The White King (29 page)

By now the wind had really picked up, and I'd begun getting seriously cold, and I knew I'd start shivering soon, but I also knew that until my grandfather finished that second bottle of beer we wouldn't be going anywhere, and then I remembered what I'd read in a yoga book that Szabi lent me one time, that if you concentrate on your bellybutton then you won't be as cold, so I tried my best to concentrate on that part of me, but nothing happened, I was just as freezing as before, and I thought to myself that I should just stand up, I should get going, I wouldn't get back for the class bell anyway and maybe not even by the end of the main recess, I'd be in a heap of trouble for sure, they'd send me down to the principal and Mother would be called in, and I tried figuring out what excuse I could cook up, but nothing came to mind, and then I looked at my grandfather, figuring maybe I could see the time on his wristwatch, except that he was holding the bottle of beer in his left hand so I couldn't see his watch, but he must have noticed me looking because he turned toward me and said he'd heard that I always had my father's picture on me, and I nodded, and then my grandfather asked if it was with me now, and I said it wasn't, because I was in my gym clothes, which didn't have normal pockets, so I'd left it hidden in my school jacket, not in the pocket but on the side, in the lining, and my grandfather then gave a big sigh and said too bad, he would gladly have looked at it, because unfortunately he didn't have a single picture of my father, but no matter, if it wasn't here, well then, it wasn't, he still remembered my father's face pretty clearly, fortunately things like that were impossible to forget, and then he fell silent and took a sip of beer, the bottle was still almost half full, but my grandfather leaned up with one hand against the ground and said, "All right, let's go, we've been here long enough," and then he began struggling slowly to his feet, and I stood up quickly and grabbed his elbow and helped him up, and my grandfather leaned against me and stood, and he said thanks, and then he let me go, and with one hand he smoothed out the wrinkles on his pants, and he told me to hand him his sport coat, and I leaned down and picked up the coat by the collar and gave it to him, but my grandfather didn't put it on, no, he just lay it over his arm and picked up the bottle of beer, which was still a third full, and he said he wasn't going to finish it up, and all of a sudden he turned the bottle upside-down and poured the remaining beer out on the grass, and as the beer spilled out, he stretched out his arm and started lifting the bottle up high, the stream of beer thinned and the wind caught the drops and the smell of beer hit my nose, and the beer foamed white on the grass, and my grandfather lowered the bottle, and I thought he was about to fling it away, but he just dropped it on the ground, and he said, "Let's go," and he swung his sport coat to his shoulder and stuck in one arm, and he headed back toward the van, with the other arm of his sport coat swinging about as he tried to stick in his other arm too.

The ground had completely soaked up the beer by now, so all I could see was the black earth among the clumps of grass where we'd been sitting and the flattened grass where my grandfather's sport coat had been, and on noticing the two gold-colored bottle caps I leaned down and picked them up and closed my fist around them, and then I too headed back toward the van, after my grandfather.

N
EVER HAD I SEEN SO
many cars at one time as on that day, on the road to the cemetery. Traffic was really down since gasoline rationing began, but cars and taxis kept going by us one after another as Mother and I went to the cemetery on foot, yes, there were even people riding bicycles in black suits, and by the time we reached the stations of the cross there were a whole lot more people walking, and everyone who went by us said to Mother, "I kiss your hand," and some even said, "My sincere sympathies," and whenever that happened Mother always nodded and gave the same reply, "Thank you, thank you very much." Sometimes people on bicycles turned their heads when passing by us, giving a wave of the hand or a tip of the hat, so anyway, it sure was something, I had no idea that so many people knew who we were, that so many folks in town knew Mother and knew me too.

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.

Even though the main promenade was pretty long, from far away I could see big black flags fluttering on top of the cemetery's new mortuary at the end of that path, and as we went along, Mother tripped all of a sudden. "It's okay," she said, explaining that the clasp had loosened up on her shoe, that was all, I should wait a minute while she adjusted it, and she squatted. Meanwhile I took out of my pocket the medal I got from my grandfather for my birthday, and with one hand I undid its safety pin and pinned the medal over my heart, right where my grandfather had pinned it back when he wore it, and I pricked myself a bit while trying to fasten the medal to myself, but what did I care.

Mother noticed that medal the moment she stood up, and I knew she was about to tell me to take it off, but before she could have said a thing, this lady stopped right beside us, she came over so fast that I could even hear the swishing of her skirt, and she had on a hat that was bigger and had a wider brim than any hat I'd ever seen before, and this black veil was hanging from that hat all around so you couldn't make out the lady's face at all, and for a moment I thought that maybe it was my grandmother, but then I saw that it wasn't, this lady was much taller and much thinner, and when she then folded the veil back over the top of her hat I saw that she was much older too, not that I knew who the lady was, but she must have recognized us, for she said to Mother right away, "Hey there, dear," and she leaned close to Mother's face and gave her a peck on each cheek, and then she stepped back and all of a sudden she began crying really loud, and she raised an arm and pressed a big white handkerchief to her eyes and just stood there like that for around two seconds, and as she pressed that handkerchief to her eyes I noticed that she had on white threaded gloves, but she'd slipped a big ring with a seal on it onto her ring finger over the glove, and now that the handkerchief was covering this old lady's face completely, Mother gave a little hiss in my direction, motioning with her head that we should go, but then all of a sudden the lady lowered the handkerchief, her eyes were glistening with tears, and she said what a sad day this was, seeing as how this dear man had left us like this, and then she leaned close to Mother and asked, in a whisper, "Is it true what people are saying, did he really kill himself?"