A WEEK AND A half after the accident Victor went back to school and Bruno returned to the bank. What else could either of them do? Bruno tackled his grief by throwing himself into work. At the bank he was focused, efficient, busy. At home he filled the extra hours with chores and fix-it projects. He painted the basement and replaced the rotting boards in the shed. He bought a dishwasher and installed it. It helped his hands to have something to do.
They had tried making love the night before he went back to the office. It was a failure. Bruno lay behind Anna in their bed and locked his arms around her and pulled her toward his erection. He buried his face in her hair and braced his tottering body against his wife’s beautiful, brittle back and pulsed gently but with intention into her. “Please, Anna,” he said. “I need you. I need to be with you.” But Anna could not stop crying and that in turn made Bruno cry. He rolled away. Anna shrank into herself. For an hour Bruno stared at the ceiling as if it might move. Eventually they both fell into tandem, fretful sleeps.
Anna stayed mostly in bed. Time froze. The house palled. She hadn’t bothered to ask for a refund for her German class, but she had no intention of returning. It felt pointless, rude to the memory of her son. As if she would have been able to concentrate. Grief consumed every minute. Anna was sick all the time. She ate only broth and toast. She grew thin. On walks she hallucinated birds. Black and erratic, they followed her up and back down the hill. They kept to the margins of her vision but daily the flock grew larger and less peripheral.
Mary volunteered to withdraw from the class as well so that she could come to the Benzes’ every day and take care of Anna and Polly Jean (Monika could not, of course, watch Polly indefinitely). Anna talked Mary out of it, reasoning that whatever Mary learned she could, in turn, teach Anna once she felt better, even though Anna doubted she ever would. And Ursula would be coming over; Anna wouldn’t be alone. Mary accepted this and did as Anna suggested.
When Victor came home from school he’d bring his snack into the living room and mother and son would sit together on the couch and watch television. Neither wanted to talk. Victor regressed. At night he sucked his thumb and once or twice he wet the bed and the programs he watched on TV were much too young for him. They were cartoons that Charles had liked. Silly children’s shows about red tractors or construction men or trains. On the couch Victor would lean tentatively into Anna as he watched them. Anna would run her fingers lightly through his hair.
He is too timid to ask for comfort, Anna thought. He isn’t Charles.
“DO YOU BELIEVE IN Hell?” Anna asked.
“What’s this?” Stephen pulled Anna closer. It was a remarkably cold morning in early February. They spooned beneath an eiderdown comforter made for one.
“Oh. Just fire stuff.” Anna smiled as she said it. Her voice was light, relaxed, and happy. It was all she wanted, to be pressed so tightly against him, seamless as the woodwork joinery of a Mennonite table.
Stephen exhaled. “I don’t really think about it.”
“Hell, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“You aren’t religious.”
“Not at all.”
“Your parents?”
Stephen stretched and shivered and checked his watch. It was time to get up. “Grandparents. Greek Orthodox.” He stood and yawned and threw on a pair of sweatpants as quickly as he could.
“You’re Greek?” Anna had never thought to ask about his background.
“Cypriot.”
“Oh.” Anna didn’t have any more immediate questions.
“Say, though …” Stephen turned back to the bed and Anna sat up. “Here’s something about fire you probably don’t know. And since you love these divagations …” He offered her a perfect replica of the smile he gave her the first time they met.
“Tell me.” Anna loved it when he played along. She batted her eyes and indulged her voice a lilt.
Stephen sat next to her on the edge of the bed. “So, in Jerusalem every Easter, a priest takes a couple of candles into the church they say is built on top of Jesus’s tomb.”
“This is an Orthodox thing?”
Stephen nodded yes as he continued. “He goes down into the crypt alone, says an ancient prayer, and when he comes back up the candles are lit.”
“Okay. What’s the miracle?” Anna gave over to the lecture with attentive, schoolgirl glee.
“Ah. The miracle is he’s frisked before he goes into the church to prove he isn’t hiding matches or a lighter in his robes. The tomb too. They check it. So where does it come from, the fire? That’s the mystery.”
“Where does it come from?”
“What’s said is a blue light appears out of a cloud that itself materializes out of empty air. The light and the cloud kind of dance around each other until they contract into a single, floating column of flame.” Stephen mimed how the elements might come together.
“Who says?”
“The priests. And from this flame he lights his candles.” Anna enjoyed these moderate theatrics. “And then he shares the flame and the people tremble with awe. It’s called Holy Fire. Because it comes from God.” Stephen yawned and stood up again. “So they say.”
Anna was fascinated. “Have you seen it? Do you believe in the miracle?”