Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Two: Raymond's Second Letter

Raymond's second letter came in April, the same week the village hall was built.

He had not written to Raymond since the first letter — the January letter, the peripheral field and the hatch and the ceremony of the cup and the village writing to Raymond. He had written back to Raymond's January letter. After that the correspondence had been quiet — not ended, the practice's correspondence never ended, but resting between letters, the between-time of the correspondence itself.

Raymond's second letter was longer than the first.

He read it at the drawing board on Thursday evening. The April evening light — the longer evening, the light staying later in the April way, the drawing board still lit by the natural light at half past six. He read Raymond's letter in the April evening light.

Raymond wrote about the second winter. He wrote that the between-time building had been in use for a year and a half and that the second winter had been different from the first. He wrote that the first winter had been the learning winter — the village learning the building, the building learning the village, the between-time finding its rhythm in the prepared rooms. He wrote that the second winter had been the knowing winter — the village knowing the building across all its seasons now, the between-time not discovered but expected, the rooms known from the inside.

He thought about knowing winter. He thought about the difference between the learning and the knowing — the first winter as the correspondence beginning and the second winter as the correspondence deepening, the rooms known more fully in the second year than in the first because the attending people had been in them across the full year and were now returning to the rooms they already knew.

He thought: the second winter is the year of the attending.

Raymond wrote about the weight-bearing room in the second winter. He wrote that the January sun line — the sun line further than the section had shown, the sun line that Margaret had written about in the March letter — was expected now. He wrote that on the first Saturday of January he had arrived at the building at half past nine and had stood at the door of the weight-bearing room and waited for the sun to arrive. He wrote that he had known it was coming — the body calibrated to the room across one full year, the attending person prepared. He wrote: I waited for the sun line the way I have always waited for the first frost. Knowing it is coming and wanting to see it arrive.

He thought about waiting for the sun line the way one waits for the first frost. He thought about Raymond's year of the attending — one full year in the between-time building, the body calibrated to the weight-bearing room across the October and the November and the December and the January. He thought about the body calibrated to the room as the room's deepest achievement — the attending person knowing the room's light across the year, the body expecting what the section had drawn and what the material had made visible.

He thought: Raymond has completed the year of attending the community centre.

He thought about the year of the attending completed by the attending people in the buildings — the seven-year-old drawing the library corner in eleven months, the nine-year-old knowing the coastal sea in all its months, Ellie keeping the community centre notebook across the first year, Raymond waiting for the January sun line in the second year. He thought about all of them completing what the practice aspired to. He thought about the practice aspiring to the year of the attending and the attending people completing it in the buildings.

He thought: the buildings teach the year of the attending to the people in them.

Raymond wrote about Frances. He wrote that Frances from the next village was now a regular of the between-time — the Tuesday and the Thursday and sometimes the Saturday, arriving with the reliability of the person who has found the correct room and returns to it. He wrote that Frances had brought her husband in January — a man named Arthur who had not been to the building before. He wrote that Arthur had stood in the weight-bearing room for a long time without speaking. He wrote that Frances had said to Arthur: this is what I meant.

He thought about Frances saying this is what I meant. He thought about Frances's twenty years of looking for the room without knowing she was looking for it and then finding it and then, in January, bringing Arthur and saying: this is what I meant. He thought this is what I meant as the correspondence between the room and the person who had found it — the room that Frances had not been able to describe for twenty years now describable through itself, the room as its own most accurate description.

He thought: the honest room is what Frances meant.

He thought about the practice drawing the room that Frances had been unable to describe. He thought about the practice drawing from the attending people's knowledge — Raymond's letters and Margaret's eleven years and Ellie's sketchbook — and arriving at the room that Frances had always known and never been able to name. He thought about the honest room as the translation of the unnamed knowing into the named material — the room that said to Frances: this is what you meant.

He thought: the practice names the room the attending people have always known.

Raymond wrote at the end of the letter about a change in the between-time. He wrote that something had shifted in the second winter that he had not expected. He wrote that the between-time had begun to produce conversations that the between-time before the building had not produced. He wrote that these were not the conversations about the between-time — not the conversations about the weather and the news and the small business of the village — but conversations of a different quality. He wrote that people had begun to speak in the weight-bearing room about the things they had been thinking about, the things they had not found the right room for. He wrote: I believe the room is allowing a different quality of thought. The room holds the between-time and the between-time is holding the thinking.

He thought about the room holding the thinking. He thought about the between-time as the condition in which the thinking occurred — the gap, the between, the space that was not the work and not the rest but the attending space in between. He thought about the between-time room as the room prepared for the between-time thinking — the weight-bearing room and the limestone floor and the south window breathing the field and the hatch and the tea as the ceremony and the room holding all of it so that the thinking could occur in its correct condition.

He thought: the honest room holds the thinking that cannot happen in the wrong room.

He thought about the conversations Raymond was describing — the conversations of a different quality, the things the attending people had not found the right room for. He thought about all the attending people in all the wrong rooms across all the years — the between-time people without the between-time room, the sea children below the wrong sill, the corner children in the storage corner, Dorothy's eighty-three divided by the February sun line. He thought about all of them as people who had known what they needed and been given the wrong version, and he thought about the right room as the room in which the knowing could at last be expressed.

He thought: the right room releases what the wrong room has been holding.

He wrote to Raymond that evening. He wrote: the room holds the thinking that cannot happen in the wrong room. The right room releases what the wrong room has been holding. Frances: This is what I meant. The practice names the room the attending people have always known. You have completed the year of attending the weight-bearing room. The second winter is the winter. Thank you for waiting for the January sun line. Thank you for Arthur. Thank you for the conversations of a different quality. The between-time building is doing the work the correspondence prepared it for.

He wrote in the pocket notebook: Raymond's second letter. The knowing winter — the body calibrated to the room across the full year. Waiting for the January sun line the way one waits for the first frost. Frances bringing Arthur: this is what I meant — the room as its own most accurate description. The practice names the room the attending people have always known. The room holding the thinking — conversations of a different quality, the things not found the right room for until now. The right room releases what the wrong room has been holding. The between-time building doing its work.

He sat with the letter and the notebook for a while in the April evening. The light had gone from the drawing board. The April evening in the dark office.

He thought about Raymond waiting for the January sun line. He thought about the body calibrated to the room. He thought about the year of the attending as the practice's deepest aspiration — the inside view across the full year — and he thought about Raymond having arrived at it, having completed it, the between-time builder waiting for the January sun line in the second winter with the same knowledge that the girl had brought to the first January flat grey at the corrected window.

He thought: the correspondents are teaching each other.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Two