英语小说网

"Ha?" she says.

"Britt-Marie?" says Sven in a formal tone that she's not used to.

He's standing beside her with a very tall man. Really astonishingly tall. Britt-Marie doesn't even know how one could manage to have fully functional lighting at home with him around.

Sven presents Dino's uncle in English marred by a heavy accent, but Britt-Marie doesn't criticize; she's not the sort of person that criticizes.

Omar and Dino are the first to throw themselves into the game with Vega. At first they are guarded, as if every movement is made in sorrow, but before long they are playing as if it's just another evening. They play without memory, because they don't know any other way of doing it. More children turn up, first Toad and Ben but soon others too. Britt-Marie doesn't recognize every one of them, but they all have jeans that are ripped over their thighs. They play as if they live in Borg.

"Hello," says Britt-Marie, this being about the long and short of the conversation for her part.

It's not that Britt-Marie can't speak English. It's just that she doesn't know how to speak it without feeling like an utter idiot. She wouldn't even know how to say "utter idiot" in English. As far as she's concerned this illustrates her point very well.

"He's saying he still hardly says anything. Only with them…" Sven explains, pointing out of the window.

The very tall man, who really is quite unreasonably tall, points at Dino and explains that they lived in three countries and seven cities before they came to Borg. Sven helpfully translates. Britt-Marie understands English perfectly well, but she lets him go on, fearing that she might otherwise be expected to say something. The tall man's mouth judders up and down in a melancholy way when he says that small children don't remember things, which is a blessing. But Dino was old enough to see and hear and remember. He remembers everything they had to flee from.

"Sami," he says with a sort of music in the way he pronounces the name, as if he's nursing every nuance of sound. Her eyelashes grow heavy.

"He says that Sami saw a boy walking on his own in the road. Vega and the others called out and asked him if he wanted to play, but he didn't understand. So Sami rolled a ball over to him, and then he kicked it," says Sven.

Britt-Marie clasps one hand in the other. The tall man does the same.

"I assume you'll be going home now, you and Kent," says Sven, his eyes remote.

He gets something out of his pocket and hands it to her. The keys to her car. His eyes flicker. Through the window they see Kent's BMW pulling into the parking area.

"It was a beautiful funeral," says Sven, because that's what you say.

"Very beautiful," says Britt-Marie, because you have to say that as well.

"Thank you," says the tall man.

Sven starts translating to the tall man, but he stops him because he also understands. He presses Britt-Marie's hand.

She goes back into the pizzeria, with Sven following, and helps Somebody clear glasses and plates from the tables.

"I'm the one who should say thank you."

Britt-Marie interrupts him, because she understands:

Britt-Marie looks at the tall man and her common sense prevents her from saying that once when she and Kent were staying at a hotel and someone had left a foreign newspaper behind, she almost solved a crossword in English entirely on her own.

"He wants to thank you for coaching the team. It meant a lo --"

"I… I, of course, of course, I have contacted the social services. They have sent a girl to Borg," he says with a grim expression, as if he's already forgotten that it was actually several nights earlier that he first brought the girl to the children.

Sven looks up and crumples in the brief instant between the first question and the realization that what she's asking is whether the children need her. Not whether he does.

"Of course," she says.

"It's best that way," says Britt-Marie, sucking in her cheeks, but then a few more words slip out of her in spite of it all: "Unless I'm needed here with… Vega and Omar…"

"I promised Sami they'd be all right. I promised… I want… they have to have an opportunity to… there must be a sunny story in their lives, Sven. At some point," she manages to say at long last.

Britt-Marie mops the sweat from her brow with a handkerchief, so he doesn't notice that she's also mopping her eyes.

"She's… you'll like her. I've worked with her many times before. She's a good person. She wants what's best for them, she's not like… like you imagine the social services could be."

"Of course, of course," she replies, directing her words at her shoes.

"Obviously, obviously. It's best that way, obviously," she whispers.

Sven fingers the police cap in his hands.

"We're going to do our best. We'll all do everything we possibly can."

"The girl from the council, yes, she'll be staying with the children for a few days. Until they've sorted it all out. She's very considerate. You don't have to worry about that, I, well, I've been asked to drive the children home tonight."

It takes a few seconds before the significance of what he has said sinks in for Britt-Marie. Before she's hit with the insight that she's no longer needed.

Outside on the soccer pitch, Kent has gotten out of his BMW. He sees Britt-Marie and Sven through the window and puts his hands in his pockets, slightly nonplussed, looking as if he's standing on a street corner and not quite willing to admit that he's lost. He's never been good at talking about death, Britt-Marie knows that. He's the kind of person who can sort out all the practicalities; he can make calls; he'll kiss your eyelids. But he's never been good at feeling things.

"Mother of God," mumbles Britt-Marie from the window. The children watch the shoe flying off. Turn to Kent. He looks back at them and starts laughing. They also laugh. He plays the rest of the match with one shoe, and when he scores he runs around the pitch with Omar perched on his back.

His eyes seem to be considering walking into the pizzeria, but his feet steer off in the opposite direction. He makes a few movements with which he seems to be heading back into the BMW, but then the soccer ball comes rolling up and stops by his feet. Omar is standing a few feet away. Kent puts the sole of his shoe on the ball and looks at the boy. Kicks the ball to him. Omar stops it with the side of his foot, so it bounces back to Kent.

Thirty seconds later Kent is in the middle of the pile of children, his shirt creased and hanging down outside his belt, his hair untidy. Instantly, he's happy. When the ball comes flying to him at knee-height, he gathers himself and kicks as hard as he can, misses the ball, and watches one of his shoes flying off and clearing the top of the fence along the side of the recreation center.

Omar hugs him a little too hard. A little too long. As teenagers get few chances to do outside of a soccer pitch. Kent hugs him back. Because soccer allows him to do it.

Sven has turned away from the window when he mumbles:

"Don't dislike me, Britt-Marie, for not calling the social services earlier. I just wanted to give Sami the chance to get things organized. I thought… I… I… I just wanted to give him the chance. Don't dislike me for it."

He looks about to say something, so she quickly interjects:

"Quite the opposite, Sven. Quite the opposite."

Sven puts his police cap back on his head. It ends up slightly wonky.

Her fingers skim through the air between them as close as they can without actually touching him.

"They've been coming here every evening since the cup. More and more of them every evening. If it carries on like this, soon Borg won't be a team, it'll be a club."

Britt-Marie doesn't know what that means, but it sounds beautiful. She thinks Sami would have liked it.

"There are more kids here now than earlier. Where are they all from?"

"They look so happy. Even in the midst of all this they can look so happy when they're playing," she says, almost enviously.

Sven rubs the back of his hand against his beard stubble. He looks tired. She has never seen him tired. But at long last the corners of his mouth twitch slightly, his eyes glitter at her, and he says:

"Of course."

"If it's not too inappropriate, I should like to ask you a very personal question, Sven."

"Soccer forces life to move on. There's always a new match. A new season. There's always a dream that everything can get better. It's a game of wonders."

Britt-Marie straightens out a crease in his shirt, her hand landing as lightly as a butterfly, without actually touching his body under the fabric.

It seems quite fitting for a man like Sven that he should believe more in love than in passion. He's a policeman who believes more in justice than in the law. It suits him, she thinks to herself. But she doesn't tell him as much.

"I've never supported a team. I think I love soccer too much. Sometimes your passion for a team can get in the way of your love for the game."

"What soccer team do you support?"

Surprised, his face releases and changes.

Maybe he is also intending to say something bigger, but he holds off and walks away. She wants to call out to him, but it's too late.

"Poetic," she says.

"It was, what's-it-called? Beautiful funeral, huh?" says Somebody, her voice a little gravelly.

"Course." He smiles back.

She wants to say so much more. Maybe he does too. But in the end all he can manage to utter is: "I want you to know, Britt-Marie, that every time there's a knock on my front door, I hope it's you."

Britt-Marie dabs her cheeks with her handkerchief so no one can see she's wiping her eyes. Then she walks purposefully through the pizzeria to Somebody. There are still people everywhere. Ben's mother and Dino's uncle and Toad's parents, but also a lot of other people whose faces Britt-Marie can only dimly recall from the soccer cup. They are cleaning up and putting the chairs in order, and she only just manages to resist the urge to straighten them again.

The door tinkles cheerfully behind him, because doors really don't seem to get when the moment is or isn't right.

"Well. I been, you know, thinking about that car, huh, Britt-Marie. I don't have good car mechanic, huh? Maybe did it wrong, you know? So first you check the work, huh? Then you come back. Pay."

"Yes," agrees Britt-Marie, before getting out her wallet and immediately continuing: "I should like to ask what I owe you for the car door."

Somebody drums the edge of her wheelchair.

"I don't understand."

"Britt-Marie very honest person, huh. Britt-Marie does not steal. So then I know Britt-Marie comes back to Borg, huh. To pay."

Somebody scratches her cheek so no one can see she's wiping her eyes as well.

She wants to get busy cleaning up, but then has a merciless realization that the people she does not know, inside the pizzeria, have already done it. Somebody has already told them all what to do. And now there is nothing left to finish.

"Of course," she replies, turning away. "Of course."

She stands on her own in the doorway until the children stop playing. They go home, one after the other. At a distance, Sven waits patiently for Vega and Omar. He lets the children take the time they need. Vega goes directly to the backseat and closes the door behind her, but Omar wanders on his own along the plank and runs his fingers across the white jerseys. He leans over the candles on the ground, carefully picks one up that has gone out, and relights it by holding it over the flame of another, then puts it back. When he straightens up he sees Britt-Marie in the doorway. His hand moves almost unnoticeably away from his hip, in a little wave. A wave from a young man is much more than a wave from a child. She waves back as much as she can without showing him that she is crying.

Britt-Marie is not needed here anymore.

He takes her hand and she presses her eyelids against his lips. Says, almost panting:

She goes down to the parking area just as the police car pulls into the road and heads off towards the children's house. Kent is waiting for her, sweaty, his shirt creased and hanging loose, his hair on end to one side of his large head -- and he still only has one shoe. He looks quite, quite mad. It reminds her of how he used to look when they were children. Back then it never bothered him that other people would shake their heads at him; he was never afraid of making a fool of himself. He never needed anyone's affirmation except hers.

"Everything is going to be all right," says Kent into her hair.

"I promised Sami their lives would work out," sobs Britt-Marie.

"They're going to be fine, you have to let the authorities take care of this," he says calmly.

"Vega is afraid even if she mainly seems angry. Omar is angry, even if he mostly seems afraid."

"They're not your children, darling."

"I know. Of course I do know that."

"No, Kent, certainly not! I am certainly not going into town with you if you don't first put on both your shoes!"

"I'll go with you."

"You don't always have to stand next to me, Kent."

She doesn't answer. Because she knows. Obviously she knows that. Instead, she straightens her back and wipes her eyes with a tissue, adjusts a crease in her skirt and several in Kent's shirt. Collects herself and clasps her hands over her stomach and asks him:

Then he smiles. And she tries to.

"I should like to take care of a last errand. Tomorrow. In town. If it's not too much trouble."

"Yes, I do."

But when he starts walking back to the BMW she stays where she is with her heels dug into the gravel, as you do when enough is finally enough: