I took out a can of beef stew and started heating it up directly over the flame. I didn’t really like the smell of canned food. Everything hermetic had a particular flavor, as if it tasted first and foremost of the can, and now the steam rose from the mushy mass in the can, forcing its way into my nostrils. This diet made my nausea worse and it could not possibly be healthy for the child I was carrying.

Magnus was sitting in the tent opening. Behind him the tent was crooked; the canvas hanging between the poles wasn’t properly secured. He just sat there, like a sack of potatoes, even though the dented aluminum plates we were going to eat from were still dirty.

“Aren’t you going to do this?” I tossed him the plates.

“You don’t need to yell.”

“Will you wash them, please?”

“Signe, you know that sooner or later we will have to leave.”

I didn’t answer, kept stirring the can. The stew was starting to stick to the bottom; the thin aluminum the can was made of was flimsy.

“Can’t we just leave?” he asked. “Now.”

“Dinner is ready. You have to wash the plates,” I said.

“Signe?”

“The stew is burning.”

“Can’t you at least take a trip down and talk to Iris?” Magnus said.

“What?” Again, her first name, Iris.

“She’s unbelievably sad, Signe.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“Please . . . can’t you meet her halfway?”

Meet her halfway?!

“No,” I said.

“I was there yesterday,” he said.

“When?”

“In the evening.”

I hadn’t even noticed that he was gone.

“She’s so sad that you . . . both of you . . . are taking this so personally.”

“As if it were anything but personal.”

“She’s still your mother.”

“Don’t you take it personally? It’s your family. Your valley.”

“I am trying to separate the issue from the people involved.”

I couldn’t resist laughing, a short cough of laughter. “I don’t understand how you think I am supposed to take this. If it’s not personal, what is it, then?”

“The people who came from Oslo, from Bergen,” he said, nodding toward the bonfire. “They have maybe understood it. They’ve come for the cause.”

“No,” I said. “You’re the one who hasn’t understood it. They take it personally too. It’s their waterfall, their water, their valley, even though they’re not from here.”

He stood there a little while, and a kind of dullness came over him. Then he reached out his arms toward me, smiling wanly. “Sometimes I don’t understand how you can be bothered, Signe.”

“Be bothered? As if I have a choice?”