Magnus and Lars are sitting next to Ole and his friend at the other end of the table talking about whaling, Lars speculates whether that might be something for him too: hunting minke whales in the midnight sun in the Vestfjord and the Barents Sea, so he doesn’t have to idle around in the summer. Magnus says Lars has land to till, Lars replies that the womenfolk can take care of that, they always have done.

On one side of the table are all the boys from Finnmark, who have just settled into bunks on board the Salthammer, and they are wondering whether to join forces when they arrive in the north, this isn’t the first time this topic has come up, it isn’t far between Mehamn and Skarsvåg; however Jørgen and Benjamin have family waiting for them, they also want to try to trace Jadviga’s lost children, and the conversation lapses into a silence it isn’t easy to dispel.

Facing them, on the other side, sits Suzanne between her nieces, chatting and serving food and asking them about their father. On either side of them sit Selma and Hanna, eating with a knife and fork and drinking milk and – in Selma’s case – aquavit, while Fredrik isn’t sitting anywhere, just mooching restlessly around the table, holding the backs of chairs and listening to what is being said, before moving on and listening to the next conversation. He is startled when Lars shouts out:

“Hell, hva’s that?”

Something is dripping into his glass. “Is th’ roof leaken’?”

Everyone looks up. Arne leans across the table and says he repaired the roof, but ran short of slates, one tile was missing.

They look up at the black sole of a shoe in the rafters, and the drops of water falling from it. Lars gets to his feet and gesticulates, everyone stands up and lifts the tables one metre further north, then sits down again, and Lars places the empty sausage canister on the floor so that they can hear the dripping on the metal, then on the water, until they eventually become soundless, and Fredrik says in his new language:

“Hvor’s Ingrid?”

Ingrid is the only person not there. She is lying on her bed in the North Chamber breastfeeding. When Kaja falls asleep, she moves her over to the other side of the bed, so that the little light that penetrates the streaming windowpanes can shine on her face, and time can stop, everything fluid can solidify and Ingrid can try to forget Nelvy.

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