Britt-Marie fiddles with the bandage around her ring finger.

"Admittedly I can perfectly understand that you don't understand. But I belong with Kent. A person has to have a home. Obviously I don't mean to say that you also have to have a home. I'm not sticking my nose into that. I'm quite sure you have a perfectly adequate home."

I should like you to know that I've handed in my notice. I have to go home, you understand."

The rat sits on the floor, looking at the plate in front of it as if the plate had stepped on its tail and called it a blithering idiot.

The rat looks at the jars on the plate.

"I ran out of Snickers," Britt-Marie says apologetically.

"That one is peanut butter. And this is something known as Nutella," she says proudly. "They'd run out of Snickers in the grocery, but I've been informed that in all important respects this is the same thing."

It's still the middle of the night. Somebody was not at all pleased about being woken up, but Britt-Marie couldn't bring herself to sit on her own with her bags on Bank's balcony. Couldn't bear it. So she came back here, to say good-bye. To both the rat and the village.

This is the first time she has cleaned her own ring. The first time she has not worn it on her finger. She whispers, without looking at the rat:

Britt-Marie stands by the window. It'll soon be dawn. Somebody has turned out the lights in the pizzeria and gone to bed again, in the hope that Britt-Marie won't be banging on her door because she needs peanut butter and chocolate. The party is long since over. The road lies deserted. Britt-Marie rubs her wedding ring with a potato smeared with baking soda, because that is the best way to clean wedding rings. She often does that with Kent's wedding ring; he often leaves it on his bedside table. He's often so distracted, Kent is, whenever he's about to meet with the Germans.

Britt-Marie usually cleans the ring until it gleams, so he won't be able to avoid noticing it when he gets out of bed the next morning.

She doesn't know if rats sit awake in their kitchens at night, thinking about how they are going about their lives. Or who they are going about their lives with.

"Kent needs me. A person needs to be needed, you have to understand."

Britt-Marie tries to sound sure of herself. The rat licks its feet. Makes a little semi-loop on the napkin. Then dashes out of the door.

Britt-Marie doesn't know if it thinks she talks too much. Doesn't know why it keeps coming here. The supply of Snickers, obviously, but she hopes there's something more to it. She takes the plate and puts plastic wrap over the remains of the peanut butter and Nutella, then puts everything in the fridge out of an old habit, because she's not one to throw away food. She wipes her wedding ring carefully and folds it in a piece of paper towel before tucking it into her jacket pocket. It'll be nice to take off the bandage and put the ring back on her finger. Like getting into her own bed after a long journey.

"Sami told me I'm not the type to clear off, but you have to understand that that is most certainly exactly what I am. Whichever way I turn, I'm leaving someone behind. So the only thing that's right must be to blasted well stay where you belong. In your normal life."

A normal life -- she has never wanted anything but a normal life. She could have made other choices, she tells herself, but she chose Kent. A human being may not choose her circumstances, but she does choose her actions, she insists quietly to herself. Sami was right. She's not the kind that clears off. So she must go home, where she is needed.

She wonders how much space a person has left in her soul to change herself, once she gets older. What people does she still have to meet, what will they see in her, and what will they make her see in herself?

She sits on the stool in the kitchen, staring at the wall and waiting for a black car. It does not come. She wonders if Sami thinks about how one should live one's life, if he has ever had that luxury. A human being can't choose his circumstances, admittedly, but in Sami's life there have been more circumstances than events. She asks herself if choices or circumstances make us the sort of people we become -- or what it was that made Sami the sort of person who steps in. She wonders what takes the most out of a person: to be the kind that jumps, or the kind that doesn't?

Sami went to town to protect someone who doesn't deserve it, and Britt-Marie is getting ready to go home for the same reason. Because if we don't forgive those we love, then what is left? What is love if it's not loving our lovers even when they don't deserve it?

Later, when people speak of it, it will be said that a few young men found Magnus in the early hours of morning, standing outside a bar. One of them was holding a knife. Another man stepped in between them. He was the kind that always steps in.

They slow down by the bus stop. Turn off into the graveled parking area. Britt-Marie is already standing in the doorway.

The car stops gently on the gravel. Makes a little warm sigh as the engine is turned off. The headlights are switched off at the same time as the pizzeria lights are turned on. In certain types of communities people always know what it means when cars stop outside their windows before dawn. People know it is never because something good has happened. Somebody comes rolling onto the porch; her wheelchair stops at once when she sees the police uniform.

Sven stands with his cap in both hands and his bottom lip full of teeth marks, caused by his attempt to hold it all in. Despair, which has run down his cheeks and caused red lines, speaks volumes about just how futile his attempt has been.

The headlights from the road give off a sudden gleam, slowly reach out of the darkness like arms in the water, passing the "Welcome to Borg" sign.

Britt-Marie yells out. Falls to the ground. And lies there under the weight of another human being, who no longer exists.