Ølene on Bornholm is recalled as the site of a commune connected to Atu, Frank, and Alberte. In the investigation, it becomes a point of pressure: a direct question about whether a woman had lived there unsettles her, while later accounts tie the place to Frank’s relationship with Alberte and to a sign found in a vehicle after Alberte’s death.

The Question of Who Lived There

Assad asks a woman directly whether she had also lived at Ølene on Bornholm. Her reaction is immediate: she looks as though the question has struck her, appearing both irritated and intimidated. Rather than answer, she objects that if she is expected to respond to questions, she should also be allowed to ask them. The exchange makes the location more than a geographical reference; it is a subject the woman resists discussing, although the passage does not establish whether she lived there.

The Commune and Frank’s Visit

In a later recollection, a woman describes going once to find Frank at the commune at Ølene. She says he told her he was in love with Alberte and planned to take her back to Copenhagen. The news sharpened her hatred of both Frank and Alberte. Her memory locates Ølene at a turning point in their relationships: Frank’s declaration makes plain that his attachment to Alberte was not merely suspected, and that he intended to leave the commune with her.

The recollection also connects the place to the woman’s subsequent fixation on Alberte. She says she wanted Alberte removed from Frank’s life and imagined that disfiguring her might lead Frank to return. She waited for years, then tried to erase Frank from her life and refused to hear about him. Ølene is thus remembered not only as a place Frank occupied, but as the setting from which the speaker received the news that gave lasting force to her jealousy and resentment.

The Sign and the Competing Account

Another account invokes Ølene in connection with the aftermath of Alberte’s death. A woman tells Atu that she worked out he had killed Alberte on the day they left the island, after hearing that Alberte had been found murdered and thrown into a tree following a hit-and-run. She says the police searched the island for the car and that she found a blood-marked sign in the VW Kombi Van. She identifies it as the sign that had hung over the house at Ølene, the Celestial Sphere, and says Atu had painted it himself.

Atu denies knowing about Alberte’s death or the sign, and expresses disbelief at the accusation. The exchange leaves the testimony contested: the sign’s connection to the house at Ølene is asserted by the woman and rejected by Atu. The place consequently gathers two kinds of memory—the commune associated with Frank and Alberte’s relationship, and a house sign presented as a clue to the concealment of Alberte’s killing—without resolving the dispute between the accounts.