We meet under the apple tree. The sky above is charcoal and a great storm is expected later. The gardener, John, has dug a hole. Nobody can meet my eyes. There is an air of shock and disbelief. The little Polish maid who helps the chef looks frightened. Her eyes dart about nervously.
Baba and I are dressed entirely in black. I hold a handkerchief to my trembling mouth while Baba says a little prayer. I watch everybody throw coins on top of the coffin.
I kneel down and throw the first clump of soil on his casket.
‘My darling Sergei, please forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me that I wasn’t there to protect you,’ I whisper softly. ‘I know I promised that I wouldn’t cry and make your spirit anxious, but I just can’t bear this sorrow. Never mind, I’ll see you again,’ I say, and begin to stand, but I stumble backwards. I feel an arm come around my back.
‘Don’t shed further tears, Tasha. Love is eternal. He will love you from wherever he is,’ Baba consoles, but her voice rings hollow in my ears.
Then everybody else throws their handful of dirt, and Baba comes to me. With her hand firmly around my waist she leads me away.
I let her take me back to the house. At the door she stops and holds out a hand. She is asking for my handkerchief. It is our custom to throw away our used handkerchiefs after a funeral. It is a way of reminding the mourners that one’s sorrows should start to diminish once the funeral has passed and not carried much farther into the future.
Automatically, I put my handkerchief into her hand.
‘Shall we have some tea?’ Baba asks, putting both our handkerchiefs in a plastic bag.
I shake my head. ‘I’ll just lie down for a while,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘Yes. Perhaps you should have a nap. I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours and we can have lunch together.’
I nod vaguely and enter the house. The house is even more silent than it usually is. I feel a strange chill go through me at the deathly silence. I go upstairs to my room.
While I was out someone has cleaned the room. Sergei’s bed is gone and the room smells of air freshener. I go to the window and watch John fill Sergei’s grave. Shovel by shovel until the ground is level. I watch him stop, push his palms into the small of his back, then sit under the tree and light a cigarette. His life seems wonderfully simple and uncomplicated.
Never again to see those eyes.
Tears cloud my eyes as I turn away from the window and walk to the bed. I sit on it and feel as if I am hollow, all my insides eaten away. Sergei’s little funeral has crushed my heart and broken my spirit in a way nothing before has done. I loved Sergei like he was part of me. He was always by my side other than the rare times I could not take him. I don’t even feel real anymore.
I feel as if I am living in a dream.
How can it be anything but a dream, if one moment someone is warm and alive and real and the next they are just gone? Forever. You cannot see, touch, or hear them ever again. How can all of us walk about pretending life is real, that it couldn’t at the drop of a hat pop into nothing?
What almighty arrogance to think that I of all people had anything in my control. What a joke. How my father must be laughing now. I believed, I actually believed, I could have my cake and eat it. I thought I could have Mama, Baba, Sergei, even Papa, and Noah. One big happy family. Fool. In one brutal stroke my father showed me different. I underestimated him.
Badly.
My father doesn’t understand love, but he has a gift of manipulating the love others feel. He sees inside a heart, feels its greatest vulnerability, and attacks. Yes, he took my beloved Sergei from me, but I know Sergei died with his love for me intact forever and mine for him.
There is a soft knock on my door.
I walk to it and open it. Rosita is standing outside. ‘Your father wants you to join him for lunch downstairs,’ she says.
‘Thank you, Rosita. Tell him I’ll be down in a minute,’ I say and close the door. He is home. I did not realize.
I lean against the door, feeling so numb that I cannot even begin to figure out why my father wants me to join him for lunch. Does he want to gloat? Does he want to frighten me more? Does he just want to have lunch with me because what he did to Sergei is not a big deal?