The mourners are silent. They are silent because the priest is speaking, his glasses on the verge of sliding off his reddish nose. His voice quavers with uncertainty. He looks up as if unsure he’s in the right place at all. He continues.

‘A funeral is the most beautiful thing in any life,’ he says in a sonorous voice, his words echoed by the church walls. ‘She, the departed, is here and there at the same time now, standing on a bridge that connects life with death, existence with nonexistence, uncertainty with certainty. The deceased settles amongst our memories, incapable of action, only a passive reminder of the past, a shadow in the fog, which no one pays attention to anymore. She moves from present tense to past.’

He glances at the book lying open in front of him on the consecrated table. He pinches the frame of his glasses between his fingers and pushes it up his nose slightly.

‘At funerals miracles happen!’ he goes on. ‘Whether we see them or not. But miracles are not a matter of perception; they are not for our eyes to see or our minds to understand. Just like the universe, a miracle is independent from us and indifferent to us.’

The priest closes the book and bows his head.

‘Let us pray and sing, friends and brethren. And let us not forget that . . .’

‘. . . he’s always watching! Always watching!’

Her schoolmates yell this at Leila in the locker room. At this point Aunt Márti is practically dead, barely still breathing in a room with her back propped up by pillows, while Leila is preparing for her gym class at school. Soon the old lady will be lying on the catafalque, everyone knows that, though nobody knows when yet.

‘He’s always watching! Watching your cunt! Watching your asshole! Watching your tits!’

They’re getting ready for gym in the sweaty locker room, and it’s always the same story. It’s mostly the girls who do it, but sometimes even the boys come over from their locker room to toss sandwiches, cans of Coke, rocks, chalk at her and to throw her clothes and bag on the floor. Gym class is the perfect time for bullying. Leila tried to get an exemption from it, but without success. She gets teased and shoved around in the hallways and classrooms too, but the locker room is the real torture chamber. She asks her parents at least once a month to pull her out of this school.

‘We must endure these hardships. We must stand up for our faith,’ her father always says, his gray eyes piercing through his daughter as if he wanted to pin her to the wall with his gaze. ‘We will be expected to make greater sacrifices in the future, much greater than our comfort at school,’ he continues, ending the discussion.

We must stand up for our faith, Leila thinks.