Фредрик Бакман - Anxious People

“No…,” Lennart began, but didn’t even manage to take a breath before Zara stormed on.

“Then you’ll dredge up some pop-psychological nonsense about money not having any value because that’s also a construct. And then we get to the history lesson, where clever old you gets to teach silly, ignorant me about economic theory and how the stock market came about. Maybe you feel like telling me about Hanoi 1902, when the city tried to fight a plague of rats by offering the inhabitants a reward for every rat they killed and whose tail they handed over to the police. And what did that lead to? People started breeding rats! Do you have any idea how many men have told me that story to illustrate how selfish and untrustworthy ordinary people are? Do you know how many men like you every single woman on the planet meets every day, who think that every thought that pops into your tiny little male brains is a lovely present you can give us?”

Lennart had backed away three steps toward the railing by this point. But Zara had got into her stride now, so all he had time to say was: “I—,” before she snapped: “You what? You what? You’re not the greedy one, everyone else is? Is that what you were about to say?”

The rabbit shook its ears.

“No. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone had jumped off that bridge. Did you know…?”

Zara’s cheeks were throbbing, her throat was bright red beneath the headphones. She was no longer talking to Lennart, but exactly who she was talking to probably wasn’t clear even to her, but it felt like she’d been waiting ten years to yell at someone. Anyone at all. Herself most of all. So she roared: “People like you and me are the problem, don’t you get that? We always defend ourselves by saying we’re only offering a service. That we’re just one tiny part of the market. That everything is people’s own fault. That they’re greedy, that they shouldn’t have given us their money. And then we have the nerve to wonder why stock markets crash and the city is full of rats…”

Her eyes were wild with rage, and little clouds of smoke kept puffing breathlessly out of her nostrils. The rabbit didn’t reply, those unblinking eyes just looked at her as she tried to get her pulse under control. Then there was a hacking sound from inside the head, and at first Zara thought the old bastard was having a stroke, then realized that this was what Lennart sounded like when he was laughing, really properly, from deep in his stomach. He held his arms out.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about anymore, to be honest. But I give up, you win, you win!”

Zara’s eyes narrowed, from fear as much as anger. It was easier to talk to the rabbit than other people, because she didn’t have to look Lennart in the eye. She wasn’t prepared for what that was going to do to her. She leaned forward and stretched her fingers out on her thighs, bent and straightened them, over and over again. Then she said in a quieter voice: “I win, do I? Do Anna-Lena and Roger win? He’s trying to get rich and she’s trying to make him happy, and all they’re really doing is postponing an inevitable divorce. But that probably just makes you happy, because then they’ll have to buy two apartments.”

At that, something happened. Lennart raised his voice for the first time.

“No! That’s not enough! Because… because… I don’t believe that!”

“So what do you believe, then?” Zara snapped back, and—regardless of whatever it was that had led her to this point—her voice finally broke. She screwed her eyes shut and clenched her fists around the headphones. She had been waiting ten years for someone to ask her that question. So it almost floored her when he said:

“Love.”

Lennart picked up and dropped the word so carelessly, as if it weren’t a big deal at all. Zara wasn’t prepared for it, and that sort of thing can make a person angry. Lennart’s voice became more muffled inside the rabbit’s head, hurt now: “You’re talking like I’d be happy if people got divorced. No one can go to two thousand apartment viewings and not realize that there’s more love in the world than the opposite.”

Not even Zara had an answer to that. And he still didn’t seem to be freezing, the idiot in the rabbit’s head, which just made her more annoyed. Stop talking about love and feel cold, for God’s sake, like any normal idiot, she thought, and prepared to fire back with some devastating remark. But all she heard herself ask was: “What do you base that on?”

The rabbit’s ears quivered.

“All the apartments that aren’t for sale.”

Zara’s fingers fumbled around her neck. It wasn’t an entirely ridiculous answer, which obviously annoyed her. Why couldn’t Lennart have the decency to be a complete idiot? An idiot who is also a romantic is almost unbearable, and that “almost” can drive a woman with headphones mad.

So she remained silent, gazing off toward the bridge. Then she let out a resigned sigh and pulled two cigarettes out from her bag. She stuck one in the rabbit’s snout and the other in her own mouth. The rabbit was smart enough not to start going on about her earlier claim that she didn’t smoke. She appreciated that. When she gave him the lighter he managed to singe the fur on his nose and had to pat the flames out with his hands. She appreciated that as well.

They smoked without any sense of urgency. Then Lennart said, heavily but with no trace of accusation, as he looked out across the rooftops: “You can think what you like about me, but Anna-Lena is one of the few clients I’ve got who I… can’t help rooting for. She doesn’t want to make her husband rich, she just wants to make him feel needed. Everyone takes it for granted that she’s submissive and oppressed and that she’s always had to stand back and make sacrifices for his career, but do you know what job she used to do?”

“No,” Zara confessed.

“She was a senior analyst for a big American industrial company. I didn’t believe it at first, because she’s as scatty as a box of kittens… but you won’t find a smarter, better-educated person in this apartment, I can assure you of that. When their kids were young his career started to take off, but hers was going even better, so Roger turned down a promotion so he could spend more time at home with the children, and she could go on all her business trips. It was only going to be for a few years, but her career started to go even better while his was treading water, and the more difference there was between their salaries, the harder it was for them to swap places. When the kids had grown up and Anna-Lena had accomplished all her goals, she turned to Roger and said ‘Now it’s your turn.’ But he wasn’t offered any more promotions. He’d got too old. They didn’t have any way of talking about that, because they’d never practiced the right words. So now she’s trying to make it up to him by moving all the time and renovating apartments, all so they have… a project in common. Roger has no kids to look after anymore, so he feels worthless. And Anna-Lena just wants a home. You can say a lot of things about me, but don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not rooting for those two.”

Zara lit another cigarette, mostly so she could keep her eyes busy staring at the glowing tip.

“Did Anna-Lena tell you all that?”

“You’d be surprised what people tell me.”

“No I wouldn’t,” Zara whispered.

She felt like telling him that she needs distance. That she can’t stop massaging her hands. That she counts everything in every room because it calms her down. That she likes spreadsheets and turnover forecasts because she likes order. But she also felt like telling him that the economic system she has devoted her life to working in is the world’s biggest problem right now, because we made the system too strong. We forgot how greedy we are, but above all we forgot how weak we are. And now it’s crushing us.