Anxious People(90)
Julia was still holding her arm. Less in encouragement, more to comfort her.
“My mom always says I should never apologize for myself. Never say sorry for being good at something.”
Anna-Lena took a dubious bite of her pizza, then said with her mouth full: “Wise mom.”
* * *
They stood there in silence.
* * *
And then there was a loud bang.
* * *
Once. Twice. A few seconds later came the whistling and explosions, so many and so close together that you couldn’t count them. Lennart was standing closest to the window, so he was the one who exclaimed: “Look! Fireworks!”
Jim had sent a young officer from the station to buy them. He was setting them off from down by the bridge. Lennart, Zara, Julia, Ro, Anna-Lena, Roger, and the real estate agent went out onto the balcony. They stood there watching in amazement. They weren’t pathetic little bangers, either, they were the real thing, different colors, the sort that look like rain, the whole deal. Because, as luck would have it, Jim liked fireworks, too.
The bank robber and Estelle watched them from the kitchen window, arm in arm.
“Knut would have liked this,” Estelle nodded.
“I hope you like it, too,” the bank robber managed to say.
“Very much, you sweet child, very much indeed. Thank you!”
“I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done to you all,” the bank robber sniffed.
Estelle pouted her lips unhappily.
“Perhaps we could explain everything to the police? Tell them it was all a mistake?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Perhaps you could escape somehow? Hide somewhere?”
Estelle smelled of wine. Her pupils were ever so slightly unfocused. The bank robber was about to reply, then realized that the less Estelle knew, the better. Then the old woman wouldn’t have to lie for the bank robber’s sake when she was questioned by the police. So she said: “No, I don’t think that would work.”
Estelle held her hand. There wasn’t much else she could do. The fireworks were beautiful, Knut would have loved them.
* * *
When they were finished the bank robber went into the living room, and the others all came back in from the balcony. The bank robber tried to signal discreetly that she wanted to talk to the real estate agent, but sadly that was impossible given that the real estate agent was busy arguing with Roger about the price Julia and Ro ought to pay for the apartment if they bought it.
“Okay, then! Okay!” the real estate agent finally snapped. “I can go a bit lower, but only because I have to put the other apartment up for sale in two weeks’ time, and I don’t want that competing with this one!”
Roger, Julia, and Ro all tilted their heads in such a way that they bumped into one another.
“Which… other apartment?” Roger asked.
The real estate agent harrumphed, annoyed with herself for having let that slip out.
“The apartment opposite, on the other side of the elevator. I haven’t even put it up on my website yet, because if you sell two apartments at the same time, you get less for both, all good real estate agents know that. The other apartment looks just the same as this one, only with a slightly smaller closet, but for some reason it has excellent mobile reception and that seems to be ridiculously important for people these days. The couple who own it are splitting up, they had a terrible row in my office, they’ve removed all the furniture from the apartment, the only thing left in there is a juicer. And I can quite see why neither of them would want it, because it’s a truly terrible color…”
The real estate agent went on babbling for a long time, but no one was really listening anymore. Roger and Julia looked at each other, then at the bank robber, then at the real estate agent.
“Hang on, you’re saying you’re going to be selling the neighboring apartment as well? The one on the other side of the elevator? And… there’s no one living there at the moment?” Julia asked, just to be sure.
The real estate agent stopped babbling and started to nod instead. Julia looked at the bank robber, and of course they were both thinking exactly the same thing, a possible solution to all this.
“Have you got the keys to the other apartment?” Julia asked with a hopeful smile, convinced that this would be a perfect end to the whole thing.
Unfortunately the real estate agent looked back at Julia as if that were a ridiculous question. “Why would I? I’m not even going to start trying to sell it for another two weeks, and do you think I carry people’s keys around just for the fun of it? What sort of real estate agent do you take me for?”
* * *
Roger sighed. Julia sighed, more deeply. The bank robber wasn’t even breathing, just tumbling headlong into the hopelessness inside her.
* * *
“I had an affair once!” Estelle said cheerfully from the other end of the apartment, because she’d found another bottle of wine in the kitchen.
“Not now, Estelle,” Julia said, but the old woman was insistent. She was slightly drunk, that can’t be denied, because the closet had already provided quite a lot of wine for an elderly lady.