“The market is supposed to be self-regulating, but people like you spoil the balance between supply and demand,” she said wearily.

Of course the rabbit responded at once by saying the most predictable thing possible: “That’s not true. If I wasn’t doing this, someone else would. I’m not breaking the law. An apartment is the largest investment most people make, and they want the best price, so I’m just offering a service that—”

“Apartments aren’t supposed to be investments,” Zara replied gloomily.

“What are they supposed to be, then?”

“Homes.”

“Are you some sort of communist?” the rabbit chuckled.

Zara felt like punching him on the nose for that, but instead she pointed between his ears and said: “When the financial crisis hit ten years ago, a man jumped off that bridge because of a property market crash on the other side of the world. Innocent people lost their jobs and the guilty were given bonuses. You know why?”

“Now you’re exaggerat—”

“Because people like you don’t care about the balance in the system.”

Lennart chuckled superciliously inside the rabbit’s head. He still hadn’t realized who he’d embarked on a discussion with.

“You need to calm down, the financial crisis was the banks’ fault, I don’t make the—”

“The rules? Is that what you were about to say? You don’t make the rules, you just play the game?” Zara interrupted wearily, seeing as she’d rather drink nitroglycerin and go on a trampoline than have to listen to yet another man lecturing her about financial responsibilities.

“Yes! Well, no! But…”

Zara had spent enough of her life in committee rooms with the target market for cuff links to be able to predict the rest of this guy’s monologue, so she decided to save her time and his larynx: “Let me guess where you’re going with this: you don’t care about the seller of this apartment, you don’t care about Roger and Anna-Lena, either, you only care about yourself. But you’re going to try to defend yourself by saying that it isn’t possible to cheat the housing market, because the market doesn’t really exist, it’s a construct. Just numbers on a computer screen. So you don’t have any responsibility, do you?”

“No…,” Lennart began, but didn’t even manage to take a breath before Zara stormed on.

“Then you’ll dredge up some pop-psychological nonsense about money not having any value because that’s also a construct. And then we get to the history lesson, where clever old you gets to teach silly, ignorant me about economic theory and how the stock market came about. Maybe you feel like telling me about Hanoi 1902, when the city tried to fight a plague of rats by offering the inhabitants a reward for every rat they killed and whose tail they handed over to the police. And what did that lead to? People started breeding rats! Do you have any idea how many men have told me that story to illustrate how selfish and untrustworthy ordinary people are? Do you know how many men like you every single woman on the planet meets every day, who think that every thought that pops into your tiny little male brains is a lovely present you can give us?”

Lennart had backed away three steps toward the railing by this point. But Zara had got into her stride now, so all he had time to say was: “I—,” before she snapped: “You what? You what? You’re not the greedy one, everyone else is? Is that what you were about to say?”

The rabbit shook its ears.

“No. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone had jumped off that bridge. Did you know…?”

Zara’s cheeks were throbbing, her throat was bright red beneath the headphones. She was no longer talking to Lennart, but exactly who she was talking to probably wasn’t clear even to her, but it felt like she’d been waiting ten years to yell at someone. Anyone at all. Herself most of all. So she roared: “People like you and me are the problem, don’t you get that? We always defend ourselves by saying we’re only offering a service. That we’re just one tiny part of the market. That everything is people’s own fault. That they’re greedy, that they shouldn’t have given us their money. And then we have the nerve to wonder why stock markets crash and the city is full of rats…”

Her eyes were wild with rage, and little clouds of smoke kept puffing breathlessly out of her nostrils. The rabbit didn’t reply, those unblinking eyes just looked at her as she tried to get her pulse under control. Then there was a hacking sound from inside the head, and at first Zara thought the old bastard was having a stroke, then realized that this was what Lennart sounded like when he was laughing, really properly, from deep in his stomach. He held his arms out.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about anymore, to be honest. But I give up, you win, you win!”

Zara’s eyes narrowed, from fear as much as anger. It was easier to talk to the rabbit than other people, because she didn’t have to look Lennart in the eye. She wasn’t prepared for what that was going to do to her. She leaned forward and stretched her fingers out on her thighs, bent and straightened them, over and over again. Then she said in a quieter voice: “I win, do I? Do Anna-Lena and Roger win? He’s trying to get rich and she’s trying to make him happy, and all they’re really doing is postponing an inevitable divorce. But that probably just makes you happy, because then they’ll have to buy two apartments.”

At that, something happened. Lennart raised his voice for the first time.

“No! That’s not enough! Because… because… I don’t believe that!”

“So what do you believe, then?” Zara snapped back, and—regardless of whatever it was that had led her to this point—her voice finally broke. She screwed her eyes shut and clenched her fists around the headphones. She had been waiting ten years for someone to ask her that question. So it almost floored her when he said:

“Love.”

Lennart picked up and dropped the word so carelessly, as if it weren’t a big deal at all. Zara wasn’t prepared for it, and that sort of thing can make a person angry. Lennart’s voice became more muffled inside the rabbit’s head, hurt now: “You’re talking like I’d be happy if people got divorced. No one can go to two thousand apartment viewings and not realize that there’s more love in the world than the opposite.”

Not even Zara had an answer to that. And he still didn’t seem to be freezing, the idiot in the rabbit’s head, which just made her more annoyed. Stop talking about love and feel cold, for God’s sake, like any normal idiot, she thought, and prepared to fire back with some devastating remark. But all she heard herself ask was: “What do you base that on?”

The rabbit’s ears quivered.

“All the apartments that aren’t for sale.”

* * *

Zara’s fingers fumbled around her neck. It wasn’t an entirely ridiculous answer, which obviously annoyed her. Why couldn’t Lennart have the decency to be a complete idiot? An idiot who is also a romantic is almost unbearable, and that “almost” can drive a woman with headphones mad.

So she remained silent, gazing off toward the bridge. Then she let out a resigned sigh and pulled two cigarettes out from her bag. She stuck one in the rabbit’s snout and the other in her own mouth. The rabbit was smart enough not to start going on about her earlier claim that she didn’t smoke. She appreciated that. When she gave him the lighter he managed to singe the fur on his nose and had to pat the flames out with his hands. She appreciated that as well.