Red velvet drapes, long enough to touch the floor, covered every window. Mr. Gerhardt, a Mr. Kurt Gerhardt of Gerhardt and Son: Funeral and Cremation Services, turned off the vacuum, grasped one drape, and with its golden tassel, tied it off to the side, letting sunlight into a room nearly as dark and devoid of life as the inside of a casket.
Thick-rimmed black glasses glided on sweat down the bridge of his nose. He pushed them back up, squinting to get a better look out the window until his eyes adjusted to the light. The circular drive wound down from the one-story funeral home, around a grassy island with a weeping willow a bit younger than his seventy years. Barren, the willow looked as though it belonged in the dead of winter not the middle of summer.
A white van pulled up the driveway. Kurt, sighing, ran a hand through what remained of his hair, a crescent moon of gray. A grandfather clock, his father’s grandfather clock, chimed next to the front desk like church bells. As a child he had sat next to his father in a pew lined with gold trim, his stubby legs dangling off the floor. He fought against the urge to swing them. He looked at his father’s feet planted firmly on the ground, quiet as a corpse. The seat next to him was empty. She wasn’t with them. Not anymore. Instead of listening intently to the pastor, Kurt imagined the seams in the room where everything connected falling apart, from pews to ceiling fans to Bibles. The whole building and everything in it had fallen apart around the humans, leaving them sitting in an empty field, Bible pages picked up by the wind, taken to God knew where. The clock chimed again. He shook his fist at it, an empty threat.
The clock stopped chiming as if properly cowed, reverting back to a soft ticking he could barely hear. Perhaps, he couldn’t hear it. His hearing wasn’t great anymore. Perhaps, he only heard a memory of the clock. He grabbed wood polish from the desk and wiped it down quickly before walking down the hall. Laughter as loud as those chimes practically smote him with all of God’s wrath as he approached the door leading to a storage room.
His two assistants had returned from the morgue. He dubbed them Ein and Zwei. Too old to remember the strange names of the youth of today, Kurt made up nicknames in his limited German, his heritage that he had long since abandoned and was now trying to reclaim at the end of his life. Ein was a twenty-one-year-old male and recent college graduate with long blonde hair. Zwei, only a year older and plagued by early onset balding, recently left an office job to find himself. The location of the funeral home, far north next to Lake Michigan, made finding decent help exceptionally difficult. No one wanted to live or work so far from the city. The lack of public transportation made matters worse.
All sound ceased as quickly as the clock chimes had as Kurt entered the room. Everything, even inanimate objects, knew him as the boss. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. Zwei handed him three release forms, tucked firmly under the clamp on a clip board. Either Ein or Zwei had taken it upon himself to sign for him. The signature was sloppy, only the “G” legible. His own signature was crisp and neat, every letter legible.
Three unclaimed corpses rested on gurneys. He checked their identification cards one at a time. There were two male adults, both middle-aged, and one male child, twelve-years-old. All had died unnatural deaths, suicide. The adults didn’t have families, and the child’s family wouldn’t claim him for reasons unknown to Kurt. All three of them would be cremated and thrown into a mass grave without his intervention. He told his assistants to take the two adults. He would deal with the boy.
Zwei shrugged at Ein. They communicated in nods and shrugs with him around. They each took a gurney, in proper protective gear, and wheeled them to the crematorium.
Kurt transferred the boy from the gurney onto a metal table and unzipped the black bag, pulling his body out. A large wishbone shaped incision crossed the front of his torso. Another incision went from ear to ear behind the skull. Everything was sewn neatly back into place, but something was off. The organs, including the brain, were removed during the autopsy only to be put in plastic bags and stuffed back inside the body, but they couldn’t be reconnected properly to the positions they held in life. The pieces remained disconnected.
He grabbed the boy’s hand to pull him onto a freezer tray. His hand dwarfed the boy’s. It was cold. Her hand felt that way. The day his father took her from him.
As a child he had held on tight to two large fingers with his entire fist as his father wheeled the gurney down the hall. They were cold. He could just make out the wrist, a line of red cut through pale flesh. With his stubby legs, he took two steps for every one of his father’s. The gurney halted suddenly, and he nearly lost his grip, swaying forward.
“You have to let go. Now,” his father said.
“No.” Kurt tightened his grip on his sister.
“Take her.” He motioned for his assistant and bent to pick him up, ripping her from his grasp, nearly dislocating Kurt’s fingers.
The assistant put her hand back on the gurney and under the sheet. His father had carried him away from the door marked “Employees Only.” A bell rang. Kurt shook his head, let go of the hand, and pushed the boy into the freezer.
He emerged from the “Employees Only” door behind the front desk. Stubby fingers, every nail chewed down to the quick, materialized to ring the bell again. He peered over the top of the desk. There, the top of her head coming just below the desktop, stood a skinny little girl with mousey brown hair pulled back into a ponytail with a pale green scrunchie. She couldn’t have been much older than ten. He dubbed her Maus.
“Hello, mister.” She paused for a moment then jumped up again and again to look at the business cards. “Mr. Ger… hardt. I—”
“Where are your parents? Are you with the Rose family? You’re here sooner than I expected.” He opened a calendar book on the desk and flipped through it.
Five complementary sewing kits sat in a basket alongside the business cards. He caught her eying the basket for a moment before jumping up and snatching a sewing kit.
“No sir. I live in the neighborhood, just across the street—”
He closed the calendar book.
“If you need to use the restroom, it’s down the hall to the left.”
“No. Mr. Gerhardt, sir. I was wondering…” She fidgeted, fingering the sewing kit, looking for the latch to get it open.
“What do you want kid?”
She took a deep breath. “See, I really want to ride my bike more often, but my mom doesn’t like me riding in the road. My house… half-a-house doesn’t have a driveway. I’ve been spy… watching this place. Well, you have a really big driveway, and it’s always empty.”
She sucked in air. He glared at her, but she just shrugged. What was it with the youth today and mistaking bodily movements for communication.
“I don’t know.” He squinted at her, focusing in on her dust covered clothing. He would have to vacuum again.
“Please.”
She looked up at him, brown eyes dilating in the darkness of the room until the black of her pupil nearly consumed her iris, making her transformation into a mouse complete.
“Alright, but only if there aren’t any customers here. If you see cars parked, you go home.”
“Thanks, mister!” Maus put her helmet back on and scampered off, throwing her entire body against the right half of the double door to open it a crack.
“And tell your parents what you’re doing. Ask them if it’s alright.”
The door fell shut, shaking the glass. He flinched, catching a glimpse through the window of her pedaling off on a forest-green bike with green and white tassels.
* * *
Kurt sat on a stool in the showroom, an open book on his lap. Finely crafted caskets of various metals and woods lined the walls around him beneath the glow of fluorescent lights, resplendent with silver, copper, and bronze furnishings. A rainbow of flowers, scattered about the room, rested atop the caskets and in simple glass vases. The plain caskets sat underneath the more expensive ones, shrouded in shadow.
He watched the two siblings, twins, pace around the room, accompanied by wife and child. Physically, they looked very similar, with auburn hair and brown eyes, but one wore an immaculate white suit while the other sported a baggy purple sweater with matching sweatpants.
The male twin, a doctor, walked up to and opened the lid of one of the most expensive caskets on offer, a solid bronze affair with white velvet lining. The female twin, a caregiver for their late mother, bent down to look at an unadorned pine casket. He dubbed them Herr Doktor and Frau Purple People Eater or Frau Violett Menschen Fresser as he pieced together in his limited German.
Herr Doktor produced a folded piece of paper from his suit pocket. The will. Frau Violett Menschen Fresser snatched at it, but Herr Doktor held it out of her reach. And so began their little familial spat. It was the usual claptrap. She bemoaned his getting the house, and that she couldn’t move until her son finished school for the year. Herr Doktor made a dismissive gesture toward her son, Snot or Rotz. Kurt grimaced as the little boy preceded to wipe his nose on his shirt, again.
Kurt watched Herr Doktor twist a gold ring on his right index finger. A hungry look filled his eyes, but the Rose siblings failed to notice.
“You have good taste sir. It has a luxurious white velvet lining, it’s rustproof, and the lid comes with a rubber seal that stops any outside elements from entering,” he said.
“Mother can deal with a few outside elements,” Frau Violett Menschen Fresser said. She stalked up to Kurt. He backed up, knocking a price tag off a mahogany casket. No young soul moved to pick it up, so Kurt bent over slowly, back aching, carefully, putting the price tag in its rightful place before hobbling back over to the stool.
The good doctor chose the expensive casket option at Kurt’s advice. Frau Violett Menschen Fresser walked to the front door, pulling her waterlogged son behind her she slammed open the door.
“Ouch.” Maus staggered backward.
Frau Violett Menschen Fresser turned to look at Kurt. “Look what you made me do.”
Maus entered the showroom after the last of the Rose family exited, rubbing her forehead.
“You don’t like them, do you?” Maus asked.
“I’m a businessman. My job entails serving the customer’s needs not liking them,” Kurt said.
“That sounds like something a used car salesman says. I went to one with my mother once.” Maus walked up to a bouquet of white roses in a glass vase and sniffed. She took one.
“Don’t compare me to those hustlers. Hey—”
“Why don’t they smell?” She put the flower back and sniffed the air. “It just smells like wood in here.”
“They aren’t real.” Kurt reopened the book.
“What are you reading? What is this? I can’t read it.” She pointed at the words in the book that were not in English.
“It’s a German dictionary.”
“You know German?”
“Yes. Well, a bit.”
“How?”
Kurt looked at her for a long moment, looked her straight in the eye. Her eyes were bright and inquisitive like a mouse seeking treats during an experiment in some lab or other. She seemed genuinely curious. He wasn’t used to such curiosity being directed at his interests, especially not by the youth of today.
“My family moved here from Germany when I was young. I was a few years younger than you. I don’t remember much of it—”
“So, you learned German as a kid?”
“Yes, some. Do you like books?”
“Yes.”
He looked up the word “inquisitive.” She stared at him.
“I have to get back to work.” He stammered and got up, turning off the lights as he left the showroom. Maus followed at his heels. “Keep out of this room.” He pointed at the “Employees Only” door.
He turned to look at her. She’d disappeared.
* * *
Kurt turned off the vacuum. A brown backpack rested on the bench, and the showroom lights were on. He entered the showroom. At first, he didn’t notice anything amiss, but upon further investigation, he saw a few price tags off-center and a handful of flowers scattered across the floor, dislodged from their proper places. He’d left the room spotless. Standing still, he listened.
“Help!”
The voice emanated from the lovely bronze casket. He opened it and found Maus, fist clenched and poised to hit the lid.
“I couldn’t get it open. It was too heavy, and…” Her entire body shook, grasping at his hand to steady herself. “I was so scared.”
“What are you doing?” He held her hand, wet with sweat.
“I was just playing, and it fell shut. I was stuck in the dark.”
“This isn’t a playpen. Go outside.” He pried her fingers off his.
Cheeks red, Maus jumped up, grabbed her backpack, and ran out the door. She was just a kid after all, same as Rotz. Kids were messy. His father had hated messy things. He looked down, inspecting the casket for damage, finding none to his relief, but spotted a light gray object. It was a portable game system of some sort. Kurt picked it up and hurried after her.
“Hey, you forgot your game thing.” He shouted at her, but she was already at the gate.
He looked down at the game system in his hands and turned it over. A piece of duct tape covered the back. In black sharpie, it read, “Molly Myszka.” Kurt went to the front desk and pulled out the phone book. He flipped through it and found a “Margaret Myszka,” circling the number with his pen before picking up the phone.
“I’m sorry, but we are not at home. Please leave a message after the beep.”
He left a message before walking into his office and carefully placing the game system in a desk drawer.
* * *
Kurt stood behind the front desk, phone to his ear, and wrapped the spiral phone cord around his fist.
The moment the clock hit three in the afternoon, chiming a God awful racket, Molly entered holding her backpack. It was stuffed full of God knew what, dripping wet.
Kurt hung up the phone. “I thought I told you to stay outside.”
“I know. I have. It’s raining.” She didn’t move, but she dripped.
“Go home.”
“But it’s raining…”
“Once it stops, you go home.”
Molly grinned like a mouse who had just gotten a treat.
“Immediately.”
Molly’s smile faded, and she trudged over to the bench, leaving a trail of muddy footprints on the carpet behind her.
She dropped her backpack onto the bench, shaking the water off and wringing out her hair before putting it back up into its usual ponytail, pale green scrunchie and all. Kurt grabbed a roll of paper towels from the back room, and after handing a bunch to her and pointing at the mess, he got down on his hands and knees. Molly, slightly drier, took the roll from him and started wiping up both carpet and bench.
He groaned, crawling over to the bench for the support needed to pull himself to his feet. He sat down, breathing hard. “You’re here late.”
“A new episode of my favorite show…” she paused in her wiping to gesture at him, “no, the best show in the world was on. I just had to see it.”
Molly, having used the entire roll, carried the remaining mountain of used paper towels to the trash. She kept the empty roll, for some nefarious purpose he had no doubt.
“What?”
“You’ve never heard of it? How?”
“If it’s a cartoon, I don’t have any kids.”
“It isn’t just for kids. It has everything awesome: daring sword fights, heroic mice, a castle, and even a giant evil snake!” She looked at him, smiling, waiting.
It sounded exactly like it was made for kids.
“Sure. Why don’t you go home and watch it then?”
She sucked in air. “Well, I watch it every day after school, but lately there haven’t been any new episodes, only reruns. I hate reruns. But I overheard some kids in my class say there’s a new book out. The show is based on a book series you see and—”
“Go home and read that.”
She deflated, popped like a balloon.
“I don’t have anyone to take me to the library. It’s too far away. If you haven’t noticed, this is the middle of nowhere.”
“Ask a friend.”
Molly’s smile faded, and she didn’t reply. She turned away from him and walked back to the bench to grab her backpack.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any children’s books,” Kurt said.
“No. I understand,” Molly said.
Gripping the bench, Kurt got up and hobbled back behind the front desk, pulling out his paperwork. He reached for a pen that rolled to the edge of the desk, coming to rest next to the basket of complimentary sewing kits. The empty basket of complimentary sewing kits.
He looked up at Molly who was gingerly removing from her backpack and placing various stuffed toy bean mice, rabbits, otters, foxes, and snakes on the dry parts of the bench. Kurt noticed that each bean animal had its own belt made of multicolored braided thread with sewing needles sheathed at their waists like, well, like swords.
He looked back at the empty basket. As a child his sister had sat on a low branch of the willow, a stick shoved through her leafy belt. She pulled three vines down, braiding them into another belt. His father ran over, ripping the belt into pieces, claiming she would damage the tree. The tree he planted, claiming this spot in this new country as his own as sure as planting a flag in the dirt. He shouted at her. She looked at Kurt, begging him silently to come to her rescue. He couldn’t stand to lose his father’s approval not even for her sake. He had covered his ears and closed his eyes, wishing it all away.
His eyes refocused on the empty basket and, grabbing the pen, he sighed. “You know my sister liked to do that.”
“What?”
“Play knights and such. She was always making things, shields from cardboard, sticks as swords. I think she just liked to hit me.”
“Must have been fun having someone to play with. I wish I had a sibling.”
“Not really. I was too busy following my father around like a dog before—”
“Before what?”
“Never mind. It’s nothing. She was annoying. It’s Gerhardt and Son not Gerhardt and daughter. I had responsibilities. She didn’t,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “but I wish I had followed her now.”
Molly didn’t respond and proceeded to embark upon the command of an epic campaign of mock battles, pitting the mice, rabbits, and otters against the foxes and snakes. The paper towel roll, now ripped to pieces, transformed into various small rocks and fortifications. It stopped raining, but Kurt didn’t say anything.
* * *
Rose family and guests huddled around the table laden with food at the back of the chapel, clutching and nibbling on appetizers. Frau Violett Menschen Fresser pulled Rotz down the center aisle, past row after row of white wooden pews on either side, and together, they sat down in the front row.
Kurt sat at the back, dictionary on his lap. While the furnishings gave the room the appearance of a little replica chapel, it was devoid of any crosses on the walls or Bibles tucked away in little wooden slots on the pews by his own design. He had gotten rid of them all. His one change. His one conceit. That he knew better than his father.
Herr Doktor, tie loose, a red stain running down the front of his white suit, stood before a small wooden podium at the front. Next to the podium sat a single bronze casket covered in a spray of flowers, white roses interspersed with a few sprigs of lavender. The customary piano stood behind the casket, next to the wall, keys covered. Herr Doktor grabbed the casket’s lid with both hands, dislodging two roses, and heaved it open. He sat down on a chair and bent to kiss the corpse. Frau Violett Menschen Fresser covered Rotz’s eyes.
Kurt took off his glasses and rubbed his face. He felt a poke. He put his glasses back on and saw Molly standing next to him in the aisle. She squeezed past him and sat next to him, plate filled to the brim with little strawberry cakes and chocolate chip cookies.
Molly set her plate down on the pew, went up the aisle and over to the casket, Kurt following. Herr Doktor vacated the chair, and Molly climbed onto it to reach the casket. He looked at the woman’s pale face. Her head was topped by a short mop of curly gray hair, a color akin to Kurt’s own hair. He looked back. He could nearly imagine himself in that casket. The Rose matriarch, very noticeably dead as it wasn’t supposed to be open casket, rested dressed in purple velvet, a small bouquet of the same flowers that graced the exterior of the casket tucked beneath her folded hands.
“What’s that?” Molly pointed at the old woman’s nose.
“Cotton.”
“What’s it doing in her nose?”
“It’s so she doesn’t leak.” Molly looked more inquisitive than disgusted as usual and jumped off the chair. She bent over and picked up a rose, sniffing it.
“It’s real.”
“Of course.”
Herr Doktor, tears falling silently down his face, stumbled over to the piano, uncovered the keys, and began to play some undecipherable music. He was no Beethoven.
Kurt went back to his seat, pulled out a pen, and opened the dictionary. He turned the pages, looking up “fool” in German. Molly sat next to him, picking up her plate, and looked at the page.
“Why do you do this work when you don’t like it?”
“Why do you think I don’t like it?”
She pointed at the word he was busy underlining.
Kurt shut the dictionary. “My father bought… actually, bought the land and built this place. It’s all I have left of them. I can’t leave her here alone.”
“Who?”
“My family.”
“Your sister?”
“She died. I was about your age.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She’s buried next to that dying willow out front, her ashes at least, like a dog. My father refused to give her a proper Christian burial because of what she did, how she died.”
“Well, a building isn’t a family. I know that much.” She looked down at her plate. He watched her, but she didn’t eat anything else.
Kurt grabbed Herr Doktor’s arm, gingerly as it was covered in snot, and helped the good doctor’s wife lead him out to their car. He passed Molly and Rotz playing with her toys on the bench. Rotz attempted to rip one of Molly’s toys in half. She hit him on the hand to make him drop it, and he began to cry.
He watched as she gathered all her toys, shoving them into her backpack. “Ouch.” A pin prick of blood welled up on her thumb. One of her improvised swords poked her. She glared at the bean mouse that dared attack her and threw it in with its companions. Kurt saw her creep around behind the front desk and look up at the “Employees Only” door before Herr Doktor pulled him out the front door.
He stepped back inside the funeral home, entered the preparation room, and saw Molly on the table placing sprigs of lavender stolen from the Rose funeral on a casket.
He had picked out a small pine casket for the boy, lined it with cotton, and painted waves and ships in blue on the outside. It was crudely done as he was no artist, but he thought the boy deserved something more than being thrown in a mass grave.
“Hey.”
Molly turned, knocking the casket off the table. It hit the ground with a snap. A large crack ran through the wood, splitting a ship in half.
“That’s it.” He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to… the flowers…” She whimpered as he pulled her along behind him.
“Don’t come here anymore.”
“Not even on the driveway? But I can’t—”
“No. You aren’t allowed anywhere on the property. I don’t care what you can or can’t do. You’re your parents’ responsibility not mine.” He pushed her out the front door, locking it shut behind her.
He watched her from the window almost ready to call her back. She had just been trying to do something for the boy as he had. His resolve hardened. This was no place for a child to be playing. She stood there for a moment, hiccupping, before pulling her bike out of the bushes, grabbing her helmet, and putting it on with a snap. She mounted, zigzagging down the driveway and out past the gate.
Kurt turned his back on the window and beckoned Ein and Zwei.
“Keep the gate locked,” Kurt said.
He went back to the boy, removed the flowers, put the casket on a gurney, and wheeled it to the crematorium. The room contained a crematory, the ramp leading up to it, and a machine that smashed the bones, left over from the cremation process, into a fine powder.
Kurt turned the crematory on and placed the casket on the ramp. Once it was at the right temperature, he turned on the conveyor belt. He dragged a chair in the room from his office and waited to put the boy’s ashes in a biodegradable urn.
Kurt leaned back in his armchair and stretched before opening the desk drawer to grab some paperwork to take home. He fumbled about in the dark and paused as his hand hit a solid, very non-paper-like object. He turned a lamp on and looked back in the drawer. Molly’s game system.
He looked out the window and wondered if she might be out there, riding in the dark. He stuffed the paperwork in his briefcase, grabbed his keys, and got up. He stopped at the answering machine and pressed the bright red button to check the messages again.
A mechanical female voice rang out. “You have no messages.”
He picked up the phone, hands shaking. The mother still didn’t pick up, so he left another message before grabbing the boy’s urn.
He walked over to the island, shovel and urn in hand. The grass was yellow and patchy. He looked around. Patchwork fields, empty save for wild grasses peppered with cattails that came up to his shoulder, stretched out as far as he could see, parted only by the two roads, the funeral home. The setting sun made it seem like the grass was on fire.
The willow’s shallow roots broke through the driveway’s pavement in multiple places. He stepped over the cracked pavement and walked up to the tree. He dug a hole at the willow’s base and lowered the urn in.
Kurt went back to his car and started up the engine. He stopped at the gate and got out to unlock it. Three duplexes, rather young, sat across from the funeral home, Molly’s self-described half-a-house among them. No lights were on. To his right, the paved road ended in fifteen yards, morphed into an unpaved dirt road, and rose to form a large hill.
Turning left at the gate, he pulled out onto the side road and headed for the main road that ran perpendicular to this little side street. His goal. The highway on-ramp. It would take nearly an hour’s drive south to make it home.
He saw lights as he hit the main road. Red and blue. Two police cars and an ambulance sat at the intersection. He put the car in park and got out.
One of the police car’s headlights illuminated a mangled shape resting on the road. Squinting into the light, he could just make out that the tortured metal had once been a bike, forest-green with green and white tassels. He gripped the car door to steady himself.
Kurt, abandoning his car with engine still humming, walked over to the bike and stood staring at it for a moment. A police officer shouted something at him, but his attention was drawn to a brown backpack resting off on the side of the road. It had a hole in its bottom. Its former occupants were scattered about, covered in dirt. He walked over and bent down to pick up a mouse, but his knee gave out. He knelt there in the dirt holding the torn bean mouse, its pin bent, beans and stuffing spilling out of its head.
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