When Andreas gave me a kiss on the forehead one morning before he drove to work, a cursory kiss, like the ones the characters in Selma’s series, all of whom by now had been played by multiple actors, gave each other, I told him we had to break up. Andreas put down his backpack and looked at me, not at all surprised, as if he had been expecting it for a long time. “And why?” he asked nevertheless, before listing all the plans he’d made for us. “Why?” he asked again, and because nothing better occurred to me, I said, “Because I’m made to travel the seven seas.”

Andreas took from my desk the gift certificate for the trip to the seaside that he’d given me and I still hadn’t redeemed.

“You didn’t even want to travel to one sea,” he objected.

Then Andreas left, and I didn’t stick my foot in the door as he closed it.

I felt dizzy. I had rarely opposed anything that was happening to me.

While I was considering what to do next, I noticed I was holding a butter knife as I stood in front of the bookshelf that had not been unpacked for eight years. I cut open the packaging. The assembly instructions included twenty-six steps, but I still gave it a try. And while I was assembling the bookshelf, I  hought of Frederik’s letter in which he’d asked what real life was in my opinion. I thought of Martin and the fogged-up window he had leaned against with his eyes closed in intense concentration, also of the strand of hair on his head that never stayed combed down. I thought of Elsbeth’s hydrangea-like swim cap, of Mr. Rödder’s breath that smelled of violets, of Selma’s old skin that looked like bark. I thought of the table in Alberto’s ice-cream parlor at which I’d been rewarded with a small Secret Love the first time I read the sugar packet horoscope aloud by myself. I thought of Alaska and how he lifted his head when he left a room, how he weighed whether it was worth getting up and coming with us, and how he usually decided it was. I thought of the optician, who, all his life, was always ready to help others. I thought of Palm, of Palm’s wild eyes when I was young, and of Palm now, how he nodded and said nothing, nodded and said nothing.