Feierabend

Alexander I. Potsdam, in the Kingdom of Prussia. Wednesday, 2 May 2029.

The small observatory from which Alexander keeps his astronomical records stands there, and much of what remains of an ordinary adolescence is lived in its grounds rather than under the attention that follows him in the capital.

The Universal Register: Alexander I

The observatory, Potsdam Wednesday 2 May, nearly midnight

Dear Frederick,

I watched it at four, on Jakub’s laptop, in the school library, with Lukas, in the corner by the atlases where we watched the Reichstag. The sound was very small. You said them in your own voice. I could hear that it was your voice even through a laptop, and I could hear that you had decided where to look, and I would like to know, one day, what it was. I did not know what to do with my hands. I have been telling you for six months what to do with yours.

You went first. That was the arrangement. It is the only arrangement I have ever made that went exactly as arranged.

It is clear tonight. Arcturus is high and very orange, and Vega is up in the east, which means the summer is coming whether anybody has voted on it or not. Andromeda is under the trees in the north, the wrong season, lower than at Easter. It will be up before morning. It is still there. I checked, before Lukas went down, with the red torch on the chart, and he said I did not need to check, and I said I know, and checked.

Lukas went down at eleven, when the guard passed the ladder. Mama tried very hard not to make supper an occasion, and failed, and I let her fail, which I think is the first thing I have done tonight that I was sure was right.

This is the hour I told you about. Feierabend. The hour when the work is over. Tonight it is the hour before it starts, and I do not think there is a word for that, in German or in English, and I have looked.

I wanted to write you a proper letter. I have been planning it since Easter. It had parts, and an order, and a joke about the hat that I have been saving since November. I am not going to write it. I will write it next week, when I have something to tell you that I decided myself.

The other thing I wanted to say is

It is late. The work starts tomorrow. I will send this as it is.

Alexander