“Only on the plan. According to that Estelle, it’s actually an entire walk-in closet…”

“What?”

“That’s what she said. Didn’t I mention that in my notes from the interview?”

“Why haven’t you said anything?” Jack blurts out, already on his way.

“I didn’t know it was important,” Jim says defensively.

When Jack sticks his head in the closet to look for a light switch, he hits his forehead on a coat hanger, in exactly the same place where he already has the large bump. It hurts so badly that he lashes out at the hanger with his fist. So now his fist hurts as well. But Jim was right. Behind all the old coats and older suits and boxes full of even older things blocking the front, the closet really is far larger than it appeared on the plan.

40

There was a knock on the closet door.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Come in!” Anna-Lena called out hopefully, then fell apart when she saw it wasn’t Roger.

“Can I come in?” Julia asked gently.

“What for?” Anna-Lena said with her face turned away, since she considered crying a more private activity than going to the toilet.

Julia shrugged.

“I’m tired of everyone out there. You seem to feel the same. So maybe we have something in common.”

Anna-Lena had to admit to herself that it had been a long time since she’d had anything in common with anyone apart from Roger, and that it sounded rather nice. So she nodded tentatively from her stool, half hidden by a rail full of old-fashioned men’s suits.

“Sorry I’m crying. I know I’m the one who’s in the wrong here.”

Julia looked around for somewhere to sit, and decided to pull out a stepladder from the back of the closet and sit on the lowest step of that. Then she said: “When I got pregnant, the first thing my mom said to me was ‘Now you’ll have to learn to cry in the cupboard, Jules, because children get frightened if you cry in front of them.’ ”

Anna-Lena wiped her tears and stuck her head out from beneath the suits: “That was the first thing your mom said?”

“I was a difficult child, so her sense of humor is rather unusual,” Julia smiled.

Anna-Lena joined in with a weak smile. She nodded warmly toward Julia’s stomach.

“Are you doing okay? I mean, you and… the little one?”

“Oh, yes, thanks. I’m peeing thirty-five times a day, I hate socks, and I’m starting to think that terrorists who make bomb threats against public transport are all pregnant women who hate the way people smell on buses. Because people really do smell disgusting. Would you believe that an old guy sitting next to me the other day was eating salami? Salami! On the bus! But thanks, the little one and I are doing fine.”

“It’s terrible being held hostage when you’re pregnant, I mean,” Anna-Lena said gently.

“Oh, it’s probably just as bad for you. I’ve just got more to carry.”

“Are you very scared of the bank robber?”

Julia shook her head slowly.

“No, I’m not, actually. I don’t even think that pistol’s real, if I’m being honest.”

“Nor me,” Anna-Lena nodded, even though she didn’t really have any idea.

“The police will probably be here any minute, if we just stay calm,” Julia promised.

“I hope so,” Anna-Lena nodded.

“The bank robber actually seems more scared than us.”

“Yes, you’re probably right about that.”

“How are you doing?”

“I… I don’t really know. I’ve hurt Roger badly.”

“Oh, something tells me you’ve put up with far worse from him over the years, so I doubt you’re even yet.”

“You don’t know Roger. He’s more sensitive than people think. He’s just a bit wedded to his principles.”

“Sensitive and principled, you hear that a lot,” Julia nodded, thinking that it was a good description of all the old men who’ve started wars throughout human history.

“Once a young man with a black beard asked if he could have Roger’s parking space in a car park, and Roger waited twenty minutes before he moved the car. Out of principle!”

“Charming,” Julia said.

“You don’t know him,” Anna-Lena repeated with a blank look on her face.

“With all due respect, Anna-Lena—if Roger was as sensitive as you say, he’d be the one crying in the closet now.”

“He is sensitive… inside. I just can’t understand how… when he saw Lennart, he immediately assumed we were… having an affair. How could he think something like that of me?”

Julia was trying to find a comfortable way to sit on the stepladder, and caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the metal. It wasn’t flattering.

“If Roger thought you were being unfaithful, then he’s the one with the problem, not you.”

Anna-Lena was pressing her hands hard against her thighs to stop her fingers shaking. She stopped blinking.

“You don’t know Roger.”

“I knew enough men like him.”

Anna-Lena’s chin moved slowly from side to side.

“He waited twenty minutes before he moved the car out of principle. Because on the news that morning there was a man, a politician, who said we ought to stop helping immigrants. That they just come here thinking they can get everything for free, and that a society can’t work like that. He swore a lot, and said they’re all the same, people like that. And Roger had voted for the party that man belonged to, you see. Roger has very firm ideas about the economy and fuel taxes and things like that, he doesn’t like it when Stockholmers turn up and decide how everyone outside Stockholm should live. And he can be very sensitive. Sometimes he expresses himself a bit harshly, I’ll admit that, but he has his principles. No one can say he hasn’t got principles. And that particular day, after he’d heard that politician say that, we were in a shopping mall, it was just before Christmas so the car park was completely full when we got back to the car. Long, long queues. And that young man with the black beard, he saw us walking back to our car and wound his window down and asked if we were leaving, and if he could have our space if we were.”

By now Julia was ready to get up and turn the walk-in closet into a walk-out closet.

“Do you know what, Anna-Lena? I don’t think I want to hear the rest of that story…”

Anna-Lena nodded understandingly, this certainly wasn’t the first time someone had said that about her stories. But she was so used to thinking out loud now that she finished it anyway.

“There were so many cars there that it took the young man twenty minutes to get to the part of the garage where we were parked. Roger refused to move the car until he got there. He had two little children in the back of the car, I hadn’t noticed, but Roger had. When we drove away I told Roger I was proud of him, and he replied that it didn’t mean he’d changed his mind about the economy or fuel taxes or Stockholmers. But then he said that he realized that in that young man’s eyes, Roger must look just like that politician on television, they were the same age, had the same color hair, the same dialect, and everything. And Roger didn’t want the man with the beard to think that meant they were all exactly the same.”