‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a practice piano. Take your shoes off first.’

She looked at Kari and me, who were sitting on the sofa like a bridal couple waiting for the registrar, each dolefully holding a drink. Then she slowly shook her head as though she didn’t believe this was happening. But she continued.

Jakob placed a chair in front of the piano and gave her a hand. She flipped off her shoes, stepped up onto the chair and onto the top of the imposing instrument. She stood there, as straight-backed as a dummy in a shop window. Running a hand through her hair, she slowly raised her face. Two wall lamps gave her soft lighting from behind. Flickering flames from candles illuminated her from our side. She was a typical local beauty and would have been a rip-roaring success at the New Year’s Eve party in the YMCA. But she definitely wasn’t at home doing a public striptease.

Jakob struck the first tentative chords and she swayed nervously.

He murmured, with a lupine smile: ‘And a one, and a two, and a three. Then he began to play, slowly and suggestively, an almost hypnotic rhythm, the way he had once infused couples on the dance floor with longing and desire.

Slowly, Gro fell into the groove. Slowly, she began to gyrate her hips. Slowly, she undid one, two, three buttons of her black-and-green speckled jacket; the blouse beneath was an almost indecent white. Slowly, standing in profile, she slipped the jacket off one shoulder, put one knee in front of the other and caressed a thigh with one hand.

Kari sent me a shy glance.

The music sped up. Gro took off her jacket completely and swirled it above her head, semi-professionally, then let go, and it flew through the air and landed on the floor.57

Her eyes were blank, there was a stiff smile on her face, and with equally slow, studied movements she unbuttoned her white blouse, pulled it from the waistband of her grey jeans and, turning her back to us, removed it fully.

She resembled an angel, standing there.

She was almost motionless, her blouse hanging from one hand, a slim, attractive figure with the strap of a white bra making a borderline between her shoulders and lower back.

She turned to face us and then away again.

Jakob mumbled something to her as the music grew in volume and tempo.

Again she found the groove. Now she was rotating her backside as her hands fumbled at the front and we could only imagine how she was undoing her belt and the fly buttons. Once again she turned to face us. Her jeans were open at the front and we glimpsed the elastic waist of low-cut, black knickers. To two-handed pounding on the piano, she swung round again, leaned forward, pushed the tight jeans down her thighs and carefully lowered them over her calves, bit by bit so as not to lose her balance. Then she peeled them off, along with her short socks.