She looked at the many crinkled, dusky pink wrappers on her lap.

“The problem, of course, is that he needs to be here for all these to work. But we can manage that, too. If you put three brooms in the oven, you’ll have visitors. That is: specific visitors, too.”

“A shooting star,” Selma said, and we looked up.

“All that about shooting stars is nonsense, by the way,” Elsbeth said. “They’re no help at all.”

“I think there’s only one thing to do,” Selma said. “Whether or not you’re willing to affirm it, you’ll still have to tell him goodbye.”

The optician cleared his throat. “Frankly, I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this matter,” he murmured.

“And we all love him,” Elsbeth added.

“True, but nevertheless,” Selma said.

“Did you know,” the optician asked, looking at his book, “that we’re all just ephemeral protrusions in time?”

“What does that have to do with this?” Elsbeth asked, putting all the wrappers in an empty flowerpot.

Then no one said anything. We sat in silence, looking up at the sky, in which five more useless shooting stars fell toward us.

Only Elsbeth was not looking up. She looked at me and saw that tears were filling my eyes again because of the stupid affirmation, because of the unimaginable transformation.

We can do all sorts of things with love. We can hide it more or less well, we can drag it behind us, we can lift it over our heads, we can bury it in the ground and send it up to heaven. And love always cooperates, forbearing and amenable as it is. But we cannot change it.

Elsbeth gently swept a lock of hair from my forehead. She put her arm around my shoulder and softly said, “If you eat a bat’s heart, you’ll no longer feel pain.”

Then she stood up.

“I have to go. I’ve got to leave for town very early.”

Plump & Chic’s clearance sale was starting the next day.

“See you tomorrow,” we said as Elsbeth, an ephemeral protrusion in time wearing worn-down pumps, turned and left.

“Maybe I can find a rooster tongue,” we heard her murmur.

Selma stroked my back. “You should probably cut and run, Luisa.”

Selma and the optician looked at each other over my head. They were well versed in the unchangeable nature of love.

NO NEW INFORMATION

All night I found it impossible to give my affirmation and I wondered how one cuts and runs. The next morning, in the bookstore, I was still wondering how exactly you cut and run even as I alphabetized the special-order books by customer name. Mr. Rödder tapped me on the shoulder. “Since when does F come before A?” he asked. Then the front door was thrown open and the optician rushed in.

“Elsbeth has had an accident,” he said.