Slowly, his father straightened his back, still kneeling, and then he tenderly tucked the blanket around Eva’s feet. When he had done that, Markus wanted to go, frightened he’d be found out, but he still couldn’t move. His mother’s eyes had opened and she stared deeply at Fidelis, and then she smiled at him. It was a glorious smile, serene and full of joy, a softening thrill of her face that Markus would never forget. Fidelis sat in the chair wedged next to the narrow bed, took her hand. Without her asking, he began to sing to her the song she loved most, a song that Markus knew, the one about the water maidens on the river in Germany. His voice was warm and pure. Markus closed his eyes. His father’s voice brought the taste of smooth, brown caramel into his mind. With his father’s singing for cover, Markus made his way quickly to his own room. He crept into his bed, thrust his fingers through the rip in the pillow where the pin did not quite shut the gap. Then he fell asleep quickly, safe in the rise and fall of his father’s voice, with his fingers touching the paper heart.
* * *
DELPHINE BLEACHED the bloody aprons. She scrubbed the grimy socks. Their stained drawers and their one-strap overalls. She took their good suits out of mothballs and aired them and pressed them. She sprinkled Fidelis’s thick white cotton shirts with starch, and rolled them up and laid them in the cooler. Every morning, she ironed one for him, just as Eva had done. She took on the sheets, the hopeless sweat, the shit and blood, always blood. The towels and the tablecloths. The laundry itself was a full-time job, and Delphine had no idea how Eva had ever done it, plus so much else. But this laundry was a kind of good-bye gift. For once Eva left, Delphine was leaving, too. She’d already decided that to stay there in her old job, with no Eva, was impossible. It wasn’t just that people would talk, for they talked about her already. There was more, things she couldn’t say even to her private self. No, she couldn’t do it. Besides, there was another person chafing and eager to finally take over. Stepping in to care for the boys and her brother would be a perfect showcase for Tante’s pieties.
On the last birthday Eva would ever celebrate, Tante did come around, just in time for the cake. After the blur of useless presents and too cheerful toasts, while the celebrators craned over the large scrolled cake, Tante materialized in her usual black, and said to Delphine in her freezing nasal voice, “This is good cake. How much does my brother pay you extra for taking care of Eva?”
Unknown to Tante, Fidelis stepped behind his sister, so he heard Delphine’s reply.
“Not one flat dime, you hypocrite sow.”
Tante’s cheeks mottled red and white, as though she had been slapped. As for Fidelis, she could have sworn that a surprised smile flickered across his face. Delphine hadn’t yet told him that Tante had stolen Eva’s morphine. Part of her training in dealing with drunks was to hoard information, never to let go of a valuable nugget until it could be made to pay double its worth. There would come a time, thought Delphine, there would definitely come a time. Tante would pay, somehow, for Eva’s pain.
* * *
A TINY STREAM that mainly carried spring runoff down behind the house, through the field, had dried into a tough little path the boys used to travel into the woods. They spent most of their time there after their chores were done, looking for arrowheads, for pitted, gray fragments of pots, and little white seashells left from when a great ocean had covered all they saw. Markus sometimes thought about this ocean, which he’d learned about in school. The fact that he was walking on what was once an ocean’s bottom intrigued him. Sometimes he imagined the water going straight up, over him, just as the air did now. And all around him water creatures floating and diving. Markus and his two little brothers stopped, pulled from their pockets some of the fuzzed-over horehound drops that Tante always gave them, and spat as they sucked away the lint. They concentrated until they got to the actual candy, a somber, medicinal taste, but sweet. Their faces cleared.
“This used to be an ocean bottom,” Markus said, showing Emil a tiny brittle white scallop he’d picked up from the field. The shell was about the size of his little fingernail. His brother looked at the shell without much interest.
“Gimme that,” said Erich, and he inspected the little shell, then gave it back to Markus. “Is she dying now?” he asked.
Markus said, “I think so.”
All that week, whenever they woke up, Delphine fed them carelessly, old bread or stiff oatmeal, and then forgot to check whether their chores were finished. She allowed them to play wherever they wanted. She was in the other world of the two that existed side by side. One world was of those who would go on living. The other was centered on the one who would die. Usually, the boys stayed outside all day. After dinner, they went in to see their mother before bed, to kiss her good-night. Her face was gray and sunken, almost like a headhunter’s shriveled trophy. Suddenly, her face was full of lines and folds. Wrinkles had appeared around her mouth. Her breathing was so slow it seemed forever between breaths. Her eyes were large and staring, but the boys were not afraid of her. They’d gotten used to her. Markus found that when he kissed her, he felt absolutely nothing except that her taste was a strange taste, earthen and moldy, not human anymore. As soon as he left his mother, crawled between the covers of his bed, and laid his head on his pillow, a numb buzzing noise started in his ears and he fell immediately asleep. He never even woke when Emil crawled into bed beside him on some nights. In the morning, he was groggy and fuzzy, and he had trouble nudging his brother out of his bed.
“My foot’s asleep again,” said Emil, yawning.
It was happening to them, too, Markus had noticed. Whenever they sat still too long, his little brothers complained, their limbs went odd and prickly. He could see how their eyes drooped. Even now, though it was full daylight and they had precious time to play, they were drowsy. Markus pointed to the riffle of woods just ahead.
“Let’s go there,” he said. He pictured the soft mat of fallen leaves underneath the scrub birch and maples, how nice it would be to rest there for a while. They each took another horehound drop and spat lint while they walked to the woods. They sat down in a deep pile of crackling, dust-smelling leaves. Then they lay back and looked at the green leaves on the branches turning and flickering. Their eyes grew heavy and Erich began to snore, a light whining sound. The air was dreamy and hot. Ants crawled over Markus’s hand and he flicked them off. It was like being underwater just then with the green and changeable light falling through the woods onto them. What if they were lying at the bottom of the ocean? Markus thought of great storms and waves passing over, high above. On the tranquil bed, way down here with nothing to bother them, they lay undisturbed.
Emil was stretched out next to him, half asleep. Markus felt his brother inch a little closer. He pushed him away, once, then he let him draw near again. Soon, with an adult sigh of irritated indulgence, he let Emil hold onto the bottom of his shirt, put his thumb in his mouth, and sleep. Markus stayed awake a little longer and even, once, rubbed his brother’s hair in the distracted way he rubbed the dog’s head. He missed the dog. But these days she did not come with them on their daily rounds, or out into the fields and woods. Schatzie preferred to stay near his mother, just outside her door. She was guarding Eva and she was waiting patiently to haul her across the deep spaces of the night, the black spaces, to the other side.