Fredrik Backman - Britt-Marie Was Here [Britt-Marie var här]

“Mistakenly so!” the woman in a suit says with a mild smile.

The random suit continues without missing a beat:

“The unemployment office in your town has made us aware of certain political responsibilities arising out of this. We have also been made aware of a certain amount of flexibility in the local council budget concerning further recruitment, which could be acted on now that… well… now that we are in an election year.”

“Twenty-one times. Twenty-one times we have been made aware of this!” another suit interjects angrily.

Words fail Britt-Marie. She stutters and clears her throat and then at long last manages to burst out:

“Might I just ask what on earth all this is supposed to mean?”

All of the suits in the room make restrained groans about how this must surely be quite plain and obvious. The suit sleeves slide back collectively to check if it isn’t time to have lunch. It is. A great impatience arises. One of the suits finally takes it upon himself to clarify the whole thing, and then looks wearily at Britt-Marie:

“It means that the local council will either budget for a new soccer pitch, or budget for you to keep your job. We can’t afford to do both.”

It’s not a reasonable choice to give a human being.

One remarkable thing about communities built along roads is that you can find just as many reasons for leaving them as excuses to make you stay.

I must ask you to try to understand that it isn’t a reasonable choice to give a human being,” says Britt-Marie.

When she doesn’t get an answer, she explains:

“It’s just intractable, you have to understand. I want to ask you to try not to hold it against me.”

She still doesn’t get an answer, so she sucks in her cheeks and adjusts her skirt.

“It’s very neat and tidy here. Of course I don’t know if this makes any difference to you now, but I hope it does. It’s a very neat and tidy churchyard, this.”

Sami doesn’t answer, but she hopes he’s listening when she says:

“I want you to know, darling boy, I’ll never regret coming to Borg.”

It’s Saturday afternoon. The day after the local council gave her an unreasonable choice and the very same day that Liverpool are playing Aston Villa six hundred miles from Borg. Early this morning Britt-Marie went to the recreation center.

On Monday there’ll be bulldozers on the gravel outside, the council has promised. Kent forced them to promise, because he said otherwise he would not let them go to have their lunch. And so they promised and crossed their hearts that turf would be laid down and there would be proper goals with nets. Proper chalked sidelines. It was not a reasonable choice to give a human being, but Britt-Marie remembered what it was like losing a sibling, she remembered just how much one could lose oneself. With this in mind, she felt this was the best possible thing she could give someone who was every bit as lost. A soccer pitch.

She could hear voices through the open door of the pizzeria, but she didn’t go in. It was best that way, she felt. The recreation center was empty, but the door of the refrigerator was ajar. The rat teeth marks on the rubber seal of the door made it clear enough what had happened. The cellophane over the plate had been chewed away and every last crumb of peanut butter and Nutella on it had been licked clean. On its way out the rat had stumbled on Britt-Marie’s tin of baking soda, overturning it on the dish rack. There were tracks in the white dust. Two pairs, in fact. The rat had been there on a date, or a meeting, or whatever they called it these days.

Britt-Marie sat on one of the stools for a long time, with a towel in her lap. Then she mopped her face and cleaned the kitchen. Washed up and disinfected and made sure everything was spotless. Patted the coffee machine, which had once been damaged by flying stones; ran her hand over a picture with a red dot hanging at precisely the right height on the wall, telling her exactly where she was.

The knocking on the door didn’t surprise her, oddly enough. The young woman from social services standing in the doorway gave her the impression of being exactly in the right place. As if she belonged here.

“Hello, Britt-Marie,” said the girl, “I hope I’m not disturbing you. I saw that the lights were on.”

“Certainly not. I only came to leave the keys,” Britt-Marie informed her in a low voice, feeling like a guest in someone else’s house.

She held out the keys to the recreation center, but the girl did not take them. Just smiled warmly as she looked at the premises.

“It’s very nice here. I’ve understood that this place means so much to Vega and Omar, and I wanted to have a look at it so I could understand them better.”

Britt-Marie fumbled with the keys. Stifled everything welling up inside her. Checked several times that she had put all of her things in her handbag, and that she had really turned off the lights in the bathroom and kitchen. Galvanized herself several times to say what she wanted to say, even though her common sense was fighting tooth and nail to stop her.

“Would it make any difference if someone offered to take care of the children?” she wanted to ask. Obviously she knew it was preposterous. Obviously she did. Yet she had time to open her mouth, and then to say:

“Would it… I should just like your leave to ask whether… obviously it’s quite preposterous, certainly it is, but I should like to inquire about the whither and whether of whether it might happen to make any difference if someone…”

Before she got to the end of the sentence she noticed Toad’s parents standing in the doorway. The mother had her hands on her pregnant stomach, and the father held his cap in his hands.

“Are you the one who’s picking up the children?” Karl demanded to know.

The mother elbowed him softly in his side, and then turned in a very forthright manner to the girl from the social services.

“My name is Sonja. This is Karl. We’re Patrik’s parents; he plays in the same soccer team as Vega and Omar.”

Of course it is quite possible that the girl from the social services was intending to answer, but Karl did not give her the chance:

“We want to take care of the children. We want them to come and live with us. You can’t take them away from Borg!”

Sonja looked at Britt-Marie. Saw her hands, perhaps, so she crossed the room and, without any sort of prior warning, gave her a hug. Britt-Marie mumbled something about having washing-up liquid on her fingers but despite that Sonja kept hugging her. Something was rattling in the doorway. The girl from the social services began to laugh a little, as if this was her natural impulse every time she opened her mouth.

“The fact is I’ve had the same suggestion from both Ben’s mother and the uncle of… Dino… is that his name?”

The rattling sounds from the doorway intensified and were complemented by a person demonstratively clearing her throat.

“Those kids! Can live with me, huh? They’re like, what’s-it-called? Children for me, huh?” Somebody looked ready to fight about it with everyone in the room. She waved at the soccer pitch; there were still white jerseys hanging along the fence and the candles had been thoughtfully lit again earlier that morning.

“It takes, what’s-it-called? Takes a village to bring up a child, huh? We have a village!”

Sonja reluctantly let go of Britt-Marie, like you do with a balloon that you know will fly off as soon as you loosen your grip.

Karl wrung his cap and pointed both exactingly and fearfully at the girl from the social services. “You can’t take the children away from Borg, they could end up living with anyone! They could end up with a Chelsea supporter!”