Free A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman Page A

loose plastic by the threshold.
    “Can’t your man sort out that kind of thing in his own house?”
    Rune’s wife shakes her head mournfully.
    “No, Rune has been really ill lately, you see. They say it’s Alzheimer’s. He’s in a wheelchair as well. It’s been a bit uphill. . . .”
    Ove nods with faint recognition. As if he has been reminded of something his wife told him a thousand times, although he still managed to forget it all the time.
    “Yeah, yeah,” he says impatiently.
    “You can go and breathe their radiators, can’t you, Ove!” says Parvaneh.
    Ove glances at her as if considering a firm retort, but instead he just looks down at the ground.
    “Or is that too much to ask?” she continues, drilling him with her gaze and crossing her arms firmly across her stomach.
    Ove shakes his head.
    “You don’t breathe radiators, you bleed them . . . Jesus.”
    He looks up and gives them the once-over.
    “Have you never bled a radiator before, or what?”
    “No,” says Parvaneh, unmoved.
    Rune’s wife looks at the Lanky One a little anxiously.
    “I haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about,” he says calmly to her.
    Rune’s wife nods resignedly. Looks at Ove again.
    “It would be really nice of you, Ove, if it isn’t too much of a bother. . . .”
    Ove just stands there staring down at the threshold.
    “Maybe this could have been thought about before you organized a coup d’état in the Residents’ Association,” he says quietly, his words punctuated by a series of discreet coughs.
    “Before she what?” says Parvaneh.
    Rune’s wife clears her throat.
    “But, dear Ove, there was never a coup d’état. . . .”
    “Was so,” says Ove grumpily.
    Rune’s wife looks at Parvaneh with an embarrassed little smile. “Well, you see, Rune and Ove here haven’t always gotten along so very well. Before Rune got ill he was the head of the Residents’ Association. And before that Ove was the head. And when Rune was voted in there was something of a wrangle between Ove and Rune, you could say.”
    Ove looks up and points a corrective index finger at her.
    “A coup d’état! That’s what it was!”
    Rune’s wife nods at Parvaneh.
    “Well, yes, well, before the meeting Rune counted votes about his suggestion that we should change the heating system for the houses and Ove thou—”
    “And what the hell does Rune know about heating systems? Eh?” Ove exclaims heatedly, but immediately gets a look from Parvaneh which makes him reconsider and come to the conclusion that there’s no need to complete his line of thought.
    Rune’s wife nods.
    “Maybe you’re right, Ove. But anyway, he’s very sick now . . . so it doesn’t really matter anymore.” Her bottom lip trembles slightly. Then she regains her composure, straightens her neck with dignity, and clears her throat.
    “The authorities have said they’ll take him from me and put him in a home,” she manages to say.
    Ove puts his hands in his pockets again and determinedly backs away, across his threshold. He’s heard enough of this.
    In the meantime the Lanky One seems to have decided it’s time to change the subject and lighten up the atmosphere. He points at the floor in Ove’s hall.
    “What’s that?”
    Ove turns to look at the bit of floor exposed by the loose plastic sheet.
    “It looks as if you’ve got, sort of . . . tire marks on the floor. Do you cycle indoors, or what?” says the Lanky One.
    Parvaneh keeps her observant eyes on Ove as he backs away another step so he can impede the Lanky One’s view.
    “It’s nothing.”
    “But I can see it’s—” the Lanky One begins confusedly.
    “It was Ove’s wife, Sonja, she was—” Rune’s wife interrupts him in a friendly manner, but she only has time to get to the name “Sonja” when Ove, in turn, interrupts her and spins around with unbridled fury in his eyes.
    “That’ll do! Now you SHUT UP!”
    All four of them fall silent, equally shocked.