I was caught up in myself because I had to deal with Mr. Rödder. I had started an apprenticeship with him despite my father’s recommendation that I move abroad for a time or at the very least to a big city, because, he explained, you only become someone when you’ve been away. Instead of moving far away, I stuck around. I moved to the county seat, into a one-room apartment, and into Mr. Rödder’s bookstore.

“Oh well,” my father said over the phone, “you’re not made for adventure. Neither you nor Alaska.”

Selma was caught up in herself because she had started to suffer from rheumatism. Her joints were slowly becoming deformed, especially the knuckles on her left hand. After the diagnosis my father had called from some coastal city or other and said that rheumatism wouldn’t be an issue if Selma would just let more of the world in. He’d called to ask Dr. Maschke about Selma, and Dr. Maschke, in his leather jacket, which you could even hear creak over the phone, said that you get rheumatism from trying to hold on to things that are impossible to hold. Selma had switched the receiver from her left hand, which was starting to become deformed, to her right, and asked my father to finally, finally stop pestering her about the world, and my father hung up on her.

We searched for Alaska the entire day. Marlies had joined in at first; Elsbeth had talked her into it for the fresh air, which would surely do her good.

Marlies turned around after ten minutes. “The dog’s gone,” she’d said, “deal with it.”

We combed the forest, clambered over roots and rotten tree trunks. We bent back low-hanging branches, calling Alaska’s name continuously. I followed Selma, Elsbeth, and the optician. Selma had linked arms with the optician, and Elsbeth walked at Selma’s right in her worn-down pumps. All three were in their seventies. The week before we had celebrated my twenty-second birthday. The optician had passed his finger through the birthday candle flames. “How can anyone be so young?” he had asked.

“I have no idea,” I’d answered, even though the optician had only asked rhetorically.

Alaska was already much older than a dog should be. Selma had recently seen a television documentary about criminals who stole dogs to turn them into what she called “animal experiments.” Selma was very worried.

“I don’t believe anyone would want to turn Alaska into an animal experiment,” Elsbeth said. “What test could they run on such an old dog?”

“The secret of immortality,” Selma said.