Ove sees her and freezes. She’s holding her nose. Looking at him with that distinct expression of someone who just had a garage door slammed into her nose. The exhaust fumes come pouring out of the garage in a dense cloud, covering half of the parking area in a thick, noxious mist.

“I . . . you have to bloo— you have to watch out when the door’s being opened. . . .” Ove manages to say.

“What are you doing?” the Pregnant One manages to bite back at him, while watching the Saab with its engine idling and the exhaust spewing out of the mouth of the plastic tube on the floor.

“Me? . . . nothing,” says Ove indignantly, looking as if he’d prefer to shut the garage door again.

Thick red drops are forming in her nostrils. She covers her face with one hand and waves at him with the other.

“I need a lift to the hospital,” she says, tilting her head back.

Ove looks skeptical. “What the hell? Pull yourself together. It’s just a nosebleed.”

She swears in something Ove assumes is Farsi and clamps the bridge of her nose hard between her thumb and index finger. Then she shakes her head impatiently, dripping blood all over her jacket.

“Not because of the nosebleed!”

Ove’s a bit puzzled by that. Puts his hands in his pockets.

“No, no. Well then.”

She groans.

“Patrick fell off the ladder.”

She leans her head back, so that Ove stands there talking to the underside of her chin.

“Who’s Patrick?” Ove asks the chin.

“My husband,” the chin answers.

“The Lanky One?” asks Ove.

“That’s him, yeah,” says the chin.

“And he fell off the ladder?” Ove clarifies.

“Yes. When he was opening the window.”

“Right. What a bloody surprise; you could see that one coming from a mile away. . . .”

The chin disappears and the large brown eyes reappear.

They don’t look entirely pleased.

“Are we going to have a debate about this or what?”

Ove scratches his head, slightly bothered.

“No, no . . . but can’t you drive yourself? In that little Japanese sewing machine you arrived in the other day?” he tries to protest.

“I don’t have a driver’s license,” she replies, mopping blood from her lip.

“What do you mean you don’t have a driver’s license?” asks Ove, as if her words are utterly inexplicable to him.

Again she sighs impatiently.

“Look, I don’t have a driver’s license and that’s all, what’s the problem?”

“How old are you?” Ove asks, almost fascinated now.

“Thirty,” she says impatiently.

“Thirty?! And no driver’s license? Is there something wrong with you?”

She groans, holding one hand over her nose and snapping her fingers with irritation in front of Ove’s face.

“Focus a bit, Ove! The hospital! You have to drive us to the hospital!”

Ove looks almost offended.

“What do you mean, ‘us’? You’ll have to call an ambulance if the person you’re married to can’t open a window without falling off a ladder—”