But soon the moving van would be there, and it was up to them to make it a celebratory event for the girl. They had agreed on that. She pulled herself together and was about to say something, when Ole, who was going to turn eight soon, suddenly looked around strangely from one to the other and asked, ‘So when is Kirsten coming back home?’

No one was able to answer. As soon as the girl was out of the house, she would have to explain to him how things were. He was old enough to understand, and it was important that he also believed something new and exciting was in store for him.

All at once she felt so terribly tired, hating the nanny, who sniffled loudly, hating all of them because they didn’t understand her, and hating herself most of all because she didn’t know if she was doing the right thing. She felt a sudden, crushing desire to sob in her lover’s arms. Her tears were stuck, burning behind her dry eyes. How did a five-year-old child comprehend this? When would she feel betrayed, and how would the truth come out?

Finally the moving van arrived, red and boisterous and festive, and the children ran out to the road to catch sight of the men who would carry so much away. The nanny got up and ran to her room, and the two of them were alone for a moment. They had nothing to say to one another, but a strange feeling of mutual pain was in their eyes when they eventually met. He blinked a few times like a young boy, and she saw something in his expression that she had once loved.

It wasn’t possible for him to hate her. For some reason he had become used to not blaming her for her actions. He was indifferent about his own life; he was only consumed with the thought that he didn’t want to die. A person doesn’t die when he has a child to take care of and protect. Besides, she could see the girl once in a while, if she wanted to, and he wanted to see his son. But at this moment he felt the same mild indifference for himself that she did. It was as if they only had this one child together. He had fertilized her back then, and now he was taking the child with him. She had to pay. But she would forget soon enough. When a woman is in love –

For twenty minutes there was noise and activity throughout the house, and then the girl was sitting next to the driver in her fine brown coat with a velvet cap over her blonde curls. She looked at her mother with a slightly anxious expression, and she put her arms around her one last time and whispered to comfort her, ‘When it’s summer I’ll come back, okay?’