Ingrid nods. And the priest is sceptical, there are so many children without a father here, this is not farming country, where the men are safely shut up behind closed doors with their wives and children all year round, Ingrid should be happy to have this gift, a new life, has she thought about what to call the child?

“Alexander.”

The priest says that isn’t a very common name here. Ingrid agrees.

“And if it’s a girl?”

“Kaja.”

“Ah, that was your grandmother’s name.”

He promises to stay alive until he has christened the child.

And then he has a matter of his own to discuss with her, he sticks an unsteady hand inside his waistcoat and pulls out a wallet, which he hands to her. Ingrid steps back. He tells her in a loud voice to take it. But she isn’t nineteen anymore and mentions the letter he sent her at the hospital, containing money, the infamous letter, the significance of which she recalls, and says that after all these years she finally wants a clarification of the strange relationship between him and her father, and the conversation comes to a halt.

Johannes Malmberget can’t so easily call for help, so their eyes wander around the graves, known and unknown names on the headstones and crosses, the wild flowers and the lush meadows down to the sea, the grass is high already, and Ingrid’s cheeks are red, but she repeats the request.

Without looking at her, he says in his previous life he borrowed some money from the village bank, the small, rundown savings bank, to help one of his numerous sons, who wasn’t up to much, he has to admit, he is dead now, with Barrøy as a security, for which he paid her father a small amount, there was no liability on his part.

“No liability on the loan?”

“Well, no, in a way.”

“A priest has his own property though, hasn’t he?” Ingrid says.

Yes, he does, but . . . that was mortgaged as well, she got half of what he owed when she was at the hospital, and this is the rest, does she understand what he’s telling her?

Ingrid says no, but she can accept the money as a loan.

“A loan?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s your money.”

“Is it new money or old?”

He laughs mirthlessly and asks if she hopes he is going to die soon.

Ingrid asks whether that was what he had hoped about her father, and the priest looks both unhappy and angry, and mumbles that the money is at any rate good enough to spend in Margot’s store, by the way her son is back now and is being hailed as a good patriot and resistance fighter.