‘Oh, Thea.’ Anna Maria wrapped her solid arms around her daughter. She was a wall of strength.
Thea’s muffled voice issued from the press of clothes and flesh. Anna Maria pulled away.
‘What was that?’
Thea wiped her nose on the sleeve of her wedding dress and rested her head against her mother’s shoulder. ‘I wish Hanne were here.’
I sobbed, then, at the way her voice held my name. I kneeled with my arm across my face, my body shaking, tears oceanic down my skin.
Anna Maria did not respond for what seemed like an eternity. Then, blessedly, a sound that was not my own choked breathing.
‘I know you do.’
The Wend stared out the window at the approaching wagon, deep in thought. ‘I know.’ And she kissed her daughter on her brilliant hair as a knock sounded from without. ‘They’re here.’ She passed Thea a handkerchief and watched as she dabbed at her face.
‘Can you tell?’
Anna Maria smiled and gently pinched Thea’s cheeks. ‘A little colour will help.’
The knock came again.
‘Are you ready?’
Thea took a deep, shuddering breath and smoothed down the front of her dress. ‘No,’ she whispered. And then she opened the door.
I followed the wagon to the church, stepping over the trail of manure left in the lane by Samuel Radtke’s horse as it walked on. Thea’s back was upright, her gaze fixed forwards. Hans, to her right, full of movement. A handful of children kept running along the lane, pulling a length of rope across the way, and only scattering again, laughing, when Hans threw them coins. He was smiling, flipping pennies with his thumb, a small sprig of myrtle in his buttonhole.
I wanted to hate him but I felt nothing so simple. I could hardly feel anything towards him at all. I thought only of myself, broken-boned and weeping water.
‘Vorw?rts.’ Elder Samuel clicked to the horse. The children lowered the rope and the wagon lurched up along the lane and turned towards the church. The congregation had already gathered there, summoned by Flügel’s bell. I could hear them talking within the walls. A hive of bees.
‘Well,’ said Samuel Radtke, turning around to face Hans and Thea. ‘We’re here.’ He winked at them both.
Hans glanced at Thea and raised his eyebrows. Then Christian Pasche came out of the church and helped them both out of the wagon. Hans was sweating. I could see the glisten upon his forehead. Thea seemed to be in a world of her own. She followed Hans and Christian to the church door, but just before she entered, she turned and looked behind her, as if looking for something. Someone.
‘Thea,’ I said, voice broken. ‘Thea, I’m still here.’
Thea frowned and took something from her lips. She paused, looking down at her hand.
‘Dorothea?’
Christian Pasche inclined his head to the open door where Hans was waiting.
Thea stepped quickly towards her bridegroom. Then the two of them entered the church to the mournful sound of ‘Jesus Lead Thou On’。 The door closed and, suddenly, I was quite alone.
The horse whickered softly at its hitching post. I reached a hand to it, but the animal flattened its ears and took a few sudden sidesteps. The sound of the congregation singing came from within the church.
‘If the way be drear, if the foe be near, let not faithless fears o’ertake us, let not faith and hope forsake us . . .’
I walked to where Thea had paused by the doorway.
‘For, through many a woe, to our home we go . . .’
I could hear her voice against the greater drone of the congregation. A little husky, a little strained.
‘When we seek relief from long-felt grief, when temptations come alluring, make us patient and enduring. Show us that bright shore where we weep no more.’
Before I could summon the strength to walk away, I pushed the door open.
Hans and Thea sat in matching wedding chairs at the end of the aisle. I walked towards them as the congregation sang the last mournful verse of the hymn, Flügel facing his flock, eyes shifting across every face. By the time the hymn was finished, I was standing in front of her.
Thea gleamed in the low light of the church. She sat very still, straight-backed, her hands folded in her lap, bareheaded except for her myrtle crown. I kneeled in front of her and, as I bent my forehead to her knees, I saw she held something between her fingers. A splinter of light. A fragment of pearlescent shell.
I stared at it as Flügel began his sermon behind me.
Don’t forget me.
It was real. The shell was real.
As the pastor preached about God’s earthly gift of marital attachment and its teachings of restraint and love, I held Thea’s face in my palms and I spoke over him. I filled her ears with my own breathless pleading.