The Germans have left in a hurry and the liberators, the British, have dumped their cannons and military hardware in the sea so that the Norwegians can buy new artillery in Britain as soon as they get back on their feet. Incidentally, the British are nowhere to be seen, either, but the Norwegians are. Men, women, and children have streamed out of their houses, look-ing newly scrubbed and white in the sunshine. An auction is being held in the former camp, on offer is whatever has been left behind by the Germans, stinking wardrobes and battered office furniture with drawers full of mothballs, pen nibs and rubber stamps bearing the Third Reich eagle, standard lamps and armchairs and items of clothing that are of no use to anyone. The rubber wheels from the gun carriages at the Fort are also of interest, they can be cut into suitable sizes and used as shoe soles. And not least the horses, the same horses that the Germans commandeered when they arrived, now five years older and ground down by the horrors of war as they stand scowling in their halters. But they are recognised by their old masters, and, it transpires, even have Norwegian names, which slowly wake them from their torpor amid the shouting and the bidding, which is done for reasons of both necessity and sentimentality.

Ingrid is wearing a dress she was given by Suzanne, which doesn’t make her look strange, in her own or others’ eyes, and she, too, wonders whether she should buy a horse, with the money she doesn’t have, but is distracted by the collective hubbub: there is a peaceful carnival atmosphere, all the faces she sees again, wearing cautious, fresh and expectant expressions. Anja has moved out of the rectory with her four children, along with Gunvor, and moved into the spacious house of a fishing skipper in the village, a man Ingrid knows from her schooldays, who never managed to get married, but looks as though he might well succeed in doing so now, he has a wide-brimmed hat on his head, is holding Ante’s hand and has handed out rock sugar in brown paper bags to the whole bunch. Anja whispers to Ingrid that her husband probably won’t recover, she has it in writing, look.