Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Three: The Twelfth Solstice

The winter solstice arrived on a Sunday.

He sat at the south window of the flat with the tea and did not work. The twelfth solstice. He thought about the twelve years — the first solstice and the inability to work, the learning that the solstice required the stillness. He thought about twelve years of sitting at this window and looking at the city in the December light and thinking about the rooms.

He thought about the rooms.

He thought about the Farrow seat on the twelfth solstice — the fifth December of the Farrow house, the fifth year the stone lip had held the south light, the fifth year the warmth had been stored and returned. He thought about Owen and Miriam on the platform on the fifth December, the stone knowing five years, the material correspondence five years deep. He thought about the seat as more itself in its fifth December than in its first — the honest material accumulating the knowledge of the season, the correspondence deepened by the returning.

He thought about the library corner on the twelfth solstice. The Saturday programme not running — the corner in its solstice quiet, the north light steady. The five-year-old is not there. The five-year-old was now seven — he had kept track of the Thursdays, Ruth's messages continuing past the fifth year into the sixth and now into the corner of the seventh. He thought about the seven-year-old's three notebooks, still all three open on the angled seat on every Thursday, the drawing and the writing and the letters. He thought about what the letters said now — the seventh year of the correspondence, the body that had been in the corner since it was four years old, the correspondence so deep that the language had grown precise in ways he could not have anticipated in the first year.

Ruth had written two Thursdays before: the seven-year-old wrote to the corner today. She wrote: Dear corner, I have been with you for three years. I met you in January and February and March and April and May and June and September and October and November and December. I know you in all your months. I do not know you in July and August because the programme does not run in summer. I would like to get to know you in summer. I have drawn what I think the summer light might be in the corner but I have not been to you in summer and the drawing is a guess. I am sending you this letter to ask if you would tell me what the summer light is.

He had read this message twice and then a third time. He had written to Ruth: please tell her that the summer light in the corner comes from above rather than from the side. In summer the sun is high and the north window gives the ceiling rather than the floor. The corner is not lit from the left in summer — the north light in summer is the reflection of the high sun from the sky above, the room slightly brighter without the angle that makes the winter light quiet. The summer corner is less quiet than the winter corner.

He had thought about whether to say this. He had thought about the seven-year-old's drawing — the drawing of what she thought the summer light might be, the attending without direct knowledge, the inside view of a season not yet experienced. He had thought about whether the architect should answer the corner's question or whether the corner should answer in its own time.

He had decided to answer. He had decided that the seven-year-old's request — written to the corner, answered by the person who had drawn the corner — was the correspondence in its most complete form. The child writing to the room, the room's maker answering through Ruth, the chain complete in three.

Ruth had written: I told her. She sat for a long time with the information. Then she drew the summer corner in the notebook with the summer light from above. She added it to the drawings of the other months. She now has the corner in eleven months.

He thought about the corner in eleven months — the seven-year-old's inside view of the room across all but the two summer months, the drawing accumulating the seasonal knowledge of the corner the way the corner had been accumulating the knowledge of the seasons across three years.

He thought: she has drawn the year of the honest room.

He thought about the year of the honest room as the section's fullest form — not the December line and the June line and the equinox lines that the architect drew in the single section drawing, but the inside view drawn across every month of the year, each month's light in its own drawing, the room known in all its seasonal correspondence.

He thought: the seven-year-old has drawn the section the practice has been reaching toward.

He thought about the section as the inside view of the building's relationship with the light across the year — the Ellie-described purpose of the sun angle lines in the section drawing. He thought about the seven-year-old drawing the corner in eleven months as the full realization of the section's purpose — the inside view of the light in every season, the room known from all the way in across the full year.

He thought: the corner has been teaching her the full section for three years.

He looked at the south window. The twelfth solstice light at its lowest angle, the noon sun on the floor of the flat. He thought about the December line in the community centre's weight-bearing room — the light on the temporary floor in the photograph Colin had sent, the section confirmed. He thought about the community centre knowing its first December without the people yet — the light on the floor and no one to receive it.

He thought about the correspondence between the building and December that ran without witness. He thought about the honest room's correspondence with the seasons as the correspondence that continued whether or not the attending person was present. He thought about the corner on this solstice Saturday — the north light steady on the empty seat, the room in its December without the seven-year-old.

He thought: the honest room corresponds with the season in absence.

He thought about the seven-year-old's question — I would like to know you in summer — as the question the honest room answers in its own time. He thought about July and August, the two months the seven-year-old had not been in the corner. He thought about the corner corresponding with July and August without her, the summer light from above hitting the ceiling, the room in its summer version attended to by no one from the programme.

He thought: the honest room holds the summer even when no one attends to it.

He thought: the room's correspondence with the seasons does not require the attending person. The person's correspondence with the room does.

He thought about this distinction. He thought about the room corresponding with December on the solstice, the light on the floor, the December given. He thought about the person needing to be in the room to receive the December — the attending body required for the correspondence to be completed. He thought about the room holding the December in readiness, the light tracing the solstice line across the empty floor, waiting.

He thought: the room holds the correspondence in waiting. The person completes it.

He thought about the community centre's first between-time gathering — the room holding the December light in waiting until the first person entered and looked at the floor and completed the correspondence. He thought about Raymond on the first December of the opening — the sixty-three-year-old who had been attending to the between-time for thirty years, now in the room that held the December light at the level of the seated body.

He thought: Raymond will complete the correspondence.

He thought about Raymond completing the correspondence as the correct arrival — the person who had always known the between-time finding the room that had been drawn for it, the body and the prepared room meeting at the correspondence point of the December light on the floor.

He thought: this is the confirmation. Not the planning consent and not the practical completion. The first December light on the floor with the attending body.

He was glad.

He was, in the weight of the twelfth solstice and the room holding the December in waiting and Raymond not yet in the room and the seven-year-old knowing eleven months and July and August still to come and the community centre's first December on the temporary floor and all the honest rooms in their shortest day holding the correspondence in waiting for the attending body to complete it, glad.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Three