Фредрик Бакман - Anxious People

Anna-Lena replied without thinking at all: “You love each other until you can’t live without each other. And even if you stop loving each other for a little while, you can’t… you can’t live without each other.”

Julia says nothing for several minutes. Her own mom lived on her own, but Ro’s parents had been married for forty years. No matter how much Julia loved Ro, that thought occasionally horrified her. Forty years. How can you love someone that long? Gesturing vaguely toward the walls of the closet, she smiled to Anna-Lena: “My wife drives me crazy. She wants to make wine and store cheese in here.”

Anna-Lena poked her tear-streaked face out between two pairs of suit pants made of the same fabric, and replied as if she were revealing an embarrassing secret: “Sometimes Roger drives me crazy, too. He uses our hairdryer to… well, you can guess… he sticks it under his towel. That’s not how you’re supposed to use a hairdryer… not there. That makes me want to scream!”

Julia shuddered.

“Urgh! Ro does exactly the same thing. It’s so disgusting it makes me feel sick.”

Anna-Lena bit her lip.

“I have to admit that I’d never thought of that. That you might have problems like that. I always assumed it would be easier if you lived with a… woman.”

Julia burst out laughing.

“You don’t fall in love with a gender, Anna-Lena. You fall in love with an idiot.”

Anna-Lena started laughing as well, much louder than she usually did. Then they looked at each other. Anna-Lena was twice Julia’s age, but they had a lot in common just then. Both married to idiots who didn’t know the difference between different types of hair. Anna-Lena looked at Julia’s stomach and smiled.

“When’s it due?”

“Any time now! Do you hear that, you little alien?” Julia replied, half to Anna-Lena and half to her little alien.

Anna-Lena didn’t seem to understand the reference, but she closed her eyes and said: “We have a son and a daughter. They’re your age. But they don’t want kids of their own. Roger’s taken it badly. You might not think it if you meet him like this, if you don’t really know him, but he’d be a good grandfather if he got the chance.”

“There’s still plenty of time for that, isn’t there?” Julia wondered, mostly because if those children were the same age as her, she didn’t want to be old enough to be an old mom.

Anna-Lena shook her head sadly.

“No, they’ve made up their minds. And of course that’s their choice, that’s… that’s how it is these days. My daughter says the world is already overpopulated, and she’s worried about climate change. I don’t know why ordinary anxieties aren’t enough. Does anyone really need something new to worry about?”

“Is that why she doesn’t want kids?”

“Yes, that’s what she says. Unless I’ve misunderstood. I probably have. But maybe it would be good for the environment if there weren’t quite so many people, I don’t know. I just wish Roger could feel important again.”

Julia didn’t seem to follow the logic.

“Grandchildren would make him feel important?”

Anna-Lena smiled weakly.

“Have you ever held a three-year-old by the hand on the way home from preschool?”

“No.”

“You’re never more important than you are then.”

They sit there with nothing more to say, shivering slightly in the draft. Neither of them thinks to wonder where it’s coming from.

41

Estelle was moving silently through the hall, her old body was now so light that she would have been an excellent hunter if only she didn’t talk so much. She looked indulgently at the bank robber, Ro, and Roger in turn on the bench, and when none of them noticed her, she cleared her throat apologetically and asked: “Can I ask if anyone’s hungry? There’s food in the freezer, I could throw something together. That’s to say, I’m sure there’s food. In the kitchen. People usually have food in the kitchen.”

Estelle knew no better way of saying that she cared about people than to ask if they were hungry. The bank robber gave her a sad but appreciative smile.

“Some food would be great, thanks, but I don’t want to be any trouble.”

Ro, on the other hand, nodded enthusiastically, for no other reason than that she was so hungry she could eat a lime with the rind still on. “Maybe we could order pizza?”

The thought delighted her so much that she accidentally elbowed Roger, who seemed to wake up from being deep in thought. He looked up.

“What?”

“Pizza!” Ro repeated.

“Pizza? Now?” Roger snorted and looked at his watch.

The bank robber, who had been struck by another thought, in turn sighed in resignation: “No. To start with, I haven’t actually got enough money to order pizza. I can’t even manage to take hostages without them starving to death…”

Roger folded his arms and looked at the bank robber, for the first time not judgmentally, but more curiously.

“Can I ask what your plan is? How are you thinking of getting out of here?”

The bank robber blinked hard, then admitted without bothering to dress it up: “I don’t know. I didn’t think this far. I was just trying… I just needed money for the rent, because I’m getting divorced and the lawyer said they’d take my children away otherwise. My girls. Oh, it’s a long story, I don’t want to bore you with… sorry, it’s probably best if I give myself up. I get it!”

“If you give yourself up now and go out into the street, the police might kill you,” Ro said, not altogether encouragingly.

“What a thing to say!” Estelle said.

“That’s probably true, they see you as armed and dangerous, and people like that tend to get shot on sight,” Roger added informatively.

The ski mask suddenly looked rather moist around the eye holes.

“This isn’t even a real pistol.”

“It doesn’t look real,” Roger agreed, based on his almost breathtakingly total lack of experience in the subject.

The bank robber whispered: “I’m an idiot. I’m a failure and an idiot. I haven’t got a plan. If they want to shoot me, they might as well. I can’t get anything right anyway.”

The bank robber stood up and walked toward the door of the apartment with newfound determination.

It was Ro who went and stood in the way. Partly because the bank robber had talked about having kids, of course, but also because at this point in her life Ro could sympathize with the feeling of getting things wrong the whole time. So she exclaimed: “Hello? You’re just going to give up now, after all this? Can’t we at least order pizza? In hostage films the police always provide pizza! Free of charge!”

Estelle folded her hands over her stomach and added: “I’ve got nothing against pizza. Do you think they’d send some salad, too?”

Roger grunted without looking up: “Free? Are you serious?”

“Serious as kidney stones,” Ro swore. “Hostages always get pizza in films! If we can just think of a way of contacting the police, we can order some!”

Roger stared down at the floor for a long, long time. Then he glanced over at the closed door of the closet at the other end of the apartment, trying to sense his wife’s presence through it. The skin beneath his eyes kept twitching spasmodically. Then it was as if he’d made up his mind to act, because in Roger’s experience nothing good ever came of him thinking things through for too long, so he slapped his hands down firmly on his knees and stood up. He was seizing the initiative. And just doing that made him feel warm inside.

“Okay! I’ll organize pizza!”

He marched toward the balcony. Estelle scuttled quickly into the kitchen to find plates. Ro in turn set off toward the closet to ask what sort of pizza Julia wanted. The bank robber was left alone in the hall, clutching the pistol and muttering quietly: “Worst hostages ever. You’re the worst hostages ever.”