Ingrid says she forgets so many things nowadays, it is probably her age, and goes out to find something to busy herself with, such as clearing out the Swedes’ quay house, where she sees the physical reminders of so many lives that are no more that it is a trial to carry them through the snow to the old Lofoten boat shed, which has been closed off for such a long time that everything in there is also a physical reminder of something that is no more. In the course of the day she dis-covers even more. But a new order has been created – in the Swedes’ quay house at least.

She goes back home and sits in the kitchen watching Barbro cooking. After they have eaten Barbro sets about making nets. Ingrid falls asleep in the rocking chair and is woken by the sound of her aunt clattering pots and pans on the stove. She feels saliva running down her chin. Barbro tells her to carry on sleeping, being in the condition she is. Ingrid counts how many meshes her aunt has made in the netting, goes up to the loft and lies down, but can’t sleep.

~

Henriksen didn’t arrive as he did previously, with a requisitioned cargo boat and a troop of soldiers, but alone, in his old motorised tub, he moored at the quay and just managed to claw his way ashore.

Ingrid and Barbro stood at the kitchen window watching him struggle up to the house through the snowdrifts. Barbro wanted to go out and help him, but Ingrid held her back and let him come right up to the porch and knock on the door, before she said come in, in the quietest of voices.

He came in, took off his fur cap and mittens, closed the door and stared into space, with eyes like two boils in a red, swollen face which had become completely ravaged since Ingrid last saw him, she was on the point of asking him to take a seat.

Barbro told him to take a seat and asked if he would like some coffee.

He lowered himself onto the nearest chair and groaned yes, without looking at Ingrid.

She asked why he had come alone, there were three of them on the Board, weren’t there?

He looked as if he thought that might be a barbed question, glanced out at the snow on the window ledge and said nothing until the silence became unbearable, twisted his stiff body into position and mumbled in a barely audible voice that they had decided the Barrøy islanders would have to take the Hætta family from Finnmark, a mother and four children who had been quartered at the rectory, they were destroying the furniture there, breaking cups and glasses, and the Board didn’t want to be held responsible for this, next week a new load of refugees would be arriving, there was no end to this bloody war.