Except for Selma’s sister-in-law Elsbeth, people in the village were for the most part not superstitious. They blithely broke all of superstition’s rules: They sat calmly under wall clocks even though the superstitious can die from it. They slept with their heads toward the door, though superstition claimed they’d soon be carried out that very door feetfirst. They hung laundry to dry between Christmas and New Year’s, which, according to superstition, Elsbeth would remind them, amounts to suicide or accessory to murder. They were not frightened when owls hooted, when a horse in the stall broke into a heavy sweat, when a dog howled in the night with its head lowered.

Yet Selma’s dreams did have an effect. When an okapi appeared to her in a dream, Death made an appearance in life. And everyone acted as if Death had appeared by surprise, as if he’d sashayed in unexpectedly and hadn’t always been in the general vicinity, like a godmother sending you gifts small and large your entire life long.

The villagers were unsettled, you could tell, even though most of them tried not to let anything show. That morning, a few hours after Selma’s dream, everyone moved through the village as if black ice had formed beneath their feet, not only outside, but inside their homes as well, black ice in their kitchens and living rooms. They moved as if their own bodies suddenly felt foreign to them, as if all their joints were inflamed and all the objects they handled were highly flammable. All day long, they eyed their lives suspiciously and, as far as possible, the lives of others as well. They kept looking around to check if someone filled with bloodlust were about to pounce—someone who had lost his reason and had nothing much to lose—and then they quickly looked straight ahead again because anyone who was out of his mind could very well attack from the front. They looked up to rule out falling roof tiles, branches, or heavy light fixtures. They avoided all animals because they believed animals were even more likely to lose it than their fellow humans. They kept clear of the good-natured cows who, they believed, might go berserk that day. They avoided all dogs, even the very old ones who could barely stand. On such days anything was possible, a senile dachshund could bite clean through one’s throat, something which, in the end, was no more incongruous than an okapi.