Epitaph for a Working ManO (10 page)

*

Two falls on the same day. He hadn't called anyone when he needed to use the commode.

The manager's wife suggested putting him in another room. They didn't have enough staff. But in four rooms – those for the chronic care patients – there was at least a bell. If he was in one of those Father could call when he needed to get up or if he needed help. Yes, a change of rooms should certainly be contemplated. It wouldn't be the first time they'd managed it.

On the other hand, it could be complicated – a lot of coaxing would have to be done. Because if Mr Haller was to move into one of the four sickrooms – and, as she'd said already, that would surely be the best solution – somebody from one of the four sickrooms would have to move into the room Haller had now. Unless somebody in one of the sickrooms chanced to die. That actually happened quite frequently at this time of year.

*

When he talked, his upper dentures slid around in his mouth. He took them out and set them down on the window-sill, behind the night table. He looked at them, shaking his head. They were coated in a brown slimy film.

As recently as December Father had only needed a cue for him to start telling me things. For example, how he'd patched up the fountain that was now standing in front of a granary in Zilmatt. Or the way he used to mend floor slabs or parts of façades before miracle products like Araldite, Cementit or Tenax were available. Or how he used to burnish luggage locks at the stamping works in Birchlen. We chatted about quarries, highly mechanised ones such as existed in Italy and France. About granite and marble, about shell limestone from Estavayer, about tufa, about red, green, yellow sandstone. One question used to be enough to set him off. It had been easy. Now I could seldom draw him out, could seldom get him to speak in more than monosyllables.

Why talk? Perhaps it was simply cowardice on my part. Perhaps I'd only helped him to talk about his work as a stonemason to avoid talking about something else.

His way of taking his dentures out of his mouth and setting them down on the window-sill, behind the night table. His way of picking them up from the window-sill and putting them back in his mouth again before I left. The loosely fitting dentures got in his way when he was talking. But when he wasn't wearing his dentures it was hard to understand him.

*

At the edge of the forest near Haulen I stopped and cleaned my hands with snow. There wasn't much snow on the verge, a few frozen crusts.

I easily feel disgusted. Schertenleib had eczema on his hands. If he happened to be in the room when I was leaving, I always tried to shake his hand without touching his eczema. I wasn't always successful.

Tobacco slobber, skin tumours, a few drops of urine. Some time later – it was at the end of January – I once held the urine bottle between Father's legs as he lay in bed, and two warts came up on my thumb the following day. I was not suited for nursing.

*

On his chair, hunched over the table, his head almost touching the table top. I lit him a cigarette. He took one drag, a second one, then laid the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. He sat there, lips pursed, motionless.

After a while he said he wanted to get back into bed. He looked at the smouldering cigarette in the ashtray, muttered something. I waited. He made no move to place his hands on the chair arms to push himself up; not the beginnings of a movement, no sign that I should help.

He seemed to have changed his mind. He asked me to light him another cigarette. He took a couple of drags. The pauses between drags lengthened. The ashes dropped on the table.

He should smoke as much as he wanted, Dr Lätt had said. Those filterless Virginia cigarettes were clearly the right thing for him. I remembered Sophie's remark. He was still smoking, but he didn't enjoy it any more.

What was he talking about now? What did he want now? It had become difficult to understand him.

He sat there, bent over the table. The extinct cigarette between his forefinger and his middle finger. His dentures were on the window-sill next to the newspaper.

*

After that he didn't get up any more. “The stabbing pains in my back,” he said. “The pressure on both sides. And inside, it's as if I had a pile of gravel in my chest.”

A woman came in and asked if he wanted a cup of tea. He shook his head.

But he'd eat something at lunchtime wouldn't he, she asked.

Would it be the Sunday roast or Grisons dried beef? He managed a wry grin.

There'd be meat loaf and mashed potatoes, she said.

He could give it a try, he said.

*

Sophie wanted to know if they'd put him in another room.

They had not.

Twice I'd asked to see the manager or his wife. They couldn't be found. The staff knew nothing about a move.

*

He lay there staring up at the ceiling. Panting, his mouth open. The dentures had been put away in the night table drawer. Two of the teeth were missing: the dentures had fallen off the window-sill.

*

Naef was waiting for me in the corridor.

It was not as though he wanted to interfere, he began. But he really thought Haller should be taken to the hospital. Just for a week or two. He didn't like the look of him. His cough. His difficulty breathing. It must be pneumonia at least, perhaps an inflammation of the diaphragm too. Haller himself never said much, but he was in a bad way, he needed care. The home wasn't equipped. They didn't even have an inhaler. A week in hospital, that would be good for him. I really should do something. True, Dr Lätt looked in once every two or three days. But apparently he had no eyes in his head, otherwise he'd have sent Haller to hospital long ago.

Naef had never talked like that before.

Of course he heard it whenever Haller fell out of bed in the middle of the night, he said. But what was the use? It took him, Naef, at least a quarter of an hour, or even more, to get up and call for help. He was sorry, but there was nothing he could do about it, he couldn't take a single step without his artificial leg. And in the meantime Haller would be lying on the cold floor.

*

“So, how is he?”

“Not well.”

I'd gone out by bicycle that Sunday afternoon and now I was telling Sophie about it.

I didn't know what to talk about with him any more. He just lay there listlessly. Or coughed and coughed. It was terrible to hear him. Apparently he often fell out of bed at night. Naef had intervened, and he'd more or less ordered me to do something at last.

*

That was certainly nice of Naef; but what could be done? I'd talked to the doctor and he'd advised me to let Father stay in the home, he'd said that a stay in hospital wouldn't help. I'd also spoken to the manager's wife. Was it really necessary to repeat it all again, in writing this time, in a registered letter, possibly express? Everyone interfered: couldn't one, shouldn't one, oughtn't one. But I was less and less sure of what was best. In the end everyone would put the blame on me. Even Father. I bet he'd been thinking for some time that I wasn't looking after things properly, that I wasn't giving him enough support against the doctor and the manager and all those people there. Whatever I did now was bound to be wrong anyway.

“You'd think you were the one to be pitied.”

“There you go, you think you know best about everything.”

“Oh goodness, stop moaning!”

“All right, shall we ask for him to be admitted to hospital?”

“I don't know. Honestly, I don't know.”

“Naef, with his pneumonia! Should I have told him that dying of pneumonia wouldn't be the worst way for him to go? I couldn't, could I?”

“No, you couldn't.”

*

I had lifted him from the chair on to the bed. He wasn't heavy, but I didn't have the technique, and I took hold of him clumsily. It took three tries before I succeeded. He put up with it.

We were alone in the room. Schertenleib had not been there from the start. Naef had soon gone out. I stood at the foot of the bed, my arms propped up on the metal rail. When I asked him something he answered yes or no. Fits of coughing. He kept his arms under the covers. He felt cold.

I sat down by the window next to the night table. Father lay with his face toward the wall. He was breathing loudly and regularly. Perhaps he was sleeping. None of the lamps in the room was on. Outside, the bright light of a north-wind day.

I stood up. I could have stayed a while longer but I'd be coming back again the next day.

“Well, I'm going now,” I said. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

He pulled his left arm out from under the covers and began to turn away from the wall on to his back; he hadn't been asleep. He shook his head. I only hoped he wouldn't start coughing again.

I put out my hand. “Look after yourself,” I said. “The doctor will be coming by to give you an injection. Perhaps not till the evening, he said. I phoned him. Then you'll be able to sleep through the night.”

He looked at me.

“Well then, see you tomorrow,” I said.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

“I hope you'll be feeling a bit better by then.”

“It's all right,” he said. “And thanks for the visit. Give my love to Sophie.”

“She sends you her love too.”

He nodded.

When I was putting on my coat he had already closed his eyes again. His hands lay flat on top of the blanket. He didn't feel cold any more. I could have stayed a little longer. The bus wouldn't be coming for a while yet.

I left the village and walked toward the next stop on the road to Haulen. The fields were flecked with snow. The ground was frozen. The north-easterly wind bit into my face.

A few cars overtook me; I met a few coming toward me. I had a sore throat.

There was still another quarter of an hour to wait when I reached the stop at the crossroads just before Haulen. I went along the path across the fields to the copse. I read the warning sign: peat bog, nature reserve. I read it a couple of times.

The village houses lay huddled together down in the hollow, distant, tiny.

My sore throat was laughable. The hands on the blanket came into my mind, small powerful hands, their skin freckled with age spots.

The north-easterly wind blew across the plain, marshy grey with strips of snow. The line of woods behind Haulen was black.

I'm going ahead. You won't catch up with me.

Two chain saws screeched. In front of the shed of a pig farm a man was doing some work.

It doesn't matter if you're hated. I don't mind being hated.

*

I don't know how he died. The next day, a Friday, I would have gone out again, but I had taken to my bed with a temperature. I would definitely have visited him on the Saturday or Sunday. Probably I'd have sat at his bedside on the Monday too. Or stood at the foot of his bed. I wouldn't have known what good it did. But I'd have stood there. Or sat beside the night table by the window, where he generally used to sit. It would have embarrassed me to hold his hand. How should one behave in such a situation? In a human manner. – That's easily said.

On Tuesday morning we heard that he had died. Sophie answered the phone. She came into the kitchen. “Doctor Lätt,” she said.

He offered me his condolences. I thanked him. He had been called to the home yesterday. Mr Haller had had a slight stroke, probably metastasis in the brain. In the late afternoon he, Lätt, had looked in again, he'd given him another injection: for the pain, as a sedative. Mr Haller must have died between half past eight and ten. Just fell asleep, Mr Naef had told him. In the home they had done everything that was necessary. The formalities had been completed. If we agreed, Bosshart's could organise the funeral. The firm, a carpenter's in Tägern, did most of the funerals for the home. We could discuss the details with Mr Bosshart himself.

*

A death is not a difficult thing to manage. Everything went without a hitch.

Yes, a simple coffin.

No, I would send in the death notices myself, but thank you for the offer.

Yes, of course, a flower arrangement, the usual kind.

No, we wouldn't be having printed cards; I would write personally.

Certainly, Friday for the cremation would be fine with us.

The Bosshart company organised everything; all I had to do was find the priest for the cremation ceremony. Normally you asked at the rectory of the official place of domicile, said Mr Bosshart. For residents of the old people's home that was not Breiten but the place where the deceased had been entitled to vote.

The answerphone at the Birchlen rectory announced that Father Aebischer was away that week: in urgent cases one should apply to the priest in Erzelen. There they told me the priest had gone off to the Bernese Oberland that day, to the school ski-camp; he probably wouldn't be back until the following day; I should ring the bishop's office. The bishop's office referred me to the Fridberg rectory. A crackly old man's voice answered the phone. I had to explain what I wanted twice; no, said the priest in Fridberg, he was only working on a temporary basis, and anyway he had to say a Mass on Friday morning. I rang the bishop's office again. There they discovered that in such cases the Capuchin monastery had to help out; the secretary offered to inquire for me. I asked her to give me the telephone number, I could do it myself.

Telephoning seemed to be the right sort of occupation for me just now.

A Brother Markus answered. He was the porter. He put me through to Father Antonius, the vice principal. Father Antonius took a moment to think over who might be available, then decided to take care of the matter himself. Could I give him a few details about my father's life? I told him I'd ring back in the course of the morning. He agreed.

I took some aspirin. Sat down at the kitchen table. It was snowing. For a long time I couldn't think of anything to say.

By the time I rang the monastery it was nearly midday. When I'd finished giving the priest the biographical details, I asked him if a funeral address was really necessary. I'd been at funerals where the eulogies had been much too favourable. Why could you say nothing but good about the deceased? Surely their annoying sides were just as much a part of them? I added that I had no idea why I was telling him this, but that it had come to my mind while I was compiling the material. As I'd already said, there was really no need for him to make a speech. Wouldn't it be all right without?

The Capuchin countered that people at funerals were usually glad to hear a few sentences to remind them of the deceased. He'd be happy to take on the task. He could manage with the material I'd given him.

He outlined the procedure. There would be organ music too, he'd see to it. Everything would be done in the usual way.

*

Father was laid out for viewing in the mortuary of the municipal crematorium. In the death notices in the papers here the mortuary is usually called the cemetery hall. People don't like the association with corpses.

Sophie left work at four thirty and we went there together.

January to March: open until six p.m. A lobby, a corridor, a row of cubicles. A notice on each door reminding one to switch on the light before entering. We switched on the light and went inside.

Father was lying in the open coffin, behind a glass pane as if in a shop window. The feet facing us. The white shroud left only his head and his hands uncovered. A few red carnations along the edge of the coffin, three red carnations in the folded hands. Hands and face sallow. The formerly emaciated face now full, as though stuffed. Smooth-shaven. The bushy eyebrows. The coffin bouquet. Two small potted trees from the crematorium.

In front of the window a cushioned seat, an umbrella stand. The sound of the ventilator was audible in the silence.

Sophie said: “When my mother was laid out in the chapel in Hard you could walk right round the coffin. There was no glass in between. Here you can't even give the old charmer a kiss. Would it disgust you? Not me.”

We left the room.

*

The following day I went there alone, in the evening again. Again the lobby, the corridor, the row of cubicles, the smell. I stepped inside, sat down on the seat. Now there were wreaths arranged along the right and left of the coffin. I read the silver writing on the ribbons. Last Greetings – Union of Construction and Timber Workers. Last Greetings – Birchlen Working Men's Choir. Last Greetings. The words on the ribbon of the fourth wreath were: To my Friend and Father. “We can leave out the greetings,” Sophie had said. “In any case, he won't hear them any more.”

I sat on the seat. The sound of the ventilator. He lay there stiffly. His face not friendly, not unfriendly either, just unfamiliar, remote.

I stayed until six o'clock. On hearing footsteps outside I got up.

It was snowing again, big flakes, wet. I took the roundabout way through the town.

*

Not including relatives, there were about two dozen people at the cremation. I knew most of them by sight, a few old men, a few old women from Birchlen. The trade union had sent a delegation of three; a young man bore the red flag.

After the organ, a prayer and a short reading from the Old Testament, Father Antonius stepped out in front into the centre aisle.

The deceased had grown up in Birchlen. His parents had been factory workers, he had become a stonemason. As a young man he had lived for a while in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Indeed, he'd liked changing jobs, had liked getting around the country, had always liked learning new things. After his marriage he had worked for Späti plc here in town, but with them too he had often been away, helping with church renovations in St Gallen, Engelberg or Lausanne. During the war he had joined the union. From then on, the workers' movement had been his thing, he'd felt it was where he belonged. Twelve years ago he had had a serious accident, which was why he had moved into an old people's home. Nevertheless he had continued – right up to his death – to restore fountains, for a pittance, just for the pleasure of using his hammer and chisel to restore things that were made of stone. The deceased had had many friends; some people had been put off by his forthright manner. He had been a witty talker and he had liked talking. Occasionally he made harsh, caustic remarks; there were people who did not like that. But all that was over now. Life had often weighed heavily on him. But he'd always got back on his feet. He may have been hard-headed, but he'd never been one to look out only for himself; whenever called for, he had spoken up in support of his colleagues; in such cases, thoughts of his own welfare had taken second place. As far as was known, the deceased had never taken an interest in matters above and beyond earthly life. However, we could be sure that someone who had done so much for others would live on – and not only in the memories of those he had helped. All in all, Alois Haller had been a peaceable man. Now he would rest in peace. Knowing that could be a consolation to the bereaved. Every death meant a loss for those left behind.

The organ started playing.

People shook hands with us.

They stood in small groups in front of the cremation hall.

*

He had inquired about my mother once or twice in the course of that last year. Only in passing. If she was still living in Basel, if I went to see her occasionally. I had told him what I knew.

As to my mother, I had told her about his illness. Apparently she had already heard of that kind of cancer. It could take a long time at his age, she had said, intimating that he was bound to live for a long time yet. The Hallers were tough, she had said, and besides that he'd always enjoyed good health.

I never told her how often I went out to the old people's home, how often I escorted him to the hospital. At regular intervals she complained that I seldom went to Basel, that we rarely saw each other.

There was a photograph of her inside the cover of an old diary of his. He had used the black plastic cover as a wallet. He carried it with him most of the time, in the inside left pocket of his jacket.

Should I have arranged for the two of them to meet once more before his death? “I'll go and see him some time,” she had said on the phone. “Over the years, whenever we happened to meet, he always got upset. It wasn't good for him. So I kept out of his way.”

In addition to the photograph I found the following things in the black plastic cover: a receipt for some stone-filler; a picture postcard that Sophie had sent him from Elba; a slip of paper containing two phone numbers; a newspaper cutting with an article describing the Outer Brühl District Trade Fair, in which Estermann's fountains were mentioned.

My mother had been present at the funeral ceremony.

She thought it was proper that we had invited only close family members to the lunch. The ceremony and what the Capuchin priest had said had also been all right.

The priest hadn't mentioned the divorce.

*

Tuesday was the day fixed for the burial of the urn. At half past ten Sophie and I picked up Father's ashes from the crematorium. With the four wreaths and the urn we took a taxi up to Birchlen. A sunny day, cold.

The gardener dug the last spadefuls of earth out of the hole. As soon as the church clock struck eleven, he said, we'd put the urn inside. We waited in silence.

At eleven, no chimes. The gardener looked up at the tower. We went on waiting.

If we'd had a Capuchin again, everything would have run its preordained course.

After a while, feeling I had to say something, I remarked that apparently the clock in the tower had stopped.

Possibly, said the gardener.

“Too bad,” I said. “Let's start all the same.”

He picked up his spade and tipped the clayey soil back into the hole around the urn. The hole was not deep and soon filled up.

The gardener pointed to the clay. They only did urn burials in this part of the cemetery now. He had been there three years ago when they'd dug up and removed the old graves. Clay and water. It had been quite disgusting.

I gave him a tip. As Father had been a burgher of Birchlen we didn't have to pay anything else.

*

A week later three firms had already sent us offers for the gravestone. Späti plc, Meier Statuaries, Widmer & Co.

In addition, the representative from Späti plc, a Mr Schneeberger, rang us up.

Had we received the offer and was it all right? He was sure that Mr Haller would have been satisfied with his suggestion. Something very simple, in travertine. After all, Haller had worked for Späti plc for more than twenty years altogether. The firm would spare no effort to create a gravestone worthy of a stonemason. Simple and tasteful. Mr Haller, as far he, Schneeberger, knew him, would appreciate that. Stonemasons never wanted any of the fancy stuff for themselves. But what was he saying? I was sure to know all that myself. So something simple, something beautiful. Hewn or polished, with embossed or incised lettering. The stone could be up by Easter if I came to a decision quickly enough. In the case of urn burials the stones could be set without delay, there was no waiting period. I should feel free to let him know as soon as I had thought about it. He'd sent me two sketches to start with: he could send me more. What he'd sent was only a suggestion. The details would have to be discussed, in any case. He was at my disposal at all times.

He needed the order. His monthly target. Snuffling his way through the death notices in the papers: the
Stadt-Ring,
the
Tagblatt,
the
Neue Nachrichten.
Commission on turnover. Perhaps one day I, too, would be trudging around as a representative, sending offers on glossy paper, full of politely insistent alacrity on the phone. Sorry to disturb you. Don't mention it. The pleasure is all mine.

Why didn't I become a stonemason? Gravestones will be in demand for a long time yet.