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It all starts with the boy waking up late in the afternoon and feeling hungry. The wurse and Samantha come flopping out of the wardrobe because the mulled wine is finished. Elsa marches in circles around Alf and intimates that it's time to get the Santa suit. Elsa and the wurse follow Alf down to the garage. He gets into Taxi. When Elsa opens the passenger door and sticks her head in and asks what he's doing, he turns the ignition key and grunts: "If I have to impersonate Santa for the rest of the day, I'm nipping out for a newspaper first."

Only one person collapses with a heart attack late on Christmas Eve. But two hearts are broken. And the house is never quite the same again.

"I don't think my mum wants me to go anywhere."

"No one invited you!"

Elsa and the wurse ignore him and jump in. When Alf starts railing at her that you can't just jump into people's cars like that, Elsa says that this is actually Taxi and that is precisely what one does with Taxi. And when Alf grumpily taps the meter and points out that taxi journeys cost money, Elsa says that she'd like to have this taxi journey as her Christmas present. And then Alf looks very grumpy for a long time, and then they go off for Elsa's Christmas present.

"Can I ask you something?" asks Elsa, even though she knows full well that this is also a question. "Why didn't Britt-Marie spill the beans about the wurse to the police?"

"She can be a bit of a nagbag sometimes. But she's not bloody evil," Alf clarifies.

"But she hates dogs," Elsa persists.

Alf knows of a kiosk that's open even on Christmas Eve. He buys a newspaper. Elsa buys two ice creams. The wurse eats all of its own and half of hers. Which, if one knows how much wurses like ice cream, shows how immensely considerate it is being. It spills some of it in the backseat, but Alf only shouts at it for about ten minutes. Which, if one knows how much Alf dislikes wurses spilling ice cream in the backseat of Taxi, shows how immensely considerate he was being.

"Ah, she's just scared of them. Your granny used to bring back loads of strays to the house when she moved in. We were just little brats back then, Britt-Marie and Kent and me. One of the mutts bit Britt-Marie and her mum made a hell of a commotion about it," Alf says, a shockingly lengthy description given that it's coming from Alf.

"So you've been in love with Britt-Marie since you were ten years old?" she asks.

Taxi pulls into the street. Elsa thinks of Granny's stories about the Princess of Miploris.

She waits for as long as she needs to.

"Yes," Alf replies as if it's absolutely self-evident. Bowled over by this, Elsa looks at him and waits, because she knows that only by waiting will she get him to tell the whole story. You know things like that when you're almost eight.

Then after two red lights Alf sighs resignedly, like you do while preparing yourself to tell a story even though you don't like telling stories. And then he recounts the tale of Britt-Marie. And himself. Although the latter part may not be his intention. There are quite a lot of swearwords in it, and Elsa has to exert herself quite a lot not to correct the grammar. But after a lot of "ifs" and "buts" and quite a few "damneds," Alf has explained that he and Kent grew up with their mother in the flat where Alf now lives. When Alf was ten, another family moved into the flat above theirs, with two daughters of the same age as Alf and Kent. The mother was a renowned singer and the father wore a suit and was always at work. The elder sister, Ingrid, apparently had an outstanding singing talent. She was going to be a star, her mother explained to Alf and Kent's mother. She never said anything about the other daughter, Britt-Marie. Alf and Kent caught sight of her anyway. It was impossible not to.

She wasn't at home a great deal, of course, and whenever she was, she was always accompanied by outlandish friends and, from time to time, stray dogs. One evening she brought home a large black cur that she'd apparently also won in a game of poker, Alf explains. Alf and Kent and the daughters of the neighboring family only wanted to play with it; they didn't understand that it was sleeping. Alf was quite certain it never meant to bite Britt-Marie, it was just caught unawares. She was too.

No one remembers exactly when the young female medical student first showed up in the house. One day she was just there in the enormous flat that took up the entire top floor of the house in those days, and when Alf and Kent's mother interrogated her about why she lived by herself in such a big flat, the young female medical student replied that she'd "won it in a game of poker."

The dog disappeared after that. But Britt-Marie's mother still hated the young medical student, and nothing anyone said could make her change her mind. And then came the car accident in the street just outside the house. Britt-Marie's mother never saw the truck. The impact shook the whole building. The mother emerged from the front seat of the car with nothing worse than a few grazes, reeling and confused, but no one came out of the backseat. The mother screamed the most terrible of screams when she saw all the blood. The young medical student came running out in her nightie, her whole face full of cinnamon bun crumbs, and she saw the two girls in the backseat. She had no car of her own and she could only carry one girl. She wedged the door open and saw that one of them was breathing and the other wasn't. She picked up the girl who was still breathing and ran. Ran all the way to the hospital.

A sound comes from Alf's throat; Elsa can't quite tell if it's a cough or a laugh.

"What about you and Britt-Marie?"

"Was Kent also in love with Britt-Marie?" she asks at last.

"Kent moved. Got married, too damned young, to a nasty piece of work. Had the twins, David and Pernilla. He loves those kids, but that woman made him bloody unhappy."

"For what?"

"What happened then?"

"We were young. People are bloody idiots when they're young. I went away. She stayed here."

"Because she thought your grandmother saved the wrong daughter."

"Like hell. I won."

One red light. Another.

"And Kent won?"

"We're brothers. Brothers compete."

Alf goes silent. Elsa asks what happened to the sister. Alf is silent for three red lights. Then he says, in a voice heavy with bitterness: "It's a terrible bloody thing when a parent loses a child. That family was never properly whole again. It wasn't the mother's fault. It was a bastard car accident, it was no one's fault. But she probably never got over it. And she damned well never forgave your grandmother."

Elsa's silence feels like a hundred red lights.

"Because people are bloody idiots when they're young."

"And Kent?"

"Bloody long."

"For how long?"

"What happened to Britt-Marie, then?"

"You had an affair?"

"Yes."

"Then what did you do?" asks Elsa.

Elsa opens and closes Taxi's glove compartment.

Red light.

"To a war."

"Why?"

"Went away," he answers.

Alf pulls his hand through his lack of hair. "I'm old, Elsa. I've been a hell of a lot of things."

Elsa stares at him. "Were you also a soldier?"

"I was on my way home. She was going to come and give me a surprise. And she saw me with another woman."

"He got divorced. Moved back in with Mum. Britt-Marie was still there. Yeah, what the hell, he'd always loved her. So when her parents died they moved into their flat. Kent had got wind of the owners maybe selling the whole place as leasehold flats. So they stayed on and waited for the dough. They got married and Britt-Marie probably wanted children but Kent thought the ones he already had were bloody enough. And now things are the way they are."

"Where did you go?"

Alf's nails wander around his forehead like nails do when wandering among memories and opening doors that have long been closed. "Kent took care of Mum while she was still alive. He's an idiot but he was always a good son, you can't take that away from the bastard. Mother never lacked for anything while she was alive. So I took care of her while she was dying."

"Then I just sort of… stayed on."

"And then?"

Elsa looks at him with seriousness. Takes a deep, concluding breath and says: "I like you very much, Alf. But you were a bit of a shit when you went away like that."

Alf scratches his head. Doesn't seem to know the exact answer himself.

"Why did you come home from the wars, then?"

Alf coughs or laughs again.

"Some wars finish. And Mum got ill. Someone had to take care of her."

"Didn't Kent do that?"

After the next red light he mutters: "Britt-Marie took care of your mother when her father died. While your grandmother was still traveling a lot, you know. She wasn't always the nagbag she is now."

"I know," says Elsa.

"Yes."

"Did your grandmother tell you that?"

"I was the treasure, right?"

"In a way. She told me a story about a princess in a kingdom of sorrow, and two princes who loved her so much that they began to hate each other. And the wurses were driven into exile by the princess's parents, but then the princess fetched them back when the war came. And about a witch who stole a treasure from the princess."

"She moved away. Went to university. The house went bloody quiet, for a bloody long time. And then she came back with your father and was pregnant."

"You could make an effort!"

Alf sighs. "I'm not so big on fairy tales."

She goes silent. Crosses her arms. Turns to Alf.

He seems to be looking for the right word. Elsa gives it to him.

"Needed."

"Britt-Marie has given her whole life to being there for a man who is never home, and trying to make someone else's children love her. When your grandfather died and she could be there for your mother, it was perhaps the first time she felt…"

"And then Mum grew up?"

They don't say a lot more about that. Like you don't when there's not a great deal more to be said. Alf briefly puts his hand on his chest, as if something is itching under his jacket.

"Sam. And Wolfheart."

"And then your grandmother came home," says Alf, and stops by a stop sign.

"You've got a massive scar on your chest. I saw it when you were wearing your dressing gown. You really should buy yourself a new dressing gown, by the way."

"Broken like who?"

"Sam was broken before he became a soldier. And not all soldiers are like that. But if you see the shit those boys saw, you need some help when you get back. And this country's so bloody willing to put billions into weapons and fighter jets, but when those boys come home and they've seen the shit they've seen, no one can be bothered to listen to them even for five minutes."

"I was never in that sort of war. No one ever fired at me."

"So that's why you're not broken?"

Alf's gaze becomes somewhat defensive. She shrugs.

Elsa looks at the zip. "Did you get that scar in a war?"

"I was going to be all of Britt-Marie's second chances," Elsa says in a low voice, nodding.

He looks gloomily at Elsa.

"You know what it is?" Alf asks skeptically.

"But they operate on him and remove the magnet at the end of the third film!" Elsa tells him excitedly, then clears her throat and adds, slightly shamefaced: "Spoiler alert. Sorry."

"Oh!"

They drive up the highway while Elsa tells Alf that Iron Man, who's a kind of superhero, has a type of pacemaker. But really it's more of an electromagnet, because Iron Man has shrapnel in his heart and without the magnet the shrapnel would cut holes in it and then he'd die. Alf doesn't look as though he entirely understands the finer points of the story, but he listens without interrupting.

"People have to tell their stories, Elsa. Or they suffocate."

"You really are a different damned kid."

"I know."

Elsa looks slightly offended.

"It's good to be different."

"It's a pacemaker."

Alf doesn't look as if this is concerning him very much. To be entirely honest, he doesn't look as if he knows exactly what a "spoiler" is, unless it's a part of a car.

"Where did you get the scar, then?"

It's snowing again, and Elsa decides that even if people she likes have been shits on earlier occasions, she has to learn to carry on liking them. You'd quickly run out of people if you had to disqualify all those who at some point have been shits. She thinks that this will have to be the moral of this story. Christmas stories are supposed to have morals.

Alf's telephone rings from the compartment between the seats. He checks the display, but doesn't answer. It rings again.

"Aren't you going to answer?" wonders Elsa.

The telephone rings again; Alf doesn't answer. It rings a third time. Elsa picks it up, irritated, and answers even though Alf swears at her. There's a woman at the other end. She's crying. Elsa hands the phone to Alf. It trembles against his ear. His face becomes transparent.

It's Christmas Eve. The taxi makes a U-turn. They go to the hospital.

"It's Kent. I suppose he wants to mouth off about some crap to do with the accountant and those leasehold conversion bastards, that's all he ever thinks about. He can bloody go on about it tomorrow," mutters Alf.

There's a young woman standing outside the room. She's crying and she's beautiful. Smells strongly of perfume. She smiles faintly at Elsa and Elsa smiles back. Alf steps out of the room and nods without smiling at the woman; the woman disappears out the door without meeting his eyes.

Elsa sits on a bench in a corridor talking to Mum on the telephone, while Alf is in a room talking to a doctor. The nurses think Elsa is a grandchild, so they tell her that he had a heart attack but he's going to be all right. Kent is going to survive.

Alf doesn't stop for a single red light.

Alf doesn't say a word, just marches back to the entrance and out into the parking lot, with Elsa behind him. And only then does Elsa see Britt-Marie. She's sitting absolutely still on the bench, wearing her floral-print jacket although it's below freezing. She's forgotten her brooch. The paintball stain is shining. Britt-Marie's cheeks are blue and she's spinning her wedding ring on her finger. She has one of Kent's shirts in her lap; it smells freshly laundered and has been perfectly ironed.

Then she lifts her chin. Looks old. Every word seems to leave a little track on her face.

"Britt-Marie?" Alf's voice rasps out in the evening gloom, and he stops a yard from her.

She doesn't answer. Just lets her hand wander over the shirt collar in her lap. Gently brushes away something invisible from a fold. Carefully folds one cuff link under the other. Straightens out a wrinkle that isn't there.

"I've actually been absolutely brilliant at pretending, Alf," she whispers firmly.

"Britt-Marie --" Alf says quietly, but she interrupts him coldly.

Alf doesn't answer. Britt-Marie looks down into the snow and spins her wedding ring.

"When David and Pernilla were small, they always said I was so bad at coming up with stories. I always wanted to read the ones that were in books. They always said, 'Make one up!' but I don't understand why one should sit there and make things up just like that, when there are books where everything has been written down from the very start. I really don't." She has raised her voice now. As if someone needed convincing.

Her voice grows muted. "David and Pernilla never came for Christmas dinner. They were busy, they said. I can understand they're busy, they've been busy for years. So Kent called and said he was staying at the office for a few hours. Just a few hours, he was having another conference call with Germany. Even though it's actually Christmas in Germany as well. But he never came home. So I tried calling him. He didn't answer. I left a message. Eventually the telephone rang, but it wasn't Kent."

"Kent told the children I couldn't make up stories because I didn't have any imagination, but it isn't true. It's not. I have an absolutely excellent imagination. I am very good at pretending." Alf runs his fingers across his head and blinks for a long time. Britt-Marie caresses the shirt in her lap as if it were a baby about to go to sleep. "I always bring a newly washed shirt if I'm meeting him somewhere. Because I don't use perfume."

Her lower lip trembles. "I don't use perfume, but she does. So I always see to it that he has a fresh shirt. That's all I ask, that he should put his shirt directly in the washing machine when he comes home. Is that so much to ask?"

She puts one hand in the other, closes her eyes and adds in a quivering voice: "I have an excellent imagination, actually. It is excellently good. Kent always said he was going for dinners with the Germans or that the plane was delayed by snow or that he was just passing by the office for a bit. And then I pretended I believed it. I pretended so brilliantly that I believed it myself."

"Please, Britt-Marie…"

"I know that," whispers Alf.

She rises from the bench, turns around, and hangs the shirt elaborately on the edge of the bench. As if she cannot allow herself even now to take out her feelings on something freshly ironed.

"I'm very good at pretending," she whispers.

And then they leave the shirt on the bench and go home.

She swallows spasmodically and spins her wedding ring. "It was a heart attack. I know that because she called and told me, Alf. She called me. Because she couldn't stand it, she couldn't. She said she couldn't sit there in the hospital and know that maybe Kent would die without my knowing. She simply couldn't stand it…"

"I don't hate her and I don't hate the dog and I don't hate her car."

It has stopped snowing. They travel in silence. Mum comes to meet them at the front entrance. She hugs Elsa. Tries to hug Britt-Marie. Britt-Marie keeps her at a distance. Not vehemently, just with determination.

Mum nods and takes her hand. Britt-Marie closes her eyes.

"I know," Mum says with a slow nod.

"I don't hate her, Ulrika," she says.

"I don't hate at all, Ulrika. I actually don't. I only wanted you to listen to me. Is that so much to ask? I just didn't want you to leave the car in my place. I actually just didn't want you to come and take my place." She spins her wedding ring.

Mum leads her up the stairs, her hand firmly but lovingly around the floral-print jacket. Alf never shows up in the flat, but Santa does. The boy with a syndrome's eyes light up as children's eyes do when someone tells them about ice cream and fireworks and climbing trees and splashing about in puddles.

Maud sets an extra place at the table and gets out more gratin. Lennart puts on more coffee. George washes up. After the parcels have been handed around, the boy and the woman in the black skirt sit on the floor and watch Cinderella on the TV.

And when the evil stepmother turns up in Cinderella, and Britt-Marie discreetly gets up and straightens out a crease in her skirt and goes into the front hall to cry, Elsa follows her.

Britt-Marie sits slightly ill at ease next to Elsa on the sofa. They peer at one another. They don't say anything, but probably this is their cessation of hostilities. So when Elsa's mum tells her she has to stop eating chocolate Santas now or she'll get a stomachache, and Elsa keeps eating them, Britt-Marie doesn't say anything.

And they sit on the chest together and eat chocolate Santas.

Because you can be upset while you're eating chocolate Santas. But it's much, much, much more difficult.