The Sisters

Jonas recalls the spring of 1997 when Anastasia suddenly stopped attending basketball practice. Unable to contact her, Jonas traveled to the Mikkolas’ apartment in Kista. He found the apartment empty. As Jonas was leaving, an elderly neighbor corrected him that only two sisters had lived there with their mother, adding that the mother “went crazy and jumped from the balcony” (201).

In September 2000, Anastasia visits her friend Fabricia in Gothenburg. She tells Fabricia that her ex, Mathias, is experiencing severe drug addiction. Fabricia encourages Anastasia to apply to art school, suggesting that something is holding her back. 

At a party, a classmate tells Anastasia about a Tunisian government scholarship for diaspora youth to learn Arabic. Later, at a club, Anastasia uses her butterfly knife to threaten a man who’s harassing Fabricia. That night, she reads two messages: one from Ina, who is worried because their mother hasn’t answered her phone for several days, and one from Evelyn, about Ina wanting to take them to an aquarium with Hector.

Jonas recounts the elderly neighbor’s detailed description of the Mikkola family’s crisis. She said that in late December 1996, the mother jumped from the balcony but survived by landing in bushes. The neighbor characterized Anastasia as rude and claimed that the mother had a mental illness and confined herself to the apartment, leaving her daughters to manage everything. 

Jonas notes that the neighbor was unaware that Ina had wanted to stay in the US for another six months, that the mother then began threatening to jump, and that Ina cut her semester short and came home to take care of her.

Inspired by the scholarship idea, Anastasia comes home and searches for her Tunisian passport but can’t find it. Anastasia calls Selima, who claims that she has thrown all their old things away. She refuses to look in the basement for the passport, cryptically stating that she will never go down there again after a previous incident that occurred there.

Jonas recalls that in the spring of 1997, after Anastasia’s disappearance from his life, he quit basketball and developed obsessive-compulsive tics. He also experienced disordered eating, tormented by the internalized critical voice of his absent father. 

Jonas reflects on the immense strength of his mother, who raised him and his brothers alone. He recalls a time when she tried to expose them to culture by taking them to see whirling dervishes, an outing that ended in boredom.

Anastasia visits Selima to look for the passport. Selima, armed with a baseball bat, meets her with paranoia and demands that Anastasia answer security questions to prove her identity. 

In the basement, Anastasia locates her passport in a binder. She also discovers her mother’s old notebooks and threatening letters from customers of a past carpet-selling business, taking the notebooks with her. She also finds an old watch that’s still ticking and puts it on. When she leaves, Selima briefly begs her not to go to Tunisia. Anastasia puts the notebooks away and forgets about them for years; by the time she finally decides to apply for the language course, Selima has already died.

Jonas recalls the spring of 1997 when he was a lonely high-school student who pretended to have a social life. One day, a popular and energetic classmate, Emma, invited him to join her and her friends for coffee. Despite his intense social anxiety, he accepted her invitation.

On December 10, 2000, Hector prepares to take the Mikkola sisters on a trip to the aquarium where his father once worked. As they walk there, Ina expresses her fear of inheriting her mother’s mental illness and voices sarcastic frustration over her sisters’ lack of ambition. After Ina becomes emotional, Hector tells Ina that he loves her in Swedish for the first time.

Jonas continues his memory of meeting Emma. After her friends left the café, he and Emma talked for hours. He felt comfortable enough to confide in her about his absent father, something he had never told anyone before. They kept talking until the café closed, forming a powerful connection that left Jonas feeling energized and hopeful.

At the aquarium, Evelyn and Anastasia arrive late, irritating Ina. Hector tries to get the group free entry by greeting Monica, the employee behind the counter, but Monica doesn’t recognize him, even when he reminds her that his father was her colleague. This forces an embarrassed Hector to pay for entry.

Jonas reflects on the first summer of his relationship with Emma in 1997. Out of a deep-seated fear of abandonment, he began to find faults in her and subtly criticized her. 

When Emma left for a four-week trip to France, Jonas was devastated and struggled with his need to feel her presence again. One day, the police stopped Jonas for carrying a realistic-looking airsoft gun and warned him of its dangers. This left Jonas intimidated. When Emma returned from France, she announced her plan to return there for a longer study program. Jonas reacted coldly. Soon after, he applied to defer his enrollment at the Stockholm School of Economics and took a gap year.

Hector begins his pre-planned guided tour of the aquarium, but his formal tone amuses Ina’s younger sisters, who quietly mock him, causing Evelyn to laugh uncontrollably. Their behavior annoys Ina. Feeling stifled, Evelyn walks away from the group.

After entering the aquarium shark tunnel, Evelyn meets a man named Simon, who is struggling to manage two children. Evelyn and Simon engage in flirtatious banter, and an immediate chemistry develops between them. One of the children later reveals to Evelyn that Simon is actually her uncle.

In the spring of 1998, Jonas made a surprise visit to Emma in Paris, with plans to continue on to New York. He secretly intended to hurt her as he felt she had hurt him by leaving. However, when he saw her genuine, overjoyed reaction to his arrival, he realized that his true motive was to test her feelings and reassure himself that he could trust her.

After Evelyn takes Simon’s niece through the shark tunnel, Evelyn shares her work address with Simon. When Ina and Hector find Evelyn talking with him, Ina is openly disapproving. As Ina ushers Evelyn away, they realize that Anastasia is missing.

Jonas recounts his first trip to New York City. His planned two weeks in New York stretched to three months. He fell in love with the city’s energy and anonymity. To extend his stay, he took a job helping out at a makeshift hostel run by an aspiring actor named Steve, in exchange for lodging.

Anastasia had stepped outside the aquarium for a cigarette and is refused re-entry by Monica, the same employee who had blocked Hector at the entrance. She then receives an angry phone call from Ina, who claims that during an argument about Evelyn’s choice in men, Evelyn physically attacked her and tried to smash her head against a frog tank. Anastasia calms Ina, promising her that the incident will eventually become a story they can laugh about.

In New York, Jonas spent his days with Steve—an aspiring actor who invested in stocks and treated Japanese students as lodgers—and his evenings exploring the city. A Japanese student was robbed and returned to Japan, and Jonas forged his Tunisian passport to get into bars. He felt himself gaining a kind of confidence he had never experienced before. However, his tourist visa eventually expired, and he was deeply saddened to have to return to Sweden.

When Jonas landed in Sweden, Emma surprised him at the airport. However, Jonas couldn’t hide his deep sadness. He felt alienated and out of place back in his childhood home. The disconnect proved too great, and a few weeks after his return, he and Emma broke up.

On Christmas Eve 2000, Evelyn is working alone when Simon appears at her store just as she’s closing. He explains that he has met someone he feels an undeniable connection with. Realizing that he’s talking about her, Evelyn kisses Simon. Two weeks later, Evelyn moves out of Ina’s apartment. Six months after that, Selima dies.

On New Year’s Eve 1999, Jonas snuck into a party by climbing a tree and entering through a window. Inside, he saw the Mikkola sisters. He gathered the courage to speak to Evelyn, but she didn’t recognize him and dismissed him. This left Jonas crestfallen, and he decided to leave, inadvertently letting Mathias in through the same window he used to enter.