaves Eli incapacitated, and Eli is handled as an object while he struggles to return to awareness. The restrained account makes the reversal plain without treating the scene as a continuation of care: Hakan now exerts force, while Eli has lost control of his own body and surroundings.

Containment and Separation

Eli eventually manages to resist. When Hakan’s body moves toward him again, Eli concentrates his remaining strength and strikes at Hakan’s chest, searching for the heart. He finds it, but it is cold and unmoving. The discovery does not restore Hakan to the person Eli once knew; instead, it confirms that the ordinary signs by which Eli might have recognized life are no longer reliable. The relationship cannot be repaired through conversation or renewed caretaking in this encounter.

Eli then uses a sudden effort to throw Hakan off balance. Hakan falls through the shelter door into the dark interior, and Eli, weakened, manages to crawl after the opportunity to close it. He shuts the door, turns the locking wheel, and wedges a stick between the wheels so Hakan cannot unlock it from inside. The action is practical rather than reconciliatory: Eli separates himself from Hakan and secures the room against another attack. He then concentrates on healing and crawls out of the basement, eventually reaching the stairs well enough to stand and climb.

The ending leaves their bond suspended between intimate history and necessary separation. Eli survives, but the encounter offers no return to the household they once shared and no evidence that Hakan’s former identity can be reached through the transformed body. The contrast is especially sharp because Hakan had occupied a father-like place in Eli’s life, while Oskar’s warning and Eli’s final actions make him a danger that must be contained. Their relationship thus becomes one of the novel’s clearest demonstrations of how infection can overturn care: the person who once provided Eli with shelter becomes the person from whom Eli must shut himself away.