BY ØSTERPORT STATION, where the train tracks run underground alongside the park Østre Anlæg, the trees shone white with flowers against a carpet of green and small dots of yellow. Branches of half-open flower buds pointed eagerly up at the sky, defying gravity, and their scent filled the whole area. The white ones must be mirabelle plum trees because it was too early for bird cherry or hawthorn, and the yellow, forsythia. Early spring blossoms were covering the city. It was more than life-affirming, it was pure-happiness heroin.

Esther de Laurenti breathed in the scent. She had turned seventy, and with every passing year, as she moved closer to the end of life, the arrival of spring felt like winning the lottery. She pulled on the single dog leash with only one pug at the end and felt a little stab of pain. Twelve-year-old Epistéme had caught a cold over the winter, and the cold had turned into encephalitis, which the pug hadn’t been able to shake. Now only Dóxa was left. She had whimpered at the loss of her partner for a few weeks, then it had subsided. Now she trotted down the path in fine form, without any visible signs of grief. Strange how death could come so close without leaving any serious harm behind.

Esther bent down to scratch the dog behind the ears and continued her walk past the National Gallery, along the Botanical Garden, and to the Lakes. The sun was reflected brightly on the water, forcing her to squint her eyes to narrow slits. She smiled at a group of young people sitting on a bench, holding beer cans, their eyes luminous. Copenhagen is at its best right when it wakes from its winter hibernation, she thought, unlike us humans, who have to go through countless morning rituals before we’re good for anything at all.

Gregers, her eighty-five-year-old housemate and friend, was a prime example of a slow starter. Sometimes he would sit in the kitchen of their place on Peblinge Dossering, grumpy till almost noon. And it was only getting worse with age. As time passed he moved less and complained more. He still walked to the bakery on Blågårdsgade every day for exercise, but even so he was losing weight, the flesh melting away from his once strong bones, and his mood rarely made it above freezing point.