Anxious People

by Fredrik Backman

  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.

  She felt like saying all this, but by this point in her life she had gotten used to the fact that people either didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. So she stood there in silence. And, deep down, wished she’d stayed silent the whole time.

  They each smoked another cigarette. Zara objected to his presence less than she would have expected, and that day had already offered more new experiences than she felt ready to absorb, so her fingers immediately started to trace the edges of the headphones when the rabbit’s ears wavered in her direction again. She could tell that he was trying to think of something to ask her, to keep the conversation going. That was what annoyed Zara most about men. Because they could only ever come up with two questions: “What line of work are you in?” and “Are you married?”

  * * *

  But this peculiar Lennart plucked up the courage to ask instead: “What are you listening to?”

  * * *

  Bloody hell, Zara thought. Why can’t you just feel the cold and not be interested in me? She opened her mouth, there was so much she wanted to say, but all that came out was: “The bank robber’s going to give up soon. The police will come storming in any time now. You should go and put a pair of pants on.”

  The rabbit nodded disappointedly. He left her with her headphones on, music at top volume, counting the windows over and over again. It may not be the sort of love story anyone would write poetry about. But they floored each other there and then.

  54

  Estelle knocked tentatively on the doo
r to the closet. Julia opened it.

  “I just wanted to let you know that the pizzas are on their way, but I was thinking that you must be starving, eating for two, you poor thing. Would you like something to eat while we’re waiting? There’s food in the freezer. I mean, people almost always have food in the freezer,” Estelle offered.

  “No, thanks, that’s sweet of you but I’m fine,” Julia smiled. She liked the fact that Estelle was concerned, more people should do that, ask if you’re hungry instead of how you’re feeling.

  “Well, then, I won’t disturb you,” Estelle said, and started to close the door.

  “Would you like to come in?” Julia asked, but to be honest she said it the way you do when you kind of hope the answer’s going to be no.

  “I’d love to!” Estelle chirruped, then stepped in and closed the door behind her. She pushed past the stepladder and sat down on the last available seat in the closet: a chest, tucked right at the back. She folded her hands on her lap, smiled warmly, and said: “Well, this is all rather nice, really, isn’t it? I haven’t eaten pizza for years. Of course I’d have to admit that this whole business of the bank robbery and hostage taking hasn’t been particularly pleasant for any of us, but I can’t help thinking that it’s quite encouraging that we’ve got a female bank robber. Don’t you think? It’s good when us girls show what we’re capable of!”

  Julia put her thumb on a specific point right between her eyes, pressed hard, and managed to control herself enough to reply: “Hmm. Threatening us with a pistol, but still… Girl power!”

  “I don’t think it’s a real pistol!” Anna-Lena interjected quickly.

  Julia closed her eyes so no one would see she was rolling them. Estelle smiled quizzically and asked: “Well, I didn’t mean to come in and interrupt you like this, like some silly old thing. What were you talking about?”

  “Marriage,” Anna-Lena sniffed.

  “Oh!” Estelle exclaimed, as if her favorite category had just popped up on a television quiz show.

  Her enthusiasm softened Julia’s attitude slightly, so she asked her: “Did you say your husband’s name is Knut? How long have you been married?”

  Estelle counted in her head until she ran out of numbers. “Knut and I have been married forever. It’s like that when you get old. In the end there simply wasn’t ever a time before him.”

  Julia had to admit that she liked that answer.

  “How do you manage to have such a long marriage?” she asked.

  “You fight for it,” Estelle replied honestly.

  Julia didn’t seem to like that quite as much.

  “That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

  Estelle grinned knowingly.

  “You have to listen to each other all the time. But not all the time. If you listen to each other all the time, there’s a risk that you can’t forgive each other afterward.”

  Julia ran her fingernails unhappily across her eyebrows.

  “Ro and I used to get along fine. We got along so well that it didn’t matter that we were good at falling out, too. Sometimes I used to fall out with her on purpose, because we were so good at… the other bit. But now, oh, I don’t know. I’m just not quite so sure about us anymore.”

  Estelle toyed with her wedding ring and moistened her lips thoughtfully.

  “When we first fell in love, Knut and I reached an agreement about how we were allowed to argue, because Knut said that sooner or later the first flush of infatuation wears off and you end up arguing whether you like it or not. So we came to an agreement, like the Geneva Convention, where the rules of war were agreed. Knut and I promised that no matter how angry we got, we weren’t allowed to consciously say things just to hurt each other. We weren’t allowed to argue just for the sake of winning. Because, sooner or later, that would end up with one of us winning. And no marriage can survive that.”

  “Did it work?” Julia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Estelle admitted.

  “No?”

  “We never got past the first flush of infatuation.”

  There was no point even trying not to like her just then. Estelle looked around the closet for a while, as if she were trying to remember something, then she stood up and lifted the lid of the chest.

  “What are you doing?” Julia wondered.

  “Just having a look,” Estelle said apologetically.

  Anna-Lena found this upsetting, because Anna-Lena thought there were actually unwritten rules about how much snooping you were allowed to do at apartment viewings.

  “You can’t do that! You’re only allowed to look in cupboards if they’re already open! Except for kitchen cupboards. You’re allowed to open kitchen cupboards, but only for a few seconds, to see how big they are, but you’re not allowed to touch the contents or make any judgments about their lifestyle. There are… there are rules! You’re allowed to open the dishwasher, but not the washing machine!”

  “You might have been to a few toooo many apartment viewings…,” Julia said to her.

  “I know,” Anna-Lena sighed.

  “There’s wine in here!” Estelle exclaimed happily, pulling two bottles out of the chest. “And a corkscrew!”

  “Wine?” Anna-Lena repeated, suddenly delighted, so it was evidently okay to snoop inside chests if you found wine.

  “Would you like some?” Estelle offered.

  “I’m pregnant,” Julia pointed out.

  “Aren’t you allowed to drink wine, then?”

  “You’re not allowed to drink any alcohol at all.”

  “But… wine?”

  Estelle’s eyes were wide with benevolent intent. Because wine is only grapes, after all. And children like grapes.

  “Wine, too,” Julia said patiently, and thought of how Ro had said “All the time! I’m drinking for three now!” when the midwife at the antenatal clinic asked a routine question about how much they drank. The midwife didn’t realize Ro was joking, and the atmosphere became tense. Julia laughed as she thought about it now. That happens quite a lot when you’re married to an idiot.

  “Have I done something wrong?” Estelle wondered anxiously, drinking straight from the bottle before passing it to Anna-Lena, who didn’t hesitate before taking two long swigs, which seemed highly out of character for Anna-Lena. It was a strange day for all of them.

  “No, not at all, I was just thinking about something my wife did,” Julia smiled, and tried to stop laughing, with mixed results.

  “Julia’s wife is an idiot! Just like Roger!” Anna-Lena explained helpfully to Estelle, and drank another swig, this time larger than the space in her mouth, which prompted a fit of coughing through her nose. Julia leaned forward and patted Anna-Lena on the back. Estelle helpfully took the bottle from her and made it a bit lighter in the meantime. Then she said quietly: “Knut isn’t an idiot. He really isn’t. But it’s taking him an awfully long time to park the car. I wish he was here, so I… well, I just wasn’t prepared to be held hostage on my own.”

  Julia smiled.

  “You’re not on your own, you’ve got us. And this bank robber doesn’t seem to want to hurt anyone, so I’m sure everything’s going to be all right. But… can I ask you something?”

  “Of course you can, sweetheart.”

  “Did you know there was going to be wine in that chest? If you didn’t, why did you decide to have a look?”

  Estelle blushed. After a long pause, she confessed: “I usually hide wine in the closet at home. Knut used to think that was silly. I mean, he thinks it’s silly. But you assume people think the way you do yourself, so I was thinking that if the person living here was worried about people coming and seeing bottles of wine and thinking ‘Well, this person’s an alcoholic,’ then the closet would be the perfect place to hide the wine.”

  Anna-Lena took another two gulps of wine, hiccupped loudly, and added: “Alcoholics don’t have unopened bottles of wine in the house. They have empty wine bottles.”

  Estelle nodded at her gratefully,
and replied without thinking: “That’s kind of you to say. Knut would have agreed with you.”

  The old woman’s eyes were glistening, not only from the wine. Julia frowned so hard and so thoughtfully that she got a whole new hairstyle. She leaned forward, put her hand gently on Estelle’s arm, and whispered: “Estelle? Knut isn’t parking the car, is he?”

  Estelle’s thin lips disappeared sadly beneath each other, so the word barely reached past them when she eventually admitted:

  “No.”

  55

  Witness Interview

  Date: December 30

  Name of witness: Lennart

  JACK: Let me see if I’ve got this right: you weren’t at the viewing as a prospective buyer, but had been hired by Anna-Lena to spoil it?

  LENNART: Exactly. No Boundaries Lennart, that’s me. Would you like a business card? I do stag parties, too—if the guy getting married has stolen your girl, that sort of thing.

  JACK: So that’s your job? To ruin apartment viewings?

  LENNART: No, I’m an actor. There just aren’t many roles around at the moment. But I was in The Merchant from Venice at the local theater.

  JACK: Of Venice.

  LENNART: No, at the local theater here!

  JACK: I meant that it’s called The Merchant of Venice. Not from Venice. Never mind. Can you tell me anything else about the bank robber?

  LENNART: I don’t think so. I’ve told you everything I remember.

  JACK: Okay. Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to stay a little longer, in case we have any further questions.

  LENNART: No problem!

  JACK: Oh, yes, one last thing: What do you know about the fireworks?

  LENNART: How do you mean?

  JACK: The fireworks the perpetrator asked for.