“No, I don’t know that perfectly well! Because I haven’t measured it yet, so I don’t know if there’d be room for the cheese in there! And my plants also need…,” Ro began, because she had just decided to start growing plants under heat lamps in the hobby room. Which was a walk-in closet. Or a…
* * *
In the meantime Anna-Lena was running her hand over a cushion cover and thinking about sharks. She’d been thinking about them a lot recently, because in their marriage, she and Roger had come to resemble sharks. That was a source of silent sorrow for Anna-Lena. She kept rubbing the cushion cover and distracted herself by thinking out loud: “Is this from IKEA? Yes, it’s definitely from IKEA. I recognize it. They do a floral version as well. The floral version’s nicer. Honestly, the things people do these days.”
You could have woken Anna-Lena in the middle of the night and asked her to recite the IKEA catalog. Not that there’d be any reason to, of course, but you could if you wanted to, that’s the point. Anna-Lena and Roger have been to every IKEA store in the whole country. Roger has many faults and failings, Anna-Lena knows people think that, but Anna-Lena is always reminded that he loves her in IKEA. When you’ve been together for a very long time, it’s the little things that matter. In a long marriage you don’t need words to have a row, but you don’t need words to say “I love you,” either. Once when they were at IKEA, very recently, Roger had suggested when they were having lunch in the cafeteria that they each have a piece of cake. Because he understood that it was an important day for Anna-Lena, and because it was important to her it was important to him as well. Because that’s how he loves her.
She went on rubbing the cushion cover that was nicer in the floral pattern and glanced over at the two women in a way Anna-Lena thought was discreet, the pregnant one and her wife. Roger was looking at them as well. He was holding the Realtor’s prospectus with the layout of the apartment in his hand, and grunted: “For God’s sake, darling, look at this! Why do they have to call the small room ‘child’s room’? It could just as well be a perfectly ordinary damn bedroom!”
Roger didn’t like it when there were pregnant women at apartment viewings, because couples expecting a baby always bid too much. He didn’t like children’s rooms, either. That’s why Anna-Lena always asks Roger as many questions as she can think of when they walk through the children’s section in IKEA. To help distract him from the incomprehensible grief. Because that’s how she loves him.
* * *
Ro caught sight of Roger and grinned, as if they weren’t really at war with each other.
“Hi! I’m Ro, and that’s my wife, Julia, over there. Can I borrow your tape measure? I forgot mine!”
“Absolutely not!” Roger snapped, clutching his tape measure, pocket calculator, and notepad so hard that his eyebrows started to twitch.
“Calm down, I only want to—” Ro began.
“We all have to take responsibility for our own actions!” Anna-Lena interrupted sharply.
Ro looked surprised. Surprise made her nervous. Nervousness made her hungry. There wasn’t much she could eat in the immediate vicinity so she reached for one of the limes in the bowl on the coffee table. Anna-Lena saw this and exclaimed: “Dear me, what on earth are you doing? You can’t eat those! They’re viewing limes!”
Ro let go of the lime and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her dress. She went back to her wife, muttering: “No. This apartment isn’t us, hon. It’s nice and all that, but I’m getting bad vibes here. Like we could never be our best selves here, yeah? Remember me saying I’d read about we-energies that month when I was thinking of becoming an interior designer? When I learned that we had to sleep facing east? And then forgot if it was your head or your feet that… well… never mind! I just don’t want this apartment. Can’t we just go?”
* * *
Zara was standing out on the balcony. She gathered the wreckage of her feelings into an expression of derision and went back into the apartment. Just as she walked in, the pregnant woman let out a yelp. At first it sounded like a roar of guttural rage from an animal that’s just been kicked, but eventually the words became clearer:
“No! That’s enough, Ro! I can take the birds and I can take your awful taste in music and I can take a whole load of other crap, but I’m not leaving here until we’ve bought this apartment! Even if I have to give birth to our child right here on this carpet!”
* * *
The apartment fell completely silent. Everyone was staring at Julia. The only person who wasn’t was Zara, because she was standing just inside the balcony door and staring at the bank robber. One second passed, then two, in which Zara was the only person in the room who had realized what was about to happen.
Then Anna-Lena also caught sight of the figure in the ski mask and cried out: “Oh, dear Lord, we’re being robbed!” Everyone’s mouths opened at the same time but no words came out. Fear can numb people at the sight of a pistol, switch off everything except the brain’s most important signals, silence all background noise. Another second passed, then one more, in which all they heard was their own heartbeats. First the heart stops, then it races. First comes the shock of not understanding what’s happening, then comes the shock of realizing precisely what’s happening. The survival instinct and fear of dying start to fight, making space for some surprisingly irrational thoughts in between. It’s not unusual to see a pistol and think: Did I switch the coffee machine off this morning? instead of: What’s going to happen to my children?
But even the bank robber was silent, just as scared as all the others. After a while the shock gradually turned to confusion. Anna-Lena sputtered: “You are here to rob us, aren’t you?” The bank robber seemed to be about to protest, but didn’t have time before Anna-Lena started to tug at Roger like he were a green curtain, crying: “Get your money out, Roger!”
Roger squinted skeptically at the bank robber and was evidently engaged in a complicated internal struggle, because on the one hand Roger was very cheap, but on the other he wasn’t particularly enamored with the thought of dying in an apartment with this much potential for renovation. So he pulled his wallet from his back pocket, where men like him always keep their wallets except when they’re at the beach, when they keep it in their shoe, but found nothing of use in it. So he turned to the person closest to him, who happened to be Zara, standing over by the balcony door, and asked: “Have you got any cash on you?”
Zara looked shocked. It was hard to work out if that was because of the pistol or the question.
“Cash? Seriously, do I look like a drug dealer?”
The bank robber’s eyes, visible through the repeatedly adjusted holes in the sweaty mask, were darting around the room.
Eventually the bank robber shouted: “No… ! No, this isn’t a robbery… I just…,” then corrected that statement in a breathless voice: “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!”
* * *
That’s how it all began.
29
Witness Interview
Date: December 30
Name of witness: Anna-Lena
JACK: Hello, my name’s Jack.
ANNA-LENA: I don’t want to talk to any more policemen.
JACK: I can certainly understand that. I’ve just got a few brief questions.
ANNA-LENA: If Roger was here he’d have told you that you’re all idiots, the whole lot of you, for managing to lose a bank robber who was trapped inside an apartment!
JACK: That’s why I need to ask my questions. So that we can find the perpetrator.
ANNA-LENA: I want to go home.
JACK: Believe me, I do understand that, we’re just trying to work out what happened inside the apartment. Can you tell me what happened when the perpetrator first came in with the pistol?
ANNA-LENA: That woman, Zara, she had her shoes on. And the other one, Ro, was go
ing to eat one of the limes. You don’t do things like that at apartment viewings! There are unwritten rules!
JACK: Sorry?
ANNA-LENA: She was going to eat one of the limes. The viewing limes! You can’t eat the viewing limes, because the Realtor’s put them there as decoration, they’re not for eating. I was about to go and find the agent and tell her, to get Ro thrown out, because you just can’t behave like that. But at that very moment that lunatic burst through the door waving a pistol.
JACK: I see. And then what happened?
ANNA-LENA: You should talk to Roger. He’s got a very good memory.
JACK: Roger’s your husband? And you’d gone to look at the apartment together?
ANNA-LENA: Yes. Roger said it would be a good investment. Is this table from IKEA? Yes, it is, isn’t it? I recognize it. They do it in ivory as well. That would have gone better with the walls.
JACK: I have to confess that I’m not responsible for the way our interview rooms are furnished.
ANNA-LENA: Just because it’s an interview room doesn’t mean it can’t look nice, does it? Seeing as you were already in IKEA. That ivory table is right next to this one in the self-service area. But you still picked this one. Well, everyone makes their own choices.
JACK: I’ll see if I can raise it with my boss.
ANNA-LENA: Well, that’s up to you.
JACK: When Roger said the apartment was a “good investment,” did that mean that you wouldn’t be settling there? You’d just buy it and sell it on later?
ANNA-LENA: Why are you asking that?
JACK: I’m just trying to understand who was in the apartment, and why, so that we can rule out the possibility that any of the hostages was in any way connected to the perpetrator.
ANNA-LENA: Connected?
JACK: We think someone may have helped him.
ANNA-LENA: And you think that could have been me and Roger?
JACK: No, no. We just need to ask a few routine questions, that’s all.
ANNA-LENA: So you think it was her, that Zara?
JACK: I haven’t said that.
ANNA-LENA: You said you think someone helped the bank robber. That Zara was dodgy, I could see it the moment I set eyes on her, she was obviously too rich to want that apartment. And I heard that pregnant woman tell her wife that Zara looked like “Cruella de Vil.” I think that’s from a film? It sounds dodgy, anyway. Or do you think it was Estelle who helped the bank robber? She’s almost ninety, you know. Are you going to start accusing ninety-year-olds of helping criminals now? Is that how modern policing works?
JACK: I’m not accusing anyone.
ANNA-LENA: Roger and I never help anyone else at an apartment viewing, I can promise you that. Roger says that the moment we walk in it’s war and we’re surrounded by enemies. That’s why he always wants me to tell everyone that the apartment needs a lot of work done to it and that the cost of that would be very expensive. As well as the smell of damp. Things like that. Roger’s a very good negotiator. We’ve made some extremely good investments.
JACK: So you’ve done this before? Bought an apartment only to flip it?
ANNA-LENA: There’s no point in an investment if you don’t sell, Roger says. So we buy, Roger does the renovations, I sort out the decor, then we sell and buy another apartment.
JACK: That sounds like an unusual thing for two people who are retired to do.
ANNA-LENA: Roger and I like working on projects together.
JACK: Are you okay?
ANNA-LENA: Yes.
JACK: You look like you’re crying.
ANNA-LENA: I’ve had a very trying day!
JACK: Sorry. That was insensitive of me.
ANNA-LENA: I know Roger doesn’t always come across as particularly sensitive, but he is. He likes us to have a project in common because he’s worried we’d run out of things to talk about otherwise. He doesn’t think I’m interesting enough to be with all day unless we’ve got a project.
JACK: I’m sure that’s not true.
ANNA-LENA: What would you know about that?
JACK: I guess I don’t know anything at all. Sorry. I’d like to ask a few questions about the other prospective buyers now.
ANNA-LENA: Roger’s more sensitive than he seems.
JACK: Okay. Can you tell me anything about the other people at the viewing?
ANNA-LENA: They were looking for a home.
JACK: Sorry?
ANNA-LENA: Roger says there are two types of buyer. Those who are looking for an investment, and those who want a home. The ones who are looking for a home are emotional idiots, they’ll pay anything because they think all their problems will just disappear the moment they move in.
JACK: I’m not sure I understand.
ANNA-LENA: Roger and I don’t let our feelings get in the way of our investments. But everyone else does. Like those two women at the viewing, the one who was pregnant and the other one.
JACK: Julia and Ro?
ANNA-LENA: Yes!
JACK: You think they were the sort who were “looking for a home”?
ANNA-LENA: It was obvious. People like that go to viewings thinking that everything would feel better if only they were living there. That they’d wake up in the mornings and not find it hard to breathe. They wouldn’t have to look in the bathroom mirror with an invisible weight in their chest. They’d argue less. Maybe touch each other’s hands the way they did when they were first married, back when they couldn’t help it. That’s what they think.
JACK: You’ll have to excuse me, but it looks like you’re crying again?
ANNA-LENA: Don’t tell me what I’m doing!
JACK: Okay, okay. But you seem to have put a fair amount of thought into how people behave at apartment viewings, is that fair to say?
ANNA-LENA: Roger does most of the thinking. Roger’s very intelligent, you know. You need to know your enemy, he says, and all your enemy wants is to get it over with. They just want to move in and have done with it and never have to move again. Roger isn’t like that. We saw a documentary about sharks once, Roger’s very interested in documentaries, and there’s a particular type of shark that dies if it stops moving. It’s something to do with the way they absorb oxygen, they can’t breathe unless they’re moving the whole time. That’s how our marriage has ended up.
JACK: Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t understand.
ANNA-LENA: Do you know what the worst thing about being retired is?
JACK: No.
ANNA-LENA: That you get too much time to think. People need a project, so Roger and I became sharks, and if we didn’t keep moving, our marriage wouldn’t get any oxygen. So we buy and renovate and sell, buy and renovate and sell. I did suggest that we try golf instead, but Roger doesn’t like golf.
JACK: Sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if we might be getting a little off the point here? You only have to tell me about the hostage situation. Not about you and your husband.
ANNA-LENA: But that’s the problem.
JACK: What is?
ANNA-LENA: I don’t think he wants to be my husband anymore.
JACK: What makes you say that?
ANNA-LENA: Do you know how many IKEA stores there are in Sweden?
JACK: No.
ANNA-LENA: Twenty. Do you know how many Roger and I have been to?
JACK: No.
ANNA-LENA: All of them. Every single one. We went to the last one fairly recently, and I didn’t think Roger had been keeping count, but when we were in the cafeteria having lunch Roger suddenly said we should each have a piece of cake as well. We never have cake in IKEA. We always have lunch, but never cake. And that was when I knew that he’d been keeping count. I know Roger doesn’t seem romantic, but sometimes he can be the most romantic man on the planet, you know.
JACK: That certainly sounds romantic.
ANNA-LENA: He can seem hard on the surface, but he doesn’t hate children.
JACK: What?
ANNA-LENA: Everyone thinks he hates children becaus
e he gets so angry when real estate agents put “children’s room” on the plans. But he only gets angry because he says children push the price up like you wouldn’t believe. He doesn’t hate children. He loves children. That’s why I have to distract him when we’re walking through the children’s section in IKEA.
JACK: I’m sorry.
ANNA-LENA: Why?
JACK: Sorry, I took that to mean that you couldn’t have children. And if that’s the case, I’m sorry.
ANNA-LENA: We’ve got two children!
JACK: I apologize. I misunderstood.
ANNA-LENA: Have you got children?
JACK: No.
ANNA-LENA: Our two are about your age, but they don’t want kids of their own. Our son says he’d rather focus on his career, and our daughter says the world’s already overpopulated.
JACK: Oh.
ANNA-LENA: Can you imagine what a bad parent you must have been for your children not to want to be parents?
JACK: I’ve never thought about that.
ANNA-LENA: Roger would have been such a good grandfather, you know. But now he doesn’t even want to be my husband.
JACK: I’m sure things will work out between you, no matter what’s happened.
ANNA-LENA: You don’t know what’s happened. You don’t know what I’ve done, it was all my fault. But I just wanted to stop, it’s been nothing but one apartment after the other for years now, and in the end I’ve had enough. I’m looking for a home, too. But I had no right to do what I did to Roger. I should never have paid for that darn rabbit.
30
It’s harder than you might think to take people hostage when they’re idiots.
* * *
The bank robber hesitated, the ski mask was itching, everyone was staring. The bank robber tried to think of something to say, but was forestalled by Roger holding one hand up and saying: “We haven’t got any cash!”
Anna-Lena was standing just behind him, and immediately repeated over his shoulder: “We haven’t got any money, understand?” She rubbed her fingertips together in illustration, because Anna-Lena always seemed to think that Roger spoke a language that only she understood, as if he were a horse and Anna-Lena some kind of equine translator, so she was always trying to interpret what he said to the rest of the world. When they were in a restaurant and Roger asked for the check, Anna-Lena would always turn to the waiter and mouth the words “Check, please” while simultaneously pretending to write on the palm of her hand. Roger would no doubt have found this incredibly irritating if he ever bothered to pay attention to what Anna-Lena did.
Anxious People: A Novel Page 11