Marlies’s aunt had hanged herself in the kitchen at the age of ninety-two, which Marlies could not understand. In her opinion, committing suicide at ninety-two was hardly worth the trouble. Marlies often talked about her aunt, an intolerably prickly person, utterly unreasonable and always in a foul mood.

“And that’s where she was hanging,” Marlies said every time we came into her kitchen. She said it this time, too, and pointed to the hook next to the ceiling light. Martin and I did not look up.

The only thing in the house that came from Marlies was the smell. The house smelled of cigarettes, of cheap deodorant’s feeble efforts against acrid sweat, of food left out for days, of cheerfulness that had expired decades ago, of smoldering fires extinguished in ashtrays, of garbage, of tree-shaped air fresheners and damp laundry left too long in the basket. Marlies walked with a stoop even though she was in her twenties. Her perm was half grown out, and her hair was as brittle as straw. Whenever I saw Marlies’s hair, I thought of the shampoo in the local shop, “Schauma for assaulted hair.” Martin and I found the wording odd because we thought you could only be assaulted by hellhounds, lightning, Palm, or criminals, and even then they didn’t usually attack your hair. Through Marlies we learned that chronic bad temper, too, could be belligerent and attack hair as well.

Marlies dropped onto a kitchen chair. As usual, she wore only a baggy Norwegian sweater and underwear. Her panties were the kind sold in the local shop in packages of three colors. Selma wore the same kind. However, you never knew if Marlies was wearing the yellow, apricot, or light blue pair because they were all as faded as the look she gave us when she asked, “So, what’s up?”

“We just wanted to see how you’re doing,” Martin said.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m definitely not the one,” Marlies said regretfully, as if she were playing a lottery with extremely low odds of winning.

“Do you want something to eat?” Marlies asked, a question we’d been dreading.

“Yes,” we said. We desperately wanted to say no, but Elsbeth had drummed into us that if we didn’t eat sad Marlies’s food, she would be even sadder.

Marlies went to the stove, poured peas from an open can onto two dessert plates, slapped a lump of cold mashed potatoes next to them, and topped each plate with a slice of boiled ham. She set the plates on the table and dropped back onto her chair.

There was only one other chair in the kitchen. “Do you have anything else to sit on?” I asked.

“No,” Marlies said, and turned on the small television on top of the refrigerator. Selma’s show was on.

Martin sat down and patted his thigh. I sat on his lap.