Ingrún’s Smirnoff Blue has been all but swigged to the dregs. Now they set to. Fritz has told them about the toothbrush. You can’t even have water for your toothbrush, he said, earnestly, and with that the curtain rises. He renounces the fishery. The cod and the stench, the whole thing. He says it’s dankly cold and pus-furred and prospectless, and there’s something else he doesn’t say aloud. That he’s afraid of the yawning space around the boat, that it has a sound. Reality grows porous up there in the ice; the birds, they come from nowhere. Instead he says he dreams of using his head, of really learning something. Does sister Ingrún understand? Fishing, there’s no future in that. This is advancement, progress. He’s a man with a purpose, a vision, not just for himself—for the village, the age. 51

Ingrún taps the bottle.

Her nails make a little, confirmatory clink clink.

It’s all very nice Fritz wanting to study, and certainly not a bad idea to become an engineer. He’s got brains. Not the lion’s share, of course, but still. And now perhaps he’ll tell them where the money’s going to come from?

Jegvan smiles his superior smile.

Had he thought it would be that easy?

Eh, Fancy Fritz?

An anguished twitch appears around Fritz’s mouth. He’s not quite so handsome himself. A little narrow-shouldered. His eyes are attractive, his mouth can assume a charmingly lopsided twist, it’s true, but what good is that to him now? He has no real plan. More, well, an idea. First he wants to study electrical engineering (the Technical College is in Denmark, on the island of Funen), then engineering, then get a job up at the plant. Then we take Berlin. But now the crucial moment’s come, he can’t quite bring himself to beg for money. Instead he prattles through his idea, once, twice, three times. At last he has to gasp for breath.

Ingrún spots her chance and curtly nods.

‘That would be splendid, certainly. If you knew anyone on Funen.’

For a while she presides in silence at the head of the table. Calculating and accounting for the various factors, foreseen and unforeseen. Tallying and tallying again. 52There’s meat on those pale arms yet. The fists she’s clenched on the table are still as steel.

Fritz launches into a final, desperate speech. She’s got to understand! Far too many people in their family have rolled right down the straightest road from the cradle to the bottom, and she knows that, sister Ingrún knows that. Where are they now? In the graveyard! The drowned and the drunkards all like sardines.

Ingrún tilts her head and knocks back her glass. The back of her hand slips precisely across her lips.