When the books arrived, the optician sat down with them and a highlighter at Selma’s kitchen table. He read with intense concentration and marked many passages, murmuring all the while, “Selma, I’m telling you, this is all absolutely wonderful.”

Selma sat across from the optician. She had darned socks, filled out bank transfer forms, and was gluing stamps to envelopes, smoothing the stamps with the index finger on her crooked left hand. She always does everything as if for the first or last time, the optician thought. Then he said, “Did you know that there is no ‘I’? The so-called I is nothing but a swinging door through which the breath passes in and out?”

“You’re a swinging door with very red cheeks,” Selma replied.

“Just breathe,” the optician said.

“I’ve been breathing all my life.”

“Yes, but now do it right,” the optician said, and inhaled and exhaled deeply. “Here it says that every illumination begins and ends with cleaning the floor. Did you know that?”

“I didn’t know that, but I should certainly hope it would,” Selma said.

“And did you know that nothing is ever truly lost?”

Selma looked at the optician. Then she put the last stamped envelope on top of the others and stood up. “You know, I’ve got enough to do with Palm’s explications. It would be nice if you didn’t start explicating, too.”

“Sorry,” the optician said. He read further. “Just one more thing, Selma,” he said a minute later. “It’ll be very quick. Listen to this: When we look at something, it can disappear from our sight, but if we do not try to see this something, it cannot disappear. I don’t understand. Do you?”

“No,” Selma said, and added that it would be fine with her if the optician disappeared at this point, which couldn’t be all that difficult since he has no “I.” The optician, however, stayed where he was and kept underlining passages.

“When Luisa calls him, she absolutely must ask him what it means,” he murmured, and just then I telephoned Selma.

“Well? Have you called him yet?” she asked.

“Of course not,” I replied.

I hadn’t called Frederik yet because I was afraid I’d get stuck. With anything important, I always suddenly got stuck. I almost failed my graduation exam. I failed my first driving test: my mind stalled, so the car did, too. Mr. Rödder hired me despite my mind going blank during my interview; no one else had applied.

“I decided I’d rather call you,” I told Selma. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Selma said, “but the optician isn’t. He claims he’s a swinging door.”

“Tell her she should ask him about disappearing,” the optician called out.