An Afterlife. Frances Bartkowski

got to be a man. Let’s not forget how lucky we are—your Ilya and my Jakob—they are becoming very grown men. Motek is a good soul. You’ll remember his story to tell your children when they want to know about your life. His life will be a part of your story. Think how remarkable it is a funeral, a funeral-for-one. We’ll help to bury all our lost souls a little bit today.”

      Fanya never failed to know how Ruby was feeling. She was particularly in tune with Ruby’s sorrows. She didn’t talk much about her own. She was one of those who just said her prayers and insisted on being sober and serious. It was good she had Jakob for a husband, and Ruby for a best friend. Those two together, when they were in a mood to joke and laugh, even Fanya couldn’t resist. With Ruby, Fanya learned about what it might have been like to have a sister. She had lost three older brothers. And for Ruby, of course, Fanya was nearly like having Pearl, her twin, back, next to her, in her life, every day.

      • • •

      They knew they would have to take a taxi to the cemetery. Neither of them had been to a cemetery since before the war. A funeral seemed so ancient and forgotten a ritual. Like all the camp weddings and births, they made new things out of old barely remembered things. It felt good to be going to say prayers for his young soul.

      Standing with a few others at the grave, Ruby whispered what she could recall of the Kaddish with Fanya and the others, doing all she could to subdue her tears. None of them was crying just for Motek’s sweet soul. He was their talisman for memories of lives left, unfinished. Ruby was flooded with the memory of the smiling faces of his parents at the coffee house, her own parents, her sister, Pearl, her big brother, Max. A whole way of life that the chanting of Kaddish let go and let live on.

      There were a dozen mourners. A few Ruby recognized from the visit to the hospital, two nurses and the tall, handsome doctor, who were maybe praying in their own way. After the prayers, they were visibly at a loss. They were there together but didn’t know each other. Ruby made the first move. She put a hand on the arm of the silver-haired older man to her right, and with her eyes she beckoned to the two dark-haired women who were arm in arm by his side, and clearly a pair, like her and Fanya.

      “Let’s go for a drink together,” she said, quietly, respectfully, but in a voice that could be heard by all if they were looking her way. Those just beyond hearing turned, and an older bearded man whispered to the woman at his side. The mood had now shifted to their effort to stay together in Motek’s embrace, and find out something about him together. Ruby was certainly curious to know who these strangers were. There was a kindness in their eyes, and it seemed to be a reflection of who Motek was. She wanted to know his friends. Yes, because she felt she’d learn not only about who he had become, but something about her own life. They might have been more than friends in that old life. It was hard to believe they had found each other after the war. Who else was in Motek’s life here and now? Maybe there was someone else from home, but she’d never recognize them. Maybe someone who knew her brother. Maybe friends of his parents. Maybe someone who used to play in the orchestra with her father.

      The doctor knew the city and had a car. He could take half the group and come back in twenty minutes for the others. Now there was some activity. Who could best fit where? Three in front, maybe even four in the back seat. Then the five left would have the more comfortable ride. Should the women go first and the gentlemen wait their turn? Close quarters would insure the group got to know each other more quickly. Having been the one to issue the invitation, the doctor in a near bow, said to Ruby, “You should come in the first group and get the restaurant prepared for the rest—see to a table, you know, tell them we’d like a quiet corner.”

      “A quiet corner where we can all talk at once,” Ruby kibbitzed. She and Fanya got in the car. The other two women who had come together got into the car, saying, “We’ll come along with you.” A show of gallantry began between the elderly couple and the other men who didn’t seem to know each other but who all were shy and curious to get in a car with four women.

      “Come on, we won’t bite,” said Ruby, smiling, and a bit louder than anyone had yet dared. The silliness of their hesitation now there for all to see, one of the men stepped forward as Fanya and her seatmates squeezed a little closer.

      “I’m Philip Levi,” he said, offering his hand. Handshakes all around, and they were off. The ones left behind began the first round of finding out who was there, and where they were from even before the car rolled away. Inside the women in the back quizzed Philip, and Ruby and the doctor exchanged stories in the front seat.

      By the time they were all seated in the dim restaurant, silence rightly and quietly came over them. Ruby helped by telling again the story she had told Fanya on the train of how she knew Motek as a boy at school before the war. Spontaneously, they took turns, as each added a piece to the puzzle that was Motek, who they had just helped to bury. For maybe all of them, Ruby realized, it was the first funeral they were attending since before.

      That Motek was beloved came through clearly. The older couple who had stood through the burial, elbows locked, holding each other up, explained that they were cousins of his mother. They remembered him as a boy in the country, younger than they, who were teenagers before the war. They didn’t play together back then, but when they saw his name on a list of survivors, they sent a letter without a second thought. So for the past two years they had seders together in Augsburg where the couple had settled into another camp in the American zone.

      The two women friends around Ruby and Fanya’s age began telling first how they knew each other and then how they had met Motek last year: at a restaurant like this one, but noisier and closer to the train station. Dining at separate tables, they had ended up inviting him to join them for dessert. And he had told enchanting stories of his parents’ coffee house in Krakow where he was put to work as a young boy. They recalled his telling how he helped out, making people happy with enough whipped cream to keep them returning. It was the years of want; it was good to have a little extra. “Creamy flesh,” he said to us, the dark one recalled. “Motek said the whipped cream used to make him dream of touching his cheek to some girl’s. He talked about ‘stroking the softness’ of women.” Ruby’s memories linked with theirs. It could have been her sister Pearl he still remembered, she thought, but would never know. The memories were hers alone.

      The day had ended hours ago and they were all still talking, in every possible combination. It was another link in their broken chains, under repair now. They promised to get together after the ritual thirty days of mourning to toast Motek’s memory. Fanya and Ruby were exhausted with talk. The train ride back to Landsberg was soothing. They were silent together. Filled with stories to pass on. For Ruby, her brother Max, and another part of her missing sister was laid to rest in her heart. She and Ilya were to be married. The love she had for him she would live for two, and many more. She would make her heart big enough to love all that Max and Pearl would never get to see.

      As the train slowed its pace coming into the station, from the window seat she could see Ilya waving both his arms to catch her and Fanya’s attention. Before he could even realize it, she was hooked to his eyes. By the time they had their arms around each other on the platform, they could have been swimming together, tightly coiled, like the eels in a pail she remembered seeing one day when she and her sister passed an old man fishing from a bridge in town.

      • • •

      Dearest Masha,

      Nothing is better for my mind than when I have time to write to you. I see your face as I remember you. I imagine the place I see in the photo you sent me. I think back to the dining room table in my parents’ house, and I can see them, sometimes writing letters. Here I am now, at my small desk with quiet moments to share words with you. Stories from my small world.

      Let me begin with some good news. I have to tell you about the connection I made with a young German woman in town here. She and a friend own a fabric store that I have been stopping in from time to time. We began to speak to each other in a more and more friendly way over the past few months. And we made an arrangement that I would sew a skirt for her and she would let me have some fabric for very little money so I could make something for myself as well. A few weeks ago I brought her what I had made, a skirt and a vest because