I stood up and stepped over Marlies toward him. Frederik’s head was right next to Selma’s open bedroom door. I closed it, sat down, and leaned against it.

“You’re not at all blurry, Luisa,” Frederik said softly without looking at me. “You are crystal clear.”

“You are blurry,” I whispered.

Frederik nodded and ran a hand over his bald head. “And drawing a blank as well,” he whispered back.

I thought of my first telephone conversation with him, how he helped me get unstuck. “Your name is Frederik. You’re actually from Hessen. You’re now thirty-five years old. You live in a Buddhist monastery in Japan. A few of the monks there are so old, they probably knew Buddha personally. They taught you how to clean, how to sit, how to sow and reap, how to be silent. You always know what needs to be done. You’re actually always doing fine. And most important, you know how to welcome your thoughts. That’s a trick that no one here has mastered as well as you. You can say one thousand years at sea, one thousand years in the mountains in Japanese. You’re almost always hungry. You can’t bear to see something stand crookedly. It’s very important to you that everything be in its place. You’re nine thousand kilometers away. You’re seated at a banquet table across from me.”

Frederik slipped his arm out from under his head, pulled me to him, and rested his forehead against mine. “I love you, too, Luisa, and have for a very long time now,” he said softly. “Maybe not for a thousand years, but close. It’s easier to see from the other end of the world. And now I’m afraid my entire life will be upended.” He studied me and looked like the most exhausted person in the world. “Three meetings are enough to know it’s forever,” he whispered, “you can believe me.”

The completely swaddled Marlies sat up abruptly. “Could you two stop?” she asked loudly, waking the optician.

“Is it morning already?” he asked, confused, groping for his glasses.

“No,” I said, “it’s still night.”

Marlies fell backward onto her mattress. The optician laboriously made himself comfortable. Frederik turned off the light above him on the coffee table. We looked at each other even though we couldn’t see one another.

“I’m going to sleep now,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve slept for three days.”