“I wanted to ask you a quick question,” he said, giving me a sideways glance. “Is it true that something can disappear if we try to see it, but can’t disappear if we don’t try to see it?”

I kicked the optician’s shin under the table.

“I’m not at all interested in this from a Buddhist point of view,” he added quickly, “but purely for professional reasons.”

Frederik wiped his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said, “I’ll have to think about it.”

Selma pointed at the window through which we could see three silhouettes with umbrellas climbing the hill: Elsbeth, the shopkeeper, and Palm.

Selma opened the door.

“Hello,” Elsbeth said, handing her a blender. “I wanted to finally return your blender. I happened to be in the neighborhood. ”

“That’s right. We brought ice cream, too,” the shopkeeper said, standing behind Elsbeth with an enormous wrapped tray.

Selma stepped aside and the three came into the kitchen one after the other. I scooted closer to the optician and no longer felt sure that it really was a good idea to let more of the world in. The optician smiled at me.

“Buddhism is also about unconditionally accepting every experience life brings,” he whispered.

Elsbeth was dressed to the nines. She wore a black dress with enormous purple flowers and a purple hat with a little black veil and a bunch of violets on the brim. Frederik stood up and Elsbeth offered him her hand.

“So there you are,” she said, beaming. “We’ve all been eagerly waiting to meet you.”

“Thank you,” Frederik said. “What a lovely hat.”

Elsbeth blushed. “You think so?” she asked, and put her hand on the violets. “By the way, did you know that smelling violets either gives you freckles or makes you crazy?”

“Elsbeth, please,” I whispered, and she flushed even deeper.

“At least, that’s what some people say,” she added quickly. “Personally, I would never, that is, I think it’s . . .”

Elsbeth looked around, hoping that someone would help her get out of the sentence, but no one knew how.

“Aside from that, we’re experiencing a lot of turbulence with the preparations for the Christmas party in the community center. We’re wondering whether it would be better to hold it in the afternoon or the evening. It’s all . . .” Elsbeth looked as if she were trying to remember something learned long ago by heart. “Really very interesting.”

Frederik bent forward and sniffed the bunch of violets.

“I’m hoping for freckles,” he said. “What’s in that package?”

“Good afternoon,” the shopkeeper said, and pushed past Elsbeth. “I’m the shopkeeper.”

He unwrapped the cardboard tray, which held seven sundaes decorated with paper umbrellas.