‘May I shave now?’ asked Henrik politely, and it startled her. She hadn’t heard him coming.

‘Of course,’ she said, confused, and it seemed to her that he looked from the little shoe in her hand down to her own squarish, flat house shoes – size 39 – out of which her feet, which were always a little swollen in the morning, stuck out in an old-womanish, unsightly way. It lasted just a second, then he disappeared into the bathroom, and she told herself she was overreacting, which didn’t prevent the meaningless episode from ruining her fragile good mood.

She wandered into the dining room and sat down, feeling miserable, at the large conference-sized table, which Hanne was setting with superfluous movements and superfluous noise. Helene was able to assume an expression which prevented conversation. Whatever Hanne said caused her anxiety and alarm, for reasons she couldn’t pin down. She just wasn’t meant to have help around the house. She wasn’t meant to be taken care of and grow dependent on others. And over and above that, she wasn’t meant to be forty and have nearly grown children. Hanne was the result of two fateful events in her family. The first was Henrik’s promotion at work, to a highly responsible position incompatible with their previously modest lifestyle. This position, the detailed duties of which Helene didn’t know, required a more elegant home. Through Henrik’s connections they got a seven-room apartment in the center of Copenhagen, sold their little house, got an interior decorator to furnish the new apartment, and finally, hired Hanne as living proof of their social advancement. The furniture they hadn’t discarded was in her room, where various young men took turns sitting and reclining on the red sofa which had decorated their previous living room. Hanne was an omnivore concerning men, and she evidently valued quantity above all. They had held two parties in the six months since they moved, and Helene had felt rather awkward in her role as hostess for Henrik’s colleagues and their perfect, acerbic wives, who seemed to have intimate knowledge of their husbands’ work. It was something to do with buying and selling iron. Helene’s domestic skills were negligible, and Hanne had shown up in long pants with her intolerable self-inflated sense of not being the least bit inferior to others. It was possible that hiring her meant the end of their marriage.

‘I was wondering,’ Hanne said, leaning over her while placing a tray of bread on the table, ‘if we could collect clothes for Algiers Aid. Both Linda and Morten have lots of clothes they never wear. Linda has more shoes than she could wear out in her entire life. And Morten and I just found a pile of sweaters and socks he’s outgrown. He thinks it’s a great idea. He’s such an unselfish boy.’