Bergensians were still skiing across the market square. The sun had passed its zenith without breaking through the cloud and the mountain looked as white as untoasted bread. The snowfall had come suddenly and the funicular railway was running non-stop with the cars packed to the rafters. Thomas kept his skis at my place, but they were too small now, so we walked up.

Someone had made deep footprints in front of us, but still the snow came up to our calves. It felt like we were on a rabbit hunt in Alaska the year all the rabbits went to Australia.

In Midtfjellet there was a Troll Forest waiting for us. The trees were bowed like pregnant women and the ones you met on the path talked in low, devout voices, as though they were in church. And perhaps they were. For most people nature is the only church they attend. Nowhere are the roof vaults higher. Nowhere is the divine closer.

Winter had laid a noose around the light and the winter sun had pulled the rope tight. Behind the mountains in the south-west 345a reddish hue spread across the grey-and-white canvas until everything was erased with ink.

When we arrived home we roasted a potato dish I had prepared earlier, boiled some broccoli and fried two steaks before letting an afternoon snooze wrap itself around us like a fur collar while a listeners’ requests programme on the radio took us back to the fifties as though nothing had happened since.

Two or three times during the afternoon I called Belinda Bruflåt’s number, but without success. In the end I decided to pay her a visit after I’d driven Thomas home.

We left at eight. It was cold and the night frost had purged the sky of clouds, like some kind of chemical bath, forced the stars out and turned the road surface into a polished dance floor. I did forty kilometres an hour and still had difficulty controlling the car.

We discussed arrangements for the Christmas period. He would spend Christmas Eve with Beate. The following two days he would be with me.

I dropped him off and looked up at the house. Beate was standing like a statue in the sitting-room window, framed by an enormous cone of light and somehow diminished by the large surface of glass. I flashed the headlamps and waved up at her, and she pressed her face to the window pane and waved wearily back as though to a boat that had long left the harbour.

Slowly I reversed out onto the road and drove back to Sandviksveien to join the main arterial road to Åsane. The yellow street lamps drew me like magic lights through the tunnels and out again on the other side. Åsane lay waiting for me like Astrid Lindgren Land. Even in Christmas wrapping, this part of town was a Swedish province.

I parked my car outside the block where Belinda Bruflåt lived. 346I looked up at her flat. There was light emanating from a Christmas star in the middle window of the sitting room. Against the wall I saw a shadow move, as transitory as a snowflake on your cheek. So at least someone was at home.