What was it like?
What?
How did he die?
You saw him, didn’t you, little angel?
But the last breath. What came after that?
Nothing. Martha looked at Helene, eyes wide open. Unblinking eyes trying to say they couldn’t tell a lie. Helene knew that Martha wouldn’t tell her any more about it, even if there was anything else to know. She’d keep it to herself. So nothing came after that. Helene breathed on the frost flowers, touched the jagged blooms with her lips. Her lips stuck to the ice and burned. Skin came off, the delicate skin of her lips. Martha will have folded his hands, drawn the sheet over his face and turned the bed to the window so that his soul could look out at God. Her lips felt sore.
Helene would have liked it if Martha had woken her. Perhaps he wouldn’t have died if she had been holding his hand. At least not like that, so simply, not without her.
Candles were burning in every room in the house; day refused to begin. The clouds lay low and heavy over the rooftops, they hung between the walls, night was still swaying back and forth in the clouds above.
We’ll wait for the pastor, said Martha, sitting down on the stairs.
You wait. I’m going upstairs to read my book, replied Helene. She went up, but not to the room they shared, where her familiar friends were waiting, Young Werther and the Marquise of O, whose fainting fit Helene still thought extraordinary and incredible. She went up yet another floor. Overnight it had turned cold in here. No one had lit the small stove this morning. She went over to the bed and saw his nose poking up under the sheet. She wondered what he looked like now, but no picture would form before her eyes. Even the memory of how he had looked when he was still alive failed her; yesterday she had tried to get a little water down him and he wouldn’t open his mouth, not even a crack, she could find no trace of memory in herself of the way he’d looked yesterday. There had been hairs left all over the pillow, his long, ashen and finally yellowish hairs. She had plucked his hair off the pillow and held it in her hand for a long time, not knowing where to put it. Could she throw away her dying father’s hair? She could. She had taken his hair into the little closet in the yard and was going to drop it down the frozen hole in the ground there. The hair wouldn’t just drop in. It hadn’t wanted to leave her hand. Even in the closet she’d had to pluck it off her hands, hair by hair. And it had not fallen, it floated in the air so slowly that she felt revulsion and didn’t want to watch. Helene remembered that, remembered his hair yesterday, but not how he himself had looked. The sheet was white, that was all. Helene lifted it, first tentatively, then all the way off, and looked at her father. The skin over his eye socket shone, spotlessly smooth. He had a bandage round his head, to keep his jaw closed before rigor mortis set in. Helene was surprised to see his skin still shining, his face still gleaming. She touched his cheek with the back of her hand. The nothingness there was only slightly cool.
She put the sheet over him again and left the room on tiptoe. She didn’t want her mother in the room below to hear her footsteps, she mustn’t hear and know that Helene had been with him. Helene climbed downstairs again and stood by the window. She took a deep breath and puffed a hole in the frost flowers. Helene could see through the hole as the pastor, walking by, came down from the Kornmarkt, keeping close to the sooty walls of the houses, crossed to the other side of the street and came over to their house. He stopped. He looked for something in the skirts of his long coat, found a handkerchief and blew his nose. Then he rang the bell.
Martha offered the pastor tea. They spoke softly, and Helene could hardly hear them. The bell rang once and Mariechen opened the door to six black-clad gentlemen. Helene recognized one of them as Mayor Koban, who hadn’t once visited his friend’s sickbed, and another as Grumbach, but he was too shy to raise his eyes and meet hers. A carriage and pair stood waiting outside the door. The horses wore blankets to keep out the cold. They were snorting, and their breath looked like the vapour from a small steam engine. The six gentlemen carried the coffin upstairs, and a little later they carried it down again.
We must go, the people are waiting at the graveyard, they’ll be freezing, the chapel lost its stove as well as its bell in the war, said the pastor, adding: Is your esteemed mother ready to set out?
Only now did Helene prick up her ears.
No, said Martha. She won’t be coming.
She won’t be…? The pastor looked blankly from Martha to Helene and finally back to Martha, who cast down her eyes.
No, said Helene, she doesn’t want to.
She says she’s tired, Martha explained, her voice sounding curiously weak.
Tired! The pastor’s mouth dropped open. Helene liked his Rhineland accent; he had been in this parish only two years. And she liked his sermons; she thought that in his language she heard something of the wide world, something that rose far above the world of the God of which he spoke.
Martha firmly took her coat. The pastor stayed sitting where he was. But on the last journey to the grave, he objected and fell silent. Where were his words about disobedience now?
We should go and let her do as she wants, Martha told the pastor sternly.
No, faltered the pastor. We can’t go without her, without his wife, without your esteemed mother. I will speak to her. May I? The pastor rose, hoping that Martha would take him to the lady of the house. But Martha barred his way.
Believe me, it’s no use. Martha was already smoothing her hair down, ready to set out.
Please. The pastor was not giving way. He showed clearly that he was not abandoning the attempt.
As you like. But you said yourself that people are waiting at the graveyard.
Martha nodded to Mariechen, indicating that she could show the pastor the way up to their mother’s room.
Is Leontine coming? Helene put on her coat and saw Martha blushing.
The girls heard the clink of the pebbles and buttons in the bell their mother had made for her room coming from up above. Then there was unaccustomed silence, no shouting, no banging. Martha’s blush left red marks on her face and down to her throat. She looked unhappy.
What’s the matter? Have you two quarrelled?
What gives you that idea? Martha was indignant. She quietly added: Leontine’s been prevented from coming.
The pastor and Mariechen came down the stairs. Mariechen put on her coat and opened the door.
Mother didn’t want to come, am I right? Helene looked searchingly at the pastor.
We won’t force her. Everyone must find his own way to God.
Not her. Don’t you know she’s Jewish?
The Jews too will stand before God some day. The pastor spoke devoutly and with stern but inescapable kindness. He seemed to feel so certain of his faith that Helene had to respect him.
Martha had booked a table in the Town Hall cellar for the funeral meal. None of the black-clad gentlemen said a word. They kept quiet and drank. Mariechen was crying quietly. And as the pastor kept quoting from the Book of Job, Helene wanted to close her ears in spite of his pleasant voice. She put her foot out to Martha under the table, gently touching Martha’s calf, but Martha did not respond by giving any sign, however small.
And so you see, Fräulein Martha, God takes to him those whom he loves best. And he gives joy and love to all who still have their path to tread through this life. We have only to look around in our own community. Fräulein Leontine is a good friend of yours, is she not? You see, her engagement to be married is the beginning of a new path, the path of her children and her happiness.