to her as it was life-giving to Motek. The telegram that came ten days later would put out another light in her soul. More memories gone. Less and less remained of who she once was. More and more of her life was with Ilya and the friends in camp. The world had become so much more awful and smaller than she had dreamed when she was a girl. So many promises that were long ago broken. So many expectations: simple things like the fantasy of having her mother teach a grandchild to play the piano, as she had her own daughters. A joy she could never lose—that music she learned. Like reading a book, it came naturally. She’d have to teach her own child what she could remember—maybe that Chopin nocturne she used to work at from time to time when she felt really serious and really sad.
• • •
Today Fanya took the train into Munich with Ruby for Motek’s funeral. This hometown boy she had just met again. Two weeks ago, when she and Ilya went to visit him in the hospital, she knew there would be the gift of seeing him alive, and then the comfort and pleasure in food and drink afterwards. Today there would just be heartache. She and Fanya held hands and looked out the window lost in their own thoughts. When Ruby couldn’t bear the silence any longer, she squeezed Fanya’s hand gently to get her attention.
“I have to tell you a story I remember about him when he was young. Remember, I told you about his family’s coffee house and tea room, and how we would go there on weekends with my parents for hot chocolate in winter or ice cream in summer. One Sunday, he was working there with his parents and he was our waiter. It was comical to me and my sister because we knew him from school, where he was a very serious student. He treated us all, but especially me and my sister, as if we were his best and only customers. He made us special drinks with extra whipped cream and put chocolate candies on the plates. It was all very flattering. I remember our parents were amused to see what a show he put on for us girls. We must have been fifteen years old. I think he liked my sister quite a lot. And I remember her blushing at all the attention. But I had to keep from laughing because the whole time he fussed over us, making several trips to our table, he had powdered sugar in his hair. He must have had some on his hands in the kitchen and run his fingers through his hair. Maybe he sneezed. Or maybe someone in the kitchen played a joke on him. But he didn’t know it was there. It made him clownish, but it also looked like part of his hair had turned white. A boy pretending to be a man.”
Ruby paused and her voice broke.
“And here we are on the way to his funeral. He’s the age my brother would be, thirty-five.”
Ruby’s voice became small, and Fanya let go of her hand and put an arm around her shoulder.
“It’s all right,” she said. “This is a time to cry. Another boy who hardly got to be a man. Let’s not forget how lucky we are—your Ilya and my Jakob—they are becoming very grown men. Motek is a good soul. You’ll remember his story to tell your children when they want to know about your life. His life will be a part of your story. Think how remarkable it is a funeral, a funeral-for-one. We’ll help to bury all our lost souls a little bit today.”
Fanya never failed to know how Ruby was feeling. She was particularly in tune with Ruby’s sorrows. She didn’t talk much about her own. She was one of those who just said her prayers and insisted on being sober and serious. It was good she had Jakob for a husband, and Ruby for a best friend. Those two together, when they were in a mood to joke and laugh, even Fanya couldn’t resist. With Ruby, Fanya learned about what it might have been like to have a sister. She had lost three older brothers. And for Ruby, of course, Fanya was nearly like having Pearl, her twin, back, next to her, in her life, every day.
• • •
They knew they would have to take a taxi to the cemetery. Neither of them had been to a cemetery since before the war. A funeral seemed so ancient and forgotten a ritual. Like all the camp weddings and births, they made new things out of old barely remembered things. It felt good to be going to say prayers for his young soul.
Standing with a few others at the grave, Ruby whispered what she could recall of the Kaddish with Fanya and the others, doing all she could to subdue her tears. None of them was crying just for Motek’s sweet soul. He was their talisman for memories of lives left, unfinished. Ruby was flooded with the memory of the smiling faces of his parents at the coffee house, her own parents, her sister, Pearl, her big brother, Max. A whole way of life that the chanting of Kaddish let go and let live on.
There were a dozen mourners. A few Ruby recognized from the visit to the hospital, two nurses and the tall, handsome doctor, who were maybe praying in their own way. After the prayers, they were visibly at a loss. They were there together but didn’t know each other. Ruby made the first move. She put a hand on the arm of the silver-haired older man to her right, and with her eyes she beckoned to the two dark-haired women who were arm in arm by his side, and clearly a pair, like her and Fanya.
“Let’s go for a drink together,” she said, quietly, respectfully, but in a voice that could be heard by all if they were looking her way. Those just beyond hearing turned, and an older bearded man whispered to the woman at his side. The mood had now shifted to their effort to stay together in Motek’s embrace, and find out something about him together. Ruby was certainly curious to know who these strangers were. There was a kindness in their eyes, and it seemed to be a reflection of who Motek was. She wanted to know his friends. Yes, because she felt she’d learn not only about who he had become, but something about her own life. They might have been more than friends in that old life. It was hard to believe they had found each other after the war. Who else was in Motek’s life here and now? Maybe there was someone else from home, but she’d never recognize them. Maybe someone who knew her brother. Maybe friends of his parents. Maybe someone who used to play in the orchestra with her father.
The doctor knew the city and had a car. He could take half the group and come back in twenty minutes for the others. Now there was some activity. Who could best fit where? Three in front, maybe even four in the back seat. Then the five left would have the more comfortable ride. Should the women go first and the gentlemen wait their turn? Close quarters would insure the group got to know each other more quickly. Having been the one to issue the invitation, the doctor in a near bow, said to Ruby, “You should come in the first group and get the restaurant prepared for the rest—see to a table, you know, tell them we’d like a quiet corner.”
“A quiet corner where we can all talk at once,” Ruby kibbitzed. She and Fanya got in the car. The other two women who had come together got into the car, saying, “We’ll come along with you.” A show of gallantry began between the elderly couple and the other men who didn’t seem to know each other but who all were shy and curious to get in a car with four women.
“Come on, we won’t bite,” said Ruby, smiling, and a bit louder than anyone had yet dared. The silliness of their hesitation now there for all to see, one of the men stepped forward as Fanya and her seatmates squeezed a little closer.
“I’m Philip Levi,” he said, offering his hand. Handshakes all around, and they were off. The ones left behind began the first round of finding out who was there, and where they were from even before the car rolled away. Inside the women in the back quizzed Philip, and Ruby and the doctor exchanged stories in the front seat.
By the time they were all seated in the dim restaurant, silence rightly and quietly came over them. Ruby helped by telling again the story she had told Fanya on the train of how she knew Motek as a boy at school before the war. Spontaneously, they took turns, as each added a piece to the puzzle that was Motek, who they had just helped to bury. For maybe all of them, Ruby realized, it was the first funeral they were attending since before.
That Motek was beloved came through clearly. The older couple who had stood through the burial, elbows locked, holding each other up, explained that they were cousins of his mother. They remembered him
