A Man Called Ove: A Novel by Fredrik Backman Page B

eyes.
    “Thief! Thief! Thief!” one of their younger colleagues, who had testified against Ove, chanted happily across the changing room, until one of the older men on their shift gave him a slap across the ear that silenced him.
    “THIEF!” Tom shouted demonstratively, so loudly that the word was still ringing in Ove’s head several days after.
    Ove walked out into the morning air without turning around. He took a deep breath. He was furious, but not because they had called him a thief. He would never be the sort of man who cared what other men called him. But the shame of losing a job to which his father had devoted his whole life burned like a red-hot poker in his breast.
    He had plenty of time to think his life over as he walked one last time to the office, a bundle of work clothes clutched in his arms. He had liked working here. Proper tasks, proper tools, a real job. He decided that once the police had gone through the motions of whatever they did with thieves in this situation, he’d try to go somewhere where he could get himself another job like this one. He might have to travel far, he imagined. Most likely a criminal record needed a reasonable geographical distance before it started to pale and become uninteresting. He had nothing to keep him here, he realized. But at least he had not become the sort of man who told tales. He hoped this would make his father more forgiving about Ove losing his job, once they were reunited.
    He had to sit on the wooden chair in the corridor for almost forty minutes before a middle-aged woman in a tight-fitting black skirt and pointy glasses came and told him he could come into the office. She closed the door behind him. He stood there, still with his work clothes in his arms. The director sat behind his desk with his hands clasped together in front of him. The two men submitted one another to such a long examination that either of them could have been an unusually interesting painting in a museum.
    “It was Tom who took that money,” said the director.
    He did not say it as a question, just a short confirming statement. Ove didn’t answer. The director nodded.
    “But the men in your family are not the kind who tell.”
    That was not a question either. And Ove didn’t reply.
    The director noticed that he straightened a little at the words “the men in your family.”
    The director nodded again. Put on a pair of glasses, looked through a pile of papers, and started writing something. As if in that very moment Ove had disappeared from the room. Ove stood in front of him for so long that he quite seriously began to doubt whether the director was aware of his presence. The director looked up.
    “Yes?”
    “Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say,” said Ove.
    The director looked at him with surprise. It was the longest sequence of words anyone at the railway depot had heard the boy say since he started working there two years ago. In all honesty, Ove did not know where they came from. He just felt they had to be said.
    The director looked down at his pile of papers again. Wrote something there. Pushed a piece of paper across the desk. Pointed to where Ove should sign his name.
    “This is a declaration that you have voluntarily given up your job,” he said. Ove signed his name. Straightened up, with something unyielding in his face.
    “You can tell them to come in now. I’m ready.”
    “Who?” asked the director.
    “The police,” said Ove, clenching his fists at his sides.
    The director shook his head briskly and went back to digging in his pile of papers.
    “I actually think the witness testimonies have been lost in this mess.”
    Ove moved his weight from one foot to the other, without really knowing how to respond to this. The director waved his hand without looking at him.
    “You’re free to go now.”
    Ove turned around. Went into the corridor. Closed the door behind him. Felt light-headed. Just as he reached the front door the woman