“No, it’s not too many. Helmut was like East Germany. I liked that he was reliable and caring, if maybe a little paternalistic. The way I felt about you – I can’t recall. Are you petty?”

What a question! I take things seriously, sometimes too seriously, I aim for precision in everything I do, sometimes too much precision: again and again I have difficulty understanding why people become emotional in difficult situations instead of solving the problem rationally; and I find it’s often the little things that people stumble over, that cause them to fail. But I don’t split hairs, or bear grudges, and I’m not cheap. Petty?

I left the question unanswered and drove with Irene over the Rocky Mountains. We saw a lot of forest, calm and wild rivers, water that fell from high cliffs – from afar, a silver beam, up close a tumbling, spraying roar – the snow on the peaks, the quick-changing weather, the terrible thunderstorms echoing off the mountains like the noise of a battle. I would have liked to rescue Irene from a bear, but we never met one, nor would I have known how if we had. Instead, a lost or abandoned dog joined us at a rest spot, a black thing, with white, spotted nose, chest and paws, anxious and trustingly demanding at the same time. It accompanied us everywhere, jumping and circling us. When we drove with the windows open, and Irene stretched her feet out the front window, it stuck its head out the rear one and couldn’t get enough of the smells of the world.

“What was its name?”

“I don’t know. You tell me!”

“Was it a he or a she?”

“A she.”

Irene fell asleep before she could tell me its name. Night was falling, but the heat didn’t lift – the dry, red-hot, parching heat that we had woken up to and fallen asleep with for days. I made gazpacho from canned tomatoes and Irene ate a few spoonfuls before she fell asleep again. I let her sleep on the balcony, and brought a mattress out for myself as well. It was no cooler than inside the house, but there was more air.