When we reached Torgalmenningen, for the first time in my life I witnessed people crossing Småstrandgaten on skis. They were heading for Mount Fløien and would probably be able to ski home as well. It was a fantastic pre-Christmas present for everyone, except motorists and snow-plough crews.

Thomas was dubious about the whole expedition. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to go up there?’ he said, gazing longingly at Fløien, where the trees were like monks in white cowls forming a silent procession to morning Mass.

‘There’s someone I have to talk to,’ I mumbled.

‘In the church?’

I nodded. ‘He works there as an organist.’

We crossed Pudde fjord, which was like a frozen rainbow, parked the car on the slope down from the church and followed the hushed trickle of churchgoers entering through the main entrance. Older women dressed in black walked gingerly over the newly fallen snow as though it were a frozen lake and they were frightened of falling in.

In the porch we breathed white steam. Two small stained-glass windows met us just inside the entrance. One depicted Adam and Eve in Eden; the other the expulsion from Paradise.337

We went to the left and into the nave. A stooped verger gave us a hymn book and a sideways look that told us he was wondering who we were. We definitely weren’t regulars.

It was two minutes to eleven.

I cast a glance up at the gallery. Jakob was there. His eyes met mine over the balustrade and he made a sign to indicate that he was surprised to see us. I gestured I would like to talk to him afterwards and he nodded.

Then he turned his attention to the organ.

The last members of the congregation shuffled into their places, making a total turnout of around fifty. Eighty per cent of them were over pensionable age, or approaching it. A couple of families with small children and some young people I assumed were confirmands brought the average age down a little. Among them I saw Sissel Solheim and her mother, Anita.

As the prelude started, Berge Brevik entered by the altar rail, wearing white and purple, holding his head high. He sent us a quick side-glance, as if to reassure himself that someone was here.

From the gallery the choir ensured that the first hymn had the backbone it needed: ‘The King shall come when morning dawns. And light triumphant breaks. When beauty gilds the eastern hills. And life to joy awakes.’

Beside me Thomas joined in with his breaking voice. I found the right notes somewhere in the second verse: ‘Not as of old, a little child. To bear, and fight, and die. But crowned with glory like the sun. That lights that morning sky.’

Two of the small children stepped forward and lit the four candles on the advent wreath and another hymn was sung: ‘Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates…’

Sissel Solheim read an extract from the Bible with a lowered 338gaze and a voice trembling from the stress of public speaking. Her small facial features seemed strangely precocious in these surroundings, as though she were the bearer of two millennia of wisdom and knew far more than the rest of us put together.