Anxious People(75)

Julia smiled.

“You’re full of surprises, Anna-Lena.”

Anna-Lena looked like that was the nicest compliment anyone had ever given her. Then sorrow and grief swept through her eyes again, she closed them quickly and opened them slowly.

“Everyone thinks I’ve… well, when you meet us, people probably think I’ve always been in Roger’s shadow. That really isn’t the case. Roger should have had a chance to fulfill his potential. He had great potential. But my job… things were going so well for me, better and better, so he turned down promotions so he could drop the kids off at nursery and all that. I got to travel and have my career, always thinking that it would be his turn next year. But that never happened.”

She fell silent. For once, Julia wasn’t sure what to say. Estelle looked like she didn’t know what to do with her hands, which resulted in her opening the chest and sticking them in there again. They came back out with a box of matches and a packet of cigarettes.

“Goodness,” she exclaimed brightly.

“What sort of person lives here, really?” Julia wondered.

“Would anyone like one?” Estelle offered.

“I don’t smoke!” Anna-Lena declared immediately.

“Nor me. Or rather, I’ve given up. Most of the time. Do you smoke?” Estelle wondered, turning to Julia, then added quickly: “Well, I don’t suppose anyone does when they’re pregnant. In my day they used to. You used to cut back a bit, of course. But I’m assuming you don’t smoke at all?”

“No, not at all,” Julia said patiently.

“Young people today. You’re so aware of how you affect your children. I heard a pediatric doctor say on television that a generation ago, parents used to come to him and say ‘Our child’s wetting the bed, what’s wrong with him?’ Now, a generation later, they come to him and say ‘Our child’s wetting the bed, what’s wrong with us?’ You take the blame for everything.”

Julia leaned back against the wall.

“We probably make all the same mistakes that your generation did. Just different versions of them.”

Estelle rolled the packet between her hands.

“I used to smoke on our balcony, because Knut didn’t like the smell when I smoked indoors, and I liked the view. We could see all the way to the bridge. Just like from this apartment, really. I used to be very fond of that. But then… well… you might remember that a man jumped off that bridge ten years ago? It was in all the papers. And I… well, I checked to see what time of day he jumped, and realized it was right after I’d been out on the balcony smoking. Knut called to say something was happening on television and I hurried back inside, leaving the cigarette to burn itself out in the ashtray, and in that time the man had climbed up onto the railing and jumped. I stopped smoking on the balcony after that.”

“Oh, Estelle, it wasn’t your fault that someone jumped off a bridge,” Julia said, trying to console her.

“It wasn’t the bridge’s fault, either,” Anna-Lena added.

“What?”

“It isn’t the bridge’s fault if someone jumps off it. I remember it well, you know, because Roger found the whole thing very upsetting.”

“Did he know the man who jumped?” Estelle asked.

“Oh, no. But he knew a lot about the bridge. Roger was an engineer, you see, he built bridges. Not that particular bridge, but if you’re as interested in bridges as Roger is, then you end up being interested in all bridges. They talked about that man on television as if it was the bridge’s fault. Roger was very upset about that. Bridges exist to bring people closer together, he said.”

Julia couldn’t help thinking that was simultaneously a remarkably odd and a rather romantic thing to say. That was probably why—unless it was the fact that she was hungry and exhausted—she suddenly said: “My fiancée and I were in Australia a few years ago. She wanted to do a bungee jump off a bridge.”

“Your fiancée? You mean Ro?” Estelle nodded.

“No, my previous fiancée.”



* * *




It was a long story. All stories are, when it comes down to it, if you tell them from the start. This story, for instance, would have been considerably shorter if it had just been about three women in a closet. But of course it’s also about two police officers, and one of them was on his way up the stairs.





57


What had happened out in the street was that Jack, before he went into the building opposite, had told his dad to wait there. And definitely not to go anywhere. More specifically, not into the building where the hostage drama was taking place. Just wait here, the son said.



* * *




But of course the father didn’t do that.



* * *




He took the pizzas and went up to the apartment, and when he came back down, he had spoken to the bank robber.





58


Inside the closet, obviously Julia regretted mentioning her former fiancée as soon as she said it, so she added: “I was engaged when I met Ro. But that’s a long story. Forget I mentioned it.”

“We’ve got plenty of time for long stories,” Estelle assured her, because she’d found another bottle of wine in the chest.