“I remember that it was evening, and it was getting dark. My mother was sitting with me in the sandpit, building a sandcastle. She had brought a flat piece of wood with her and she used it as a roof on the first level of the tower to build a second storey on. She had brought a little pail of water with her, that helped, but still, the tower was a miracle: on the second floor one could see into the room through the door and out through the window on the other side. She worked with utter concentration, and was lost in the project as though I wasn’t there. Still, I was totally happy. She was with me and only with me; she was doing something for me and me alone. By the time it got dark, she was done. The street lights came on, gas lanterns giving off a soft light, and we sat and looked at the castle. I’m sure it had a rampart and one or two other buildings, but the thing I remember most clearly is the tower with two storeys, and I saw Rapunzel roll down her hair and the prince climb up to her. Then I looked up, and a little blonde girl was standing next to me. She was looking at the castle too, with bright blue-gray eyes and with an awestruck, slightly crooked smile.”

“You just made that up.” Irene reproached me gently.

“Yes. The strange thing is, now I wonder if I made up the whole story. There really was a playground, but why do I have no other memories of playing with my mother, at home or outside, and why would she have done it that particular evening? She was not especially good with her hands, she was impatient, far too impatient to build a two-storey tower out of sand. Sometimes she would read me fairy tales. Did I imagine a fairy tale of my own? But that evening is in my memory, not as fantasy but reality, and I can see it all before me, clear as day: the sandpit, my mother in a blue dress, the castle in the twilight, then in the dark, then in the light of the gas lanterns.”

“How old were you when your mother died?”

“Four. It couldn’t have been long after that.”

“How did she die?”

“She drove into a tree.”

Irene looked at me as if she was waiting for me to say more.

“She was a good driver. Sometimes she would take me with her, I would sit or stand next to her on the passenger seat. There were no seatbelts or booster seats back then, and I loved it when she drove fast. I felt completely safe.”

Irene was still waiting.