The aroma of chervil and freshly baked bread hit me as Vivi opened the door. I was late. I had hesitated for quite some time before I had actually walked out of my apartment and taken the few steps down the hall to Vivi’s door and knocked.

I had been feeling so tired. I had been so tired for so long, I just hadn’t had the strength to socialize, to turn up at parties or dinners or other gatherings where you were expected to have fun, to be interested in other people and to talk to more than one person at a time. I had withdrawn, been passive, at times even apathetic, and I would probably have cut myself off completely if it hadn’t been for Elsa, Alice, Vivi and Lena. They had been there the whole time. During the first weeks after Johannes’s final donation they had even taken turns to stay the night with me. Every time I woke up because I was upset or angry or felt sick or whatever, there was someone there to support and console and fetch water and make tea and listen and hold my hand until I went back to sleep.

But they were there afterward as well, after those first few days when I was presumably in shock. Quiet. In the background. On standby. And they were here whenever I needed them-or needed anyone at all-to talk to, or just to have around. And they did it without asking anything of me, without expecting me to be grateful or even pleasant. This had gone on for over two months.

When Vivi finally said one day that she was thinking of inviting some friends to dinner, and then, very cautiously, added: “It would be really lovely if you came too, Dorrit,” I felt that yes, perhaps I ought to try. And after a lot of dillydallying, here I was.

“You came!” said Vivi, taking my hand and pulling me in-as if she was afraid my courage would fail at the last minute, and I would run away if she didn’t grab hold of me and give me a helping hand.

She led me over to the table where the other guests were already seated and were just helping themselves to newly baked whole-grain bread and a steaming carrot soup with fresh chervil, because they had just given up on the idea that I might turn up. There was Elsa, Alice and Lena, and two people I’d never seen before. Vivi introduced them to me and we shook hands. They were called Görel and Mats.

Mats had arrived last month, Görel just a week ago, and she still had that expression newcomers always wear: horror and grief and rage-or whatever it might be. The fear of death, perhaps.

I sat down between Alice and Elsa, who hugged me from their respective sides. Alice took the opportunity to plant a noisy kiss on my cheek, and everyone laughed. When I turned and looked at her up close for the first time in ages, I noticed that she had changed. The coarseness of her facial features had been replaced by a kind of fragility, to a certain extent. She looked soft in a way I had never seen her look before. I thought perhaps the male hormones were finally beginning to leave her body. But she looked so tired as well, slightly hollow-eyed, slightly haggard. But then who isn’t haggard? I said to myself, pushing aside the stirrings of a sense of unease, and helped myself to the carrot soup.

During dinner the conversation moved through a range of topics. I didn’t take much part in it, I just sat there listening most of the time. Eventually they started talking about the outside world. The community. Things were changing out there. The number of childless fifty-year-old women and sixty-year-old men was dwindling significantly, and dispensable individuals were now being taken from professions that had previously been completely protected. It no longer mattered if you were a schoolteacher or a day care teacher or a welfare officer or a nurse or any other profession that involved caring for people; not even midwives were given a dispensation now; if you were childless, you were childless, end of story.

“And as if that weren’t enough,” said Mats, “there’s talk of reducing the age limit. People are really stressed out. Kids are getting pregnant at seventeen or eighteen, just to be on the safe side. The queues at the fertility and IVF clinics are getting longer and longer. The same with the adoption centers. Some people don’t make it to the front of the queue before it’s too late. And cases of HIV and chlamydia are increasing rapidly, because women are just going out and picking up one stranger after another and having unprotected sex.”

“And the number of small children being kidnapped has increased as well,” added Görel. “People are desperate.”

“There don’t seem to be any guarantees about anything any longer,” said Vivi. “Not for anyone. It makes everyone feel so insecure.”

“Yes, but why didn’t we think of that?” said Elsa. “Stealing a kid. The way these needed individuals spread themselves out with their strollers and carriages and little ones running around all over the place, they can’t possibly keep an eye on them all at the same time. I think it would be easy just to pick a sleeping baby out of its stroller in passing, while the parents are trying to watch the rest of the kids.”

I thought: So that’s the reason! That’s why Petra had so obstinately maintained that I was an unsuitable parent: because there was a shortage of dispensable individuals. The demand for organ donors and candidates for various experiments was no doubt as great as ever-perhaps even greater. I thought. But I didn’t say anything. Because I hadn’t yet told my friends I was pregnant. I hadn’t found the right opportunity yet.

Suddenly I realized that this was as good an opportunity as any, right here and now. So I opened my mouth to say: “Speaking of children, I’ve got something to tell you…”

But Alice beat me to it. Although she didn’t say “speaking of children,” she just came straight out and said, apropos of nothing at all:

“I’ve got something to tell you.” And she went on: “I’ve got something I have to tell you. And I have to do it as quickly as possible because I might not have much time left so I’ll do it now. I’ve got a brain tumor.”

There was silence. Not a cough, not a gasp, not even the slightest clink of glass, porcelain or cutlery. Just silence. Everyone froze, everyone turned to look at Alice as she sat there beside me, so small all of a sudden, it seemed to me, so old all at once. Just silence, just endless stillness, until she herself spoke again:

“They think it’s the radiation.” She turned to Görel, the new arrival, and explained: “You see, I’m involved in an experiment with some kind of radiation. Something radioactive.”

“But why?” asked Görel.

“Why? Because I’m a dispensable person and a lab bunny, of course!” said Alice, screwing her mouth up and chewing like a bunny rabbit.

Nobody laughed. Not even Alice.

“No, no,” said Görel. “I mean: what are they going to use the radiation for? What’s the point of the actual experiment?”

“The point?” said Alice, waving one hand dismissively. “My dear friend, I haven’t the faintest idea!”