Summary

“A Man who was Ove and a Pair of His Father’s Old Footprints” Past tense. Narration describes how Sonja believed in destiny while the more pragmatic Ove didn’t; and how Ove’s regular, quiet, respected work and routine at the railway repair plant were disrupted by Tom, a malicious colleague of his father’s, who said that Ove had stolen some money. Ove, acting out of the integrity taught to him by his father, refused to say that he (Ove) knew that Tom had taken the money: he and his father were not men who tell tales. At first Ove’s refusal to defend himself led him to being fired, but on his last day, he was called into the director’s office and told that the director (who knew Ove’s father) knows that Tom was guilty and that he...