Hagtornsgården preschool

Hagtornsgården preschool is the place where Piet Hoffmann collects his sons, Hugo and Rasmus, and where the novel briefly sets the demands of his undercover life against the ordinary responsibilities of fatherhood. Its entrance becomes a threshold: outside, he is carrying the consequences of a violent operation; inside, he is simply the boys’ father arriving to take them home.

Setting and Layout

Hagtornsgården preschool stands amid the apartment blocks of Enskededalen. Hoffmann enters through the front door and sits on a low stool in the entrance, beside small shoes and colorful jackets hanging from pegs marked with the children’s names and hand-drawn elephants. The lunch room and its tables are near the entrance, while the larger playroom lies farther inside. These modest details establish the preschool as a shared everyday space organized around the children and their routines.

Hoffmann’s Visits

On one visit, Hoffmann has spent time waiting in stationary traffic before driving to the preschool. At the entrance, he pauses to listen to the children playing and lingers before going inside. He has remembered to remove his holster, a small practical detail that marks the effort required to keep the dangers of his other life from entering this one. Once inside, he sits near the children’s things and greets a staff member.

On another occasion, the preschool calls to report that Hugo and Rasmus have fevers and need to be collected. Hoffmann goes there, picks up the two sleepy boys, and takes them home. He puts them to bed with their unread comics and calls Zofia to promise he will stay with them. The episode makes the preschool a point in the family’s chain of care: staff alert a parent, Hoffmann collects the children, and the boys’ illness redirects him from the pressures awaiting him elsewhere.

Narrative Significance

The preschool scenes place Hoffmann’s family life in concrete surroundings rather than treating it as an abstraction. The named pegs, small shoes, and ordinary pickup routines contrast with the risks attached to his undercover identity. At the same time, the contrast is not complete separation: the effort to remember his holster shows that his dangerous work accompanies him to the doorway, even as he tries to leave it outside. Hagtornsgården therefore serves as a recurring point of contact between Hoffmann’s concealed criminal role and the domestic life he is trying to protect.