I thought of the station clock, under which the optician taught us to tell time and about time zones. I thought about all the time in the world, all the time zones I’d had anything to do with, and of the two watches on my father’s wrist. That’s real life, I thought, the whole expanse of life, and after the seventh point in the instruction manual, I crumpled it up and kept assembling without it. In the end, I had a bookshelf that stood relatively straight.

On the way to the bookstore, I stopped in the ice-cream parlor. “What’ll it be?” Alberto asked.

“I’d like a large Secret Love,” I said.

The photography book for Selma’s eightieth birthday was one about Iceland, and she didn’t ask the optician any questions.

The optician had been glad it was about Iceland because he knew Selma would like it. Iceland was pleasant and the people there believed outlandish things. Elsbeth would have liked it, too.

“You’re not asking me about any words,” the optician said.

“I’m not reading any,” Selma said, and smiled. “I’m much too excited.”

Selma had put on lipstick and mascara. Her cheeks were rosy, and she looked incredibly young.

And then, when we heard the first guests outside—the entire village comes to an eightieth birthday party—Selma snapped the book shut.

CHASING AWAY THE DEER

“Well?” Mr. Rödder asked after we had squeezed our way through the door into the back room of the shop. “Have you considered it?”

“No, but you’re still around,” I said.

Mr. Rödder balanced on his tiptoes. “Yes, well,” he said, looking at me gravely, “when you saw away at a tree and it falls over, you can’t say: ‘It will only really be felled once it’s lying on the ground.’ It’s already falling.”

“Are you not well?”

“I am valiantly striding toward the age of sixty-five,” he murmured. “At that age, you can say you feel the saw.”

He was right, but it didn’t change the fact that he would go on well past sixty-five. Mr. Rödder would even make it to 101 and would do so valiantly. He would reach such an advanced age the local newspaper would ask him for the secret of his indestructible health, and Mr. Rödder would answer: “I suppose it’s the violet pastilles.”

“Mr. Rödder,” I said, “I need a few days off.”

“Visitor from Japan?”

“No, but my grandmother’s not very well.”

“Oh, of course you can have time off. And please give your grandmother my best, even though we’ve never met.”