There is a recreation center that admittedly has not been closed down, but only because they haven't had time to do it yet. It takes time to close down an entire community, obviously, and the recreation center has had to wait its turn. Apart from that, the only two noticeable things in Borg are soccer and the pizzeria, because these tend to be the last things to abandon humanity.

And then Britt-Marie got herself a job. Which happened to be in a place called Borg. Two days after inviting the girl from the unemployment office to have some salmon, that's where Britt-Marie heads off to in her car. So we should now say a few words about Borg.

Borg is a community built along a road. That's really the kindest possible thing one can say about it. It's not a place that could be described as one in a million, rather as one of millions of others. It has a closed-down soccer field and a closed-down school and a closed-down chemist's and a closed-down liquor store and a closed-down health care center and a closed-down supermarket and a closed-down shopping center and a road that bears away in two directions.

Britt-Marie's first contact with the pizzeria and the recreation center are on that day in January when she stops her white car between them. Her first contact with soccer is when a soccer ball hits her, very hard, on the head.

If one wants to be pedantic about it, the actual explosion happens while Britt-Marie is turning into the parking area. On the passenger side. Britt-Marie is very clear about that, and if she had to describe the sound she'd say it was a bit like a "ka-boom." Understandably, she's in a panic, and she abandons both brake and clutch pedals, whereupon the car splutters pathetically. After a few unduly dramatic deviations across the frozen January puddles, it comes to an abrupt stop outside a building with a partially broken sign, the neon lights of which spell the name "PizzRai." Terrified, Britt-Marie jumps out of the car, expecting it (quite reasonably, under the circumstances) to be engulfed in flames at any moment. This does not happen. Instead, Britt-Marie is left standing on her own in the parking area, surrounded by the sort of silence that only exists in small, remote communities.

This takes place just after her car has blown up.

You might sum it up by saying that Borg and Britt-Marie's first impressions of each other are not wholly positive.

A soccer ball rolls in a leisurely manner across the gravel, away from Britt-Marie's car and towards what Britt-Marie assumes must be the recreation center. After a moment there's a disconcerting thumping noise. Determined not to be distracted from the tasks at hand, she gets out a list from her handbag. At the top it says, "Drive to Borg." She ticks that point. The next item on the list is, "Pick up key from post office."

It's a touch on the annoying side. She adjusts her skirt and grips her handbag firmly.

"I'm here now, in this place, Borg. But something is making an awful racket and my car has blown up. How far is it to the post office?"

She gets out the cell phone that Kent gave her five years ago, and uses it for the first time. "Hello?" says the girl at the unemployment office.

"Is that how people answer the phone nowadays?" says Britt-Marie. Helpfully, not critically.

"What?" says the girl, for a few moments still blissfully unaware that Britt-Marie has not necessarily walked out of the girl's life just because she's walked out of the unemployment office.

"Please Britt-Mar --"

Something is still thumping on the other side of the recreation center, which is still standing only because at the last councillors' meeting in December, there were so many other things already scheduled for closure. The local authority representatives were concerned it might cause a postponement of their annual Christmas dinner. In view of the importance of the Christmas dinner, the closure was pushed back to the end of January, after the holiday period of the local authority councillors. Obviously the communications officer of the local authority should have been responsible for communicating this to the personnel department, but unfortunately the communications officer went on holiday and forgot to communicate it. As a result, when the personnel department found that the local authority had a building without anyone to take care of it, a vacancy for a caretaker of the recreation center was advertised with the unemployment office in early January. That was the long and the short of it.

"Did you say blown up? Are you okay?"

"I meant questions about the job."

"I don't know the first thing about cars," tries the girl.

"You said I should call you if I had any questions," she reminds her. Britt-Marie feels it would be unreasonable for her to be expected to know everything about cars. She has only driven on very few occasions since she and Kent were married -- she never goes anywhere in a car unless Kent is there, and Kent is an absolutely excellent driver.

Britt-Marie releases an extremely patient exhalation of air.

"Ha. That's the only important thing, of course. The career. If I'm killed in an explosion, that's not important of course," states Britt-Marie. "Maybe it's even good if I die. Then you'll have a job to spare."

"Britt-Marie, is that you?"

"I can hardly hear you!"

"I can hardly hear you!!" bellows Britt-Marie, in a very helpful way, and hangs up. Then she stands there, on her own, sucking in her cheeks.

"Of course I am! But what about the car?"

But it just so happened that the girl at the unemployment office, who very much against her will ate salmon with Britt-Marie the day before yesterday, promised Britt-Marie that she would really try to find her a job. The next morning at 9:02, when Britt-Marie knocked on the girl's door to learn how this was going, the girl tapped her computer for a while then eventually said: "There is one job. But it's in the middle of nowhere and so badly paid that if you're receiving unemployment benefits you'll probably lose money on it."

"I don't get any benefits," said Britt-Marie, as if they were a disease.

Anyway, the job is not only exceptionally badly paid, but also temporary and subject to the decision regarding the closure of the recreation center to be reached at the councillors' meeting in three weeks' time. And to top it all, the recreation center is in Borg. The number of applicants for the position were, for these reasons, fairly limited.

The girl sighed again and tried to say something about "retraining courses" and "measures" that Britt-Marie might be eligible for, but Britt-Marie made it clear that she certainly wouldn't welcome any of those measures.

"Please, Britt-Marie, this is just a job for three weeks, it's not really the kind of thing you want to be applying for at your… age… plus you'd have to move all the way to this place…"

"Where can I expect to find the cleaning equipment?" asks Britt-Marie.

Now Britt-Marie is in Borg and her car has blown up. It's hardly the best possible first day in her new job, one might say. She calls the girl back.

"What?" asks the girl.

"Now you have to listen to me, my dear. I fully intend to find the post office you have informed me about and pick up the keys to the recreation center, but I am not putting one foot inside the recreation center until you inform me of the whereabouts of the cleaning equip --!" Once again she is interrupted by the ball rolling across the parking area. Britt-Marie dislikes this. It's nothing personal, she hasn't decided to pick on this ball in particular. It's just that she just dislikes all soccer balls. Entirely without prejudice.

"You said I should call if I had any questions about the job."

The girl mutters something unintelligible, her voice sounding as if it's coming from inside a tin can.

"What's happening?" asks the girl.

The children's jeans are all torn down their thighs. They catch up with the ball, kick it back in the opposite direction, and once again disappear behind the recreation center. One of them loses his balance and steadies himself by putting his hand against the window, where he leaves a black handprint.

The ball is being pursued by two children. They are exceedingly dirty, all three of them if you include the ball.

"What?"

"Shouldn't those children be at school?" Britt-Marie exclaims, reminding herself to put an extra exclamation mark after "Buy Faxin!" on her list. If this place even has a supermarket.

"What?" says the girl.

"My dear girl, you have to stop saying 'what?' all the time, it makes you sound so untalented."

Britt-Marie gives the telephone a scrutinizing look. Turns it around.

"There are children here!"

"Okay, but please, Britt-Marie, I don't know anything about Borg! I've never been there! And I'm not hearing you -- I think you… are you sure you're not holding the telephone upside down?"

"Ha," she says into the microphone, as if the fault lay with the person at the other end of the line.

"But what if you're out?" asks the girl, instinctually unable to process what the world looked like before one could get hold of anyone, at anytime of the day.

"Okay, I can hear you at last," says the girl encouragingly.

"I've never used this telephone. There are actually people who have other things to do than spending all day talking into their telephones, you understand."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm just the same when I have a new telephone!"

"My dear girl," she explains patiently, "if I'm out, I'm with Kent."

Britt-Marie's first contact with soccer in Borg is when the soccer ball hits her very hard on the head.

Britt-Marie was probably intending to say something else, but that's the point at which she sees the rat, more or less as big as a normal-sized flowerpot, scampering across patches of ice in the parking area. Looking back, Britt-Marie is of the firm opinion that she wanted to scream very loudly. But unfortunately she did not have time for that, because everything abruptly went black and Britt-Marie's body lay unconscious on the ground.

"I'm certainly not worrying! And this is absolutely not a new telephone, it's five years old," Britt-Marie corrects her. "I've never needed one before. I've had things to get on with, you see. I don't call anyone except Kent, and I call him on the home telephone, like a civilized person."