Ingrid got up, washed in the galvanised bucket, packed her suitcase, didn’t eat or make any coffee, carried her stinking work clothes down to the place behind the canning factory where the Germans burned rubbish, and tossed them into the oil drum, staring at the flames until people began to assemble on the quay, it was snowing lightly.

She went back and brewed some coffee of sorts, poured a cup and placed it on the chair by the bedhead next to Nelly, who still lay there looking like a serene corpse, waited for the reflection on the wall to tell her that the foreman had also arrived, that day was now dawning, though it was still dark, then got to her feet, went down to the office with her suitcase and said she wanted to settle up.

He placed his well-worn pencil on the desk, seemed surprised, said she had caught him on the hop, he couldn’t do without her, fish would be coming in that evening, he was sure of that, she was both necessary and surplus to requirements, the paymaster’s usual convoluted trickery, but Ingrid was from an island, the sky was her roof and walls, so she repeated that she wanted her money now, and waited patiently for all the drawers to be opened and closed, all the papers to be shuffled, the ambivalent sighs over the time sheet and the equally laborious counting of the dog-eared banknotes, as though it were an insult to ask for your wages, as though on payday it were the master who was to be pitied, not the slave.

~

Ingrid walked up the icy road to the store and waited for Margot to open, selected the items she needed, including coffee and butter, paid with ration coupons and money, borrowed Margot’s handcart, and wheeled her purchases down to the rowing boat, which had been moored beneath the quay all autumn.

She cleared the snow from the boat with a bailer, loaded her provisions and her suitcase, returned to the store with the cart and on her way back passed two German soldiers, who were sitting smoking on the sheltered side of the salthouse, they must have been there all the time, watching her.

She went down the steps, got into the boat, untied the mooring rope and sat at the oars. One of the soldiers came over to the quayside and shouted something to her, gesticulated, cigarette in hand, a red eye in the winter gloom. She rested on the oars and sent him a quizzical look. Again he shouted something she couldn’t hear, the swirling snow thickened, the boat slipped away and the soldier vanished from view.

Ingrid rowed across to the elongated island of Gråholmen, following the sea-smoothed rocks at an oar’s distance until they were gone, visibility was zero, the sea was heavy and calm.