The cemetery was much farther than I remembered, even though every winter my friends and I would walk up there pretty often to go sledding, but somehow the road now seemed a whole lot longer, my patent leather shoes chafed my feet like hell, and my black tie, which Mother cut from out of Father's tie, was so tight around my neck that once or twice it felt like I was hardly getting any air at all, and the only reason I didn't reach up a hand to loosen the knot was that I didn't want Mother getting mad, because before we left home she had spent at least ten minutes fixing that tie around my neck so it would be just right, exactly like Father would have tied it, so now I really wished we would get to the cemetery at last.
At one point along the way a white taxi stopped beside us, the driver opened his door, thumped his peaked leather cap, and said to Mother, "My sincere sympathies, ma'am, would you allow me to take you a bit?" But Mother only gave a wave of her hand and said that was out of the question, we'd already managed to walk up this far, so this last couple hundred yards really didn't count, and then the man in the leather cap said that was too bad because he really would have been glad to take us, and then he leaned down a bit and asked in a whisper if there was any news about my father, and Mother shook her head and said there was none, at which the cabbie knit his brows and said, "Well, well," he thought they'd let him come home for the funeral at least, to which Mother said, "Oh come now, don't go talking nonsense," and then, as the cabbie shut his door, she said, to herself this time, "Stinking rotten informer."
The day before, Mother washed and ironed my school uniform for the occasion so I'd at least look somewhat presentable, but I told her that doing so wouldn't turn my uniform black, no, it would stay dark blue, and besides, the dark blue had already faded a lot from all the washing it got anyway, so we should dye it instead somehow because I heard you were supposed to wear black at funerals, but Mother said she didn't think my grandfather would mind I wasn't in black, yes, seeing as how he'd shot his head to smithereens, everything was all the same to him, to which I said that in school I heard that my grandfather didn't really shoot his head to smithereens, that the words "sudden tragic passing" in the obituary didn't mean at all that he'd killed himself, only that he'd had a stroke, but while standing there in my room the day before, Mother just laughed and said that was just the version that idiot grandmother of mine was spreading all about town simply because she didn't want to live in shame, but everyone knew the truth, which was that somehow my grandfather got hold of a pistol and stuck it in his mouth, and he'd shot his head apart so good that there wasn't even much to pick up, I'd see for myself that the coffin would be closed, it was just disgusting what my grandmother was cooking up, somewhere or other she'd found herself a black-veiled hat she'd practically glued to her head and was parading about town in, playing the part of the grief-stricken widow, crying like crazy about what a heavy hand fate dealt her, what a tragedy this was, about what would become of her now that her poor darling was gone. But she sure never called him my poor darling while he was alive, no, she just nagged him all the time with her never-ending jealousy and a slew of imagined illnesses, no wonder my grandfather couldn't stand it any longer, no wonder he'd put the barrel of that pistol into his mouth, and when Mother said that she suddenly started crying, I'd hardly ever seen her sob so hysterically, she had to brace herself against my desk, her shoulders were shaking so much, and then she sat down on the edge of my bed and she tried wiping her face with the corner of my blanket, but she was crying so hard I knew it wasn't about Grandpa, no, she couldn't have been weeping like that on account of him but only because of Father, who'd been at the Danube Canal for almost two years already, we hadn't heard a thing about him in a long time, and then I almost started crying too, except it wasn't my father I thought of but my grandfather, and not even his face but only his hand, the way he'd moved his hand when opening the door of his Renault to let me in, the way he'd nudged the window with his fingers so the door would open all the way, yes, at such times I always saw him through the glass, how the pads of his fingertips flattened and turned all white, and now I saw this so clearly that it was like he was right there in front of me, for a moment I even shut my eyes, thinking that maybe then the image would go away, but even then I saw my grandfather's hand, except that this time I saw his fingers curling tight around the neck of a beer bottle until turning all white. I shook my head and let out a sigh, and I stroked Mother's shoulder and told her what Iron Fist, my geography teacher, had told me in school when he took me into the science supply room during the main recess to fill me in on the bad news about my grandfather and tell me I didn't have to stay for the rest of the classes that day but could go home, and so I told Mother not to cry, to calm down, life goes on.
When we turned onto the narrow street the cemetery was on, I noticed that both sidewalks were filled with parked cars way up on the curb and that each side of the black wrought-iron double gate was open, and that inside the cemetery a whole bunch of folks were gathered around the flower stand and also at the chapel, where everyone was carrying bouquets or big wreaths with ribbons in the national colors or in red or black, and I asked Mother why we hadn't brought flowers, to which she said that as I could see for myself, there would be plenty of flowers here, and my grandmother had called us dirty Jews so many times anyway that we might as well put a rock on the grave instead if need be, and besides, it was all the same to my grandfather, she didn't think the old man would be bothered much to see one more or one less bouquet, especially not like this, with his funeral being made into such a public spectacle.
Up until then I'd seen so many people in one place only when we were preparing for the visit of the commander of the armed forces, though there were a lot more police there, here I saw only around fifteen or sixteen of them, standing in uniforms by the cemetery entrance, and right then a short man in a hat went by us and I heard him say to another man next to him, "It seems the police are worried that something is brewing here, which is why so many of them turned out," but the other man just shook his head and said, "Oh come on, what can happen at a funeral, they'll bury the old man and then everyone will go on home just like they should, and that will be that," but the man in the hat replied that he didn't buy that, because he'd heard that… But right then Mother and I got up beside them, and as soon as they saw us they got all quiet, the man tipped his hat and both of them told us to accept their sympathies and that they were really sorry about my poor grandfather, and once again I didn't know what I was supposed to reply, but Mother said right away that she thanked them for their kindness and also for having come, so I also said thank you, and they nodded and went on toward the mortuary, the crowd was already really pretty big over by that building, and parked along the edge of the cemetery's broad main promenade were all these old-fashioned black cars sparkling with wax, cars with Party license plate numbers, I think I even saw a couple of old Soviet specials like Pobedas and Chaikas and Moskoviches, and of course Renaults and Citroens, the ambassador we went to one time to ask for help finding out what happened to Father was also there, he was smoking a cigarette while leaning up against one of those black cars, I recognized him even though I saw him only from behind, but luckily Mother didn't notice, no, I don't think she would have been too happy about meeting up with him.