They smoked without any sense of urgency. Then Lennart said, heavily but with no trace of accusation, as he looked out across the rooftops: “You can think what you like about me, but Anna-Lena is one of the few clients I’ve got who I… can’t help rooting for. She doesn’t want to make her husband rich, she just wants to make him feel needed. Everyone takes it for granted that she’s submissive and oppressed and that she’s always had to stand back and make sacrifices for his career, but do you know what job she used to do?”

“No,” Zara confessed.

“She was a senior analyst for a big American industrial company. I didn’t believe it at first, because she’s as scatty as a box of kittens… but you won’t find a smarter, better-educated person in this apartment, I can assure you of that. When their kids were young his career started to take off, but hers was going even better, so Roger turned down a promotion so he could spend more time at home with the children, and she could go on all her business trips. It was only going to be for a few years, but her career started to go even better while his was treading water, and the more difference there was between their salaries, the harder it was for them to swap places. When the kids had grown up and Anna-Lena had accomplished all her goals, she turned to Roger and said ‘Now it’s your turn.’ But he wasn’t offered any more promotions. He’d got too old. They didn’t have any way of talking about that, because they’d never practiced the right words. So now she’s trying to make it up to him by moving all the time and renovating apartments, all so they have… a project in common. Roger has no kids to look after anymore, so he feels worthless. And Anna-Lena just wants a home. You can say a lot of things about me, but don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not rooting for those two.”

Zara lit another cigarette, mostly so she could keep her eyes busy staring at the glowing tip.

“Did Anna-Lena tell you all that?”

“You’d be surprised what people tell me.”

“No I wouldn’t,” Zara whispered.

She felt like telling him that she needs distance. That she can’t stop massaging her hands. That she counts everything in every room because it calms her down. That she likes spreadsheets and turnover forecasts because she likes order. But she also felt like telling him that the economic system she has devoted her life to working in is the world’s biggest problem right now, because we made the system too strong. We forgot how greedy we are, but above all we forgot how weak we are. And now it’s crushing us.

She felt like saying all this, but by this point in her life she had gotten used to the fact that people either didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. So she stood there in silence. And, deep down, wished she’d stayed silent the whole time.

They each smoked another cigarette. Zara objected to his presence less than she would have expected, and that day had already offered more new experiences than she felt ready to absorb, so her fingers immediately started to trace the edges of the headphones when the rabbit’s ears wavered in her direction again. She could tell that he was trying to think of something to ask her, to keep the conversation going. That was what annoyed Zara most about men. Because they could only ever come up with two questions: “What line of work are you in?” and “Are you married?”

* * *

But this peculiar Lennart plucked up the courage to ask instead: “What are you listening to?”

* * *

Bloody hell, Zara thought. Why can’t you just feel the cold and not be interested in me? She opened her mouth, there was so much she wanted to say, but all that came out was: “The bank robber’s going to give up soon. The police will come storming in any time now. You should go and put a pair of pants on.”

The rabbit nodded disappointedly. He left her with her headphones on, music at top volume, counting the windows over and over again. It may not be the sort of love story anyone would write poetry about. But they floored each other there and then.

54

Estelle knocked tentatively on the door to the closet. Julia opened it.

“I just wanted to let you know that the pizzas are on their way, but I was thinking that you must be starving, eating for two, you poor thing. Would you like something to eat while we’re waiting? There’s food in the freezer. I mean, people almost always have food in the freezer,” Estelle offered.

“No, thanks, that’s sweet of you but I’m fine,” Julia smiled. She liked the fact that Estelle was concerned, more people should do that, ask if you’re hungry instead of how you’re feeling.

“Well, then, I won’t disturb you,” Estelle said, and started to close the door.

“Would you like to come in?” Julia asked, but to be honest she said it the way you do when you kind of hope the answer’s going to be no.

“I’d love to!” Estelle chirruped, then stepped in and closed the door behind her. She pushed past the stepladder and sat down on the last available seat in the closet: a chest, tucked right at the back. She folded her hands on her lap, smiled warmly, and said: “Well, this is all rather nice, really, isn’t it? I haven’t eaten pizza for years. Of course I’d have to admit that this whole business of the bank robbery and hostage taking hasn’t been particularly pleasant for any of us, but I can’t help thinking that it’s quite encouraging that we’ve got a female bank robber. Don’t you think? It’s good when us girls show what we’re capable of!”

Julia put her thumb on a specific point right between her eyes, pressed hard, and managed to control herself enough to reply: “Hmm. Threatening us with a pistol, but still… Girl power!”

“I don’t think it’s a real pistol!” Anna-Lena interjected quickly.

Julia closed her eyes so no one would see she was rolling them. Estelle smiled quizzically and asked: “Well, I didn’t mean to come in and interrupt you like this, like some silly old thing. What were you talking about?”

“Marriage,” Anna-Lena sniffed.

“Oh!” Estelle exclaimed, as if her favorite category had just popped up on a television quiz show.

Her enthusiasm softened Julia’s attitude slightly, so she asked her: “Did you say your husband’s name is Knut? How long have you been married?”

Estelle counted in her head until she ran out of numbers. “Knut and I have been married forever. It’s like that when you get old. In the end there simply wasn’t ever a time before him.”

Julia had to admit that she liked that answer.

“How do you manage to have such a long marriage?” she asked.

“You fight for it,” Estelle replied honestly.

Julia didn’t seem to like that quite as much.

“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

Estelle grinned knowingly.

“You have to listen to each other all the time. But not all the time. If you listen to each other all the time, there’s a risk that you can’t forgive each other afterward.”

Julia ran her fingernails unhappily across her eyebrows.

“Ro and I used to get along fine. We got along so well that it didn’t matter that we were good at falling out, too. Sometimes I used to fall out with her on purpose, because we were so good at… the other bit. But now, oh, I don’t know. I’m just not quite so sure about us anymore.”