A Man Called Ove: A Novel

She attempted to grin up at his face, waving something that Ove instinctively perceived as a camera of some sort. Or something else. It wasn’t so easy knowing what cameras looked like anymore in this bloody society.

Then she tried to step into his hall. Maybe she shouldn’t have done that.

Ove raised his big hand and pushed her back over the threshold as a reflex, so that she almost fell headfirst into the snow.

“I don’t want anything,” said Ove.

She regained her balance and waved the camera at him, while yelling something. Ove wasn’t listening. He looked at the camera as if it were a weapon, and then decided to flee. This person was clearly not a reasonable person.

So the cat and Ove stepped out the door, locked it, and headed off as quick as they could towards the parking area. The journalist woman jogged along behind them.

To be absolutely clear about it, though, no part of this bears any relation to why Ove is now sitting outside the hospital. But when Parvaneh stood knocking on the door of Ove’s house, fifteen minutes or so later, holding her three-year-old by the hand, and when no one opened and then she heard voices from the parking area, this, so to speak, has a good deal to do with Ove sitting outside the hospital.

Parvaneh and the child came around the corner of the parking area and saw Ove standing outside his closed garage door with his hands sullenly shoved into his pockets. The cat was sitting at his feet looking guilty.

“What are you doing?” said Parvaneh.

“Nothing,” said Ove defensively.

Some knocking sounds were coming from the inside of the garage door.

“What was that?” said Parvaneh, staring at it with surprise.

Ove suddenly seemed extremely interested in a particular section of the asphalt under one of his shoes. The cat looked a bit as if it were about to start whistling and trying to walk away.

Another knock came from the inside of the garage door.

“Hello?” said Parvaneh.

“Hello?” answered the garage door.

Parvaneh’s eyes widened.

“Christ . . . have you locked someone in the garage, Ove?!” Ove didn’t answer. Parvaneh shook him as if trying to dislodge some coconuts.

“OVE!”

“Yes, yes. But I didn’t do it on purpose, for God’s sake,” he muttered and wriggled out of her grip.

Parvaneh shook her head.

“Not on purpose?”

“No, not on purpose,” said Ove, as if this should wrap up the discussion.

When he noticed that Parvaneh was obviously expecting some sort of clarification, he scratched his head and sighed.

“Her. Well. She’s one of those journalist people. It wasn’t bloody me who locked her in. I was going to lock myself and the cat in there. But then she followed us. And, you know. Things took their course.”

Parvaneh started massaging her temples.

“I can’t deal with this. . . .”

“Naughty,” said the three-year-old and shook her finger at Ove.

“Hello?” said the garage door.

“There’s no one here!” Ove hissed back.

“But I can hear you!” said the garage door.

Ove sighed and looked despondently at Parvaneh. As if he was about to exclaim: “You hear that, even garage doors are talking to me these days?”

Parvaneh waved him aside, walked up to the door, leaned her face up close, and knocked tentatively. The door knocked back. As if it expected to communicate by Morse code from now on. Parvaneh cleared her throat.

“Why do you want to talk to Ove?” she said, relying on the conventional alphabet.

“He’s a hero!”

“A . . . what?”

“Okay, sorry. So: my name is Lena; I work at the local newspaper, and I want to intervie—”

Parvaneh looked at Ove in shock.

“What does she mean, a hero?”

“She’s just prattling on!” Ove protested.

“He saved a man’s life; he’d fallen on the track!” yelled the garage door.

“Are you sure you’ve got the right Ove?” said Parvaneh.

Ove looked insulted.

“I see. So now it’s out of the question that I could be a hero, is it?” he muttered.

Parvaneh peered at him suspiciously. The three-year-old tried to grab hold of what was left of the cat’s tail, with an excitable “Kitty!” “Kitty” did not look particularly impressed by this and tried to hide behind Ove’s legs.

“What have you done, Ove?” said Parvaneh in a low, confidential voice, taking two steps away from the garage door.

The three-year-old chased the cat around his feet. Ove tried to figure out what he should do with his hands.

“Ah, so I hauled a suit off the rails, it’s nothing to make a bloody fuss about,” he mumbled.

Parvaneh tried to keep a straight face.

“Or to have a giggle about, actually,” said Ove sourly.

“Sorry,” said Parvaneh.

The garage door called out something that sounded like: “Hello? Are you still there?”

“No!” Ove bellowed.

“Why are you so terrifically angry?” the garage door wondered.

Ove was starting to look hesitant. He leaned towards Parvaneh.

“I . . . don’t know how to get rid of her,” he said, and if Parvaneh had not known better she might have concluded that there was something pleading in his eyes. “I don’t want her in there on her own with the Saab!” he whispered gravely.