“As we all do from time to time.” These days Esther’s own thoughts circled constantly around death and its rituals, but it wasn’t a topic she usually discussed with him. “Do you mean something specific?”

“I think I’m on my way.”

At first she didn’t understand what he meant, but the look in his eyes caused the penny to drop.

“Gregers, knock it off! You’re not dying.”

“Oh, little Esther, I’m eighty-five years old. No matter how you reckon it, it can’t be that far off. But it’s about more than my age. I can sort of feel it coming.”

Esther sat down and poured them both some wine. His words scared her. Death was only fascinating when it struck far away, not when it came inside one’s own front door. But if he felt the need to talk about it, she wouldn’t let him down.

“Come, have a seat, my friend. Tell me what you’ve been thinking.”

He sat down and accepted the glass she offered, then gazed at it, as if he didn’t quite understand what it was, and set it down on the coffee table.

“I’m no longer sure where the boundary is between my thoughts and reality. I have some dreams that feel so real that they frighten me. For example, we’re sitting here in your living room. That’s real, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Is anyone else here besides us?”

“No, Gregers.”

“Inger isn’t here?”

Esther had to think carefully before she remembered that Inger was Gregers’s ex-wife, with whom he had had zero contact in more than twenty years.

“No, Inger isn’t here.”

“She said it was going to be afternoon at the summer house. We had this lovely little summer house up near Nykøbing Sjælland, when the kids were small. Nothing fancy, but we loved it there. One of the worst parts about getting divorced was that we had to sell that place. Well, anyway Inger said it is afternoon and the sun is shining. We have had beer and schnapps for lunch and I’m lying in the hammock.”

Esther interrupted gently, “Is this something that did happen, or what?”

He waved her question away, annoyed.

“This is how it’s going to happen. Anyway, so there I am, lying in the hammock with a bit of a buzz. The kids are playing in the yard, and the dog is alive again and has dragged a bunch of sand into the house. The sun hits my face, someone laughs somewhere, maybe it’s me.”

He paused and reached for his wine. His voice sounded choked up.

“She comes over to the hammock and takes my hand and kisses me. I close my eyes.”

Gregers drank and closed his eyes.

“Then I let go.”

JEPPE STROLLED FROM National Hospital by the Lakes to Nørreport Station.