But he tries not to smile so much that Parvaneh notices.
Before the seven-year-old goes to bed she presses a paper into Ove’s hand, on which is written “Birthday Party Invitation.”
Ove reads through it as if it were a legal transfer of rights for a leasehold agreement.
“I see. And then you’ll be wanting presents, I expect?” he huffs at last.
She looks down at the floor and shakes her head. “You don’t have to buy anything. I only want one thing anyway.”
Ove folds up the invitation and puts it in the back pocket of his trousers.
Then, with a degree of authority, presses the palms of his hands against his sides.
“Right?” “Mum says it’s too expensive anyway so it doesn’t matter,” she says without looking up, and then shakes her head again.
Ove nods conspiratorially, like a criminal who has just made a sign to another criminal that the telephone they are using is wiretapped.
He and the girl look around the hall to check
that neither her mother nor her father have their nosy ears around some corner, surreptitiously listening to them.
And then Ove leans forward and the girl forms her hands in a funnel round her face and whispers into his ear: “An iPad.”
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