She walked with controlled steps and tugged at the hem of her black jacket. The olive skin on her face was taut against high cheekbones, making her wrinkles almost imperceptible at a distance. Sadie held her mouth tightly shut, but Anna could see that her chest was heaving considerably. Perhaps her lateness wasn’t intentional after all.
Her sister picked at the sides of her white blouse, smoothed out her skirt, and, as predicted, chose a seat on another bench to the left of the bimah. Anna felt the room’s eyes going back and forth, from Sadie to her, back to Sadie, watching for any reaction.
People began talking in low whispers. When Sadie raised her eyes, Anna saw in them a brief flicker of surprise, quickly suppressed. The whole room was looking at her. Without losing her composure, Sadie caught old Ida Gutstein’s stare and returned it almost without blinking, until the woman became visibly shaken and was forced to look away, and then finally down into her lap.
“Yit-gadal v’yit-kadash sh’may raba b’alma dee-v’ra che-ru-tay...”
Anna looked across the grave. Sadie stood alone at the back of the grounds, a few steps behind the other mourners, and looked away as soon as the rabbi said the Kaddish. There was only one row of tombstones behind her sister, and then the cemetery ended with a wire fence that separated it from the noisy street. A few of the tombstones had stones and pebbles on top.
Anna looked at the people gathered around the grave. She wondered how many of them their mother had really cared about. In her experience, there were always a few at any funeral crying more out of guilt than out of grief. She clasped her chest with one hand and grabbed her friend’s hand with the other. A light rain began to fall. She looked back at her sister. Sadie looked old now that the rain was wiping away the shine from her grey hair.
The Kaddish over, Anna approached the pit, picked up the spade, and shovelled some earth into the grave. She looked up and saw the surprise in the rabbi’s face. The others followed discreetly one by one, and she stood back to listen to the slicing sound of the spade going into the mound of earth, and then the thump of the dirt clods as they fell on top of the coffin. When the last mourner had put down the shovel, people started filing away, and Anna realized Sadie was not going to approach the grave. Her sister was still turned the other way, looking at the cemetery fence.
Anna cleared her throat and picked her head up. “Excuse me for a moment, everyone.”
People stopped and turned. She paused and looked down at her mud-covered shoes. The rain had begun to make the ground slick under their feet.
“Thank you for coming today. I know it’s raining; I won’t be long.” She took a tissue out of her purse to blow her nose.
“My mother was truly blessed to have such caring people in her life. It would have made her very happy knowing that you came all this way to pay your respects.
“As you may know from the announcement in the paper, the shivah will be held at my mother’s place in Manhattan. When she and I talked about her funeral, she was adamant the shivah be held there, even though I tried to convince her it would be more comfortable at my house. But you all know how she was, there was no point in arguing, and I want to respect her last wishes. In any case, anyone who has been there knows that her apartment is very small, so my sister and I would ask that you give us a few hours to prepare the place and to clear it out properly so that you can all visit more comfortably.”
She watched people look at each other in confusion. Perhaps some wondered who the sister was; more likely it was the delay that caused the murmur. They were probably wondering why the apartment wasn’t prepared ahead of time. Her request was unusual, but she didn’t care; she had her reasons for lying.
“We will be pleased to see you all, if you can make it, from four o’clock onwards.” Anna smiled, and when people realized she had nothing else to say, they began to move again.
As the group drew back to wash their hands in the basin at the edge of the cemetery, Sadie was left staring at her. Anna stepped forward to close the gap between them.
“Hi, Annie. It’s good to see you.”
“You can come with me to Mama’s place if you like,” she said, and they started toward the basin. “I have one of my neighbours’ cars today. They’ve been very good to me since Mama got sick.”
“Of course.”
Anna shook her hands dry, then led the way to the car.
The apartment building was five stories high and stood out garishly from its neighbours because of its red-painted brick walls. But Anna felt that the black fire escape that hung down from the fifth floor to the second was the giveaway to the interior decor. As they approached the building, she looked back at Sadie, who was trailing behind her, looking around at the old neighbourhood. Her sister stopped on the opposite curb and took in the street as a whole.
“The fire escapes didn’t used to be here,” Anna said. “That’s why it looks different, if you were wondering. And of course the building used to be painted brown, remember? And that school across the street went up in the sixties. At least Mama’s had a better view since then.”
The street was almost empty of people, and the air barely moved. Anna waited for Sadie to cross to her side, but now she was staring up at the third floor, to the window of the old apartment.
“Looks different, doesn’t it?” she called out.
“Not so different.”
Anna shrugged, moving on without her and opening the front door with her key. She turned once again to wait and saw that Sadie was following her.
“We’ll have to prop the door open later so people can get up,” Anna said, shutting it behind her. “There’s no buzzer to open the door. Besides, it’ll give more light to the hallway too.”
The entranceway was dominated by the coconut scent of a curry being cooked in one of the apartments, but it couldn’t quite conceal the mustiness underneath. An old veneer was wearing off of the stairs, revealing a dull, darkened oak.
Climbing ahead of her sister, Anna pulled her weight up the first few steps by grasping the banister. It was also made of solid oak, and it had always been the sturdiest thing in the building — an aberration in the poorly constructed tenement.
The walls of the stairwell were papered with a dusty floral print, which was peeling where it met the ceiling, revealing pressed tin. Flickering electric lamps shone weakly at the landings, in a style that imitated the gas lanterns from the turn of the century. Anna could hear that climbing the stairs was not easy for Sadie either, and they were both wheezing by the second flight. It never ceased to amaze her how their ninety-year-old mother had managed this every day.
When she reached the top of the stairs on the third floor, she stopped to wait for Sadie and to catch her breath. She looked at the carpeting and saw that it was threadbare, beginning to expose thin wooden floorboards. She made a mental note to tell the landlady. Sadie reached the landing and looked at the door to the broom closet. It was ajar, and she pulled it open. There were a few brooms and pails and rags thrown in any which way.
“They took the toilet out years ago,” Anna explained, “and thank God. It stank to high heaven, do you remember?”
Sadie nodded.
“The landlady’s made improvements, but it’s the bare minimum, believe me. It’s still very shabby, as you can see.” She wiped her finger against the wall and showed her the dust.
Sadie grunted. “The sad thing is how much worse it used to be. Compared to then, this seems fancy.”
Anna went to the end of the hall and unlocked the apartment door. Sadie followed her over the threshold and they stood for a second, contemplating the room. Anna was used to how small and cramped it was, how economically it was furnished