Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman Page A

someone who was already dead anyway. Britt-Marie cut little notches in the flower stalks and put them in newly washed vases. She cleaned the flat and polished all the windows and the day after, when she took out the rubbish, she met Kent on the stairs. They stared at each other as children who have turned into adults tend to do. He had been married with two children, but he had recently been divorced and had now come back to the house to visit his mother. He smiled when he saw Britt-Marie. Because in those days he used to see her.

    Britt-Marie rubs her ring finger in front of the mirror. The white line there is like a tattoo. Taunting her. There’s a knock on the bathroom door.
    Pirate is standing outside.
    “Ha . . . Did you win?”
    “Two to zero!” Pirate nods blissfully.
    “Because actually I have only stayed in here all this time because you told me so. I have no intestinal problems,” says Britt-Marie very seriously.
    Pirate nods, in some confusion, mumbles, “ Okay ,” and points at the front door, which is open.
    “Sven is here again.”
    The policeman stands on the threshold and lifts his hand in a fumbling wave. Britt-Marie draws back, deeply affronted but not sure why, and closes the bathroom door behind her. Once she has fixed her hair properly she takes a deep breath and reemerges.
    “Yes?” she says to the policeman.
    The policeman smiles and holds out a piece of paper, which he drops just as he’s giving it to Britt-Marie.
    “Whoops, whoops, sorry, sorry, I just thought I’d give you this. Well, I thought, or we, we thought . . .”
    He makes a gesture towards the pizzeria. Britt-Marie assumes he means he has spoken to Somebody. He smiles again. Clasps his hands together on top of his stomach, then changes his mind and crosses his arms just below his chin.
    “We were thinking you need somewhere to live, of course, of course, and I understood you didn’t want to stay at the hotel in town . . . Not that you can’t live anywhere you want to. Of course! We just thought this might be a good alternative for you. Perhaps?”
    Britt-Marie looks at the paper. It’s a handwritten, misspelled advertisement for a room that’s available for rent. At the bottom is an image of a little man wearing a hat, who appears to be dancing. The relationship between the man and the advertisement is extremely unclear.
    “I’m the one who helped her make the ad,” says the policeman enthusiastically. “I did a course in it, in town. She’s a very nice lady, the one who’s letting the room, I mean, she’s just moved back to Borg. Or, I mean, it’s just temporary, of course, she’s selling the house. But it’s here in Borg, not far at all . . . it’s walkable but I can give you a lift, if you like?”
    Britt-Marie’s eyebrows inch closer together. There’s a police car parked outside.
    “In that?”
    “Yes, I heard your car’s at the workshop. But I can drive you, it’s no trouble at all!”
    “It’s obviously not a problem for you. Whereas I’m supposed to be driven around this community in a police car, am I, so everyone thinks I’m a criminal, is that what you are telling me?”
    The policeman looks ashamed of himself.
    “No, no, no. Of course, you wouldn’t want that.”
    “I certainly would not,” says Britt-Marie. “Was there anything else?”
    He shakes his head despondently and turns to leave. Britt-Marie closes the door.
    The children stay in the recreation center until she has tumble-dried their clothes.
    Clothes that cannot be tumble-dried she hangs up to dry, so the children can pick them up the next day. Most of them go home in their soccer jerseys. In a certain sense this is how Britt-Marie turns into their team coach. It’s just that no one has told her about it yet.
    None of the children thank her for doing their laundry. The door closes behind them and the recreation center is steeped in the sort of silence that only children and soccer balls can fill. Britt-Marie