Anxious People: A Novel

by Fredrik Backman

  JACK: I’d appreciate it if you could try to take this seriously. Your name is L-o-n-d-o-n?

  LONDON: Yes!

  JACK: I have to say, that’s an unusual name. Well, maybe not unusual, but interesting. Where’s it from?

  LONDON: England.

  JACK: Yes, I understand that. What I meant was, is there a special reason why you’re called that?

  LONDON: It’s what my parents decided to call me. Have you been smoking something?

  JACK: You know what? Let’s forget that and just move on.

  LONDON: It’s not worth getting upset about, is it?

  JACK: I’m not upset.

  LONDON: Right, because you don’t sound at all upset.

  JACK: Let’s focus on the questions. You work in the bank, is that correct? And you were working at the counter when the perpetrator came in?

  LONDON: Perpetrator?

  JACK: The bank robber.

  LONDON: Yes, that’s “correct.”

  JACK: You don’t have to do that with your fingers.

  LONDON: They’re perverted commas. You’re writing this down, right, so I want you to use perverted commas when I do that, so anyone reading your notes will get that I’m being ironic. Otherwise anyone reading this is going to think I’m a complete moron!

  JACK: They’re called inverted commas.

  LONDON: Is there an echo in here or something?

  JACK: I was just telling you what they’re called.

  LONDON: I was just telling you what they’re called!

  JACK: That’s not what I sound like.

  LONDON: That’s not what I sound like!

  JACK: I’m going to have to ask you to take this more seriously. Can you tell me about the robbery?

  LONDON: Look, it wasn’t even a robbery. We’re a cashless bank, okay?

  JACK: Please, just tell me what happened.

  LONDON: Did you put that my name is London? Or have you just put “witness”? I want you to use my name, in case this ends up online and I get famous.

  JACK: This isn’t going to end up online.

  LONDON: Everything ends up online.

  JACK: I’ll make sure I use your name.

  LONDON: Sick.

  JACK: Sorry?

  LONDON: “Sick.” Don’t you know what “sick” means? It means good, okay?

  JACK: I know what it means. I just didn’t hear what you said.

  LONDON: I just didn’t hear what you saaaid…

  JACK: How old are you?

  LONDON: How old are you?

  JACK: I’m asking because you seem quite young to be working in a bank.

  LONDON: I’m twenty. And I’m, like, only a temp, because no one else wanted to work the day before New Year’s Eve. I’m going to study to be a bartender.

  JACK: I didn’t know you needed to study to do that.

  LONDON: It’s tougher than being a cop, anyway.

  JACK: Of course it is. Can you tell me about the robbery now, please?

  LONDON: God, could you be any more annoying? Okay, I’ll tell you about the “robbery”…

  15

  It was a day completely devoid of weather. During some weeks in winter in the central part of Scandinavia the sky doesn’t seem to bother even attempting to impress us, it greets us with the color of newspaper in a puddle, and dawn leaves behind it a fog as if someone has been setting fire to ghosts. It was, in other words, a bad day for an apartment viewing, because no one wants to live anywhere at all in weather like that. On top of that, it was also the day before New Year’s Eve, and what sort of lunatic holds a viewing on a day like that? It was even a bad day for a bank robbery, although, in defense of the weather, that was more the fault of the bank robber.

  But if we’re being picky, it wasn’t by definition even a bank robbery. Which isn’t to say that the bank robber didn’t fully intend to be a bank robber, because that was very much the intention, it’s just that the bank robber failed to pick a bank that contained any cash. Which probably has to be considered one of the main prerequisites for a bank robbery.

  But this wasn’t necessarily the bank robber’s fault. It was society’s. Not that society was responsible for the social injustices that led the bank robber onto a path of crime (which society may well in fact be responsible for, but that’s completely irrelevant right now), but because in recent years society has turned into a place where nothing is named according to what it is anymore. There was a time when a bank was a bank. But now there are evidently “cashless” banks, banks without any money, which is surely something of a travesty? It’s hardly surprising that people get confused and society is going to the dogs when it’s full of caffeine-free coffee, gluten-free bread, alcohol-free beer.

  So the bank robber who failed to be a bank robber stepped into the bank that was barely a bank, and declared the purpose of the visit fairly clearly with the help of the pistol. But behind the counter sat a twenty-year-old, London, deeply immersed in the sort of social media that dismantles a person’s social competence to the extent that when she caught sight of the bank robber she instinctively exclaimed: “Are you some kind of joke, or what?” (The fact that she didn’t phrase her question as “Is this some kind of joke?” but went straight for “Are you a joke?” perhaps says a lot about the younger generation’s lack of respect for older bank robbers.) The bank robber shot her a disappointed-dad look, waved the pistol, and pushed over a note which said: “This is a robbery! Give me 6,500 kronor!”

  London’s entire face frowned and she snorted: “Six thousand five hundred? You haven’t left off a couple of zeroes? Anyway, this is a cashless bank, and are you really going to try to rob a cashless bank, or what? Are you, like, totally stupid?”

  Somewhat taken aback, the bank robber coughed and mumbled something inaudible. London threw her arms out and asked: “Is that a real pistol? Like, a really real pistol? Because I saw a television show where a guy wasn’t found guilty of armed robbery because he didn’t use a real pistol!”

  By this point in the conversation, the bank robber was starting to feel very old, especially since the twenty-year-old on the other side of the conversation gave the impression that she was around fourteen years old. Which of course she wasn’t, but the bank robber was thirty-nine, and had therefore reached an age where there’s suddenly very little difference between fourteen and twenty. That’s what makes a person feel old.

  “Hello? Are you going to answer me, or what?” London exclaimed impatiently, and obviously it’s easy in hindsight to think that this was a somewhat poorly considered thing to shout at a masked bank robber holding a pistol, but if you knew London you’d have known that this wasn’t because she was stupid. She was just a miserable person. That was because she didn’t have any real friends, not even on social media, and instead spent most of her time getting upset that celebrities she didn’t like hadn’t had their life together ruined, again. Just before the bank robber came in she had been busy refreshing her browser to find out if two famous actors were going to get divorced or not. She hoped they were, because sometimes it’s easier to live with your own anxieties if you know that no one else is happy, either.

  The bank robber didn’t say anything, though, and had started to feel rather stupid by this point, and was now regretting the whole thing. Robbing a bank had clearly been a breathtakingly stupid idea right from the outset. The bank robber was actually on the point of explaining this to London before apologizing and walking out, and then perhaps everything that happened after that wouldn’t have happened at all, but the bank robber didn’t get a chance seeing as London announced instead: “Look, I’m going to call the cops now!”

  * * *

  That was when the bank robber panicked and ran out of the door.

  16

  Witness Interview (Continued)

  JACK: Is there anything more specific you could tell me about the perpetrator?

  LONDON: You mean the bank robber?

  JACK: Yes.

  LONDON: So why not j
ust say that instead?

  JACK: Is there anything more specific you could tell me about the bank robber?

  LONDON: Like what?

  JACK: Do you remember anything about his appearance?

  LONDON: God, that’s such a superficial question! You’ve got a really sick binary view of gender, yeah?

  JACK: I’m sorry. Can you tell me anything else about “the person”?

  LONDON: You don’t have to use perverted commas for that.

  JACK: I’m afraid I’m going to have to say that I do. Can you tell me anything about the bank robber’s appearance? For instance, was the bank robber a short bank robber or a tall bank robber?

  LONDON: Look, I don’t describe people by their height. That’s really excluding. I mean, I’m short, and I know that can give a lot of tall people a complex.

  JACK: I’m sorry?

  LONDON: Tall people have feelings, too, you know.

  JACK: Okay. Fine. Then I can only apologize again. Let me rephrase the question: Did the bank robber look like the sort of bank robber who might have a complex?

  LONDON: Why are you rubbing your eyebrows like that? It’s really creepy.

  JACK: I’m sorry. What was your first impression of the bank robber?

  LONDON: Okay. My first “impression” was that the “bank robber” seemed to be a complete moron.

  JACK: I’ll interpret that as suggesting that it’s perfectly okay to have a binary attitude to intelligence.

  LONDON: What?

  JACK: Nothing. On what did you base your assumption that the bank robber was a moron?

  LONDON: I was handed a note saying “Give me six thousand five hundred kronor.” Who the hell would rob a BANK for six and a half thousand? You rob banks to get ten million, something like that. If all you want is six thousand five hundred exactly, there must be some very special reason, mustn’t there?

  JACK: I have to confess that I hadn’t thought of it like that.

  LONDON: You should think more, have you ever thought about that?

  JACK: I’ll do my best. Can I ask you to take a look at this sheet of paper and tell me if you recognize it?

  LONDON: This? Looks like a kid’s drawing. And what’s it supposed to be anyway?

  JACK: I think that’s a monkey, and a frog and a horse.

  LONDON: That’s not a horse. That’s an elk!

  JACK: Do you think? All my colleagues have guessed either a horse or a giraffe.

  LONDON: Hang on. I just got a flash in my bud.

  JACK: No, stay focused now, London—so you think this is an elk? Hello? Put your phone down and answer the question!

  LONDON: Yes!

  JACK: Sorry?

  LONDON: At last! At last!

  JACK: I don’t understand.

  LONDON: They are getting divorced!

  17

  The truth? The truth is that the bank robber was an adult. There’s nothing more revealing about a bank robber’s personality than that. Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of “Don’t Forget!”s and “Remember!”s over us. We don’t have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents’ meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they’re doing. We’re the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else’s children can swim.

  But we weren’t ready to become adults. Someone should have stopped us.

  The truth? The truth is that just as the bank robber ran out into the street, a police officer happened to be walking past. It would later become apparent that no police officers were yet looking for the bank robber, seeing as the alarm hadn’t been raised over the radio, seeing as twenty-year-old London and the staff in the emergency call center took plenty of time to become mutually offended by one another first. (London reported a bank robbery, which led the call operator to ask “Where?” which led London to give them the address of the bank, which led the call operator to ask “Aren’t you a cashless bank? Why would anyone want to rob that?” which led London to say “Exactly,” which led the call operator to ask “Exactly what?” which led London to snap “What do you mean ‘Exactly what’?” which led to the call operator hitting back with “You were the one who started it!” which led London to yell “No, you were the one who…,” after which the conversation quickly deteriorated.) Later it turned out that the police officer the bank robber saw in the street wasn’t actually a police officer but a traffic warden, and if the bank robber hadn’t been so stressed and had been paying attention, that would have been obvious and a different escape strategy might have been possible. Which would have made this a much shorter story.

  But instead the bank robber rushed through the first available open door, which led to a stairwell, and then there weren’t exactly many options except to go up the stairs. On the top floor one of the apartment doors was wide open, so that’s where the bank robber went, out of breath and sweating, with the traditional bank robber’s ski mask askew so that only one eye could see anything. Only then did the bank robber notice that the hall was full of shoes, and that the apartment was full of people with no shoes on. One of the women in the apartment caught sight of the pistol and started to cry, “Oh, dear Lord, we’re being robbed!” and at the same time the bank robber heard rapid footsteps out in the stairwell and assumed it was a police officer (it wasn’t, it was the postman), so in the absence of other alternatives the bank robber shut the door and aimed the pistol in various different directions at random, initially shouting, “No… ! No, this isn’t a robbery… I just…,” before quickly thinking better of it and panting, “Well, maybe it is a robbery! But you’re not the victims! It’s maybe more like a hostage situation now! And I’m very sorry about that! I’m having quite a complicated day here!”

  The bank robber undeniably had a point. Not that this is in any way a defense of bank robbers, but they can have bad days at work, too. Hand on heart, which of us hasn’t wanted to pull a gun after talking to a twenty-year-old?

  A few minutes later, the street in front of the building was crawling with journalists and cameras, and after they came the police arrived. The fact that most of the journalists arrived before the police should in no way be interpreted as evidence of their respective professions’ competence, but in this instance more as proof that the police had more important things to be getting on with, and that the journalists had more time to read social media, and the unpleasant young woman in the bank that wasn’t a bank was evidently able to express herself better on Twitter than over the phone. On social media she announced that she had watched through the large front window of the bank as the robber ran into the building on the other side of the street, whereas the police didn’t receive the call until the postman who had seen the bank robber in the stairwell called his wife, who happened to work in a café opposite the police station. She rushed across the road, and only then was the alarm sounded, to the effect that what appeared to be a man armed with what appeared to be a pistol, wearing what appeared to be a ski mask, had rushed into a viewing in one of the apartments and had locked the real estate agent and prospective buyers inside. This was how a bank robber failed to rob a bank but instead managed to spark a hostage drama. Life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect.

  Just as the bank robber closed the door to the apartment,
a piece of paper dislodged from a coat pocket fluttered out into the stairwell. It was a child’s drawing of a monkey, a frog, and an elk.

  Not a horse, and definitely not a giraffe. That was important.

  Because even if twenty-year-olds can be wrong about a lot of things in life (and those of us who aren’t twenty can probably agree that most twenty-year-olds are wrong so often that most of them would have just a one in four chance of answering a yes or no question correctly), this particular twenty-year-old was actually right about one thing: normal bank robbers ask for large amounts and round figures. Anyone can go into a bank and yell: “Give me ten million or I’ll shoot!” But if a person walks in armed and nervous and very specifically asks for exactly six thousand five hundred kronor, there’s probably a reason.

  Or two.

  18

  The man on the bridge ten years ago and the bank robber who took people hostage at an apartment viewing aren’t connected. They never met each other. The only thing they really have in common is moral hazard. That’s a banking term, of course. Someone had to come up with it to describe the way the financial markets work, because the fact that banks are immoral is so obvious to us that simply calling them “immoral” wasn’t enough. We needed a way to describe the fact that it’s so unlikely that a bank would ever behave morally that it can only be considered a risk for them even to try. The man on the bridge gave his money to a bank so that they could make “secure investments,” because all investments were secure in those days. Then the man used these secure investments as security against loans, and then he took out new loans to pay off the old ones. “Everyone does this,” the bank said, and the man thought: “They’re the ones who should know.” Then one day all of a sudden nothing was secure anymore. It was called a crisis in the financial markets, a bank crash, even though the only ones who crash are people. The banks are still there, the financial markets have no heart that can be broken, but for the man on the bridge, a whole life’s savings had been replaced by a mountain of debt, and no one could explain how that had happened. When the man pointed out that the bank had promised that this was “entirely risk-free,” the bank threw out its arms and said: “Nothing’s entirely risk-free, you should have known what you were getting into, you shouldn’t have given us your money.”