Vodka Espresso

7. time

July, 2000

A drop of hot wax fell on her thumb, but Ingrid didn't flinch. She stared down at it, numb to the pain, then at the candle burning in her fists, the little flame and the liquid wax beneath it. It reminded her of the birthday cake she'd had just last week. Hard to believe the woman who'd made her that cake and stuck ten tiny candles into it now lay lifeless in a coffin.

More wax trickled down the candle and onto Ingrid's skin. It barely stung. Her friend Filip watched her from the corner of his eye and tugged on his mother's black skirt. Frau Ionescu passed her candle to her husband and knelt down to clean Ingrid's hands and instructed the girl to hold the candle with the tips of her fingers.

She complied with automatic motions and did not lift her gaze from the concrete floor.

Filip scuttled closer to her once his mother stood back up. He offered Ingrid his hand to hold. She looked at it blankly for a minute. Took it. The boy leaned in to whisper in her ear.

"Granny Lena's with the angels now. She'll be fine."

The wailing song of the clerics officiating the funeral rites resounded in the church.

"My granny's dead," the girl retorted.

He tightened his grip. "I'll take care of you," he murmured, "no matter what."

Ingrid glanced up at her mother and grandfather standing at the other end of the coffin covered in carnations. Her mother had bothered to take a bath for once and wear something other than stained rags. Her grandfather, likewise, and both had the decency to look miserable, at least for now—at least in church.

The congregation began to move in unison, as the casket was picked up and the clerics led the people outside. Frau Ionescu took the children's candles and passed them to her husband, then grabbed Ingrid's freed hand. Filip did not let go of her other one.

The clerical wail continued as they walked out into the cemetery, towards the grave that had been dug for Elena Covaci. She had no family here. She'd married young in Transylvania and fled south with her husband, to his home and family. Ingrid had often visited the graves of her grandfather's parents and siblings, whenever granny Lena took her to church.

Even as a little child, Ingrid had felt sad at the thought of her poor granny all alone so far away from home. It made her cherish their bond even more, because each other was all they had.

And now her granny was gone, and Ingrid was alone.

The girl struggled not to cry. She didn't want to, not in front of all these people – not in front of her mother. Tears always led to a beating, so Ingrid had trained herself not to shed them. Now without her grandma there to hold her through it, there was no point in crying, anyway. It only made her head hurt.

She hadn't cried when her granny dropped dead in the middle of the courtyard after a heated argument with her good-for-nothing husband.

She hadn't cried as she sat and slept on the floor all through the wake, at the foot of her granny's coffin in the big day-room.

She couldn't possibly start crying now, when the casket was being lowered into its final resting place in the ground.

The mass of black-clad figures, the screeching wails of clerics and mourners, the smell of burnt incense and candles – her senses blurred together into a confusing whirlpool, like dirty cold water swallowing her up that time she nearly drowned in the river.

Ingrid scrunched her eyes shut. Wished for a moment that she was back knee-deep in the angry river, her footing loose on the slippery stones at the bottom of the muddy water. Hoped the current would drag her down, keep her there and she would never have to open her eyes again.