Yet another truck thunders past. A green one. The walls shake.

Britt-Marie has wondered the same thing an infinite number of times over the years: whether she had time to scream. And whether it would have made a difference. Their mother had told Ingrid to put on her belt, because Ingrid never put her belt on, and for that exact reason Ingrid had not put it on. They were arguing. That's why they didn't see it. Britt-Marie saw it because she always put her belt on, because she wanted her mother to notice. Which she obviously never did, because Britt-Marie never had to be noticed, for the simple reason that she always did everything without having to be told.

Borg used to be the sort of community trucks came home to, but nowadays they only drive past. The truck makes her think of Ingrid. She remembers that she had time to see it through the back window when she was a child, on the very last day that she can recall thinking of herself as such. It was also green.

From time to time a truck drives through Borg, and whenever this happens, the recreation center shakes violently -- as if, Britt-Marie thinks, it was built on the fault line between two continental shelves. Continental shelves are common in crossword puzzles, so it's the sort of thing she knows about. She also knows that Borg is the kind of place Britt-Marie's mother used to describe as "the back of beyond," because that was how Britt-Marie's mother used to describe the countryside.

It came from the right-hand side. Green. That's one of the few things Britt-Marie remembers. It came from the right and there was glass and blood all over in the backseat of their parents' car. The last thing Britt-Marie remembered before she passed out was that she wanted to clean it up. Make it nice. And when she woke up at the hospital that is precisely what she did. Clean. Make things nice. When they buried her sister and there were strangers in black clothes drinking coffee in her parents' home, Britt-Marie put coasters under all the cups and washed all the dishes and cleaned all the windows. When her father began to stay at work for longer and longer and her mother stopped talking altogether, Britt-Marie cleaned. Cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned.

She hoped that sooner or later her mother would get out of bed and say, "How nice you've made everything," but it never happened. They never spoke about the accident, and, because they didn't, they also couldn't talk about anything else. Some people had pulled Britt-Marie out of the car; she doesn't know who, but she knows that her mother, silently furious, never forgave them for saving the wrong daughter. Maybe Britt-Marie didn't forgive them either. Because they saved the life of a person who from that day devoted herself to just walking around being afraid of dying and being left there to stink. One day she read her father's morning newspaper and saw an advertisement for a brand of window-cleaner. And in this way a life went by.

Obviously, she stands far enough from the window for no one outside to be able to see her looking out. What sort of impression would that make! As if she just stood there all day staring out, like some criminal. But her car is still parked in the graveled courtyard. She has accidentally left her keys inside and the IKEA package is still in the backseat. She doesn't know exactly how she's supposed to get it inside the recreation center, because it's so very heavy. She can't really say why it's so heavy because she doesn't know exactly what's inside. The idea was to buy a stool, not unlike the two stools in the kitchen at the recreation center, but after she had made her way to the IKEA self-service warehouse and found the appropriate shelf she found that all the stools had been sold.

Now she's sixty-three and she's standing at the back of beyond, looking out at Borg through the kitchen window of the recreation center, missing Faxin and her view of the world.

Britt-Marie had taken all morning to make the decision that she was going to buy and assemble a stool, so this anticlimax left her standing there, frozen to the spot, for such a length of time that she began to worry that someone in the warehouse would see her there looking mysterious. What would people think? Most likely, that she was planning to steal something. Once this thought was firmly established, Britt-Marie panicked and with superhuman powers managed to drag over the next available package to her cart, in almost every conceivable way conveying the impression that this was the package she had been after all along. She hardly remembers how she got it into the car. She supposes that she was overcome with that syndrome they often talk about on the TV, when mothers pick up huge boulders under which their children are lying trapped. Britt-Marie is invested with that sort of power when she starts entertaining suspicions of strangers looking at her and wondering whether she's a criminal.

She moves farther away from the window, just to be on the safe side. At exactly twelve o'clock she prepares the table by the sofas for lunch. Not that there's much of either a table or a lunch, just a tin of peanuts and a glass of water, but the fact is that civilized people have lunch at twelve, and if Britt-Marie is anything in this world she's certainly civilized. She spreads a towel on the sofa before she sits down, then empties the tin of peanuts onto a plate. She has to force herself not to try to eat them with a knife and fork. Then she washes up and cleans the whole recreation center again so carefully that she almost uses up her whole supply of baking soda.

There's a little laundry room with a washing machine and a tumble dryer. Britt-Marie cleans the machines with her last bit of baking soda, like a starving person putting out her last bait on her fishing line.

Not that she was thinking of doing any washing, but she can't bear the thought of them all dirty. In a corner behind the tumble dryer she finds a whole sack of white shirts with numbers on them. Soccer jerseys, she understands. The entire recreation center is hung with pictures of various people wearing those shirts. Very likely they're covered in grass stains, of course. Britt-Marie can't for the life of her understand why anyone would choose to practice an outdoor sport while wearing white jerseys. It's barbaric. She wonders whether the corner shop/pizzeria/car workshop/post office would even be likely to sell baking soda.

Britt-Marie puts on her coat. Outside the front door is a person who was clearly just about to knock on it. The person has a face and the face is full of snuff. This, in every possible way, is an awful way of establishing the very short-lived acquaintance between Britt-Marie and the face, because Britt-Marie loathes snuff. The whole thing is over in twenty seconds, when the snuff-face moves off while mumbling something that sounds distinctly like "nag-bag."

At this point Britt-Marie picks up her telephone and dials the number of the only person her telephone has ever called. The girl at the unemployment office doesn't answer. Britt-Marie calls again, because actually a telephone is not a thing you decide whether or not to answer.

She fetches her coat. Just inside the front door, next to several photos of soccer balls and people who don't know any better than to kick them, hangs a yellow jersey with the word "Bank" printed above the number "10." Just beneath is a photo of an old man holding up the same jersey with a proud smile.

"Yes?" says the girl at long last, with food in her mouth. "Sorry. I'm having my lunch."

"No, she most certainly did not," Britt-Marie affirms. "She came in here wearing dirty shoes and I'd just mopped the floor. Taking snuff as well, she was. Said she was putting out poison, that's how she put it, and you can't just do that. Do you really think one can just do that? Put out poison just like that?"

"Did the pest control man come? I had to spend hours calling around but in the end I found someone who promised to make an emergency visit, and --"

"She was a pest control woman. Who took snuff," Britt-Marie goes on, as if this explains everything.

"No, you actually can't. Someone could die! And that's what I said. And then she stood there rolling her eyes with her dirty shoes and her snuff, and she said she'd put out a trap instead, and bait it with Snickers! Chocolate! On my newly mopped floor!" Britt-Marie says all this in the voice of someone screaming inside.

"Now?" Britt-Marie exclaims, as if the girl was joking. "My dear girl, we're not at war. Surely it's not necessary to be having your lunch at half past one?"

"Right," says the girl again. "So did she deal with the rat?"

"No…?" guesses the girl.

The girl chews her lunch quite hard. Bravely tries to change the topic of conversation:

"I couldn't agree more," says the girl.

"So I said it will have to be poison, then, and do you know what she told me? Listen to this! She said if the rat eats the poison you can't know for certain where it will go to die. It could die in a cavity in the wall and lie there stinking! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Do you know that you called in a woman who takes snuff and thinks it's absolutely in order to let dead animals die in the walls and stink the place out?"

"Ha. A fine lot of help that was. Some of us actually have other things to do than hanging about dealing with pest control women all day long," says Britt-Marie well-meaningly.

"Okay," says the girl, and immediately wishes she hadn't, because she realizes it is not okay at all.

There's a queue in the corner shop. Or the pizzeria. Or the post office. Or the car workshop. Or whatever it is. Either way, there's a queue. In the middle of the afternoon. As if people here don't have anything better to do at this time.

"I was only trying to help," says the girl.

The men with beards and caps are drinking coffee and reading the newspapers at one of the tables. Karl is standing at the front of the queue. He's picking up a parcel. How very nice for him, thinks Britt-Marie, having all this leisure time on his hands. A cuboid woman in her thirties stands in front of Britt-Marie, wearing her sunglasses. Indoors. Very modern, muses Britt-Marie.

She has a white dog with her. Britt-Marie can't think it's very hygienic. The woman buys a pack of butter and six beers with foreign lettering on the cans, which Somebody produces from behind the counter. Also four packs of bacon and more chocolate cookies than Britt-Marie believes any civilized person could possibly need. Somebody asks if she'd like to have it on credit. The woman nods grumpily and throws it all in a bag. Britt-Marie would obviously never consider the woman to be "fat," because Britt-Marie is absolutely not the kind of person who pigeonholes people like that, but it does strike her how wonderful it must be for the woman to go through life so untroubled by her cholesterol levels.

"In that case could you possibly get out of the way?" grunts the woman and waves a stick at her.

"Are you blind, or what?" the woman roars as she turns around and charges directly into Britt-Marie.

Britt-Marie opens her eyes wide in surprise. Adjusts her hair.

"I most certainly am not. I have quite perfect vision. I've spoken to my optometrist about it. 'You have quite perfect vision,' he said!"

Britt-Marie looks at the stick. Looks at the dog and the sunglasses.

She mumbles, "Ha… ha… ha…" and nods apologetically before she realizes that nodding won't make any difference. The blind woman and the dog walk through her more than they walk past her. The door tinkles cheerfully behind them. It doesn't have the sense to do anything else.

Somebody rolls past Britt-Marie and waves encouragingly at her.

"Don't worry about her. She's like Karl. Lemon up her arse, you know."

She makes a gesture with her arm, which Britt-Marie feels is supposed to indicate how far up the latter the former is stuck, and then piles up a stack of empty pizza boxes on the counter.

"I should like to know how the repair of my car is progressing."

Britt-Marie adjusts her hair and adjusts her skirt and instinctively adjusts the topmost pizza box, which isn't quite straight, and then tries to adjust her dignity as well and say in a tone that is absolutely considerate:

"Sure, sure, sure, that car, yeah. You know, I have something to ask you, Britt-Marie: is a door important to Britt-Marie?"

Somebody scratches her hair.

She looks pleased. Britt-Marie does not look pleased.

"You know, only asking. Color: important for Britt-Marie, I understand. Yellow door: not okay. So I ask you, Britt-Marie: is a door important to Britt-Marie? If not important then Britt-Marie's car is, what's-it-called? Finish repaired! If a door is important… you know. Maybe, what's-it-called? Longer delivery time!"

"Door? Why… what in the world do you mean?"

"For goodness sake, I must have a door on the car!" she fumes.

"Sure, sure, sure, no get angry. Just ask. Door: a little longer!" She measures out a few inches in the air between her thumb and index finger to illustrate how short a period of time "a little longer" really is.

Somebody waves the palms of her hands defensively.

"Here in Borg people seem to have all the time in the world to go shopping in the afternoon. It must be nice for you to have so much leisure."

"Baking soda for the lady!" says Somebody with an exaggerated theatrical bow at Britt-Marie, which is not at all appreciated.

The child from yesterday turns up behind the counter, still holding the soccer ball. Beside her stands a boy who looks almost exactly the same as her, but with longer hair.

"And you? You're very busy?"

She says the word "shop" with divine indulgence.

With a deep patience, Britt-Marie puts one hand in the other.

Somebody raises her eyebrows.

Kent should have been here; he loves negotiating. He always says you have to compliment the person you're negotiating with. So Britt-Marie collects herself and says:

"Vega!" Somebody roars at once so that Britt-Marie jumps into the air and almost knocks over the pile of pizza boxes.

Britt-Marie realizes that the woman has the upper hand in these negotiations.

"I am extremely busy. Very, very busy indeed. But as it happens I am out of baking soda. Do you sell baking soda in this… shop?"

The boy immediately looks as if Britt-Marie is a lost key. He runs into the stockroom and stumbles back out with two bottles in his arms. Faxin. All the air goes out of Britt-Marie.

She assumes that she has what is sometimes in crossword clues known as an "out-of-body experience." For a few moments she forgets all about the grocery shop and the pizzeria and the men with beards and cups of coffee and newspapers. Her heart beats as if it's just been released from prison.

"It's her," whispers Vega to the boy.

He points even more eagerly at the bottles of Faxin.

The boy places the bottles on the counter like a cat that's caught a squirrel. Britt-Marie's fingers brush over them before her sense of dignity orders them to leave off. It's like coming home.

The boy points eagerly at himself: "Chill! Omar fixes everything!"

"I… I was under the impression that they'd been discontinued," she whispers.

Somebody nods wisely.

"All the foreign trucks stop at the petrol station in town! I know them all there! I fix whatever you like!"

"Twit," says Vega with a sigh.

Britt-Marie doesn't know if she should be concerned or proud that she actually knows that this means something bad, but she doesn't have much time to reflect on this before Omar is lying on the floor, holding his lip. Vega goes out of the door with the soccer ball in one hand and the other still formed into a fist.

"But I fix petrol in can, if you like, free home delivery! And I can get you more Faxin if you want!" the boy hollers.

"They shut down petrol station in Borg. Not, you know, profitable."

"I'm the one who told you she needed Faxin," she hisses at the boy and puts the jar of baking soda on the counter.

"I'm the one who fixed it!" the boy maintains, without taking his eyes off Britt-Marie.

"I'm the best fixer in Borg. The king of the castle, you know. Whatever you need, come to me!" says Omar to Britt-Marie, winking confidently without paying any attention to his sister, who's kicking him on the shin.

"This is my younger brother, Omar," sighs Vega to Britt-Marie.

"In January and December, yeah," snorts Vega. If anything, Britt-Marie notices, the brother looks slightly older than her. Still a child, but approaching that age when they can become quite pungent.

"Cow!" answers Omar.

Vega rolls her eyes.

"We're born the same year!" protests Omar.

Omar wipes his lip and then looks as if he's letting go of the whole business. Like a small child forgetting to cry over a dropped ice cream when he catches sight of a glittering power ball.

"If you want new hubcaps for your car I can fix it. Or anything. Shampoo or handbags or anything. I'll fix it!"

That last bit just slips out of her. It wasn't quite how she meant to put it.

"Everyone shops on credit in Borg."

"Those are thirty kronor each but you can have them on credit."

"I certainly don't shop on credit! I can see maybe you don't understand such a thing in Borg, but there are some of us that can pay our way!" hisses Britt-Marie.

"I certainly don't need either shampoo or a handbag."

Omar points at the bottles of Faxin.

"You have, what's-it-called? Marshmallows for brains! Never learn, do you?"

"On credit?"

"Maybe some Band-Aids?" hollers Somebody mischievously and points at his lip.

Somebody titters at Omar.

Britt-Marie keeps a firm grip on her handbag and adjusts her hair, as if the boy has offended the both of them.

Somebody is not grinning anymore. Both the boy and Britt-Marie have red faces, caused by different kinds of shame. Britt-Marie briskly lays down the money on the counter and the boy picks it up and runs out of the door. Soon the thumping can be heard again. Britt-Marie stays where she is and tries to avoid Somebody's eyes.

"I didn't get a receipt," Britt-Marie states in a low voice, which is not at all incriminating.

"What else do you want?" asks Somebody, her tone noticeably less hospitable as she puts the jar of baking soda and the bottles of Faxin in a bag.

Somebody shakes her head and smacks her tongue.

"What does he look like, IKEA or something? He doesn't have, what's-it-called? Limited company, you know. Just a kid with a bicycle."

"You have to understand that one has to get a receipt. Otherwise one actually can't prove that one isn't a criminal," she explains.

"Ha," says Britt-Marie.

Somebody rolls her eyes, which Britt-Marie feels is unnecessary.

Britt-Marie smiles as helpfully as she can.

Somebody presses a few keys on her register. The money tray opens, revealing not very much money at all inside, and then the register spits out a pale yellow receipt.

"For baking soda?"

"That'll be six hundred and seventy-three kronor and fifty öre," says Somebody.

Britt-Marie almost drops her handbag. That's how grave the situation is.

Britt-Marie stares back as if she's got something stuck in her throat.

Somebody points out of the door.

"I have… who… for goodness' sake. No civilized person walks around with that much cash in her handbag."

Somebody shakes her head hard.

"For dent in car. I have done one of those, what's-it-called? Bodywork inspection! I don't want to, what's-it-called? Insult you, Britt-Marie! So you can't have credit. Six hundred and seventy-three kronor and fifty öre."

She says that in an extra-loud voice. So that everyone in there can hear, in case one of them is a criminal. On the other hand, only the bearded coffee-drinking men are there, and neither of them even look up, but still. Criminal types do sometimes have beards. Britt-Marie actually has no prejudices about that.

"Do you take cards?" she says, registering a certain amount of rising heat along her cheekbones.

"In town," says Somebody coldly, crossing her arms.

"Ha," says Britt-Marie.

"Poker players do cards, huh, Britt-Marie. Here we do cash."

"They closed down the cash machine in Borg. Not profitable," says Somebody with raised eyebrows, nodding at the receipt.

"Ha. In that case I'll have to ask for directions to the nearest cash machine," says Britt-Marie.

Britt-Marie's gaze flickers desperately across the walls, in an attempt to deflect attention from her bloodred cheeks. There's a yellow jersey hanging on the wall, identical to the one in the recreation center, with the word "Bank" written above the number "10" on its back.

Somebody notices her looking at it, so she closes the register, knots the bag of baking soda and Faxin, and pushes it across the counter.

"You know, no shame here with credit, huh, Britt-Marie. Maybe shame where you come from, but no shame in Borg."

Britt-Marie takes the bag without knowing what to do with her eyes.

Somebody takes a slug of vodka and nods at the yellow jersey on the wall.

She nods out of the door. A ball thumps against the fence.

"Bank's old man trained all the brats, huh. Kept them going. Kept all of Borg going, huh? Everyone's friend! But God, you know, God got a shit head for numbers, huh. The sod gives both profitable and unprofitable person heart attack. Bank's dad died a month ago."

"Best player in Borg. Called 'Bank,' you know, because when Bank play for Borg it was like, what's-it-called? Like money in the bank! Long time ago. Before financial crisis. Then, you know: Bank got ill, huh. Like another sort of crisis. Bank moved away. Gone now, huh."

"They found him on the, what's-it-called? Kitchen floor!"

"Pardon me?"

The wooden walls creak and groan around them, as old houses do, and old people. One of the men with papers and cups of coffee fetches more coffee from the counter. Britt-Marie notes that you get a free top-up here.

Somebody points at the yellow jersey. Shrugs.

She snaps her fingers. Britt-Marie jumps. She thinks of Kent's heart attack. He had always been very profitable. She takes an even firmer grip on her bag of Faxin and baking soda. Stands in silence for so long that Somebody starts to look concerned.

"Bank's old man. On the kitchen floor. One morning. Just dead."

"Do you possibly stock Snickers chocolate bars?"

Britt-Marie shakes her head briskly. She walks towards the door, but something about that kitchen floor may possibly cause her some hesitation. So she cautiously turns around, before she changes her mind, and then turns around again.

"Hey, you need something else? I have that, what's-it-called? Baileys! Chocolate spirit! You know, it's a copy, but you can put O'boy and vodka in it, and then, it's okay to drink, if you drink it, you know… fast!"

Britt-Marie is not a very spontaneous person, one certainly needs to be clear about that. "Spontaneous" is a synonym for "irrational"-- that's Britt-Marie's firm view, and if there's one thing Britt-Marie isn't, it's irrational. This is not so very easy for her, in other words. But at last she turns around, then changes her mind and turns around another time, so that by the end she's facing the door when she lowers her voice and asks, with all the spontaneity that she can muster:

Darkness falls early in Borg in January. Britt-Marie goes back to the recreation center and sits by herself on one of the kitchen stools, with the front door open. The chill doesn't concern her. Not the waiting either. She is used to it. You do get used to it. She has plenty of time to think about whether what she is going through now is a sort of life crisis. She has read about them. People have life crises all the time.

"From now on we have dinner at six o'clock. Like civilized people."

"Or rats."

The rat comes in through the open door at twenty past six. It settles on the threshold and focuses a very watchful gaze on the Snickers bar, which is on a plate on top of a little towel. Britt-Marie gives the rat a stern look and cups one hand firmly in the other.

When the rat doesn't answer, she adds:

The rat looks at the Snickers. Britt-Marie has removed the wrapper and placed the chocolate in the middle of the plate, with a neatly folded napkin next to it. She looks at the rat. Clears her throat.

"Ha. I'm not especially good at starting these types of conversations. I'm socially incompetent, you see, that's what my husband says. He's very socially gifted, everyone says that. An entrepreneur, you see."

After thinking this over for a certain amount of time, she adds:

"Very successful. Very, very successful."

She briefly considers telling the rat about her life crisis. She imagines she'd like to explain that it's difficult to know who you are once you are alone, when you have always been there for the sake of someone else. But she doesn't want to trouble the rat with it. So she adjusts a crease in her skirt and says, very formally:

"I would like to propose a working arrangement. For your part, it would mean that a dinner would be arranged for you every evening at six o'clock."

The rat takes a tentative step towards the chocolate. Stretches its neck and sniffs it. Britt-Marie brushes invisible crumbs from her knee.

She makes an explanatory gesture at the chocolate.

"Ingrid was my sister, you have to understand. She died. I was worried she'd smell bad. That's how I found out about sodium bicarbonate. The body produces sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the acidic substances in the stomach. When one dies, the body stops producing the sodium bicarbonate, so the acidic substances eat their way through the skin and end up on the floor. That's when it smells, you have to understand."

"The arrangement, if we find it mutually beneficial, would mean that, if you die, I won't let you lie and smell bad in the wall. And you will do the same for me. In case people don't know we are here."

The rat's whiskers vibrate with skepticism. Britt-Marie clears her throat apologetically.

"It's the sodium bicarbonate that disappears when one dies, you have to understand. That's why people smell. I read that after Ingrid had died."

The rat eats its dinner but doesn't comment on whether or not it enjoyed it.

She thinks about adding that she has always found it reasonable to assume that the human soul is found in the sodium bicarbonate. When it leaves the body, there's nothing left. Only complaining neighbors. But she doesn't say anything. Doesn't want to cause bother.

Britt-Marie doesn't ask.