Then I pulled off her smelly T-shirt. Turned it inside out and used it to dry off her hair. I managed to clean off the worst of it.

I laid her down in my bed, where the bedding was clean. Peeled the bedding off hers and took it along with her T-shirt under my arm.

“Where are you going?” Lou asked fearfully.

“To get a bucket,” I said. “I’ll be back soon.”

“You’re nice, Daddy.”

She lay her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes.

I thought she would fall asleep, that it was over now. Nonetheless I went to find a bucket just to be on the safe side. The hall had a broom closet that was seldom opened. It’s hard to clean when you don’t have any water.

But when I came back, she was awake. Again she was lying there all curled up. Again her body was all stiff.

“My tummy hurts again.”

“It will pass.”

“It hurts so much!”

“Try to lie on your back,” I said.

She didn’t react.

I gently took hold of her. “Look here, try to stretch out.”

I unfolded her body. Placed my hands on her tummy. Massaged it carefully.

But she just cried.

Chapter Fifteen: Signe

Chapter Fifteen

Signe

Maybe it started with a snowman, yes, I think it started with a snowman and nothing more was really necessary, because even though I saw you from time to time, watched you when you came down to the fjord with your father to buy fish at the wharf or shop at the consumer co-op, you still didn’t take up much space inside of me.

Not before the party, Mommy’s party. I don’t remember if it was one party or many, maybe there were many, but that’s the one that I remember.

The hotel was all hers now, the way it always actually had been, because old Hauger had left it to his daughter. Daddy, his son-in-law, didn’t inherit anything. The almost one hundred rooms, the commercial kitchen, the huge garden that went all the way down to the edge of the water, and the spacious, private wing were all hers.