“I must say, it’s a rather bold address,” the widow bellowed. “It’s almost longer than the entire card. He writes that he has thought things over. He’ll be back in Germany at the end of the year and you can see each other then. And he sends his best, this Mr. Frederik does.”

“Did you open the envelope?” Selma asked.

“I didn’t need to,” she thundered, and turned the letter over, holding it up to the ceiling light. The envelope was so thin and the ink on the paper inside so black that you could read everything.

EXPIRATION DATES

My father came for a visit in September. As always, he suddenly appeared at the door with a deep tan and matted hair, wearing shoes that still had remains of an African desert or the Mongolian steppe stuck in their treads, and carrying a backpack with mold stains left by arctic snow. As always, before he’d even crossed the threshold he said, “I’ll have to leave again tomorrow,” as if it were a magic spell that allowed him to enter.

Now that he was constantly traveling, my father always wore two wristwatches. One showed the time in the country he was traveling in at the moment, the other was set to Central European time. “That way I always have you with me,” he said.

He seemed larger than life when he stopped in to see us now and again, and he took up so much space that we had to rearrange ourselves like pieces of furniture that suddenly found themselves in a smaller apartment. We kept bumping into each other. We stood in corners while my father recounted his adventures with sweeping gestures and flashing eyes. He told them in a very loud voice as if he always had to shout over a stormy sea or into a desert wind for the last months.

Alaska was overjoyed to see my father. He didn’t move from my father’s side and suddenly looked younger. He leapt around my father and his tail never stopped wagging. Because Alaska was so big, his tail swept cups and newspapers off the coffee table and a flowerpot off the kitchen windowsill. “It’s amazing what love can do,” Selma said as we swept up shards and dirt behind Alaska. “I may be wrong, but I believe Alaska has grown a bit in the last half hour.”

“And? How are things with all of you?” my father asked.

He said it with an undertone of regret, as if he weren’t asking about our lives but the progress of a common cold or an especially boring village community meeting he had skipped.

“How are things with the Buddhist?”

“He’s coming to visit soon,” I said.