Fredrik Backman - A Man Called Ove - A Novel

“Maybe you’re no good at reading stories,” notes the seven-year-old.

“Maybe you’re no good at listening to them!” Ove counters.

“Maybe you’re no good at TELLING THEM!”

Ove looks at the book, very unimpressed.

“What kind of sh—nonsense is this anyway? Some talking train? Is there nothing about cars?”

“Maybe there’s something about nutty old men instead,” mutters the seven-year-old.

“I’m not an ‘old man,’” Ove hisses.

“Clauwn!” the three-year-old cries out jubilantly.

“And I’m not a CLOWN either!” he roars.

The older one rolls her eyes at Ove, not unlike the way her mother often rolls her eyes at Ove.

“She doesn’t mean you. She means the clown.”

Ove looks up and catches sight of a full-grown man who’s quite seriously got himself dressed up as a clown, standing in the doorway of the waiting room.

He’s got a big stupid grin on his face as well.

“CLAAUUWN,” the toddler howls, jumping up and down on the bench in a way that finally convinces Ove that the kid is on drugs.

He’s heard about that sort of thing. They have that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and get to take amphetamines on prescription.

“And who’s this little girl here, then? Does she want to see a magic trick, perhaps?” the clown exclaims helpfully and squelches over to them like a drunken moose in a pair of large red shoes which, Ove confirms to himself, only an utterly meaningless person would prefer to wear rather than getting himself a proper job.

The clown looks gaily at Ove.

“Has Uncle got a five-kronor piece, perhaps?”

“No, Uncle doesn’t, perhaps,” Ove replies.

The clown looks surprised. Which isn’t an entirely successful look for a clown.

“But . . . listen, it’s a magic trick, you do have a coin on you, don’t you?” mumbles the clown in his more normal voice, which contrasts quite strongly with his character and reveals that behind this idiotic clown a quite ordinary idiot is hiding, probably all of twenty-five years old.

“Come on, I’m a hospital clown. It’s for the children’s sake. I’ll give it back.”

“Just give him a five-kronor coin,” says the seven-year-old.

“CLAAUUWN!” screams the three-year-old.

Ove peers down with exasperation at the tiny speech defect and wrinkles his nose.

“Right,” he says, taking out a five-kronor piece from his wallet.

Then he points at the clown.

“But I want it back. Immediately. I’m paying for the parking with that.”

The clown nods eagerly and snatches the coin out of his hand.

Minutes later, Parvaneh comes back down the corridor to the waiting room. She stops, confusedly scanning the room from side to side.

“Are you looking for your girls?” a nurse asks sharply behind her.

“Yes,” Parvaneh answers, perplexed.

“There,” says the nurse in a not entirely appreciative way and points at a bench by the large glass doors leading onto the parking area.

Ove is sitting there with his arms crossed, looking very angry.

On one side of him sits the seven-year-old, staring up at the ceiling with an utterly bored expression, and on the other side sits the three-year-old, looking as if she just found out she’s going to have an ice cream breakfast every day for a whole month. On either side of the bench stand two particularly large representatives of the hospital’s security guards, both with very grim facial expressions.

“Are these your children?” one of them asks. He doesn’t look at all as if he’s having an ice cream breakfast.

“Yes, what did they do?” Parvaneh wonders, almost terrified.

“ They didn’t do anything,” the other security guard replies, with a hostile stare at Ove.

“Me neither,” Ove mutters sulkily.

“Ove hit the clauwn!” the three-year-old shrieks delightedly.

“Sneak,” says Ove.

Parvaneh stares at him, agape, and can’t even think of anything to say.

“He was no good at magic anyway,” the seven-year-old groans. “Can we go home now?” she asks, standing up.

“Why . . . hold on . . . what . . . what clown?”

“The clauwn Beppo,” the toddler explains, nodding wisely.

“He was going to do magic,” says her sister.

“Stupid magic,” says Ove.

“Like, he was going to make Ove’s five-kronor coin go away,” the seven-year-old elaborates.

“And then he tried to give back another five-kronor coin!” Ove interjects, with an insulted stare at the nearby security guards, as if this should be enough of an explanation.

“Ove HIT the clauwn, Mum,” the three-year-old titters as if this was the best thing that ever happened in her whole life.

Parvaneh stares for a long time at Ove, the three-year-old, seven-year-old, and the two security guards.

“We’re here to visit my husband. He’s had an accident. I’m bringing in the children now to say hello to him,” she explains to the guards.

“Daddy fall!” says the three-year-old.

“That’s fine.” One of the security guards nods.

“But this one stays here,” confirms the other security guard and points at Ove.

“I hardly hit him. I just gave him a little poke,” Ove mumbles, adding, “Bloody fake policemen,” just to be on the safe side.

“Honestly, he was no good at magic anyway,” says the seven-year-old grumpily in Ove’s defense as they leave to visit their father.

An hour later they are back at Ove’s garage. The Lanky One has one arm and one leg in casts and has to stay at the hospital for several days, Ove has been informed by Parvaneh. When she told him, Ove had to bite his lip very hard to stop himself laughing. He actually got the feeling Parvaneh was doing the same thing. The Saab still smells of exhaust when he collects the sheets of newspaper from the seats.

“Please, Ove, are you sure you won’t let me pay the parking fine?” says Parvaneh.

“Is it your car?” Ove grunts.

“No.”

“Well then,” he replies.

“But it feels a bit like it was my fault,” she says, concerned.

“You don’t hand out parking fines. The council does. So it’s the bloody council’s fault,” says Ove and closes the door of the Saab. “And those fake policemen at the hospital,” he adds, clearly still very upset that they forced him to sit without moving on that bench until Parvaneh came back to pick him up and they went home. As if he couldn’t be trusted to wander about freely among the other hospital visitors.

Parvaneh looks at him for a long time in thoughtful silence. The seven-year-old gets tired of waiting and starts walking across the parking area towards the house. The three-year-old looks at Ove with a radiant smile.

“You’re funny!” she declares.

Ove looks at her and puts his hands in his trouser pockets.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. You shouldn’t turn out too bad yourself.”

The three-year-old nods excitedly. Parvaneh looks at Ove, looks at the plastic tube on the floor of his garage. Looks at Ove again, a touch worried.

“I could do with a bit of help taking the ladder away. . . .” she says, as if she was in the middle of a much longer thought.

Ove kicks distractedly at the asphalt.

“And I think we have a radiator, as well, that doesn’t work,” she adds—a passing thought. “Would be nice of you if you could have a look at it. Patrick doesn’t know how to do things like that, you know,” she says and takes the three-year-old by the hand.

Ove nods slowly.

“No. Might have known.”