Well, what does thinking mean? It’s really the wrong word. She finds herself in an extraordinary situation. Just thinking of Peter’s name causes excitement. Anyway. It’s a different feeling than those she knows. If Hannah were to describe the most recent weeks of her life, it’s possible that somebody might be interested, an old man with pigeons or whatever, then Hannah would say the following: “So,” she’d say. “You have to imagine that it’s almost never really light. Not dark either, no black and white, a dull light, a little musty in the hall, we lay on our beds, there’s always music playing. Grime has changed. They rhyme things with words like spring. Or love. Or Rolex. It seems as if there aren’t any gangsters anymore, no hate, no youth so angry about the world that they can only become criminals and rhyme about that, as if they’ve all become volunteers at the soup kitchen and have ponies on a farm they visit on weekends. What the fuck has happened?” Whenever Hannah thinks words like fuck, or shit or pig, it stings her brain.

“And what else?” the unknown listener would ask. “What else has happened in your new life?”