Hanne used several high-minded humanistic ideas to wage private class warfare in their family.

Why had she and Morten been collaborating on the Algiers problem? No, you couldn’t affect what was going on. Hanne stood right next to her, young, and brimming with working-class resentment and self-righteousness. Helene balanced her teaspoon on the edge of her cup. She moved her chair back from the girl’s imposing presence.

‘Go ahead and put something together,’ she said coolly.

Hanne sat down and squinted at her.

‘Did you know,’ she said pointedly, ‘that a million people will die if they don’t get help right away?’

Evidently, it was Helene’s fault that a million people were going to die.

Henrik crossed the hall to get dressed, exuding the aroma of aftershave and hair gel, which reminded Helene that she needed a shower before they had breakfast together.

‘Yes, I see.’ She pushed out her chair and stood up. ‘In the meantime take care of the coffee.’

Following an impulse, Helene opened the door to Morten’s room and walked in. It was a messy boy’s room with a record player, a camera and tripod, and lots of childish knick-knacks like bulky wooden swords, a pocket knife, a dusty butterfly collection on cardboard, and a homemade apparatus for chemical experiments. The walls were filled with variably executed paintings of an abstract nature, hung up with transparent tape, and the curtains, chosen by the interior decorator, had received the personal touch that comes from dirty hands. In the middle of the floor lay, as promised, a pile of discarded clothes, and Helene sat down on her son’s unmade bed and stared at it. Hanne pranced by with the coffee pot, sending her a triumphant glance through the open door. She turned her head toward the window and her eye fell on an open book lying on the ink-stained desk. A strange anxiety swirled in her heart, and she walked over and picked it up. It was Love from A–Z, and on the inside cover was Hanne’s name in clear cursive. Why in the world was she lending a book like that to a fifteen-year-old boy? He had been raised with modern values and knew plenty about those subjects. Hanne was twenty-two. Could it be…?

She moved Linda’s red shoes aside and, in a burst of insight, suddenly noticed that they were clean inside, that is, brand new. She couldn’t bring herself to ask her husband for things that weren’t absolutely necessary, but Linda could. Linda was irresistible when she stuck out her little foot and said, ‘See Henrik, these can’t be resoled anymore. And I saw a really pretty pair at the department store.’