An extract from On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland

 1 # 121 

There is someone in the house. Heard as he moves around the room upstairs. When he gets out of bed or when he goes down the stairs and into the kitchen. There’s the gush of water through the pipes when he fills a kettle. The sound of metal on metal when he sets the kettle on the stove and the very faint click when he turns on the gas. Then there’s a pause until the water comes to the boil. There’s the rustle of tea leaves and paper as first one, then another spoonful of tea leaves is taken from a paper bag and poured into the teapot, then the sound of water being poured over the tea leaves, but such sounds can only be heard in the kitchen. I can hear the fridge being opened, because the door bumps against a corner of the worktop. Then there’s another pause, while the tea steeps and in a moment I’ll hear the chink of a cup and saucer being taken from the cupboard. I don’t hear the sound of the tea being poured into the cup, but I can hear footsteps moving from the kitchen to the living room as he carries the cup of tea through the house. His name is Thomas Selter. The house is a two-storey stone cottage on the outskirts of the town of Clairon-sous-Bois in northern France. No one enters the back room overlooking the garden and a woodpile.

It is the eighteenth of November. I have got used to that thought. I have got used to the sounds, to the grey morning light and to the rain that will soon start to fall in the garden. I have got used to footsteps on the floor and doors being opened and closed. I can hear Thomas going from the living room to the kitchen and putting the cup down on the worktop and before long I hear him in the hall. I hear him take his coat from its peg and I hear him drop his umbrella on the floor and pick it up.  

Once Thomas has gone out into the November rain there is silence in the house. Broken only by my own sounds and the soft patter of rain outside. There is the scratch of pencil on paper and the scrape of the chair on the floor when I push it back and get up from the table. There are the sounds of my footsteps as I cross the room and the very slight creak of the door handle when I open the door into the hall.  

I open the window and throw out some bread for the birds that will soon be gathering in the garden. They show up when there is a break in the rain. First the blackbirds, who peck at the last apples on the apple tree or the bread I’ve thrown out, and then a lone robin. Moments later a long-tailed tit flies down, closely followed by some great tits who are promptly seen off by the blackbirds. Shortly afterwards the rain comes on again. The blackbirds carry on feeding for a little while longer, but when the rain gets heavier they fly off to take shelter in the hedge.  

Thomas has lit a fire in the living room. He has brought in wood from the garden shed and I soon start to feel the house growing warmer. I heard the sounds from the hall and the living room, but now that Thomas is sitting reading, all I can hear is my pencil on the paper, a whisper, soon eclipsed by the sound of the rain.  

I have counted the days and if my calculations are correct today is the eighteenth of November # 121. I keep track of the days. I keep track of the sounds in the house. When it is quiet I do nothing. I lie down and rest on the bed or I read a book, but I make no sound. Or hardly any. I breathe. I get 5 up and tiptoe about the room. The sounds carry me around. I sit on the bed or gently pull the chair out from the table by the window.  

In the middle of the afternoon Thomas puts on some music in the living room. First I hear him in the hall and the kitchen. I hear him putting a kettle on the gas ring, hear his footsteps on the floor as he goes back through to the living room and puts on the music. Then I know it will soon clear up. The clouds will pass and there will be a glimmer of sunshine.  

I usually get ready to go out as soon as the music starts. I get up and put on my coat and my boots. I stand by the door for a few moments until the music is so loud that I can leave the house without being heard, the strains issuing from the living room masking the sound of doors being opened, of footsteps on the floor and doors being closed.  

I leave the house by the garden door. I slip my bag over my shoulder, softly open the guest-room door, step into the hall and close it behind me. On the floor are three medium-sized envelopes and four brown cardboard parcels with our name on them: T. & T. Selter. That’s us. We deal in antiquarian books, specialising in illustrated works from the eighteenth century. We buy the books at auction, from private collectors or other booksellers and then sell them on, sending them off in brown parcels bearing our name. I slip silently past the parcels on the floor, open the door and step outside. I don’t 6 need an umbrella. It is still raining slightly, but it won’t be long before it stops completely. I don’t take the garden path leading up to the gate, instead I turn left and go around the side of the house, past the shed and on down to a corner of the garden that can’t be seen from the house. I pass a plot of leeks and two rows of Swiss chard and come to a gap in the fence which brings me out onto the road. I glance back briefly. I see a thin trail of smoke coiling up from the chimney, hear the very faint sound of music, but I hurry on. A few steps further and I can hear neither music nor rain because the rain has stopped, the music has been left behind me and the only sounds are my footsteps on the pavement, the rumble of a few cars and the distant voices of children at a school some streets away.