He lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”
Golda picked up a lump of mud and formed a ball in her hands. “Well, I might as well tell you this. She came to see you and gave me her address. She was pregnant. Don’t look at me like that.”
She came for him? She was pregnant? “When was that? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What’s the point? The Japanese would have killed us all if you continued to see her.”
“But she was pregnant! You didn’t tell me. I was looking for her. If you told me sooner, gave me her address, I could have—”
“You’re being ridiculous, Ernest.”
The rain fell into his eyes like nails. They had a child, and yet he had let her go. No wonder she was so cold. What had he done? He could have had it all. It would have been the three of them: Aiyi, the baby, and him. They could have lived in the apartment with a balcony, could have laughed and drunk whiskey; he could have lived in a dream.
If only Golda had told him.
His head hurt too much, and the wet coat wrapped around him like a pall of ice. He wanted to weep, to be left alone, right there near the grave.
The prayer ended. Time to lower Mr. Schmidt to the ground. Ernest lifted the casket. It tilted forward, and Mr. Schmidt in his shabby white shirt rolled out into the grave with a splash. The casket was to be saved and reused.
People lowered their heads and walked around, laying balls of mud on Mr. Schmidt as the rain pattered down. Rage rose in Ernest’s chest, consuming him. He knelt on the ground, steeled his fingers, and thrust deep into the muddy earth. He began to dig, dig, and dig. His nails broke, his knees chafed; the coldness of the mud made him shiver, and the rotten odor made him gag, but still he dug. He wanted to make the grave decent, deeper, for a man was not a plant, not mud, not a bunch of bones and flesh. A man was an honorable being. A man should cry, but also laugh; should suffer, but also forgive; should dream, but also remember. Above all, a man should be given a chance to make things right again. If only he could make things right again.
On the bus back, Ernest rested his head in his hands, the mud working into his matted hair. He wept, but he didn’t know what saddened him more: Mr. Schmidt’s death, or the loss of Aiyi, or the lost opportunity to care for his child.
When he looked up again, the bus had stopped. Everyone had left, including Golda. He wobbled out. It was still raining. Above his head, a Zero fighter’s engines boomed.
Rain soaking his thin jacket, he shuffled back to his attic room, his head pounding in agony. When he reached the attic, he held the doorframe to stop the pain in his head. Golda was scouring their tin pot. It slipped from her hand and fell on the floor. She let out a frustrated cry.
All the bluster and blame. What was the point? She was his wife, and he was obligated to treat her properly. He picked up the pot and handed it to her.
She burst into tears, always so theatrical.
“It’s all right,” he said.
She hit him with her fists. A thousand streaks of defiance, of remorse, of anger, of devastation seemed to burst in her eyes, but she didn’t utter a word. She just hit and hit. A punch on the chest, a swipe on the nose, and a cut of her long nails scything his neck. He took them all, resisting the pain in his head. When she was done, he put the tin pot on the stove.
That evening, he had many hot, webbed dreams, and he sweated, drowning in waves of perspiration. The pain in his head, his chest, and his limbs became unbearable, and he moaned, delirious. Golda’s voice drifted, and then Old Liang’s.
“It’s sweet wormwood; it’ll get rid of the fever.” Something bitter poured down his throat. But this was it, he sensed it. His time had come.
When he woke up, the attic was quiet. Golda was lying next to him, her skin pale save for the rashes on her neck and face. Her eyes closed, she looked peaceful.
She was gone.
He would never figure out what took her life. Maybe it was scarlet fever, maybe typhoid, maybe something else. For the second time in two days, he took the funeral bus to the burial ground, Golda inside Mr. Schmidt’s casket. After she was lifted out, he covered her with the straw mattress that had belonged to both of them.
He squatted beside her, bowed his head low, and wept. He had done his best to make her happy, to be the husband she’d wanted; it hadn’t been enough, but that was all he could do.
Leah. His parents. Miriam. Mr. Schmidt. Golda. A litany of death. A tune of life lived and lost.
She had made him a better man. Her beauty had been his banner in riches and his food in poverty, her dramatic flair had outshone his bleak self, and her neediness was a bowl that demanded hard work and constant attention to fill. But she had been true to herself, a mirror of veracity he trusted.