Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

The white line of the eyebrows ran through her face, a sum that’s been added up and is over and done with.

In an old people’s home dying is nothing unusual, no more than a final hurdle that everyone has to take. You expect it and are prepared for it. Routine. Most of the fuss is usually caused by the choice of who is next in line for the room, particularly this room, given that Chanele had had the best one in the whole house, the one with the view of the street from where you could see visitors arriving from a long way off, even if you didn’t recognise them any more.

On the telephone to François, Frau Olchev said what she always said to the bereaved: the worst had now really come to the worst, but she had seen to it that everything that needed to be done had been done, and all the preparations made. Herr Meijer could rely on her completely, she said, and needn’t worry about a thing. Even though she knew it couldn’t really be a comfort for him, of course not, it might do him good to hear that his mother — such a lovely person! — had gone to sleep quite peacefully, you might say, if he would allow her the image, that she had slipped through the gates of heaven without having to wait outside for long.

And as she said, everything had been organised. She, Frau Olchev, had just assumed that Herr Meijer would be happy if she ordered the chevra, so that everything would be done according to the old tradition, although he himself might…

And so on, and so on, even after François had long since stopped listening.

The funeral was held two days later. Canton regulations meant that it couldn’t be performed the same day, as Jewish customs would have dictated, but things went very quickly even so. No circulars had been sent out, but a surprising number of mourners still turned up. Such news spread even without mail. But only a few people were able to come from Zurich, because of course Chanele was buried next to Janki, in the old cemetery of the Aargau Jews, and it took at least half a day to get there and then travel back afterwards. Even though they would have liked to pay koved to the family in person, one can’t necessarily travel all the highways and byways to do so.

The kosher clothes factory had sent a delegation, and Sally Steigrad was there, who went to all his customers’ funerals. Wicked tongues said you could tell the extent of the life insurance from his facial expression by the graveside. In this case there was an additional, to some extent official reason for his presence: he had in the meantime become honorary chairman of the Jewish Gymnastics Association, and Janki had been flag sponsor after his big donation, and so Chanele effectively the co-sponsor.

Not many people came from Endingen, which was closest; since it had been possible to live anywhere, the old Jewish communities had shrunk. On the other hand, a whole busload arrived from Baden, mostly old women who wanted to take a look at the descendants of the Shmatte-Meijers. With a lot of significant nodding, they confirmed to each other how good the service had been in the Modern Emporium in Chanele’s day, much better than it was now the wealthy Schneggs were in charge, but then the Schneggs didn’t feel the need to encourage their employees to be polite.

They generally kept their distance from Frau Olchev and the other representatives of the old people’s home. Their presence was too potent a reminder that new rooms were always becoming available in Lengnau.

Very surprisingly, at the last minute, Siegfried Kahn arrived, Mina’s brother, whom Aunt Mimi had wanted to match up with Hinda many, many years previously. He stayed apart from the rest and didn’t say hello to anyone, to demonstrate that he was here only to pay his respects to Chanele, and not to the rest of the family. During the short ceremony he turned his owlish head, now grey, quite malevolently towards the place where François stood with his brother and sister. ‘A goy has no business at a Jewish funeral,’ his eyes said. ‘Whether he is the son or not.’ Still, François had been sensitive enough not to have a tear made in his jacket as a sign of mourning, as Arthur had done. That wouldn’t have been at all appropriate. François wore a black coat with a beaver-fur collar, and in the opinion of the old people from Baden he looked particularly un-Jewish.

The only family members missing were the ones from Halberstadt. It was possible that Ruben didn’t yet know anything about his grandmother’s death: for some reason the telephone call they had booked immediately had still not come through. They had now sent him a telegram, but so far he hadn’t replied.

They were all really mourning, which isn’t necessarily the case at funerals, for Chanele, although not for the Chanele of the last few years. With her death, she had become once again in all their minds what she had once been.

If one is unused to crying, it can easily tear one’s face apart. Hinda was born to laugh and didn’t know how to deal with tears. She wore her pain like a disguise, as if she had bought it quickly without spending very long choosing it, as she had done with the hat with the little black veil.

Zalman listened to the rabbi’s hesped with a critical expression. Sometimes, when the speaker got unnecessarily lost in commonplaces — ‘Eyshes chayil, loving wife, exemplary mother’ — without being aware of it, he shook his head disapprovingly and seemed to be preparing the arguments for a contradiction. He had always been particularly close to his mother-in-law; Chanele had been his ally from that first evening, when — ‘If it’s not negotiable!’ — she had forced him to make a formal proposal to Hinda.

Lea, who was standing beside her father, went on tugging nervously at her coat or straightening her hat. Something didn’t seem to be quite right, because the people, particularly the ones from Baden, were staring at her and whispering. She could even feel the glances on her back, like the touch of tiny fingers. She should have taken more care with her clothes: the old people of Baden, most of whom had previously known the Kamionker twins by name at best, now agreed how much Lea, with her eyebrows that met in the middle, looked like her grandmother, may her memory be blessed. You had to imagine her without the glasses — Chanele had never worn them, even when she was very old — but then it was, God preserve her, the spit, the very same punim.

Lea’s husband would have liked to give the whisperers a good telling-off, as he would have done at school. But Adolf Rosenthal had no say here. If you’ve only married into a family, at levayas you’re inevitably a marginal figure, a role that didn’t suit him at all. He stood stiffly among the others, almost insulted, and had to confirm his authority by digging his son in the ribs a number of times to make him stand up straight.

Hillel was wearing his old Shabbos suit, and didn’t feel at all comfortable in it. During his time at the Strickhof he had developed new muscles, so that the fabric bulged all over him. He felt as if with this disguise people were trying to force him back into a role that he had outgrown once and for all. He felt like Böhni in it. Still, he had successfully resisted the peaked cap that his father had tried to force on him, and instead insisted on the little embroidered kippah that identified him as a Zionist.

Rachel wore a dark grey suit from the winter collection of the Kamionker Clothes Factory. Her hat was too elegant for a funeral, but should one really wear an ugly one only so one didn’t put people’s noses out of joint? Her clothes were, however, subject to fewer comments than her red hair: it was generally agreed that this colour was entirely unsuitable for a sad occasion. At the same time her hairdo wasn’t a sheitel that could be donned or doffed as the situation required.