“Dr. Maschke will laugh himself silly when I tell him about it.”

“How nice that you entertain Dr. Maschke so well.”

My father sighed. “I wanted to talk with you about something completely different,” he said, and added in a louder voice, “Come here, Luisy, I have something to tell you both.”

I had toweled off Alaska all over, but he was still dripping. I thought of what the sentence “I have something to tell you” introduced in Selma’s television series. We’re bankrupt; I’m leaving you; Matthew is not your son; William is clinically dead; we’re going to unplug the machines.

I went into the kitchen with the dog. My father was sitting on a stool. Selma was leaning on the kitchen table. “Alaska is still dripping,” she said.

“Do you remember Otto?” my father asked.

“Of course,” we said.

Otto was the retired mailman who died after Selma’s dream because he had completely stopped moving.

“Here’s the thing,” my father said. “I think I’m going to give it all up. Probably. I’m going on a long trip.”

“And when will you be back?” I asked.

“And where will you go?” Selma asked.

“Out into the world,” he said. “To Africa or Asia or somewhere.”

“Or somewhere,” Selma echoed. “And when?”

“I don’t know yet,” my father said, “I’m still thinking it over. I’m just letting you know that I’m considering it.”

“And why?” Selma asked. This was an unusual question. When someone says he’s going on a trip around the world, usually no one asks why. No one needs to explain why he wants to get out into the world.

“Because I don’t want to rot in this backwater,” he said.

“Thanks very much,” Selma said.

Alaska was still dripping. I suddenly felt very tired. As if I hadn’t just returned from the bathroom but from a day’s journey, a long day’s journey with piles and piles of luggage.

I tried to think of how I could persuade my father to stay.

“But it’s so beautiful here,” I finally said, “we live in a glorious symphony of green, blue, and gold.”

That’s what the optician said sometimes. We lived in a picturesque area, in a gorgeous, heavenly area, as was written in elegant script on the postcards displayed on the counter of the general store. Yet hardly anyone in the village noticed. We overlooked and ignored the beauty that surrounded us—we gave it the cold shoulder—but we’d be the first to complain vociferously if the beauty in our surroundings failed to show up one day. The only one who occasionally felt pangs of conscience over our daily neglect of beauty was the optician. He would stop short, up in the Uhlheck, for example, and put his arms around Martin’s and my shoulders.