Astrid and Veronika (16 page)

They had plenty of time and Veronika had chosen the slightly longer route, the old road that meandered through the small villages, rather than the highway. Wild flowers covered the road verge and the groves of birches rustled their fresh green heads in the air. Every little village had its own maypole, still standing in a central spot.

They drove up outside the home with ten minutes to spare, but the undertaker stood waiting on the front steps. He was middle-aged, completely bald, but with thick bushy eyebrows and a beard to compensate. He wore a short-sleeved, open-neck white shirt and light slacks — an informal yet somehow appropriate outfit. His handshake was firm and professional.

They sat down in the visitors’ area by reception. The nurse offered coffee, but they all declined. Once Astrid had confirmed that she wanted a church ceremony, the date was set to Friday. When the undertaker started to ask for specific instructions, Astrid raised her hand. ‘I will leave that to you,’ she said. ‘I have no interest in the ceremony at all. As long as it takes place in the village church. No cremation. A burial, simply. In the Mattson family grave.’ The undertaker took notes but made no comment. It was over in fifteen minutes.

As they were about to leave, the nurse approached, a plastic carry-bag in her hand. ‘Mr Mattson’s belongings,’ she said, and held out the bag. Astrid took a small step back, her hands on her chest, and shook her head. ‘Do what you like with it,’ she said. ‘I don’t want it.’ The nurse stiffened visibly, but said nothing. She nodded, forced a little smile and took refuge behind the reception desk. Veronika looked at the small bag, which the nurse had dropped on the floor beside her chair. It lay flat, clearly not containing much.

They drove back slowly, the main road this time, with the car windows open. It was midday and the sun sat high in the sky. The road lay empty before them, shimmering in the heat.

‘Let’s go swimming in the lake when we get back,’ Veronika said with a quick look at Astrid. The old woman returned her gaze, eyebrows raised in surprise.

‘Swimming?’ she said, and turned her head away, looking out over the passing landscape. Her hair blew around her head and she had her arm resting on the window frame.

‘Yes,’ she said after a while, without turning her head. ‘Let’s do that. Let’s go to the lake.’

They stopped at their houses to collect towels and Veronika made a couple of sandwiches while Astrid filled her blue thermos with coffee.

There were no other cars parked at the end of the narrow road down by the lake, just two bicycles, one a child’s. When they walked onto the sand reef it looked completely deserted, but then they saw a woman and a little boy down by the water on the far side. They spread their blanket and sat down, out of sight of the other two swimmers. They could see no sign of human life anywhere and there were no buildings visible along the shores. The lake was still and the dark forest across the expanse was reflected on the surface. The water lapped softly onto the red sand. Veronika took off her shorts and T-shirt to expose a green one-piece swimsuit. Astrid sat fully dressed, in trousers and a white shirt, but barefoot, her legs stretched out in front of her. From her bag she produced a faded cotton sunhat, which she pulled over her hair. That done, she sat with her hands resting on her lap, gazing out over the still water.

‘Are you coming in?’ Veronika asked as she stood up. Astrid just shook her head, her eyes fixed on a point in the distance across the lake. Veronika waded into the water, treading cautiously over a stretch of pebbles before reaching soft sand a little further out. In knee-deep water she turned and waved to Astrid, who made no gesture in return. The warm water was golden brown, coloured by the mineral-rich soil. She could see her feet through the water, distorted and yellowy. She walked on through the slowly rising water. When it reached her waist, she began to swim. She turned and floated on her back, carried by water that felt silken against her skin. Above, the sky domed, infinite and bright blue. She turned and dived, and when she emerged the water on her lips tasted of metal.

When she walked up to the blanket where Astrid sat immobile she shook her hair and water sprayed lightly over the old woman. ‘You should go in — it’s wonderful!’

Astrid said nothing, looking out over the water. But when Veronika sat down, the old woman looked at her, a hint of a smile in her eyes. ‘I have no swimsuit,’ she said. ‘And I can’t swim.’

Veronika lay down on the blanket and closed her eyes to the sun. ‘It’s my birthday next week. Perhaps we should make a trip to the city and do some shopping. We could get you a swimsuit. And then we could have lunch at a little place I have heard about on the way back. Celebrate a little.’ She pulled herself up onto her elbows. ‘Would you come with me and help me celebrate my birthday?’

Astrid busied herself pouring coffee into two plastic mugs. She said nothing. Only when she had closed the thermos and handed Veronika her mug, did she look up.

‘I would like that very much. After the funeral,’ she said. ‘We’ll go after the funeral. And I will buy a swimsuit.’ She lifted her cup, stuck a piece of sugar in her mouth and smiled, her lips tightly closed. ‘And then we will celebrate.’

‘The funeral,’ Veronika said slowly. She sat up and looked at Astrid. ‘Are you frightened?’ she asked. The old woman sat as before, her legs stretched out in front of her and her eyes on the distant surface of the lake. She shook her head slowly.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I am not frightened. And I am not sad. Not any more. It is all over. The ceremony will just be the final gesture. Closure.’ Astrid had set her mug on the sand. ‘I know now that it was myself I was afraid to face. As I stood by my husband’s bed and watched his last breaths, it was as simple as blowing out a candle.’ She paused, her eyes on the lake. ‘There was nothing more to be afraid of.’ Then she turned and looked at Veronika. ‘Because it was never about him. It was about me.’

Veronika lay with her eyes closed, her fingers digging into the sand.

‘Someone told me that there is comfort in a funeral,’ she said. ‘That the ritual provides an opportunity for the grieving to come to terms with the loss. That is not how it was for me.’ She sat up and stretched out her legs beside the old woman’s, her eyes vacant, although set on the same blue hills beyond the lake.

‘For me, there was no comfort to be had.’

She walked slowly, like someone walking a tightrope over a fathomless gulf. I stood as she approached down the long hospital corridor, and the linoleum was cool and soft against my soles. I was still barefoot, dressed in my swimsuit and with a blanket over my shoulders. My legs were covered in a fine dust of dried salt. I was cold — so cold it felt as if I would never be warm again. As she came closer I could sense that she didn’t see me. Her face was very pale and her eyes empty. A woman I vaguely recognised followed. She didn’t touch Erica, but stayed close behind. A nurse came out to receive them and Erica’s eyes met mine for a second, but there was no sign of recognition and she said nothing. I began to lift my hands, but let them fall again as she turned to the nurse, who took her elbow and led her into the room. I sat down on the bench again.

In the afternoon, when I came back to the house, I pulled on his red bathrobe and lay down on the bed. I turned and buried my face in his pillow, where his smell still lingered.

He was buried on the Wednesday. Erica’s friend came around the Monday before. I heard the knocking, but it took me several minutes to understand the implication. The sound seemed as meaningless as everything else that might be happening in the world beyond the twilight where I lay. Irrelevant and requiring no response. Eventually, she used the key that Erica had given her. Her name was Carolyn. She made tea and sat on the bed and talked to me. She told me about the arrangements that Erica was making and asked me if I had any objections. I looked at her kind face, but I was unable to make any connection with her words. I pulled the bathrobe close, still unable to get warm.

When I think about it now, I wish there had been more time. I feel that grief has its own organic processing time, which cannot be compressed without consequences. Given time to take its course, perhaps the healing is more complete. As it was, the twilight never lifted. Inside my house, time had another dimension and there was neither day nor night, just a continuous stretch of twilight.

On the day of the funeral I walked up the aisle behind Erica and James’s father, who had flown in from London, but I was somewhere else, somewhere where the light didn’t reach. They were holding hands, a couple united in their grief. I saw them, I registered everything, yet it seemed to have nothing to do with me.

There were friends from school, friends from university, from work. There were relatives. They all seemed to belong, seemed to have a place in the fabric that had been James’s life. I walked along the pews filled with people who were almost all unknown to me. There was a man about James’s age whose face turned to me as I passed. He was crying and wiping his tears with the back of his hand. I had never seen him before and had no idea of his relationship with James. And he would never know the James that had been mine. Yet we were both grieving for the loss of the same man. I felt my steps get softer and softer, as if I were no longer touching the floor. And I was still so very cold.

I had declined to read, but in my head the words of the poem I had considered kept repeating themselves:

I had attempted to translate Karin Boye’s poem, but, struggling with the words, I had suddenly realised that they were for James, and for me, and that a translation was superfluous. They had nothing to do with this funeral, with these people. I could read them to him in my mind and the language didn’t matter.

Afterwards, there was a gathering at Erica’s house. I wandered through the rooms, filled with people I had never met before, and sat down on the steps of the back porch. The old ginger cat was asleep in its usual spot. There were people all around, but the cat slept undisturbed, and I sat in solitary silence. Then I heard steps behind me and when I looked up I saw James’s father approaching. He sat down beside me. We had been introduced at the church, but I had registered nothing about him. Now I looked into his face and I could see the whisper of a resemblance. I wondered if what I saw was a likeness of how James would have come to look. He put his hand over mine and his eyes searched my face.

‘I am sad we will not get to know each other,’ he said. He sighed and his hand stayed on mine for a moment. I could think of nothing to say. Eventually, he rose awkwardly and I realised he was older than the overall impression implied. A handsome, well-kept man, considerably older than Erica. I remembered James telling me that his mother had become pregnant while in London on a scholarship to the Royal Ballet. That his father had been married, and that there had never been a question of his leaving his family. I looked at the old man now and wondered whether his regrets were about never getting to know his son, rather than me.

I walked back to our house in the early evening. It was still light and warm. I passed the tennis courts and I could hear the sounds of games, balls bouncing against racquets, players shouting, laughter. Along Ponsonby Road the doors of the restaurants were open to the approaching evening and people were sipping wine at the tables on the pavement. Wherever I looked, there was life. But in my still house the soothing twilight ruled and I felt relieved to enter again.

I knew before I woke up. I think that in my sleep I must have registered the first minute tightening of the smallest muscle, long before it grew stronger and turned into regular cramps. The warm sticky liquid between my legs was just confirmation of the already accepted fact. There was blood down my thighs, on the sheets and on the bathrobe. I lay still and invited the pain. Each intense cramp brought with it a fresh flow of thick blood. I thought that if I allowed it space, offered no resistance, then perhaps it would not stop and we would die together.

But in the morning it was over. I stood in the shower, my teeth chattering, and watched the red water swirl into the drain. I held up my face and my tears mixed with the water.

 

I left New Zealand two weeks later. Erica drove me to the airport. She had asked no questions when I entered her life, and she asked none now. I had told her I was going to stay with my father in Tokyo for some time. Her slim hands rested on the wheel and she kept her eyes on the road. I looked at her profile and wondered if she was relieved I was leaving. I wondered if she associated me with her grief.

She waited while I checked in and we went upstairs and sat down for a cup of coffee. ‘I hope you will come back,’ she said. ‘You will always be welcome.’ Her eyes set on my face and remained there, her brows pulled. I tried to read her expression, and it struck me that she seemed to be memorising my face. Or perhaps she was just exploring it for the first time. Perhaps she had never stopped to look at my face properly before. Perhaps, like me, she had thought there would be so much time.

When we said goodbye and embraced, I could feel the sharp shoulderblades on her back. She felt light as air in my arms. We let go and she stood back for a moment, then pulled out an envelope from her purse. ‘I want you to take this,’ she said, and held it out for me. ‘Open it later.’ She straightened, searched my face a final time, then turned and walked away, a narrow back disappearing in the crowd.

I looked out the window as the plane ascended, but this time low clouds hid the view. I stared into the compact whiteness and my mind was blank.

Later, I opened the envelope. Inside there was a photograph and a small handwritten note: