二刷

But now there are evidently “cashless” banks, banks without any money, which is surely something of a travesty? It’s hardly surprising that people get confused and society is going to the dogs when it’s full of caffeine-free coffee, glutenfree bread, alcohol-free beer.

JACK: I’m afraid I’m going to have to say that I do. Can you tell me anything about the bank robber’s appearance? For instance, was the bank robber a short bank robber or a tall bank robber?
LONDON: Look, I don’t describe people by their height. That’s really excluding. I mean, I’m short, and I know that can give a lot of tall people
a complex.
JACK: I’m sorry?
LONDON: Tall people have feelings, too, you know.

“Young people today. You’re so aware of how you affect your children. I heard a
pediatric doctor say on television that a generation ago, parents used to come to him
and say ‘Our child’s wetting the bed, what’s wrong with him?’ Now, a generation
later, they come to him and say ‘Our child’s wetting the bed, what’s wrong with us?’
You take the blame for everything.”

I happened to mention that to my mom,
and she said: ‘You can’t live long with the ones who are only beautiful, Jules. But the
funny ones, oh, they lastalifetime!’”

“I don’t know. Everything feels such a big deal, and other parents all seem so…
funny the whole time. They laugh and joke and everyone says you should play with
children, and I don’t like playing, I didn’t like it even when I was a child. So I’m
worried the child’s going to be disappointed. Everyone said it would be different
when I got pregnant, but I don’t actually like all children. I thought that would
change, but I meet my friends’ children now and I still think they’re annoying and
have alousy sense of humor.”
Anna-Lenaspoke up, briefly and to the point:
“You don’t have to like all children. Just one. And children don’t need the world’s
best parents, just their own parents. To be perfectly honest with you, what they need
most of the time is a chauffeur.”

Estelle’s breathing didn’t show any sign of speeding up, she didn’t have many big
secrets left. After this one, possibly none atall.
“One day in the elevator he gave me a book, and inside it was a key to his
apartment. He said he didn’t have any family living nearby, and that he wanted
someone in the building to have a spare key ‘in case anything happened.’ I didn’t say
anything, and I didn’t do anything, but I got the sense that maybe… maybe he would
have liked it. If something had happened.”
She smiled. So did Julia.
“So in all that time, you never…?”
“No, no, no. We exchanged books. Until he died a few years later. Something to
do with his heart. His siblings put the apartment up for sale, but his furniture was still
there at the viewing. So I went along, pretending to be interested in buying it. I
walked around in his home, ran my hands over his kitchen counter, the hangers in his
closet. In the end I found myself standing in front of his bookcase. It’s such an odd
thing, the way you can know someone so perfectly through what they read. We liked
the same voices, in the same way. So I let myself have a few minutes to think about
what we could have been for each other, if everything had been different, somewhere
else in our lives.”
“And then?” Julia whispered.
Estelle smiled. Defiantly. Happily.
“Then I went home. But I kept the key to his apartment. I never told Knut. It was
my affair.”

life is a bit like climbing trees. Up and down, up and down, you try to cope
with everything, be good, you climb and climb and climb, and you hardly ever see
each other along the way. You don’t notice that when you’re young, but everything
changes when you have children, and sometimes it feels like you hardly ever see the
person you married anymore. You’re parents and teammates, first and foremost, and
being married slips down the list of priorities. But you… well, you keep climbing
trees, and see each other along the way. I always thought that was just the way it is,
life, the way it has to be. We just had to get through everything, I thought. And I kept
telling myself that the important thing was that we kept climbing the same tree.
Because then I thought that sooner or later… and this sounds so pretentious… but I
thought that sooner or later we’d end up on the same branch. And then we could sit
there holding hands and looking at the view. That’s what I thought we’d be doing
when we got old. But time goes quicker than you think. And it never did get to be
Roger’s turn.”