It rained on Selma’s funeral, but only very lightly. The entire village came, and half of the neighboring village as well. My mother made the wreaths. During the brief address given by the pastor from the county seat, my mother and father held hands, because at a burial it’s natural for those who loved each other for a long time to hold hands, and for the duration of a funeral the fact that they no longer love each other is irrelevant.

As always, Alaska was overjoyed to see my father. He could not pull himself together at all and jumped up on my father again and again, his tail wagging wildly, and because he was an animal, we couldn’t explain that sometimes pure joy is not appropriate.

I stood between Palm and the optician. Palm looked completely scrubbed. His face was red and his blond hair was plastered onto his head, with one strand sticking up. It was hard to step close to Selma’s grave. It felt like we were wading in a river against the current. Palm threw a rose into the grave. The optician and I threw handfuls of dirt.

Afterward the village gathered in the community center. I’d baked for three days. There were piles of cake slices on high tables and I was embarrassed that they were so dry. The shopkeeper patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Since Selma’s dead, it’s very fitting that we all have a dull taste in our mouths.”

My mother was standing with my father at one of the high tables when Alberto joined them. He put his arm around my mother’s shoulders. I looked at my father. Apparently, the fact that two people who loved each other for a long time no longer do is really only irrelevant at the side of an open grave.

I sat down next to the optician on one of the wooden benches lining the walls. Palm sat on his left, holding a glass. We didn’t know if it contained more than just orange juice. I leaned against the optician’s shoulder and he rested his cheek on my head. We looked like the two little screech owls that had slept, huddled together in our chimney, every day one summer.

“Now we’re all alone,” I said.

The optician put his arm around me and pulled me closer. “No one is alone as long as he can still say we,” he whispered, then kissed the top of my head. “I’m going to get some fresh air, all right?”

I nodded.

“Come, Alaska,” he said, and Alaska slowly rose. It took a while for something that large and that ancient to stand all the way up.

The optician walked with Alaska to the end of the village and into the forest. There he lay down.