“I know, and I’m very sorry.”

The door chimes jingled.

“Customer,” Mr. Rödder said.

“Maybe you could consider it,” I said.

“Customer,” Mr. Rödder repeated.

We struggled through all the broken objects and climbed over Alaska to the door that didn’t shut completely or open fully.

The optician was standing next to the door, and when he saw us coming he grabbed a book from a stack of new titles and came up to us.

“Good evening,” he said to Mr. Rödder. “I simply must tell you that your colleague always gives me excellent recommendations.”

“I see,” Mr. Rödder said.

“She knows exactly what I want before I do,” the optician said. He was wearing the Employee of the Month badge on his sweater vest.

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

“Aren’t you the optician from Luisa’s village?” Mr. Rödder asked suspiciously. “You two know each other personally, don’t you?”

“Vaguely,” the optician said. “What I wanted to tell you is that your colleague reads me like an open book.”

“We’re closing now,” I said, pushing the optician toward the door.

In the doorway, the optician turned to Mr. Rödder. “No one has ever given me as many exceptional recommendations as she has. And I’ve been given a lot of recommendations in my life,” he said, and I pushed him out onto the sidewalk.

“Thanks,” I said outside, “but that wasn’t necessary.”

The optician beamed at me. “Good idea, wasn’t it? I’m sure it worked.”

That evening I unlocked the door to my apartment, went into the kitchen with Alaska, and hid his evening pill in a ball of liverwurst. The answering machine light was blinking. Its display showed five new messages. The answering machine actually should have been in Mr. Rödder’s back room with all the other broken things. It always showed many more new messages than there actually were. The answering machine regularly hung up on callers after a few seconds, said connections were maintained that weren’t, and repeated three times that a message was done at the end.

“You have forty-seven new messages,” the answering machine announced. The first was from my father. The connection was terrible.

“The connection is terrible,” he said from somewhere far away. The farther away he was, the more his voice echoed, as if he were in an empty room that kept getting bigger.

I could not understand much of what he said and only caught “in touch” and “Alaska.” I didn’t know if he meant the place or the dog because the answering machine cut my father off and announced the next message.

“Werner Palm here,” Palm said. Then he paused as if giving the answering machine a chance to greet him by name. “I just wanted to ask if you were coming this weekend. As always, I wanted to wish you—” Palm said, and the answering machine cut him off.