Now I was adrift in this country and it frightened me. I knew I should tell Elsa about my column, that by not sharing the truth I was failing her, but I was ashamed at my own lack of resilience. I was afraid that the winter would finish us as a family. I knew that it must not.

I learned everything about the murders on Garden Island. I memorized the coroner’s report, learned the Norwegian terms for hollow point and jacketed, for bone fracture and lung collapse. I forced myself word for word through the articles that detailed the time and the manner of every death. Hard to explain, but knowledge kept at bay the fear that threatened to enfold and engulf me. It kept Licia alive in my mind.

We had to survive the next few months. The trial date was set for June.

We hunkered down. We coped, though how Elsa managed I was not sure. She floated around the apartment like a heroine in an Ibsen play, all buttoned-up blouses and long flowing skirts.

At night I would hear Elsa in the bathroom. She would turn on all the taps, stand naked under the shower screaming her fury and her frustration at the cruelties fate had dealt us. When I met neighbors on the stairs I would see in their faces that they heard her too. Perhaps she thought the water disguised her screams.

I took to going for walks. Occasionally I would catch sight of Elsa in a grocery store, talking easily with the staff, or see her laughing happily with people I did not know as she waited for the train into town. I would marvel then at how easily she fit into this place, while I stood on the periphery, watching. How easily a person might think my wife was happy, when I knew for certain she was not.

One afternoon I found myself at the coffee bar in the mall. I stood by the thick plate glass, scanned the interior. Baskets of bread hung from a heavy wire, slowly making their way down from the bakery to the walnut-topped counter. There were candles; there were tablecloths; there was raw blackberry jam. All very clean, very hygge.

Bored-looking women in slack suits drank fruit drinks through steel drinking straws, their lips plumped with collagen. One of those moments when you could imagine everybody who lived in this country was tall and white and blond. Every tooth was straightened, every blemish removed, every strand of hair professionally lightened. And there was Elsa, alone at a table, listlessly reading Posten.

Elsa reached for her coffee, took a slug, winced at the taste. A strange erotic thrill, watching my wife, unseen. So beautiful, as she sat there, radiating don’t-come-near. So unlike these other women, with their puffed lips and their smoothed cheeks, their foreheads stiff with botulinum.