Oslo University Hospital is a medical destination in the novel’s aftermaths of family illness and physical danger. It receives Kaja and Kolkka after the crisis at Hävasshütte, and it is where Harry and Søs visit their hospitalized father, turning the hospital into a setting for both emergency response and intimate family care.

Setting and Function

The hospital appears not as a detailed institutional portrait but through what brings people to it: medical treatment, a patient’s room, and the presence of relatives. Its role is practical and consequential. After the events at Hävasshütte, Kaja and Kolkka are transported by helicopter to Oslo University Hospital; in another scene, Harry and Søs come there to see their father.

Harry and Søs Visit Their Father

At four o’clock, Harry picks up Søs in a car lent to him by Bellman and drives with her to the hospital. They speak with Dr. Abel, and Harry translates what Søs does not understand. She weeps a little before they go to their father, who has been moved to another room. There, Søs takes his hand and repeatedly whispers his name, as if gently trying to wake him. The visit makes the hospital a place where practical assistance—Harry’s interpreting—sits alongside the family’s quiet distress.

After Hävasshütte

Kaja and Kolkka are flown to Oslo University Hospital after the Hävasshütte crisis. Harry refuses to go with them and is allowed to remain only after claiming, falsely, that he had had enough air throughout. He later wakes in a hotel room in Ustaoset. The contrast places the hospital at the receiving end of an emergency while showing Harry’s determination to avoid being taken there himself.