The Fredrik Backman Collection: A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here

by Fredrik Backman

  “You threw yourself right in front of the ball,” hisses Britt-Marie, with a reproachful gesture from the sink and the bloodstains on the jersey.

  Vega blinks. It hurts when she does that, because half her face is dark purple and swollen from her lacerated eyebrow down across her bloodshot eye, her nose with coagulated blood in her nostrils, and her split lip at the bottom so big that it looks as if she’s tried to eat a wasp.

  “I covered the shot,” she asserts.

  “With your face, yes. For goodness’ sake, one doesn’t cover shots with one’s face,” but it’s unclear if she’s mainly angry because Vega got blood on her face or blood on her jersey.

  “They would have scored.” Vega shrugs.

  “I can’t for the life of me understand why you love soccer so much that you’re prepared to risk your life in that way,” hisses Britt-Marie as she furiously rubs baking soda on the jersey.

  Vega looks thoughtful. Then hesitant.

  “Have you never loved anything like that?”

  “Ha. No. I . . . ha. I don’t know. I actually don’t know.”

  “I don’t feel pain anymore when I’m playing soccer,” says Vega, her eyes fixed on the number on the back of the jersey soaking in the sink.

  “What pain do you mean?”

  “Any pain.”

  Britt-Marie goes silent, ashamed of herself. Turns on the hot water. Closes her eyes. Vega leans her head back and peruses the ceiling of the bathroom.

  “I dream about soccer when I’m sleeping,” she says, as if this is quite reasonable, and then she asks, with sincere curiosity, as if she cannot understand what else you could dream about:

  “What do you dream about?”

  It just slips out of Britt-Marie; she whispers instinctively:

  “Sometimes I dream about Paris.”

  Vega nods understandingly.

  “In that case soccer for me is like Paris for you. Have you been there a lot?”

  “Never.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s one of those things that just . . . never happened. Come here now and wash your face—”

  “Why not?”

  Britt-Marie adjusts the tap so the water is not too hot.

  Her heart is still thumping so hard that she can count the beats. She looks at Vega, tries to smooth away a few hairs from her forehead and gently probes the swelling at the edge of her eye, as if it is hurting Britt-Marie more than Vega. Then she whispers:

  “You have to understand that when I was small my family and I went to the seaside. My sister always found the highest rocks to jump off into the water, and when she dived and came up to the surface, I was always still there at the top of the rock, and she would call out to me, ‘Jump, Britt! Just jump!’ You have to understand that when one is just standing there looking, then just for a second one is ready to jump. If one does it, one dares to do it. But if one waits, it’ll never happen.”

  “Did you jump?”

  “I’m not the sort who jumps.”

  “But your sister was?”

  “She was like you. Fearless.”

  Then she folds a paper tissue and whispers:

  “But not even she would have got it into her head to throw herself face-first in front of a soccer ball like an utter madwoman!”

  Vega stands up and lets Britt-Marie dab her cuts.

  “So that’s why you don’t go to Paris now? Because you’re the type that doesn’t jump?” asks the girl.

  “I’m too old for Paris.”

  “How old is Paris?”

  To which Britt-Marie has no decent answer. Even though it sounds like an absolutely excellent crossword clue. She glimpses herself in the mirror. It’s all quite ludicrous, of course. She’s a grown woman, she is, and here she stands in a hospital for the second time in just a few days. A child sits here on a toilet seat, her face covered in blood, while, in another room at the end of the corridor, another child lies with a broken leg.

  Because they were covering shots. Who would want to live like that?

  Vega meets her eyes in the mirror, then laughs so the blood runs from her lip across her teeth. Which makes her laugh even more, the lunatic.

  “If you’re not the type that jumps, Britt-Marie, how did you bloody well end up in Borg, then?”

  Britt-Marie presses the paper tissue against her lip and hisses something at her about not using inappropriate language. Vega mumbles something angrily through the tissue, so Britt-Marie presses it down even harder. Then she pulls the girl outside into the waiting room before she says anything else.

  Which is obviously not a very well-thought-through idea, because that’s where Fredrik is. He’s pacing back and forth outside the toilet door. Toad, Dino, Ben, and Omar are sleeping on the benches in a corner. Fredrik immediately points at Britt-Marie in a hostile manner.

  “If Max has broken his leg and misses elite training camp, I’ll make sure you never get anywhere near h . . .”

  His voice fades as he closes his eyes and tries to calm himself down. Vega pushes in front of Britt-Marie and slaps at his finger.

  “Shut up, will you! The leg will heal! Max was covering a shot!”

  Fredrik clenches his fists and backs away from her, as if, in his despair, he’s afraid of what might otherwise happen.

  “I banned him from playing soccer before the elite training camp. I told him that if he injures himself now it could damage his whole career. I told hi—”

  “What bloody career is that? He’s at bloody secondary school!” Vega cuts in.

  Fredrik points at Britt-Marie again. Sinks down on a bench as if someone just dropped him.

  “Do you know what it means to go to elite training camp when you play ice hockey? Do you understand what we have sacrificed to give him this opportunity?”

  “Did you ask Max if he wants to, or not?”

  “Are you spastic or something? It’s the elite camp! Of course he wants to!” bellows Fredrik.

  “No one needs to shout at him for playing soccer!” Vega bellows back.

  “Maybe you could do with someone shouting at you!”

  “And maybe you could do with some furniture!”

  They stand with their foreheads locked together, breathing heavily, and both utterly exhausted. Both have tears in their eyes. Neither of them will ever forget the cup matches Borg played today. No one in Borg will.

  Admittedly they lost their second game 5–0. The match had to be stopped for several minutes halfway through because Toad saved a penalty and everyone had to wait until he had stopped running around the pitch like an aircraft. The crowd sounded as if Borg had won the World Cup, which, after repeated explanations, Britt-Marie understood was another soccer competition of particular importance if you were that way inclined.

  In the third and last game the noise in the sports hall was so loud that all Britt-Marie could hear was a sort of sustained roar, and her heart thumped so hard that she lost her sense of touch, while her arms waved around her body as if they were no longer hers. Their opponents were in the lead by 2–0, but with another few minutes to go, Vega thumped in a goal for Borg with her whole body. Immediately afterwards, Max dribbled his way through the entire opposing team and scored, watched every step of the way by his begrudging father. When his head popped out of the pile of arms and legs of his teammates, Fredrik turned around in disappointment and walked out of the door. Max stood motionless by the sideline, staring at him as the referee blew the whistle to restart the game. By the time the roaring spectators had woken the boy up, their opponents had hit the post once and the crossbar once, and the whole team except for Vega was lying scattered on the floor. Then one of the opposing players gathered himself to take a shot at the open goal, and that was when Vega threw herself in front of the ball and covered the shot. With her face. There was blood on the ball when it bounced back to the player.

  He could have killed the match by tapping the ball in with the side of his foot, but despite this, the player stretched h
is foot for a hard shot. Max ran straight into the pile of bodies and threw himself forward with his leg stretched out. He made contact with the ball but the opponent hit his leg. Max yelled so loudly that Britt-Marie felt as if she was the one with the broken leg.

  The match finished 2–2. It was the first time in a very, very long time that Borg had not lost a soccer match. Vega sat next to Max on their way to the hospital, singing extremely unsuitable songs all the way.

  Ben’s mother is standing in the doorway. She looks at Vega, then at Britt-Marie, then she nods as you do at the end of a long shift.

  “Max wants to see you two. Just you two.”

  Fredrik swears loudly, but Ben’s mother is implacable.

  “Just these two.”

  “I thought you were having the evening off,” says Vega.

  “I was. But when Borg plays soccer the hospital has to call in extra staff,” she says severely, even though she’s quite clearly trying not to laugh.

  She throws a blanket over Ben on one of the benches, and kisses him on the cheek. Then she does the same with Dino, Toad, and Omar, all still sleeping on the other benches.

  Britt-Marie feels Fredrik’s hateful stare at her back as she and Vega follow her down the corridor, so she slows and walks behind Vega, to stop his stares hitting the girl. Max lies in a bed with his leg hoisted up towards the ceiling. He grins when he sees Vega’s swollen face as she comes walking in.

  “Nice face! Totally an improvement on how you looked before!”

  Vega snorts and nods at his leg.

  “You think the doctors can screw on your leg straight this time, so you can learn to shoot properly, or what?”

  He sniggers. So does she.

  “Is my dad pissed off?” asks Max.

  “Do bears shit in the woods?” Vega answers.

  “Really, Vega! Is that the sort of language you use when you’re in a hospital? Well, is it?”

  Vega laughs. Max too. Britt-Marie inhales, deeply self-controlled, turns, and leaves them and their language to it.

  Fredrik is still standing in the waiting room where they left him. Britt-Marie stops, at a loss. Resists the impulse to pick one of Vega’s hairs from his arm, where it landed while they were locking heads and yelling at each other.

  “Ha,” whispers Britt-Marie.

  He doesn’t answer. Just glares down at the floor. So she summons what voice she has left in her throat and asks:

  “Have you ever loved anything as much as these children do, Fredrik?”

  He raises his head and drills his eyes into her.

  “Do you have any children of your own, Britt-Marie?”

  She swallows heavily and shakes her head. He looks down at the floor again.

  “Don’t ask me about what I love, then.”

  They sit on their chairs without saying anything else until Ben’s mother reemerges. Britt-Marie stands up, but Max’s dad stays seated as if he can’t summon any more energy. Ben’s mother puts her hand consolingly on his shoulder and says:

  “Max wanted me to tell you that he’ll most likely be able to start playing ice hockey within six months. His leg will be completely back to normal. His career shouldn’t be in any danger at all.”

  Max’s father doesn’t move. Presses his chin hard against his throat. Ben’s mother nods at Britt-Marie. Britt-Marie sucks in her cheeks. Ben’s mother is heading for the door when Max’s father finally lifts his hands to his eyes in two quick movements, tears dripping between his fingers, down into his beard. He doesn’t have a towel. The tears stain the floor.

  “Soccer, then? When can he start playing soccer again?”

  At a certain age almost all the questions a person asks himself are about one thing: how should you live your life?

  32

  Britt-Marie sits alone on a bench on the pavement outside the accident and emergency wing. She has a bouquet of tulips in her arms, can feel the wind in her hair, and is thinking about Paris. It’s strange, the power a place can have over you, even if you’ve never been there. If she closes her eyes she can nonetheless feel its cobblestones under her feet. Maybe more clearly now than ever. As if when she jumped into the air when Ben scored, she came back down to earth as a different person. The sort of person who jumps.

  “Mind if I sit with you?” asks the voice.

  She can hear the voice is smiling. She also smiles, even before she has opened her eyes.

  “Please do,” she whispers.

  “Your voice is hoarse,” says Sven with a smile.

  She nods.

  “It’s the flu.”

  He laughs out loud. She laughs inside. He sits down and holds out a ceramic vase for her.

  “Well, yeah, I made it for you. I’m doing a course. You know, I thought you could put your tulips in it.”

  She grips it and holds it tightly in her arms. The surface is slightly rough against her skin, like a soft toy you wouldn’t let your parents wash.

  “It was quite fantastic today. I have to admit it. Absolutely wonderful,” she manages to say.

  “It’s a wonderful sport,” says Sven.

  As if life was so simple.

  “It’s been heavenly to feel enthusiastic again,” she whispers.

  He smiles and turns to her, looking as if he’s about to tell her something, so she stops him by gathering up all her common sense in a single, suffocating breath and saying:

  “If it’s not too much trouble I’d be very grateful if you had time to run the children home.”

  She sees him sitting there growing smaller in the seconds that follow. Her heart twists inside her. Also inside him.

  “I have to assume that this, that this means that, well . . . I have to assume that it’ll be Kent who’s driving you home then,” he manages to say.

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  He sits in silence with his hands gripping the edge of the bench. She does the same, because she likes holding it while he’s also holding it. She peers at him and wants to say that it’s not his fault. That she’s just too old to fall in love. She wants to tell him that he can find himself someone better. That he deserves something perfect. But she doesn’t say anything, because she’s afraid he’ll say she is perfect.

  She’s still clutching the vase as she sits in the car, the town and the road swishing by. Her chest is aching with held-back longings. Kent talks all the way, of course. Initially about the soccer and the children, but before long his focus switches to business and Germans and plans. He wants to go on holiday, he says, just the two of them. They can go to the theater. Go to the sea. Very soon; a few plans just have to fall into place first. When they drive into Borg he makes a joke about how this place is so small that two people could stand on top of the welcome signs at either end, having a conversation without even having to raise their voices.

  “If you lie down here you’ll find your feet are already in the next village!” he guffaws, and when she doesn’t immediately laugh he says it again.

  “Okay, pop in and get your stuff now, and then we’ll be off!” he says as the BMW stops outside Bank’s house.

  “Right away?”

  “Yes, I have a meeting tomorrow. Let’s get going now so we’re ahead of the traffic.” He drums his fingers against the dashboard impatiently.

  “We actually can’t just leave in the middle of the night,” protests Britt-Marie, her voice scarcely audible.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, only criminals drive around in the middle of the night.”

  “Oh, good God, darling, you have to pull yourself together now,” he groans.

  Her nails dig into the vase.

  “I haven’t even handed in notice to my employers yet. I can’t just disappear without handing in my notice. The keys have to be returned, you have to understand.”

  “Please, darling, it’s not exactly much of a ‘job,’ is it?”

  Britt-Marie sucks her cheeks in.

  “It’s a job as far as I’m concerned.”

&nb
sp; “Yes, yes, yes, that’s not how I mean it, darling. Don’t get irate now. Can’t you just call them while we’re on the road? It’s not that important, is it? Come on, I have a meeting tomorrow!” He says this as if he’s the one who’s being flexible here. She doesn’t answer.

  “Do you even get a salary for this ‘job’?”

  Britt-Marie’s nails hurt as they bend against the ceramic vase in her lap.

  “I’m not some criminal. I’m not traveling around in the car at night. I just won’t do it, Kent,” she whispers.

  “No, no, no, okay then,” sighs Kent. “Tomorrow morning if it’s so important. I can’t believe how this village has got under your skin, my darling. You don’t even like soccer!”

  Britt-Marie’s nails start slowly retracting from the ceramic vase. Her thumb dives over the rim and adjusts the tulips inside.

  “I was given a crossword the other day, Kent. There was a question about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in it.”

  Kent has started fidgeting with his cell phone, so she raises her voice:

  “It’s popular in crosswords, it really is. The Hierarchy of Needs. So I read about it in a newspaper. The first stage is about people’s most basic needs. Food and water.”

  “Mmm,” says Kent, tapping away.

  “Air as well, I have to assume,” adds Britt-Marie so quietly that she’s almost not sure herself whether she says anything.

  The second stage of the Hierarchy of Needs is “safety,” the third is “love and belonging,” the fourth is “self-esteem.” She remembers it quite clearly, because this Maslow fellow is remarkably popular in crosswords. “The highest step of the ladder is self-actualization. That was how all this felt to me, Kent. It was a way of actualizing myself.”

  She bites her lip.

  “You just think it’s silly, I suppose.”

  He looks up from his telephone. Looks at her, breathing deeply and loudly, like he does just before he falls asleep and starts snoring.

  “Yes, yes! Of course I can understand the whole darned thing, darling. I get it. It’s superb, really superb! Self-actualizing. Bloody superb. So now you’ve got it out of your system. And tomorrow we can go home!”