Incredibly, the woman actually survives for half a day, long enough for her husband to appear at her side and collapse in sobs. I suppose it goes without saying that there’s nothing the camp doctor, or any other doctor, for the matter, can do for her. Asked the reason for her act, the woman refuses to say, but there have been stories circulating about her husband and another woman, one of Lottie and Clara’s co-workers at the bakery, a Swedish girl. The husband’s hardly what you’d call handsome, his hair thin, his face square, his body bony, but strange are the ways of desire. So far as anyone hears, the woman doesn’t speak a single word, just lies there gritting her teeth as she sees the bitter task she started through to its end. Her husband weeps freely and often, and, once the final breath has passed his wife’s ruined lips, and the nurse reaches down to close her eyes, throws himself across her body, howling his grief. It’s a couple of days before she’s buried. She’s a suicide, remember, and at this time that’s still a sin in the popular understanding. Finally, the Catholic church in Woodstock agrees to take her; although they insist that she be placed outside the cemetery proper. At Clara’s request, Lottie attends the funeral. While it’s a Catholic service, and the Schmidts have always been good Lutherans who keep a safe distance from the errors of popery, Clara is surprisingly insistent. “Those things don’t matter in this place,” she says, much to her pious daughter’s shock. At the funeral, the husband is in worse shape than the day before. There’s no helping the man, in part because no one speaks Hungarian and his English isn’t that good. Ironically, it’s at the woman’s funeral that Lottie first learns her name, Helen, and that of her husband, George.
After Helen is committed to the ground, George retreats to their house and doesn’t come out for a week. If he needs anything, he sends one of his children for it. The oldest child, a girl named Maria, tells Lottie that all her father does is sit in his bedroom in the dark. Once in a while, he laughs, or shouts something. Maria doesn’t say her father’s drunk pretty much all that time. She doesn’t have to. She’s doing what she can to keep him and the other children fed, but it isn’t easy, without their mother. She’s worried, and she’s right to be. Every day her father stays home from work is one day closer to him being fired. This is the days before labor unions, before compassionate leave and all that kind of thing. A man who’s newly lost his wife can expect a certain amount of sympathy, some leeway, but people’s memories are short for any sorrow that isn’t theirs, and his job has to be done. Over the course of those seven days, a number of people, including Rainer, try to talk to the man, with no success. Wherever he is in his dark room, he’s unreachable.
VII
As I said, a week passes, with everyone growing more uneasy as the wait for the axe to fall. Then, one night, Maria shows up at the Schmidts’ front door, her siblings in tow. She’s fairly agitated, and when Clara asks, “What’s the matter?” answers, “My father left the house this morning, and he didn’t say where he was going or when he’d be back. We haven’t seen him since. I don’t know what to do.” Clara takes them in, says, “He’s probably just gone out for a walk and forgotten the time. I’m sure he’ll be back very soon. You can sleep here tonight with my girls.” All the while, she’s thinking that there are thirteen bars between the camp and Stone Ridge alone, not to mention I don’t know how many whorehouses — more than sufficient opportunity for a man out of his head with grief to heighten the agony.
Clara is mistaken, however; George returns in the wee small hours of the morning and, looking for his daughters, comes chapping at the Schmidts’ door, himself. Rainer answers it. Later Lottie overhears her pa say that he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the look on the man’s face. He was grinning, Rainer says, but it was no happy smile. It was the smile of a man who knows that he’s committed a terrible act but is trying with all his might to convince himself that that isn’t the case. He figures if he keeps on smiling, he’ll be able to convince everyone else that everything is fine, and then maybe they’ll be able to convince him. He’s come for his children, George says. “It’s the middle of the night,” Rainer says, “they’re asleep.” The man doesn’t care. “Wake them up,” he says. Then he adds, “I have something wonderful for them to see. There has been a miracle.”
To say Rainer feels nervous is an understatement. It’s obvious that George is laboring under a heavy load, one or maybe two steps away from being crushed beneath it. Rainer can’t decide if the children will help the man shoulder his burden, or if they’ll be the extra weight necessary to break him. George keeps insisting that he has something wonderful for his children, which Rainer doesn’t like the sound of. Eventually, though, Rainer gives in to the man’s request and goes through to wake the children. As he tells Clara, he’s sure the kids will be happier knowing their father has returned, and he judges it better to give the fellow what he’s asking for than to deny him. If there’s any trouble — not that he can say what that trouble might be, but the thought crosses his mind — Rainer figures he’s only a house away. He’s right about the children. They’re happy and relieved to see their father’s returned, and rush to embrace him. For his part, George doesn’t seem any better. That grin modulates only slightly. But the children clutching his pants and shirt don’t appear to drive him any closer to the edge. Thanking Rainer profusely, his neighbor leaves, the children in tow.
Maybe five, maybe ten minutes after George’s departure, just enough time for Rainer to have climbed into bed, closed his eyes, and felt sleep waiting for him, the screaming starts. High-pitched and loud, there’s a lot of it. Rainer sits up; so does Clara. The screaming continues, hysterical, terrified. “That’s the children,” Clara says, meaning their neighbor’s, but Rainer’s already out of bed and heading for the door, cursing himself for a fool. He doesn’t bother stopping to put on his boots, but hauls open the front door and runs across to the neighbor’s house. All the while, the screaming keeps up. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Rainer’s muttering to himself. Other folks are at their front doors as Rainer lowers his shoulder and smashes into the neighbor’s. His blood is up. He’s ready for a fight. What he sees inside the house stops him in his tracks.
Directly in front of him, the children are gathered in a screaming knot around Maria, their faces full of tears and horror. To the other side of them stands their father, bent over slightly, his hands out to either side of him, as if he’s apologizing for something. He’s doing all he can to maintain that grin, though his face shakes with the effort. To his right, sitting on a chair, is his late wife.
When Rainer sees the woman there, his first thought is that George sought out her grave, dug it up, and carried the body back to the house. Then she raises her head and looks at him, and Rainer’s heart stops. He takes a step forward. Strange as it sounds, he actually moves closer to her. George is babbling on about miracle this and miracle that, but Rainer isn’t paying any attention to him. He’s studying the woman — Helen’s — eyes, which are different, somehow. Hard as it is to see in the light of the single lantern burning, Rainer is sure Helen’s eyes are gold, entirely gold, with tiny black pupils dotting their centers. He can’t remember what the woman’s eyes looked like before, but he’s sure it wasn’t this.