But I didn’t have a chance to call, because a short time later we were summoned to Ringfjorden by Daddy. It was happening now.

The rooms in the little house by the wharf had formerly seemed so small; now it was as if they’d been expanded. There were people everywhere, loud conversations, a woman was cooking a vegetable stew in two enormous pots, and the floors had been cleared to make room for the painting of signs and banners:

NATURE CONSERVATION

STOP THE CONSTRUCTION WORK

WITHOUT THE SISTER FALLS EIDESDALEN WILL DIE

Daddy had let his beard grow out—it made him look younger, more like the many male arrivals surrounding him. He introduced me to all of them, spent the longest time on Lars, who was Daddy’s age, but had a longer beard and apparently a leading role in the protest. They talked and talked, all of them, especially Lars, especially Daddy, as quickly as only people from Oslo can. Daddy was beaming with enthusiasm, for the struggle had only just begun and we had the most powerful tool of all. He talked about Gandhi, about nonviolent methods, about the power of the Indian model, passive resistance, civil disobedience based on the religious concept ahimsa.

“To prevent injuries. Nonviolent . . . that’s the only way one can be heard,” Daddy said. “And now, soon the eyes of Europe will be turned toward Norway. Toward the Sister Falls, toward Eidesdalen.”

He pushed his glasses farther up on his nose—they were round, not unlike Gandhi’s, not unlike Lars’s glasses. I could feel the warmth radiating off him and I wanted to throw myself into the work. I grabbed a paintbrush and got down on my knees. With a steady hand I began filling in the pencil lines forming the word Eidesdalen, using a bright-red oil paint with an acrid odor that filled the room and made me slightly dizzy. Perhaps it was not good for the baby, but I didn’t have time to think about that.

In the evening Sønstebø came. He and Magnus hugged each other stiffly—the way they used to, as if they didn’t know each other very well and at any rate not like father and son—before Daddy separated them with his torrent of words. More people were on the way from Oslo, he said, from Bergen. Tomorrow the camp would be set up.

“We will win this fight! For the Sister Falls, for Eidesdalen.”

“Yes,” Sønstebø said. “Good.”

“And the people of Eidesdalen,” Daddy said. “Are they ready?”

“Yes,” Sønstebø said. “Yes, they are.”

“Great,” Daddy said. “How many are coming?”

“A few,” Sønstebø said. “I don’t know. . . . They have farms, all of them.”