September 2013

September 2013 is a recurring narrative time marker for scenes of recognition and departure. The month appears over separate chapters rather than as a precisely dated sequence, placing Pirjo’s assessment of a distressed caller alongside Wanda’s decision to leave her work and pursue a new life centered on Atu.

Narrative Placement

The month heading introduces one scene in which Pirjo handles a phone call from Lionel and another in which Wanda walks away from her job at Victoria Embankment Gardens. Together, the scenes give September a transitional quality: one character reads another person’s uncertainty as an opening, while another turns a private attachment into a decisive break with her former routine.

Pirjo and Lionel

Pirjo immediately detects that Lionel’s voice is trembling. His nervousness, shaken manner, and uncertainty prompt her to consider him potentially valuable. She responds warmly, complimenting his name and asking what she can do for him. The scene sets her attentive reading of vulnerability against her calculation of its possible usefulness; September marks not simply an encounter, but Pirjo’s recognition of an opportunity.

Wanda’s Departure

Wanda does not give notice. She throws her cap on the floor, says goodbye to the woman at the control, and slips out. Her departure brings immediate relief: the worries associated with wasted days and the park’s sound fall away, and she sees the world opening before her as one of the chosen few. The decision is tied to her belief in a future with Atu. Since he caressed her cheek and called her his flower, leaving her briefly powerless and senseless before she recovered to find herself captivated by his eyes and the touch of his lips on her hand, she has imagined him as the future she dreamed of. September therefore captures the moment when that attachment becomes a plan—and when Wanda acts on it by leaving her job.