He searched her eyes while she searched his, knowing without needing to ask that his name was Falc Johannesen, though he preferred to be called Falc, Erik Falc, because he had a brother, also a doctor, with whom he did not want to be confused under any circumstances, he had confided this to her once when his face almost broke into a smile, because his brother had turned into a German.

Then he mumbled that from now on she would remember more.

She was about to protest – but woke up on the floor by the kitchen bench on Barrøy and saw his hand dangling down towards her face in order to touch it – as if in supplication.

She took it and stood up, feeling a taut, distant sensation in every cell, and they went upstairs together and lay beside each other in the North Chamber listening to each other’s breathing. They fell asleep and woke and the fever was gone, but they stayed where they were, and there was no more to be said, no confidences or attempts at persuasion, no prayers, they were a silent, tight-lipped communion on this, the penultimate day.

She got up and cooked, they ate and lay together and slept.

She asked why he hadn’t been content to stay in the haybarn on Gjesøya. But their bodies were warm and they lay beside each other for hour after hour and knew what had to happen. He slipped out of bed, dressed, went downstairs, cooked and called through the vent in the floor for her to get up and dress, there was no mistaking his intention.

She did so slowly in order not to miss out on a single movement, the way she dressed, buttoning a button, tying a ribbon, throwing her hair forwards and dividing it into three streams that could be plaited with fingers that know their way around in the dark, she kissed the tuft at the end, which looked like a besom, and tossed it over her shoulder with a flourish that was hers alone.

When she went downstairs, he was sitting staring at the papers the soldier had given her when they confiscated the weapons, he seemed to understand what he was reading and stopped when she appeared.

She asked again:

“Deutsch?”

He shook his head – a Russian who has some knowledge of German in a German-occupied territory is far more likely than a German who has some knowledge of Russian in the same country, she said this aloud and again he seemed to understand every word.