Anxious People

by Fredrik Backman

One day he offered me his book, saying: ‘I’ve finished this one, I think you should read it.’ And so we started to swap books. He read such wonderful things. I don’t have the words to describe it, but it was like going on a journey with someone. Where didn’t matter. To outer space. It went on for a long time. I started to fold down the corners of pages when there was a bit I really liked, and he started to write little comments in the margins. Just the odd word. ‘Beautiful.’ ‘True.’ That’s the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people’s. One summer I opened a book and sand trickled out of it, and I knew he’d liked it so much he hadn’t been able to put it down. Every now and then I would get a book where some of the pages were crumpled, and I knew he’d been crying. One day I told him that, in the elevator, and he replied that I was the only person who knew that about him.”