A Man Called Ove: A Novel

“No, I mean it shouldn’t be something to thank me for, because a grown man should be able to back up with a trailer,” he replies, casting a somewhat unimpressed gaze on the Lanky One, who looks at him as if unsure whether or not this is an insult. Ove decides not to help him out of his quandary. He backs away and tries to close the door again.

“My name is Parvaneh!” she says, putting her foot across his threshold.

Ove stares at the foot, then at the face it’s attached to.

As if he’s having difficulties understanding what she just did.

“I’m Patrick!” says the Lanky One.

Neither Ove nor Parvaneh takes the slightest notice of him.

“Are you always this unfriendly?” Parvaneh wonders, with genuine curiosity.

Ove looks insulted.

“I’m not bloody unfriendly.”

“You are a bit unfriendly.”

“No I’m not!”

“No, no, no, your every word is a cuddle, it really is,” she replies in a way that makes Ove feel she doesn’t mean it at all.

He releases his grip on the door handle for a moment or two. Inspects the box of cookies in his hand.

“Right. Arabian cookies. Worth having, are they?” he mutters.

“Persian,” she corrects.

“What?”

“Persian, not Arabian. I’m from Iran—you know, where they speak Farsi?” she explains.

“Farcical? That’s the least you could say,” Ove agrees.

Her laughter catches him off guard. As if it’s carbonated and someone has poured it too fast and it’s bubbling over in all directions. It doesn’t fit at all with the gray cement and right-angled garden paving stones. It’s an untidy, mischievous laugh that refuses to go along with rules and prescriptions.

Ove takes a step backwards. His foot sticks to some tape by the threshold. As he tries to shake it off, with some irritation, he tears up the corner of the plastic. When he tries to shake off both the tape and the plastic sheeting, he stumbles backwards and pulls up even more of it. Angrily, he regains his balance. Remains there on the threshold, trying to summon some calm. Grabs hold of the door handle again, looks at the Lanky One, and tries to quickly change the subject.

“And what are you, then?”

He shrugs his shoulder a little and smiles, slightly overwhelmed.

“I’m an IT consultant.”

Ove and Parvaneh shake their heads with such coordination they could be synchronized swimmers. For a moment it makes Ove dislike her a little less, although he’s very reluctant to admit it to himself.

The Lanky One seems unaware of all this. Instead he looks with curiosity at the hammer-action drill, which Ove is holding in a firm grip, like a guerrilla fighter with an AK-47 in his hand.

Once the Lanky One has finished perusing it, he leans forward and peers into Ove’s house.

“What are you doing?”

Ove looks at him, as one does at a person who has just said “What are you doing?” to a man standing with a hammer-action drill in his hand.

“I’m drilling,” he replies scathingly.

Parvaneh looks at the Lanky One and rolls her eyes, and if it hadn’t been for her belly, which testified to a willingness on her part to contribute to the survival of the Lanky One’s genetic makeup, Ove might have found her almost sympathetic at this point.

“Oh,” says the Lanky One, with a nod.

Then he leans forward and peers in at the living room floor, neatly covered in the protective sheet of plastic.

He lights up and looks at Ove with a grin.

“Almost looks like you’re about to murder someone!”

Ove peruses him in silence. The Lanky One clears his throat, a little more reluctant. “I mean, it’s like an episode of Dexter,” he says with a much less confident grin. “It’s a TV series . . . about a guy who murders people.” He trails off, then starts poking the toe of his shoe into the gaps between the paving stones outside Ove’s front door.

Ove shakes his head. It’s unclear to whom the Lanky One was primarily aiming what he just said.

“I have some things to get on with,” he says curtly to Parvaneh and takes a firm grip on the door handle.

Parvaneh gives the Lanky One a purposeful jab in the side with her elbow. The Lanky One looks as if he’s trying to drum up some courage; he glances at Parvaneh, and looks at Ove with the expression of someone expecting the whole world to start firing rubber bands at him.

“Well, the thing is, we actually came because I could do with borrowing a few things . . .”

Ove raises his eyebrows.

“What ‘things’?”

The Lanky One clears his throat.

“A ladder. And an Eileen key.”

“You mean an Allen key?”

Parvaneh nods. The Lanky One looks puzzled.

“It’s an Eileen key, isn’t it?”

“Allen key,” Parvaneh and Ove correct at the same time.

Parvaneh nods eagerly at him and points triumphantly at Ove. “He said that’s what it’s called!”

The Lanky One mumbles something inaudible.

“And you’re just like ‘Whoa, it’s an Eileen key!’” Parvaneh jeers.

He looks slightly crestfallen.

“I never sounded like that.”

“You did so!”

“Did not!”

“Yes you DID!”

“I DIDN’T!”

Ove’s gaze travels from one to the other, like a large dog watching two mice interfering with its sleep.

“You did,” says one of them.

“That’s what you think,” the other one says.

“Everyone says it!”