Fritz is thinking of the letter now, as the tyres whistle beneath him and the village houses flicker by sun-flecked. He thinks of his own error-free schoolboy Danish, which in the past he’s always been so proud of. He knows Danish, English and German, but he can’t write Faroese. That’s how it used to be—you only learned to write in Danish. It’s never embarrassed him before. He stomps on the pedals, barely noticing the gardens, the extravagant summer flowerbeds.

In the living room at home, the child is chewing a pencil.

She drums her heels against a chair leg. Her heavy dark hair sweeps across the day’s arithmetic. She’s quick, clear-headed. He thinks she could make something of herself. Something solid.

The smell of potato water wafts in from the kitchen.

Fritz switches on the radio.

It’s the same story.

Six months ago the hospital administration on the Faroes wanted to get rid of the consultant at Klaksvík Hospital. He was a Nazi, that was the main reason. 133

They sent a new doctor to the town, presumably thinking the Nazi one would slink off quietly, but that’s not what happened. He was shameless, thought Fritz. Clinging to his post. And since the Klaksvíkers felt he was one of their own, after all, they couldn’t see why he had to leave. It led to a dust-up.

In Tórshavn the local parliament asked the Danish authorities for help, and the High Commissioner himself came down with his retinue to sort things out. Well. It was rather funny in its way: the High Commissioner was chased through the city by angry Klaksvíkers, him and his whole fancy delegation. They had to escape on a ferry.

It turned into a major issue. The Danes sent a ship loaded with fifty cases of guns, one hundred and twenty officers, six police dogs, one police van and the Premier.

In Klaksvík they were tearing down their rifles from the walls. They set mines in the harbour, barricaded it with steel cable. Let them come, the Danes, the collaborators, anybody.

Now it wasn’t funny any more. Fritz was cringing. They weren’t actually in the right, the Klaksvíkers, not when it came down to it. There was something embarrassing about the way they were carrying on, something childlike. Ungrateful, he’d thought back then, without the thought being fully formed.

Ragnar sketched out the new trouble in snappish main clauses: after tough negotiations, peace had originally 134been secured by the Nazi doctor agreeing to go away and stay away for a while. After that he was free to come back. To the hospital, even. The idea was that life would simply take its course. That the new doctor would win sympathizers, and that the Klaksvíkers would forget. Now the time was up.

The Klaksvíkers had forgotten nothing.