The house isn’t a house anymore. It’s a dog that’s been hit by a car, lying by the roadside, guts spilled, unable to move. The roof has been torn away, and the exposed rafters look like the ribs of a whale you once saw in the natural history museum. A fir tree collapsed into one side of it long ago, seedlings have fought their way through the rubble and point their gaunt branches defiantly at the sky. The windows are broken, the masonry is fragile, even the graffiti is decayed, and the painting of the façade, once blue, is a dingy gray. On your right there towers a public rubbish dump. You see washbasins, mattresses, washstands, and chairs. There’s a pyramid of bulging black garbage sacks, a bright red and yellow IKEA bag gleaming among them with bits of cable sticking out. It hurts to look. As if someone had opened a corpse and forgotten to close it again.

“Pinch me,” says Stink.

“Shit, that looks like shit,” says Schnappi.

“Taja, what is it?” you ask.

“I … I don’t know.”

“We must have taken a wrong turn,” Schnappi says firmly, looking round. “Taja, where are we?”

Taja doesn’t reply, she stares at the ruin.

“I don’t understand. We …”

She walks closer.

“We’re in the right place.”

“Are you sure?”

Taja points at a pile of stones.

“There’s the old well I told you about, and over there, where the fence has collapsed, was the dog kennel. Where all the trash is, that was the parking area. I know it all from the photographs. Even the tree—that used to be a giant fir. And right here there was a fence. You see? But … I don’t understand this.”

The trunk of the fallen fir has flattened a quarter of the hotel, and brought down the roof. You’re sure that if nature could murder deliberately, it would look exactly like this.

“And where’s your mother?” asks Stink.

“I don’t know.”

“She certainly doesn’t live here,” says Schnappi.

“Do you think anyone might know where your mother is?”

“I have no idea, Stink,” Taja replies irritably. “I don’t know anyone here.”

“But you’re going to—”

“Have you gone deaf?” you cut in. “If Taja says she doesn’t know, then she doesn’t know.”

You turn to Taja.

“Maybe we could ask down in the village. Everybody here’s bound to know everybody else.”

“Maybe.” Taja softens her tone, and for a moment the situation relaxes, and you’re glad you opened your mouth. Your stomach doesn’t need any extra tension, it’s already been turning itself inside out for a while, and at the moment there are lots of things you want—like a shower and breakfast—but throwing up like a pregnant bitch isn’t one of them.

Everything’ll probably sort itself out, you think. Taja’s mother probably has one of those beautiful houses right down by the water, and she’s laughing because we went up to the dump.

You stare at the ruin for a while, then Schnappi stirs herself and turns away.

“Off we go. Anyone who wants coffee …”

She pauses. You feel a tingle in your back, just below your left shoulder blade. You don’t want to turn round.

I don’t want to.

If you could stop this moment and see it from outside, you would know what a surreal scene this is—the sun laughs down at you, the mist above the fjord has melted away, the morning air is refreshingly clear. It’s a magnificent summer day in Norway, the birds are singing, and you’re standing by an ugly ruin, but that’s okay, because everything seems to be in harmony, and if everything’s in harmony it makes life a lot easier.

I still don’t want to.

You reluctantly turn round and look darkness in the face.