She was getting tired of standing. It’s a good thing he notices things like that, she thought, trying to expunge the sad feeling nestled inside her. People who sell houses always hide the flaws.

Her husband looked at her, and his eyes took on a softer expression.

‘Why don’t you sit down, Grete?’ he said, and his instinctive contempt for the other woman was now bolstered by something concrete. As a mother she ought to know that you at least offer a pregnant woman a chair.

The real estate agent laughed again. It rumbled from his belly like an empty barrel bouncing down an incline. He observed Grete delicately as she sat down.

‘Men will be men,’ he stated rather hollowly, shaking his head with regret. ‘Shall we go upstairs? Go ahead and nurse, ma’am. I can take care of this.’

The woman hesitated, as if she lacked confidence that he could ‘take care of this’ to her satisfaction. The little girl’s clear voice suddenly filled the brief pause that followed. She was standing gripping a corner of her mother’s dress.

‘When it rains, it splashes down through the ceiling.’

The mother shook her dress free. Irritated, she blushed.

‘Keep your mouth shut,’ she threatened.

The child put her arm in front of her face as if she were expecting to get hit. She had the same defiant expression on her face that her brother had had not long before.

The real estate agent was about to die of laughter.

‘If you’re not careful, your kids will chase all the buyers away,’ he said. And then the joviality disappeared instantly from his face, as if an invisible hand had erased it. Grete suddenly saw a glimmer in his eye, which gave her an anxious feeling. She smiled at the girl, who did not smile back.

‘Oh, you must be sorry to be leaving your house,’ she said in a friendly voice. ‘That’s only natural.’

The real estate agent nodded and cut the tip off a new cigar.

‘Children don’t know what’s good for them.’

He looked knowingly at the mother as if he were waiting for her to agree with him.

The husband wrinkled his brow.

‘Is it true it leaks when it rains?’ he asked in an interrogatory tone.

The woman blushed slowly all the way down to her throat like a child who is caught in a lie. She opened her mouth to respond, but the real estate agent beat her to it.

‘Nonsense,’ he said flatly.