Anxious People: A Novel

by Fredrik Backman

  “Help me lay the table,” Estelle said, taking her by the arm.

  The bank robber didn’t resist, and went with Estelle into the kitchen. She returned with glasses and plates. Julia carried on sorting out the fire. Zara wrestled with her personality for a while, then handed Julia her lighter without her having asked for it.

  Roger was standing beside the fireplace, unsure of how to make himself useful, and said to Julia: “Do you know how to do that?”

  Julia glared at him, and was about to tell him that her mom had taught her how to make a fire, in such a way that Roger couldn’t be sure that didn’t mean Julia and her mother had set fire to her father. But it had been a long day, they had all heard one another’s stories, and that made it harder to dislike one another, so Julia said something incredibly generous instead.

  “No. Can you show me how to do it?”

  Roger nodded slowly, crouched down, and started to talk to the wood.

  “We can… I’m assuming we can, unless you… we can do it together,” he mumbled.

  She swallowed and nodded.

  “I’d like that.”

  “Thanks,” he said quietly.

  Then he showed her how he usually started fires.

  “Is it supposed to smoke that much?” Julia wondered.

  “There’s something wrong with the wood,” Roger grunted.

  “Really?”

  “There’s something wrong with the damn wood, I tell you!”

  “Have you opened the damper?”

  “Of course I’ve opened the damn damper!”

  Julia opened the damper. Roger muttered under his breath and she started to laugh. He joined in. They weren’t looking at each other, but the smoke was stinging their eyes and tears were streaming down their cheeks. Julia glanced at him.

  “Your wife’s nice,” she said.

  “So’s yours,” he replied.

  They each poked at separate pieces of wood in the fireplace.

  “If you and Anna-Lena would really like the apartment, then—” Julia began, but he interrupted her.

  “No. No. This is a good apartment for children. You and Ro should buy it.”

  “I don’t think Ro wants it, she finds fault with everything,” Julia sighed.

  Roger poked harder at the fire.

  “She’s just scared she isn’t good enough for you and the baby. You need to tell her that’s nonsense. She’s worried she won’t be able to mend the baseboards herself, so you’ll just have to tell her that no one can fix the damn baseboards until they’ve done it once. Everybody has to start somewhere!”

  Julia let that sink in. She stared into the fire. Roger did the same. Each of them staring at a different piece of wood, a bit of flame, a lot of smoke.

  “Can I say something personal, Roger?” she whispered after a while.

  “Hmm.”

  “You don’t have to prove anything to Anna-Lena. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore. You’re good enough.”

  They each poked at the fire. And they both got a hell of a lot of smoke in their eyes. They said nothing more.

  * * *

  There was a knock at the door. Because the policeman outside had finally figured out that the doorbell didn’t work.

  62

  “I’ll get it,” the bank robber said.

  “No! What if it’s the police?!” Ro exclaimed.

  “It’s probably just the pizzas,” the bank robber guessed.

  “Are you mad? The police would never send a pizza delivery guy into a hostage situation! I mean, you’re armed and dangerous!” Ro said.

  “I’m not dangerous,” the bank robber said, hurt.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Ro said, apologetically.

  Roger got to his feet over by the fireplace, which was smoking considerably less now, and pointed at the bank robber with a lump of wood as if it were his hand.

  “Ro’s right. If you open the door, the police might shoot you. It would be better if I went!”

  Julia agreed, albeit a little too readily for Roger’s liking. “Yes! Let Roger go! Who knows? We might manage to come up with a way to help you escape, and then the police will never know that you’re a woman. Everyone will just assume that the bank robber’s a man!”

  “Why?” Roger wondered.

  “Because women aren’t usually that stupid,” Zara interjected, ever helpful.

  The bank robber sighed hesitantly. But Anna-Lena took a tiny, tiny step toward the middle of the room and whispered: “Please, don’t open the door, Roger. What if they shoot?”

  Roger got some smoke in his eyes, even though there wasn’t any now. He didn’t say anything. So Lennart stepped forward and said: “Oh, let me do it! Give me the mask and I’ll pretend to be the hostage taker. I’m an actor, after all—I was in The Merchant of Venice at the local theater.”

  “Isn’t it The Merchant from Venice?” Anna-Lena wondered.

  “Is it?” Lennart asked.

  “Oh, I like that play, there’s a lovely line in it. Something about a light!” Estelle declared happily, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was.

  “God, just stop babbling and concentrate for a minute!” Julia snapped, because there had just been another knock on the door.

  Lennart nodded and held his hand out to the bank robber. “Give me the mask and pistol.”

  “No, give them here, I’ll go!” Roger snapped, with a renewed need for validation.

  The two men squared up against each other, as well as they could. Roger would probably have liked to hit Lennart again, all the more so now that the rabbit’s head was gone. But perhaps Lennart could see how much Roger was hurting, so before Roger had time to clench his fists, he said: “Don’t be angry with your wife, Roger. Be angry with me.”

  Roger still looked angry, but that must have struck home somewhere, making a tiny crack in his anger where the air slowly seeped out of it.

  “I…,” he grunted, not looking at Anna-Lena.

  “Let me do this,” Lennart asked.

  “Please, darling,” Anna-Lena whispered.

  Roger looked up, only as far as her chin, and saw it was quivering. And he backed down. It could have been a touching moment, actually, if only he could have stopped himself muttering: “For what it’s worth, I hope they shoot you in the leg, Lennart.”

  * * *

  It was nicer than it sounded.

  * * *

  At that moment Estelle managed to remember the line from the play, so she declared: “That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

  There was another she remembered now, such a want-wit sadness makes of me, but she didn’t say that one out loud because she didn’t want to spoil the mood. The bank robber looked at the little old lady.

  “I’m so sorry, I’ve only just remembered that you were waiting for your husband—Knut, wasn’t it? He was parking the car when I… he must be so worried!” she said, distraught with guilt.

  Estelle patted the bank robber’s arm.

  “No, don’t worry about that. Knut’s already dead.”

  The bank robber’s face turned white.

  “While you’ve been in here? He died while you were here…? Oh, dear Lord…”

  Estelle shook her head.

  “No, no, no. He’s been dead awhile. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, dear.”

  “I…,” the bank robber managed to say.

  Estelle patted her arm.

  “I just said Knut was parking the car because I get lonely sometimes. And it feels better to pretend that he’s on his way. Especially at this time of year, he always used to like New Year, we used to stand at the kitchen window watching the fireworks. Well… we used to stand on the balcony for years… but I couldn’t bring myself to go out there after something that happened down on the bridge ten years ago. It’s a long story. Anyway, Knut and I used to stand in the kitchen watch
ing the fireworks through the window, and… oh, you miss such peculiar things. I almost miss that more than anything. Knut loved fireworks, so I suppose I always feel extra lonely at New Year. I’m such a silly old woman.”

  Everyone else had fallen silent, listening as she related this. It could have been a touching moment, actually, if Zara hadn’t cleared her throat at the other end of the room.

  “Everyone thinks Christmas is when most people kill themselves. That’s a myth. Far more people commit suicide at New Year.”

  * * *

  That spoiled the mood. It’s hard to deny that it did.

  * * *

  Lennart looked at Roger, Roger looked at the bank robber, the bank robber looked at them all. Then she nodded decisively. When the apartment door was finally opened, Jim the police officer was standing outside. A short while later he went back down to the street and told his son he’d spoken to the bank robber.

  63

  Jack stomps out of the interview room, exhausted with anger. The real estate agent is still sitting in there, terrified, looking on as the younger of the two police officers starts to march up and down the corridor. Then she turns hopefully to the older officer, who is still seated in the room, looking sad. Jim doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, or any other part of his body, for that matter, so he just passes the glass of water to her. It shakes, even though she’s holding it with all ten digits.

  “You have to believe me, I swear I’m not the bank robber…,” she pleads.

  Jim glances out at the corridor, where his son is walking around hitting the walls with his fists. Then Jim nods to the Realtor, hesitates, nods again, stops himself, then finally puts his hand very briefly on her shoulder and admits: “I know.”

  * * *

  She looks surprised. He looks ashamed.

  * * *

  When the old policeman—and he’s never felt older than he does right now—lifts his hand, he toys with his wedding ring. An old habit, but scant comfort. He’s always felt that the hardest thing about death is the grammar. Often he still says the wrong thing, and Jack hardly ever corrects him, sons probably don’t have the heart to do that. Jack mentions the ring once every six months or so, saying: “Dad, isn’t it time you took that off?” His dad nods, as if he’d just forgotten about it, tugs it a little as if it fits more tightly than it actually does, and mumbles: “I will, I will.” He never does.

  The hardest thing about death is the grammar, the tense, the fact that she won’t be angry when she sees that he’s bought a new sofa without consulting her first. She won’t be anything. She isn’t on her way home. She was. And she really did get angry that time Jim bought a new sofa without consulting her first, goodness, how angry she was. She could travel halfway around the world to the worst chaos on the planet, but when she came home everything had to be exactly the way it always was or she got upset. Of course that was just one of her many strange little habits and quirks: she put onion flakes on breakfast cereal and poured béarnaise sauce on popcorn, and if you yawned when she was next to you, she would lean forward and stick a finger in your mouth, just to see if she could pull it out again before you closed your mouth. Sometimes she put cornflakes in Jim’s shoes, sometimes little bits of boiled egg and anchovies in Jack’s pockets, and the looks on their faces when they realized seemed to amuse her more and more each time she did it. That’s the kind of thing you miss. That she used to do this, that she used to do that. She was, she is. She was Jim’s wife. Jack’s mom is dead.

  The grammar. That’s the worst thing of all, Jim thinks. So he really wants his son to be able to pull this off, solve the whole thing, save everyone. It just doesn’t seem to be working.

  * * *

  He goes out into the corridor. Looks at Jack. They’re alone out there, no one can overhear their conversation. The son turns around, despairing.

  “It must be the real estate agent who did it, Dad, it must be…,” he manages to say, but the words get weaker and weaker the further into the sentence he gets.

  Jim shakes his head, painfully slowly.

  “No. It isn’t her. The bank robber wasn’t in the apartment when you stormed in, son, you’re right about that. But she didn’t leave with the hostages, either.”

  Jack’s eyes dart wildly around the corridor. He clenches his fists, looking for something else to hit.

  “How do you know that, Dad? How the hell do you know that?!” he yells, as if he were yelling at the sea.

  Jim blinks as if he were trying to hold back the tide.

  “Because I didn’t tell you the truth, son.”

  * * *

  And then he does.

  64

  All the witnesses from the hostage drama were released at the same time. In a way, this story stops as suddenly for them as it began. They gather their things and are shepherded gently out onto the little flight of steps at the back of the police station. When the door closes behind them they look at each other in surprise: the real estate agent, Zara, Lennart, Anna-Lena, Roger, Ro, Julia, and Estelle.

  “What did the police say to you?” Roger immediately asks the others.

  “They asked loads of questions, but Jules and I just played dumb!” Ro declared happily.

  “How clever of you,” Zara says.

  “So none of the police said anything particular to any of you at all when they let you go?” Roger demands to know.

  They all shake their heads. The young police officer, Jack, had just gone from room to room, saying no more except that they were free to go, and that he was sorry it had taken such a long time. The only thing he was careful to say was that they wouldn’t be leaving via the front entrance of the police station, because there were reporters waiting out there.

  So now the little group is gathered at the back of the station, glancing nervously at each other. In the end Anna-Lena asks the question they’re all thinking: “Is she… okay? When we left the apartment I saw a police officer standing in the stairwell, that older one, and I thought: How on earth is she going to get into the other apartment now?”

  “Exactly! When the police told me the pistol was real and that they’d heard a shot from inside the apartment, I thought… ugh…” The real estate agent nods, without wanting to finish the thought.

  “Who helped her get out if it wasn’t us?” Roger wants to know, eager for correct information.

  No one has an answer to that, but Estelle looks down at her phone, reads a text message, and nods slowly. Then she smiles, relieved.

  “She says she’s okay.”

  Anna-Lena smiles at that.

  “Say hi from us.”

  Estelle says she will.

  * * *

  Behind them a woman in her twenties emerges from the police station on her own. She’s trying to look confident, but her eyes are darting about wildly in search of somewhere to go, and someone to go there with.

  “Are you okay, dear?” Estelle wonders.

  “What? Why are you asking?” London snaps.

  Julia looks at the name badge on London’s blouse; she never took it off after she left work for the interview.

  “Were you the person working at the counter in the bank that got robbed?”

  London nods hesitantly.

  “Oh my, were you very frightened?” Estelle wonders.

  London nods, not as if she means to, but as if her body is answering for her when her brain doesn’t dare.

  “Not at the time. Not… when it happened. But afterward. When I… you know, when I found out that it might have been a real pistol after all.”

  The others on the steps nod understandingly. Ro puts her hands in the dress pockets beneath her coat, inclines her head toward a small café on the other side of the street, and says: “Do you fancy a coffee?”

  London feels like lying and saying that she has places to be, people to see, because it’s, like, New Year’s Eve tomorrow. But instead she says: “I don’t like coffee.”

  “We’ll find something
else for you,” Ro promises.

  That’s a nice thing to promise someone, so London nods slowly. Ro becomes the first friend she’s had in a long time. Ever, perhaps.

  “Wait for me!” Julia says.

  “What? Worried I’m going to get robbed if I go on my own or something?” Ro grins.

  Julia doesn’t grin. Ro clears her throat and mumbles: “Okay, okay, too soon to make jokes about it, I get it, I get it!”

  As they cross the street London whispers to her: “That wasn’t a very good joke.”

  “Who are you, the joke police, or what?” Ro grunts.

  “Darling! If you get shot, I’m going to give your birds away!” Julia calls behind them.

  “Now that was funny!” London chuckles. She hasn’t had anything to laugh at for a long time. Ever, perhaps.

  She receives a letter a few days later, written by a bank robber who wants to apologize, which means more to the twenty-year-old than she can admit to anyone for many years. Not until she falls in love, in fact. But that’s an entirely different story.

  * * *

  Julia hugs everyone on the steps and is hugged back in turn. When she gets to Estelle, the young woman and the much older one look into each other’s eyes for a long time. Estelle says: “There’s a book I’d like to give you. By my favorite poet.”

  Julia smiles.

  “I was thinking that maybe we could meet up, you and me. Now and then. Maybe we can exchange books in the elevator.”

  “How do you mean?” Estelle wonders.

  Julia turns to the real estate agent.

  “Will you sort out the paperwork?”

  The real estate agent nods so enthusiastically that she actually starts to jump off the ground. Roger finds himself grinning as well, suddenly delighted.