Melnitz

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Every time he died, he came back.

On the last day of the week of mourning, when the loss had dispersed into the everyday, when you had to make a special effort to seek out the pain, a gnat-bite which stung yesterday and which you hardly feel today, his back aching from sitting on the low stools assigned by ancient custom to the bereaved for those seven days, there he was again as if it were the most natural thing in the world, walking inconspicuously into the room with the other visitors, indistinguishable from them in outward appearance. But he brought no food with him, even though that would have been the custom. In the kitchen the pots and covered bowls waited in line, a guard of honour for the deceased; he came empty-handed, took a chair, as one does, said not a word unless addressed by the other mourners, stood up when they prayed, sat down when they sat down. And when the others, murmuring their words of condolence, took their leave, he simply stayed on his chair, he was there again, as he had always been there. His smell of damp dust mingled with the other smells of the house of mourning, sweat, tallow candles, impatience; he was part of it again, he joined in the grieving, took leave of himself, sighed his familiar sigh, which was half a groan and half a snore, fell asleep with his head drooping and his mouth open, and was there again.

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