Petra asks her first question at the south wall on Wednesday morning and it is not the question I expected.
I expected something about Marre, about the network, about the proceeding and the instrument and the full complicated architecture of what we have all been living inside for months. I expected the operational question, the one that establishes the facts before the feelings, the approach I use myself when a significant thing has arrived and needs to be made manageable.
Instead she says: "What was she like? Vera. What was she like to you?"
I look at the territory.
The thin snow on the ground. The bare eastern trees. The specific, decided cold of a November morning that is not asking permission.
"I did not know her," I say. "She left when I was four. I have no memory of her that I
