GARMISCH, GERMANY
NOVEMBER 6, 1967
Dead leaves blanketed the cemetery in a patchwork quilt of umber. Briefly disrupted by spade strikes, and mourners’ cries overhead, the sleepy tenants soon returned to rest, the grounds silent and empty once more, the new mound of dirt settling inch by inch, hour by hour, as the living pressed on, press on.
During the burial, Elsie had taken Papa’s hand in hers, their rolling pin calluses aligning perfectly.
“I love you,” she’d whispered.
He’d pulled her close with trembling arms and kissed her temple. “My Elsie. Forgive me.”
She’d only the strength to nod and weep until all the stale years and regrets crumbled under the weight of his embrace.
“I’ll take Opa home,” Lillian had offered at the end of the funeral. “You stay as long as you want.”
And Elsie had, hours after everyone else; after even the priest had gone inside, his hands red and raw from the wintry wind.
The chapel bell rang out five strokes. The sun began to set, dissolving into the Black Forest ridgeline. In less than an hour it would be dark, and she’d be forced away from this spot, and night would come and go, and she’d board her plane in the morning, flying a half a world away, back to her daughter’s smile and her husband’s kiss, and tomorrow would follow tomorrow leaving behind this moment and all within it.
So she hung on, reading the granite headstone over and over, trying to make it feel the way she thought it ought, trying to brand it inside herself. Luana Schmidt, Beloved Wife and Mother, 1897–1967. Luana Schmidt, Beloved Wife and Mother. Luana Schmidt, Beloved. Luana Schmidt. Luana. Mutti.
It was a modest epitaph. The way Mutti would have wanted. Yet so small in comparison to the life it eulogized. In the spring, blades of grass and wildflowers would bloom anew without ever knowing the life that nurtured them. For years to come, those who came and went would never perceive what depth of love lay beneath their tread.
To the far right was Peter Abend’s grave, a garland of holly berries hung round the stone. Oh, Peter, Elsie thought, how much you missed.
Beside Mutti was Hazel’s marker. Papa agreed to the engraving without question or explanation, and Elsie was relieved. HAZEL SCHMIDT, LOVING DAUGHTER AND SISTER. Elsie had left off the dates, unsure of what to put, and unwilling to add to Papa’s heartache.
Elsie balled her gloved fists. Death shouldn’t be so unremarkable, she thought. Mutti, Hazel, Friedhelm, Peter, the born and unborn. They were loved and deserved more. Not in worldly stone, marble or gems, but in memory and celebration; they deserved the heavens to open up for a moment for all that had been and was gone.
In a nearby tree, a finch took flight singing seep, seep, seep as it went. Just and merciful, Mutti had said of God. The bird climbed high, its song fading in the wind.
Twilight cast an amber glow. The tombstones’ shadows stretched long. It was time. Elsie turned to leave and as she did, a small gravestone stood out, alone and apart from the neat familial lines of the cemetery. Her eyes grazed the name, and she stopped.
JOSEF HUB. No inscription. No dates.
Elsie went to it, pulled off her gloves, and traced the print: Josef. She sighed. He deserved remembering as well. His life had been as much a part of her story as the others. She had no flower to leave him, so she pulled loose the blue ribbon from her hair and tied it round the headstone.
She tried to remember Josef without the Nazi uniform, but she’d never really known the man beneath—the secret burdens he carried. So she said a prayer for his souclass="underline" that he might find forgiveness and love. She had to believe that was possible, even for the dead.
Chapter Fifty
PANTEÓN SAN RAFAEL CEMETERY
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO
NOVEMBER 2, 2008
Reba held her hat as Riki rumbled down the ashen streets to Panteón San Rafael Cemetery. She wore his Stetson rimmed with the reddest geraniums she could find in the shop. It was Día de Los Muertos.
A morning haze drifted over the ramshackle buildings, smelling of sulfur and copper smelting from the ASARCO plant on the US side. In the front yard of a weather-beaten Mexican adobe, a pile of debris burned; small Chihuahuas circled the fire pit, children still in pajamas baiting them on. Across the horizon, plumes of gray ash tunneled to the heavens from small homes clinging to the sandy mountainside.
“Are those Día de Los Muertos bonfires?” asked Reba.
Riki leaned over and studied the mottled sky. “Nope. Juárez folks burning trash to keep warm.”
Reba had heard such rumors but had never seen it done. It made the morning look as apocalyptic as the holiday.
They drove on, past the neighborhoods, to the southern outskirts of the city where the cemetery stretched out in long shunted plots, row upon row, like land tilled for seeding. The canals between the burial columns were already crowded with family members tending to a bounty of white crosses, candle altars, food, and flowers. The harvest of graves extended far into the rugged desert.
“So many,” whispered Reba.
“They come to honor their loved ones—to remember the past,” said Riki.
But Reba hadn’t meant the living; she’d meant the dead. Panteón San Rafael opened in 1995. Brand new in comparison to most, yet there were tens of thousands already buried beneath its sacred ground.
Riki led her through the labyrinth of mourners and shrines, past old women praying to Virgin Mary retablos, younger women singing lullabies, men inscribing names on sugar skulls, and children arranging marigolds along the perimeters of buried caskets. They pressed farther in, past the newly buried, to where the mounds had seemingly shrunk, their occupants planted back into the earth.
Riki stopped at the foot of an unadorned stone marker: BETO CHAVEZ, 1933–1998. NATALIA CHAVEZ, 1936–1998. DEVOTED AND FAITHFUL ALWAYS. His parents. Reba put an arm round his waist, not for herself but for his comfort.
She’d agreed to come though she was unsure of what to expect. Standing there now, the affection she felt for people she’d never known surprised her. She thought of her daddy’s large, black marble tomb, glossy and ominous in the middle of the manicured Richmond Baptist Cemetery. She’d hated it—feared it—and the sea of gloomy family and friends who gathered to watch him be lowered into darkness. But this place was entirely different. The sandstone memorials were whitewashed bright; the sun haloed everything in gold; flowers and decorations transformed the catacombs into colorful bursts of revelry.
Riki unfolded a rainbow wool rebozo and laid it over the grave. Then he took a handkerchief from his back pocket and cleaned the sand from the stone inscription.
“Mom, Dad,” he whispered, “meet Reba.” He looked up to her.
Reba knelt down on the shawl and took from her bag a stained-glass Madonna candle and a box of homemade churros—Jane’s modified recipe based on Elsie’s kreppels.
“A pleasure to meet you,” said Reba. “I’m not much of a baker, but I brought the best I could do from the best I know.” She set the box on the tombstone and opened the top; the aroma of cinnamon and fried dough rose up sweet. “Riki says these were your favorites.”
He smiled and pulled her into his arms. They sat picnic style for over an hour, Riki telling her stories of his parents, his childhood, his history. As the sun rose higher, more people arrived with garlands and guitars, basket lunches and laughter, and the cemetery bloomed even further with song and savory smells. Reba thought it one of the most beautiful events she’d ever witnessed, a celebration of death, a celebration of life. She wondered if the angels had indeed spread their wings over them all. She liked to think so.