We did. We believed everything Selma said. When a suspicious-looking mole was found on her back some years before, Selma had written a card to a worried acquaintance the night before she received the biopsy results. “Everything went well,” Selma had written, and she had been right.

“But you dreamed about an okapi,” Martin said. “Someone is going to die.”

Selma sighed. She looked at the clock. It was almost six-thirty, and every evening at six-thirty Selma went for a walk in the Uhlheck, and had since she invented the world.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Even today?” we asked, because we were still afraid of a nonexistent hellhound or an impossible lightning strike.

“Especially today,” Selma said. “We’re not going to let anything stop us.”

It was dark in the Uhlheck. The wind blew through the trees. Martin and I held Selma’s hands. We didn’t talk. We especially didn’t talk about the fact that according to my calculations, Death only had eight hours left in which to strike. I counted off the hours on the fingers of my free hand and Selma pretended not to notice.

“What do you two want to be when you grow up?” she suddenly asked.

“A doctor,” I exclaimed.

“Oh Lord,” Selma said. “Still, better than a psychiatrist. And you?”

“The optician saw in his phoropter that I’ll be a weight lifter,” Martin said. “And it’s true.”

“Of course it’s true,” Selma said.

Martin looked up at her. “And you?” he asked.

Selma caressed Martin’s hair. “Maybe a veterinarian,” she said.

Martin picked up a stick that lay across the path. “You surely want to see exactly how Igor Nikitin was able to lift a hundred and sixty-five kilos,” he said.

Selma smiled. “Absolutely,” she said.

Martin pretended the stick bore a tremendous weight, lifted it over his head, held it there, his arms trembling, and let it fall. We clapped for a long time. Martin beamed and took a bow.

“Let’s go back,” Selma said after thirty minutes had passed and rain had begun to fall. We turned around. The way back was shrouded in darkness.

“Let’s play Hat, Stick, Umbrella; I’ll be last,” Selma said. We lined up in a row. “A hat, a stick, an umbrella,” we sang. “Forward, backward, sideways, stop.” We played the entire dark way home and arrived at Selma’s door before we knew it.

Selma pan-fried us some potatoes. Then she called Palm and asked if Martin could spend the night, but he wasn’t allowed, not even as an exception.

At two o’clock in the morning, Elsbeth climbed out of bed and dressed. She had been lying awake for hours and had made a decision.

She opened her front door and went out into the night, a tube of superglue and a roll of wire in one hand, the determination to save the optician in the other.