On her bedside table a lonely candle burned, but it didn’t shine on Mother, high up in her bed, which meant I didn’t have to face her death struggle. Our cousin, the nun, sat there and prayed.

After I’d been standing there for a while, my brother came in, took the candle and held it aloft, as though in a torchlight procession, lighting up Mother.

He must have seen something, because he went to the kitchen door and asked everyone to come into the bedroom.

I heard chairs move – and in they trooped.

A little later, my eldest sister said it was all over, but the nun contradicted her, saying that she hadn’t shed her two tears yet. Did Mother have to produce those two tears?

It lasted more than an hour – me still with all that beer in me – but at last she was pronounced dead.

And they were right, because no matter how hard I tried in my head to command her to sit up and dispel that whole crowd with her fearsome smile, it was to no avail. She was lying stock-still, the way only dead people can.

It had all happened rather quickly in the end, and I’d very nearly missed it.

A great chill came over me when the chorus of women began to weep and I couldn’t join them.

Where did they get all those tears from? They weren’t the first ones – I could tell by their faces. Fortunately my brother didn’t cry either. But he’s a doctor, and they all know he’s used to witnessing such scenes, so I felt embarrassed after all.

I tried to make up for everything by embracing the women and giving them firm handshakes. It seemed incredible: only just before, she’d been alive, and now she was dead.

And suddenly my sisters stopped weeping, fetched water, soap and towels and began to wash her.

The effect of the beer had completely worn off now, which proves I was at least as moved as the rest of them.

I returned to the kitchen and sat down until they’d finished preparing her, and then we were called to her bedside again.

They’d done a lot of work in a short space of time, and the corpse of our beloved mother actually looked better than when she’d been alive and smiling to herself while peeling or fluffing.

“Auntie looks truly beautiful,” said our cousin the nun, looking at the bed and Mother with satisfaction.

And she ought to know, being a Black Sister from Lier, the kind who from their early youth to the end of their days are sent from one sickbed to the next, thus finding themselves sitting next to corpses all the time.