I feel so sad. Doesn’t she dare talk to us? Doesn’t she like being here? Does she miss her mum? How can I breathe some life into her?

‘You can talk to us about anything,’ I say, and again I feel like crying. Who am I to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t talk about? I’m ashamed. I don’t even glance at Pekka. Please, someone, say that to me. Go on, tell me everything, you can tell me everything.

‘Get dressed and we’ll go shopping,’ I say to the girl. Then I hand Pekka the washing.

‘Put them to soak, will you. Do you remember what towels Hannele used?’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, I just thought…I don’t want to intrude…’

‘Are you saying there’s something…hereditary about it?’

‘No, no,’ I answer.

Pekka looks at the shelf. Then he shakes his head. ‘They went to the dump. It might have been a purple pack?’

The girl and I get ready to go. She agrees to come with me and even allows me a little hug. She ties my shoelaces because I can’t reach them myself any more.

Pekka stays behind in the bathroom to do the laundry. I look at his back as he stands in front of the washbasin.

6

6

‘Good-bye, feet! Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can.’

In the last few days, I’ve been thinking back to Alice in Wonderland, a book we had on the shelf when I was a child. In the story, Alice went into the Rabbit’s house to fetch his fan and white gloves, but while inside, Alice got it into her head to drink from a bottle she found on the table. Then she began to grow. In the end she grew so big that she got stuck inside the house. The Rabbit raged outside and threatened to set the house on fire.

In the book’s black-and-white illustrations, Alice was ugly, with a big head. She wore children’s clothes but her face looked adult. And when she spoke, I felt like covering my ears or shutting my eyes because she drifted from one thing to another at random and annoyed everyone. Something about those pictures frightened me and made me feel sick, but I still kept looking at them.