Mid-September

Mid-September is a recurring calendar marker for scenes in which ordinary time acquires a sharper edge: the city is briefly renewed by rain as Konrad Sejer reflects on the security of his childhood, then the same period brings him and Jacob Skarre to a suspicious death in Bjørnstad. The novel gives the date no single event or precise duration; instead, it places reflection and investigation within the same unsettled stretch of the year.

Weather and the Calendar

In Chapter 24, the narration specifies that it is the middle of September. Cool, fine rain falls like waterfall mist, glossing the city’s roofs and facades, blue asphalt, rubbish containers, and bicycle racks. When the sun breaks through, bushes and trees appear newly bright. The scene’s careful movement from rain to sunlight gives the date a tangible quality: mid-September is not merely a label on the calendar but a changeable urban atmosphere, dampened and then briefly renewed.

Sejer’s Walk and Memory

Sejer walks softly through the streets with Frank. The unhurried walk turns his attention inward, toward the security that shaped his childhood. He remembers his mother reaching for him when illness or accident threatened and reassuring him that things would work out. Her comfort had accompanied specific losses and injuries, including his broken wrist after falling over bicycle handlebars and the death of his dog. Set against the rain’s passage into sunlight, this recollection makes security feel like a lasting foundation rather than an abstract idea: it is something another person gave him in moments of fear.

A Later Call in Bjørnstad

In another mid-September scene, Sejer and Skarre drive to Bjørnstad after receiving a call about a suspicious death. A patrol car is already at the scene, its doors open beside a fence near the last house on Rolandsgata, while crime-scene officers examine the perimeter. At first, the death appears to involve a blunt-force attack, but the house is orderly, with no signs of vandalism or theft. The shift from Sejer’s reflective city walk to the police response gives the date a second register: a period that holds private memories of childhood reassurance also contains the uncertainty of an investigation. The text does not specify the exact day or establish that these scenes are only days apart; their shared mid-September setting is the clearest connection.