The church bells began around one. As
you know, the church bells here have four electronic settings: birth,
wedding, baptism, and death. The death bells are slow and
intermittent without a real melody to them. They're creepy. You
feel that death is in fact upon you when you hear them. Needless to
say, they successfully get their point across.
I'm sitting in my grandfather's house.
The second floor is known as our part of the house. Aside from the
room where my bedridden grandmother and her caregiver sleep, it's the
place where we, the relatives from America, stay when we visit. It's
where you and I stayed.
God I loved your impersonation of my
bedridden grandmother. My mom says she's about ninety-six now.
She's still bedridden obviously, but she's definitely gotten more
skeletal since the last time I saw her, which was with you three
summers ago.
My mother and cousin stand on the
balcony while I sit in the big, cushiony, floral chair that faces the
same view — a giant mountain and the church directly across the
street—now bustling with activity. My mother is pointing out
people she hasn't seen in close to forty years as well as making fun
of any outdated haircuts she spots. My cousin smokes a cigarette and
talks about how much money the mortuary is going to make today. I'm
writing, and feeling miserable.
My cousin says, "funerals are red
carpet events around here. See and be seen." I get up, join
him on the balcony, and look out onto the scene. He's right. It
seems like the whole village has descended upon the church. I
recognize many faces, a lot of them being distant relatives I hardly
know yet have managed to witness age on an annual basis every summer
since I was a child. The guest of honor is a being loaded into the
church. It is the corpse of the ninety year old woman who until
yesterday lived in the house directly behind ours. It takes a few
men to get her open air casket through the door. I sit back down
again. Moments later, the service begins. I know this because the
speakers in the trees have been turned on so that those who chose to
decline on this open invitation may hear the cantor from the luxury
of their couches. My mother gets up. "I'm going to go light a
candle." She's interested to see what kind of commotion she'll
stir. "If I go in there, I'm going to steal the crowd. Where
have you been? they'll ask me." She giggles at the thought and
exits. My cousin finishes his cigarette, rolls another and lights
it.
If I were a betting lady I would have
lost all the money and the clothes on my back if six months ago I’d
wagered my holidays would be spent like this.
