On the calculation of volume

There is someone in the house... There's the rustle of tea leaves and paper as first one, then another spoonful of tea leaves is taken from a paper bag and poured into the teapot, then the sound of water being poured over the tea leaves, but such sounds can only be heard in the kitchen....

...I don't hear the sound of the tea being poured into the cup, but I can hear footsteps moving from the kitchen to the living room as he carries the cup of tea through the house. His name is Thomas Selter. The house is a two-storey stone cottage on the outskirts of the town of Clairon-sous-Bois in northern France. No one enters the back room overlooking the garden and a woodpile.

It is the eighteenth of November. I have got used to that thought. I have got used to the sounds, to the grey morning light and to the rain that will soon start to fall in the garden.


Translated from Danish by Barbara J Haveland