Sunday, July 6

We got up late, decided that we had been to enough markets yesterday and would miss lantloppis this morning, and had breakfast. I had a shower and finished painting the new toilet befoe Irma and Naa left for Helsinki.

The day was scorching hot, clear and airless, and so I read in the garden rather than writing in the sauna house. Now I have painted the final retouching on the new toilet and I am looking at the reflections on the surface of one of the water barrels. The few textured clouds are clearly visible.

In a few minutes something will trigger some clear, sharp memories of Auo here in Sundö. I think it will be the quiet that makes me miss her. I will remember lying down with her in Kerala, imagining that I was getting her to sleep so that she could rest, when I was actually failing to notice that she was dying. I will never know whether I could or should have noticed what was actually happening, and I will never know if noticing would have made the slightest bit of difference.

I will know that I very much want her here, or in Helsinki, or somewhere a short plan ride away. I just want her to come back.

Later, when the sun starts to cool, I will do a couple of hours writing before going to bed early. If this is the new heatwave then I think I will need to be up early tomorrow, writing, before the morning heat begins.