And so it was. They married in the Town Hall, very simply. Neither of them had any family, so only Rune and Anita came. Sonja and Ove put on their rings and then all four of them went to a restaurant. Ove paid but Rune helped check the bill to make sure it “had been done properly.” Of course it hadn’t. So after conferring with the waiter for about an hour, the two men managed to convince him it would be easier for him if he halved the bill or they’d “report him.” Obviously it was a bit hazy exactly who would report whom for what, but eventually, with a certain amount of swearing and arm-waving, the waiter gave up and went into the kitchen and wrote them a new bill. In the meantime Rune and Ove nodded grimly at one another without noticing that their wives, as usual, had taken a taxi home twenty minutes earlier.

Ove nods to himself as he sits there in the Saab looking at Rune’s garage door. He can’t remember when he last saw it open. He turns off the headlights of the Saab, gives the cat a poke to wake it up, and gets out.

“Ove?” says a curious, unfamiliar voice.

Suddenly an unknown woman, clearly the owner of the unfamiliar voice, has stuck her head into the garage. She’s about forty-five, wearing tatty jeans and a green windbreaker that looks too large for her. She doesn’t have any makeup on and her hair is in a ponytail. The woman blunders into his garage and looks around with interest. The cat steps forward and gives her a threatening hiss. She stops. Ove puts his hands in his pockets.

“Ove?” she bursts out again, in that exaggerated chummy way of people who want to sell you something, while pretending it’s the very last thing on their mind.

“I don’t want anything,” says Ove, nodding at the garage door—a clear gesture that she needn’t bother about finding another door, it’ll be just fine if she walks out the same way that she came.

She looks utterly unchastened by that.

“My name is Lena. I’m a journalist at the local newspaper and, well . . .” she begins, and then offers her hand.

Ove looks at her hand. And looks at her.

“I don’t want anything,” he says again.

“What?”

“I suppose you’re selling subscriptions. But I don’t want one.”

She looks puzzled.

“Right. . . . Well, actually . . . I’m not selling the paper. I write for it. I’m a journalist,” she repeats slowly, as if there were something wrong with him.

“I still don’t want anything,” Ove reiterates as he starts shooing her out the garage door.

“But I want to talk to you, Ove!” she protests and starts trying to force herself back inside.