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picked up Magnus between them, and all three kissed.
    ‘Not too much Cartoon Network at Grandma’s,’ David said.
    ‘Nah,’ Magnus said. ‘I don’t watch that anymore.’
    ‘That’s good,’ Eva said. ‘It’ll be…’
    ‘I watch the Disney channel. It’s much better.’
    David and Eva kissed again, their eyes telegraphing something about how it would be later that night when they were alone. Then Eva took Magnus’ hand and they walked off, waving one last time. David remained on the sidewalk, watching them.
    What if I never saw them again…
    The usual fear gripped him. God had been too good to him, there’d been a mistake, he had got more than he deserved. Now it would all be taken away. Eva and Magnus disappeared around the corner and an impulse told him to run after them, stop them. Say, ‘Come on. Let’s go home. We’ll watch Shrek , we’ll play Monopoly, we…can’t let ourselves be separated.’
    The usual fears, but worse than usual. He got a grip on himself, turned and walked toward St Eriksgatan while he quietly recited his new routine in order to fix it in his mind:
    How does this kind of picture come to be? The two women are upset, so what do they do? They go to the store and buy a case of vodka and then a stack of porn magazines. When they’ve been standing there, pouring and pouring for two hours, Putte Merkert, photographer at Aftonbladet, just happens to catch sight of them .
    ‘Hi there!’ Putte Merkert says. ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘We’re pouring alcohol on porn magazines,’ the women answer.
    ‘Aha,’ the photographer thinks. A chance for a scoop.
    No, not ‘the photographer’. Putte Merkert. All the way through.
    Aha, thinks Putte Merkert. A chance for a scoop…
    Halfway across the bridge, David caught sight of something strange and stopped.
    Recently he had read in the newspaper that there were millions of rats in Stockholm. He had never seen a single one, but here there were three, right in the middle of St Erik’s bridge. A big one and two smaller ones. They were running in circles on the footpath, chasing each other.
    The rats hissed, showing their teeth, and one of the smaller ones bit the bigger one on the back. David backed up a step, looked up. An elderly gentleman was standing a few steps away on the other side of the rats, watching their battle open-mouthed.
    The small ones were as big as kittens, the bigger one about the size of a dwarf rabbit. The bare tails whisked over the asphalt and the big rat shrieked as the second small one grabbed hold of its back and a damp, black stain of blood appeared on its fur.
    Are they…its children, its little ones?
    David held a hand up to his mouth, suddenly nauseated. The big rat threw itself from side to side spasmodically, trying to shake off the smaller ones. David had never heard rats shriek, had not known they could. But the sound that issued from the big one was horrible, as if from a dying bird.
    A couple of people had stopped on the other side. Everyone was following the rat fight and for a moment David had a vision of people gathered to watch some kind of organised event. Rat fighting. He wanted to walk away, but couldn’t. In part because the traffic across the bridge was steady, in part because he could not tear his gaze from the rats. He felt compelled to stay and watch, and see what happened.
    Suddenly the big one stiffened, its tail pointing straight out from its body. The small ones writhed, scrabbling their claws over its belly and their heads moved jerkily back and forth as they tore at the skin. The big one shuffled forward until it reached the edge of the bridge, crept under the railing with its burden and toppled over.
    David had time to peer over the railing in time to see it land. The noise from the traffic masked the splash when the rats landed in the dark water and a plume of drops glittered for an instant in the street lamps. Then it was over.
    People continued on their way, talking about