Of course, he was supposed to have died today. He had been planning to calmly and peacefully shoot himself in the head just after breakfast. He’d tidied the kitchen and let the cat out and made himself comfortable in his favorite armchair. He’d planned it this way because the cat routinely asked to be let out at this time. One of the few traits of the cat that Ove was highly appreciative of was its reluctance to crap in other people’s homes. Ove was a man of the same ilk.

But then of course Parvaneh came banging on his door as if it were the last functioning toilet in the civilized world. As if that woman had nowhere to wee at home. Ove put the rifle away behind the radiator so she wouldn’t see it and start interfering. He opened the door and she more or less had to press her telephone into his hand by violent means before he accepted it.

“What is this?” Ove wanted to know, the telephone held between his index finger and his thumb, as if it smelled bad.

“It’s for you,” groaned Parvaneh, holding her stomach and mopping sweat from her forehead even though it was below freezing outside. “That journalist.”

“What do I want with her telephone?”

“God. It’s not her telephone, it’s my telephone. She’s on the line!” Parvaneh said impatiently.

Then, before he could protest, she squeezed past him and headed for his bathroom.

“Yes,” said Ove, lifting the telephone to within a couple of inches of his ear, slightly unclear about whether he was still talking to Parvaneh or the person at the other end.

“Hi!” yelled the journalist woman, Lena. Ove felt it might be wise to move the phone farther away from his ear. “So, are you ready to give me an interview now?” she went on in a gung-ho tone.

“No,” said Ove, holding the telephone in front of him to work out how to hang up.

“Did you read the letter I sent you? Or the newspaper? Have you read the newspaper? I thought I’d let you see it, so you can form an impression of our journalistic style!”

Ove went into the kitchen. Picked up the newspaper and letter that Adrian fellow had brought over a few days earlier.

“Have you got it?” roared the journalist woman.

“Calm yourself down. I’m reading it, aren’t I!” Ove said out loud to the telephone and leaned over the kitchen table.

“I was just wondering if—” she continued valiantly.

“Can you CALM DOWN, woman!” Ove raged.

Suddenly, out the window, Ove noticed a man in a white shirt in a Škoda, driving past his house.

“Hello?” the journalist woman called just before Ove flew out the front door.

“Oh, dear, dear,” Parvaneh mumbled anxiously when she came out of the bathroom and caught sight of him careering along between the houses.