“No,” Elsbeth said. She raised her hand to her neck and pressed the compress tighter. “I pretended I didn’t know what I knew. And now it’s too late.”

The optician knew this feeling well. He felt it every time he’d tried to hide his love for Selma from himself.

“There were a lot of sunflower-yellow notebooks, and even though I only read them once, I still know exactly what is in them. Often, when I’m lying in bed, I hear my inner voice reading from them.”

“What exactly does it read to you?” the optician asked.

“Things about the other woman.”

“Give me an example, just a sentence, if you want,” the optician proposed. “Then I’ll have the sentence. That way it can move in with me instead.”

Elsbeth closed her eyes and pressed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger as if she had a headache. Then she said: “Sex with Renata blows my mind.” At exactly that moment the doorbell rang, and the shopkeeper’s wife burst in. “Hi, there!” she called, and came up to them. “Oh, a vision test?”

“Of a kind,” the optician said.

Elsbeth said nothing because she was feverishly wondering if the shopkeeper’s wife had heard the last sentence and could be thinking that Elsbeth had had mind-blowing sex with some woman named Renata

The shopkeeper’s wife needed a new eyeglass chain. Fortunately, she quickly decided on one with rhinestones. “I’m going to the city tomorrow. To get my hair done. Could you watch Trixie tomorrow?” she asked Elsbeth.

Trixie was her terrier, and now Elsbeth was sure the shopkeeper’s wife hadn’t heard the sentence, because not in a million years would she leave her terrier with Elsbeth if she thought Elsbeth was having mind-blowing sex with some Renata or other.

“I’d be very happy to,” Elsbeth said.

“Assuming we’re all still alive tomorrow,” the shopkeeper’s wife said cheerily.

“That would be helpful,” the optician said, and opened the door for the shopkeeper’s wife. Then he sat back down on the desk across from Elsbeth.

The optician looked at Elsbeth as if he had all the time in the world for her. Even if he were the one to die that day, he still had all the time in the world in that moment.

He crossed his legs. “If you ask me: The fact that sex with Renata blew your husband’s mind doesn’t necessarily reflect on the quality of their relationship. Bashing someone on the head with a skillet also blows their mind.”

Elsbeth smiled. Her bound-up truth had been massive and very heavy. It still was, but it did her good to see that the optician could carry it so lightly.