Charles was cremated. They buried his urn in the graveyard’s children’s section.
That was all Anna remembered of either service. After the funeral Bruno and Ursula and the rest of the mourners went to the Kirchgemeindehaus for a light lunch, coffee, and more tears. Anna didn’t follow them. Mary took her home, helped her out of her clothes, and put her into bed. Please don’t leave, Anna asked when Mary moved toward the bedroom door. Mary shook her head and said of course she wasn’t leaving but that she would be right back. A few minutes later, Mary returned with a tray of food that Anna had no interest in eating. Mary asked her to try her best to eat a little, reminding her gently that Victor and Polly would need her and that to be strong she could not starve herself. Anna took two bites of the sandwich and drank only one sip of the tea. Mary took the tray away and then returned. She sat in a rocking chair next to the bed and kept vigil over Anna for the rest of the day.
Victor and Polly will need you, Anna. In the days after Charles’s death, Anna had caught herself forgetting she had two other children. Anna’s neighbor Monika babysat Polly Jean for several days, to Bruno and Anna and Ursula’s immediate relief. But they couldn’t shield Victor from the experience. He’d shared a room with Charles. He’d shared toys and parents. Victor’s usual sullenness had been replaced with a blank, baffled face that revealed a sadness that existed somewhere beyond the reach of comfort. At the church he sat between Anna and Bruno. They hadn’t allowed him at the burial. Victor didn’t need to see that. Anna hadn’t either.
THE DAY BEFORE THE funeral the Benzes received, in their mailbox, Charles’s Bestattungsanzeige. Anna found it in Bruno’s nightstand drawer. She was hunting down painkillers; the crying had induced a migraine. Bruno had slipped on the ice last winter and sprained his back. Anna banked on at least one leftover pill.
The announcement lay at the top of an assortment of other ephemera: a drawing Charles had done in school, a photograph of Anna holding Polly Jean, the card his mother had sent him on his last birthday. He had folded the announcement into careful quarters. When Anna opened it, she couldn’t read past her son’s name. It was a feeling more closely related to embarrassment than to grief. This is something I’m not meant to see. Anna returned the death announcement to its place in the drawer where Bruno kept his private things.
Bruno never once asked where she had been the day Charles died.
20
TWICE IN THE LAST YEAR ANNA HAD BEEN IN THE CITY WHEN A woman (a different woman on each occasion) approached her with a clipboard and asked in Swiss German whether she had time to spare. The women were market researchers seeking ordinary people to participate in taste tests. In both instances, Anna had agreed (what else would she have done?) and each time, she followed the women into a nearby hotel’s conference room. For the first test, Anna was asked to sample and rate several coffees. Is it bitter? Can you describe its aroma? What would you say about the body of the coffee? Would you describe it as “full”? Anna hadn’t begun her German classes yet, and she and the market researcher struggled through the next twenty minutes, the woman miming questions with her hands, and Anna answering those questions with blinks and nods. For her troubles, Anna earned a jar of instant coffee and a large bag of assorted mini chocolates. Anna shoved the coffee to the back of the pantry but—over the next three days—ate the entire bag of chocolate herself. Why should I share? she thought. I’m the one who took the test. She considered it her reward for trying. Sometimes Anna tried. Sometimes she tried very, very hard.
The second time Anna was approached (on the same street corner, no less) occurred after she’d completed the first month of her German class. This test ran far smoother than the previous one. Anna smiled through it, stumbling over only a few sentences and even fewer words. She vetted pickles that day and this time received a jar of cocktail onions, which, like the instant coffee, had also been pushed to the back of the pantry. There were no chocolates but that was okay. Her poise, the smoothness of speech—those were her reward.
Anna related this story to Doktor Messerli a few days after the second, more successful encounter. Doktor Messerli asked what Anna thought it meant.
Anna said she thought it meant that things were looking up.