BRITT-MARIE

WAS HERE
—
– A NOVEL –

FREDRIK BACKMAN
Translated from the Swedish
by Henning Koch

New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi

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 An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real
places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the
author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2014 by Fredrik Backman
Originally published in 2014 in Swedish as Britt-Marie var här by Partners in Stories,
Stockholm, Sweden
Published in the English language by arrangement with Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.
Translation copyright © 2015 by Henning Koch
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any
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Interior design by Paul Dippolito
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Backman, Fredrik, 1981– author.
Title: Britt-Marie was here : a novel / Fredrik Backman.
Other titles: Britt-Marie var här. English
Description: New York: Atria Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015047026 (print) | LCCN 2016004098 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PT9877.12.A32 B7613 2016 (print) | LCC PT9877.12.A32
(ebook) | DDC 839.73/8—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047026
ISBN 978-1-5011-4253-6
ISBN 978-1-5011-4255-0 (ebook)

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 BRITT-MARIE
WAS HERE

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 4

A nd 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 kind-
est 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 oth-
ers. 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.
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 recre-
ation 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.
Britt-Marie ’s first contact with the pizzeria and the recreation
center are on that day in January when she stops her white car be-

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 Fredrik Backman

tween them. Her first contact with soccer is when a soccer ball hits
her, very hard, on the head.
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.
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 dra-
matic 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 cir-
cumstances) to be engulfed in flames at any moment. This does not
happen. Instead, Britt-Marie is left standing on her own in the park-
ing area, surrounded by the sort of silence that only exists in small,
remote communities.
It’s a touch on the annoying side. She adjusts her skirt and grips
her handbag firmly.
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.”
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.

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 Britt-Marie Was Here

“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.
“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 of-
fice?”
“Britt-Marie, is that you?”
“I can hardly hear you!”
“Did you say blown up? Are you okay?”
“Of course I am! But what about the car?”
“I don’t know the first thing about cars,” tries the girl.
Britt-Marie releases an extremely patient exhalation of air.
“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 ex-
pected 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.
“I meant questions about the job.”
“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.”
“Please Britt-Mar—”
“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.
Something is still thumping on the other side of the recreation
center, which is still standing only because at the last councillors’

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 Fredrik Backman

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 clo-
sure 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 com-
municating 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 un-
employment office in early January. That was the long and the short
of it.
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.
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 dis-
ease.
The girl sighed again and tried to say something about “retrain-

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 Britt-Marie Was Here

ing 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. . . .”
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.
“Where can I expect to find the cleaning equipment?” asks Britt-
Marie.
“What?” asks the girl.
“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.
“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 recre-
ation 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.
The ball is being pursued by two children. They are exceedingly
dirty, all three of them if you include the ball.
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.
“What’s happening?” asks the girl.

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 Fredrik Backman

“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.”
“What?”
“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?”
Britt-Marie gives the telephone a scrutinizing look. Turns it
around.
“Ha,” she says into the microphone, as if the fault lay with the
person at the other end of the line.
“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 tele-
phones, you understand.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m just the same when I have a new tele-
phone!”
“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.”
“But what if you’re out?” asks the girl, instinctually unable to
process what the world looked like before one could get hold of any-
one, at anytime of the day.
“My dear girl,” she explains patiently, “if I’m out, I’m with Kent.”
Britt-Marie was probably intending to say something else, but

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 Britt-Marie Was Here

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

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