Grete was completely convinced they would be better off if her father wasn’t around, because he was the only one who put her mother in a bad mood – apart from when the other wives in the building gossiped about her. They were quick to judge. Her mother said they were jealous because she was still youthful and wasn’t going to give up every pleasure just because she had a husband who didn’t like to dance. When Grete turned fourteen, her mother would take her to Karneval. That was in four more years. Then she would be ‘Queen of the Night’, with a beauty mark on her cheek and white silken hair. And maybe a black fan. Grete had been up and down the whole street to find one, but the Karneval stores only had colored fans left. In the magazine it said the fan was meant for ‘Carmen’, but her mother liked it when there were accessories to her costume. Tonight she would have to be satisfied with a little black silken bag she had gotten from a place she had worked, and then of course the half-mask with the fringes over the mouth.

Her father opened his eyes. He hadn’t actually been sleeping at all, because he usually awoke very noisily. They noticed him lying there watching them, and her mother’s smile disappeared while Grete sat down and started rotating a toy ring around her finger. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

‘Look at you,’ he said with a gravelly voice. ‘You look like a Christmas decoration. People are going to make fun of you, you old scarecrow.’

Grete’s back hurt, as if someone had hit her. Her vision went blurry with hate for her father. She pressed the ring’s metal setting into her index finger, which made a white mark that slowly turned red. She didn’t dare move, afraid that her mother wouldn’t make it out the door in one piece. She heard her mother’s breathing behind her.

Her father sat down on the edge of the sofa and felt for his slippers underneath it with his feet. There was crud on his face in the two wrinkles that went from his nose to his mouth. He didn’t take his eyes off her mother.

‘You should go to work like that tomorrow,’ he said mockingly. ‘You might be able to take a taxi there, if you can find someone crazy enough to pay for it.’

Her mother didn’t answer. Grete heard her go out to the entry and put on her jacket. The mask was still lying on the table, but Grete didn’t dare bring it to her, for fear of drawing her father’s attention. If only he could fall down from some scaffolding and die – or drown – in a marl pit – then everything would be fine.