A Man Called Ove: A Novel

And less than forty years later there was no forest around the house anymore. Just other houses. And one day she was lying there in a hospital and holding his hand and telling him not to worry. Everything was going to be all right. Easy for her to say, thought Ove, his breast pulsating with anger and sorrow. But she just whispered, “Everything will be fine, darling Ove,” and leaned her arm against his arm. And then gently pushed her index finger into the palm of his hand. And then closed her eyes and died.

Ove stayed there with her hand in his for several hours. Until the hospital staff entered the room with warm voices and careful movements, explaining that they had to take her body away. Ove rose from his chair, nodded, and went to the undertakers to take care of the paperwork. On Sunday she was buried. On Monday he went to work.

But if anyone had asked, he would have told them that he never lived before he met her. And not after either.

15

A MAN CALLED OVE AND A DELAYED TRAIN

The slightly porky man on the other side of the Plexiglas has back-combed hair and arms covered in tattoos. As if it isn’t enough to look like someone has slapped a pack of margarine over his head, he has to cover himself in doodles as well. There’s not even a proper motif, as far as Ove can see, just a lot of patterns. Is that something an adult person in a healthy state of mind would consent to? Going about with his arms looking like a pair of pajamas?

“Your ticket machine doesn’t work,” Ove informs him.

“No?” says the man behind the Plexiglas.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean . . . I’m asking, doesn’t it work?”

“I just told you, it’s broken!”

The man behind the Plexiglas looks dubious. “Maybe there’s something wrong with your card? Some dirt on the magnetic strip?” he suggests.

Ove looks as if the man behind the Plexiglas had just raised the possibility of Ove having erectile dysfunction. The man behind the Plexiglas goes silent.

“There’s no dirt on my magnetic strip, you can be sure of that,” Ove splutters.

The man behind the Plexiglas nods. Then changes his mind and shakes his head. Tries to explain to Ove that the machine “actually worked earlier in the day.” Ove dismisses this as utterly irrelevant, of course, because it is clearly broken now. The man behind the Plexiglas wonders if Ove has cash instead. Ove replies that this is none of his bloody business. A tense silence settles.

At long last the man behind the Plexiglas asks if he can “check out the card.” Ove looks at him as if they just met in a dark alley and he’s asked to “check out” Ove’s private parts.

“Don’t try anything,” Ove warns as he hesitantly pushes it under the window.

The man behind the Plexiglas grabs the card and rubs it against his leg in a vigorous manner. As if Ove had never read in the newspaper about that thing they call “skimming.” As if Ove was an idiot.

“What are you DOING?” Ove cries and bangs the palm of his hand against the Plexiglas window.

The man pushes the card back under the window.

“Try it now,” he says.

Ove thinks that any old fool could figure out that if the card wasn’t working half a minute ago it isn’t going to work now either. Ove points this out to the man behind the Plexiglas.

“Please?” says the man.

Ove sighs demonstratively. Takes his card again, without taking his eyes off the Plexiglas. The card works.

“You see!” jeers the man behind the Plexiglas.

Ove glares at the card as if he feels it has double-crossed him, before he puts it back in his wallet.

“Have a good day,” the man behind the Plexiglas calls out behind him.

“We’ll see,” mutters Ove.

For the last twenty years practically every human being he’s met has done nothing but drone on at Ove about how he should be paying for everything by card. But cash has always been good enough for Ove; cash has in fact served humanity perfectly well for thousands of years. And Ove doesn’t trust the banks and all their electronics.

But his wife insisted on getting hold of one of those prepaid cards in spite of it all, even though Ove warned her against it. And when she died the bank simply sent Ove a new card in his name, connected to her account. And now, after he’s been buying flowers for her grave for the past six months, there’s a sum of 136 kronor and 54 öre left on it. And Ove knows very well that this money will disappear into the pocket of some bank director if Ove dies without spending it first.

But now when Ove actually wants to use that damned plastic card, it doesn’t work, of course. Or there are a lot of extra fees when he uses it in the shops. Which only goes to prove that Ove was right all along. And he’s going to say as much to his wife as soon as he sees her, she had better be quite clear about that.