英语小说网

It was the silence that paralyzed Britt-Marie when Ingrid died.

The children open the door at half-time to let Britt-Marie and Pirate back in. Britt-Marie spends the second half in front of the mirror in the bathroom. Firstly because she doesn't want to come out and risk having to talk to any of the children, and secondly because their team scores again so they forbid her from coming out until the match is over. So Britt-Marie stays in there and dries her hair and brings them luck and has a life crisis. It's possible to do all of these things at the same time. Her mirror image belongs to someone else, someone whose face has been touched by many winters. The winters have always been the worst, both for the balcony plants and for Britt-Marie. It's the silence that Britt-Marie struggles most of all to live with, because while immersed in silence you don't know if anyone knows you are there, and winter is also the quiet season because the cold insulates people. Makes the world soundless.

Her father started coming home later and later from his work, and at a certain point he started to come home so late that Britt-Marie would already be asleep by the time he walked in. Then she woke up one morning and he was only just coming home. And in the end she woke up one morning and he hadn't come home at all. Her mother said less and less about it. Stayed in bed for longer and longer in the mornings. Britt-Marie meandered around the flat as children do when they have to live in silent worlds. Once she knocked over a vase just so her mother would yell at her from the bedroom. Her mother didn't yell. Britt-Marie swept up the glass herself. And never knocked over a vase again. The next day her mother stayed in bed until Britt-Marie had made dinner. The day after that she got up even later. And in the end she didn't get up at all. Of course several of her mother's girlfriends sent beautiful flowers and condolences, but they were too busy with their lives to pay their respects to someone who was already dead anyway. Britt-Marie cut little notches in the flower stalks and put them in newly washed vases. She cleaned the flat and polished all the windows and the day after, when she took out the rubbish, she met Kent on the stairs. They stared at each other as children who have turned into adults tend to do. He had been married with two children, but he had recently been divorced and had now come back to the house to visit his mother. He smiled when he saw Britt-Marie. Because in those days he used to see her.

"Ha… Did you win?"

"Whoops, whoops, sorry, sorry, I just thought I'd give you this. Well, I thought, or we, we thought…"

He makes a gesture towards the pizzeria. Britt-Marie assumes he means he has spoken to Somebody. He smiles again. Clasps his hands together on top of his stomach, then changes his mind and crosses his arms just below his chin.

"Because actually I have only stayed in here all this time because you told me so. I have no intestinal problems," says Britt-Marie very seriously.

"Yes?" she says to the policeman.

The policeman smiles and holds out a piece of paper, which he drops just as he's giving it to Britt-Marie.

"Sven is here again."

The policeman stands on the threshold and lifts his hand in a fumbling wave. Britt-Marie draws back, deeply affronted but not sure why, and closes the bathroom door behind her. Once she has fixed her hair properly she takes a deep breath and reemerges.

Britt-Marie rubs her ring finger in front of the mirror. The white line there is like a tattoo. Taunting her. There's a knock on the bathroom door.

Pirate is standing outside.

"Two to zero!" Pirate nods blissfully.

Pirate nods, in some confusion, mumbles, "Okay," and points at the front door, which is open.

"I'm the one who helped her make the ad," says the policeman enthusiastically. "I did a course in it, in town. She's a very nice lady, the one who's letting the room, I mean, she's just moved back to Borg. Or, I mean, it's just temporary, of course, she's selling the house. But it's here in Borg, not far at all… it's walkable but I can give you a lift, if you like?"

"We were thinking you need somewhere to live, of course, of course, and I understood you didn't want to stay at the hotel in town… Not that you can't live anywhere you want to. Of course! We just thought this might be a good alternative for you. Perhaps?"

"In that?"

Britt-Marie looks at the paper. It's a handwritten, misspelled advertisement for a room that's available for rent. At the bottom is an image of a little man wearing a hat, who appears to be dancing. The relationship between the man and the advertisement is extremely unclear.

"Yes, I heard your car's at the workshop. But I can drive you, it's no trouble at all!"

Britt-Marie's eyebrows inch closer together. There's a police car parked outside.

"It's obviously not a problem for you. Whereas I'm supposed to be driven around this community in a police car, am I, so everyone thinks I'm a criminal, is that what you are telling me?"

The policeman looks ashamed of himself.

Clothes that cannot be tumble-dried she hangs up to dry, so the children can pick them up the next day. Most of them go home in their soccer jerseys. In a certain sense this is how Britt-Marie turns into their team coach. It's just that no one has told her about it yet.

"No, no, no. Of course, you wouldn't want that."

"I certainly would not," says Britt-Marie. "Was there anything else?"

The children stay in the recreation center until she has tumble-dried their clothes.

He shakes his head despondently and turns to leave. Britt-Marie closes the door.

None of the children thank her for doing their laundry. The door closes behind them and the recreation center is steeped in the sort of silence that only children and soccer balls can fill. Britt-Marie puts away plates and soft-drink cans from the sofa table. Omar and Vega have left their plates on the dish rack. They haven't washed them up or put them in the dishwasher, haven't even rinsed them off. All they've done is put them there.

Which is something quite different. At least the way Britt-Marie says it. The policeman swallows and seems to be drumming up some courage. A little too abruptly he whips out a bamboo curtain, almost smacking it into Britt-Marie's forehead.

There's a knock at the front door of the recreation center. It's not a civilized hour, so Britt-Marie assumes that it's one of the children who's forgotten something. She opens with a:

Kent also used to do that sometimes as if expecting to be thanked for it. As if he wanted Britt-Marie to know that when the plate was back in its place, washed and dried, in the cupboard tomorrow, he had certainly done his allotted share of the task.

"Ha?"

Then she sees that it's the policeman standing outside again. He smiles awkwardly. Britt-Marie immediately changes the tone to a:

"Ha!"

"Sorry, yes, well, I just wanted to… this is a bamboo screen!" he says and almost drops it into the mud.

"I made it! I did a course in town. 'Far Eastern Home Design.' "

"Ha…" says Britt-Marie, more guarded now.

He nods enthusiastically.

He nods again. As if Britt-Marie is supposed to say something. She doesn't. He holds the bamboo screen in front of his face.

"You can hold it against the window. So no one sees it's you."

He points cheerfully at the police car. Then at the bamboo screen.

Then at the rain that has started falling again. As rain does in Borg. Which must obviously be quite pleasant for the rain, not having anything better to do with its time.

"And you can keep it over your head when we go out to the car, like an umbrella, so you don't ruin your hair." He swallows again and fingers the bamboo.

They stand in silence for a long time after that. Britt-Marie switches her hands the other way, and then at long last exhales deeply with immeasurable patience. Not at all a sigh. Then she says:

"You don't have to, of course, of course. I was just thinking that you have to live somewhere while you're in Borg. I was thinking, so to speak, well, hmm, you understand. That it's hardly suitable for a lady to live in a recreation center, so to speak."

He nods eagerly. She closes the door and leaves him out there in the rain.

That is how it goes on -- the thing that has started.

"I need to get my things."