Mr. Kreuk doesn’t ask me any questions, about who Mirjam was or why I want to take care of her body, and for this I’m grateful. It’s a repayment, I think, for all the questions I haven’t asked him in the time we’ve known each other. At the office, he just pats me on the shoulder, and then neatly folds up his shirtsleeves the way he always does before getting to work. A few hours later, he tells me that the body has been dressed, except for socks and shoes.
After leaving Mrs. de Vries’s house, I’d gone home and sorted through my clothes to find something for Mirjam. Mama and Papa were gone at Papa’s regular doctor’s appointment. I chose a dress that they’d given me for my birthday a few years ago. It still fits—one of the rare nice things I own that does—but I folded it up anyway, and put my favorite patent leather shoes in a bag.
“Can I?” I whisper to Mr. Kreuk. “Can I be the one to do that?”
He looks startled. This is the first time I’ve ever asked to be in the same room with a body. Normally they’re brought in through the back entrance, cleaned, dressed, and then placed in their caskets. I don’t even go into that room.
“Are you sure?”
I nod. “It’s important to me.” Because I failed her. Because I found her too late. Because her blue coat is ruined, covered in blood.
He takes me into the small white room. I carry the shoes and socks and the linen tablecloth Mrs. Cohen gave me. I should have asked her to explain what I was supposed to do with it. Is it meant to be wrapped around Mirjam, or just placed over her? Was I even supposed to bring the other clothes, or is she supposed to wear only burial shrouds? Or does it even matter? Mrs. Janssen said the Roodveldts weren’t observant.
Mr. Kreuk stands a few feet behind me as I look at the body that used to be Mirjam, lying on the cold table. I’ve been with a dead person only twice before, at my grandparents’ funerals when I was eleven and twelve, and then there was dim lighting and music. Now there is just stillness, and Mirjam. She’s so small.
Here she is, in person, the first real time I’ve seen her. Her face is heart-shaped, with her dark hair forming a widow’s peak at her forehead, and her chin comes to a little point, with a small birthmark to the left of center. Her eyelashes are thick and long. Nobody told me that, when they described her, how velvety her eyelashes are. Her nose is blunted at the end, a bit too short for her face. Nobody told me that, either. Just below the collar of the satin dress, the edge of a white bandage covers up the exit wound of the bullet that killed her. I adjust the collar, cover it up.
“You’ve done—you’ve done a beautiful job. Thank you. She looks almost—” I’m supposed to say that she looks almost as she did in life, which is what people say to Mr. Kreuk when they want to thank him with the highest compliment. I can’t say that, though, since I really have no idea what she looked like in life. “She looks peaceful.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you? Or your friend?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The burial arrangements. Will you be needing a traditional plot or… or a special one?”
This might be his way of asking me if Mirjam needs to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. I know how difficult finding such a place would be for him.
“Just somewhere pretty. There won’t be a funeral. Just a burial.”
He hesitates, as if trying to decide whether to speak, and finally leaves without saying anything.
I can’t bring myself to touch her yet. Instead I turn to where her blue coat sits folded neatly on a table. The collar and top buttons are drenched in dried blood, which spatters down the rest of the coat, rusty and brown. Mr. Kreuk has already checked the pockets and laid her personal effects on top of the coat. Her identification papers, shot through and now also rust-colored, and a letter, which must have been in her side pocket because the paper is clean and white.
If I could go back and never meet T to begin with, I would do that, right now. It was such a stupid thing to come between us. I’m going to make it up to you when I see you again.
Love, Margaret
Mirjam’s last schoolgirl note about her last drama. Why did she write it? Was Amalia upset that Mirjam was spending too much time with Tobias? Had Amalia met Tobias and she disapproved of him? It’s amazing how little any of that matters now.