The True Deceiver (New York Review Books (Paperback))

by Tove Jansson

PERHAPS THE REASON PEOPLE called Anna Aemelin nice was because nothing had ever forced her to exhibit malice, and because she had an uncommon ability to forget unpleasant things.

Katri had scrubbed the room above the storekeeper’s shop, scrubbed it with a kind of painstaking rage, the way women clean when they can’t lash out.