When you’re not yet of age they keep you in a house together with the other kids, a house that has been blessed by the priest beforehand. There, crammed into a single room, all the kids have to listen to the screams and wails throughout the night. Some children pee themselves while awake, some in their sleep. Somehow it’s worse just to listen without seeing. Everyone dreads the day when they will first have to attend a wake. But there is a curiosity to it as well, especially as you get older. You just have to see it for yourself. Those who say they aren’t curious are liars.

This is how it goes.

By nightfall most of the men are drunk. The tables almost collapse under the weight of all the drinks and greasy food. We eat a lot during a wake; it’s tradition. All the able-­bodied men are present, as well as the female relatives of the deceased and children who are closely related. The rest of the women and children wait it out together sheltered in houses. Someone, usually a civil guard, stays in the cemetery to give a signal. Before my time they used to do it using the church bell, now they also use a whistle, and often a long distance walkie-talkie.

At the wake, everyone is scared, but the most scared are always the first-timers. At my first wake I was given privileges: sweets, watered-down wine, kind and encouraging words. But nothing could wash away the taste of fear. As an adult, I also say kind words to first-timer kids, I give them sweets and wine, telling them that everything’s going to be all right. That it’s not as bad as it sounds. That it will be over quickly.

I remember sitting by the edge of the fields with Karcsi the following summer, building a maze for the ants. They were massive, yellowish ants, a kind I haven’t seen since then. We built the maze out of dirt, and Karcsi looked at me and said he hoped he would come back from the grave after he died. He said it in absolute earnestness. He was always serious about everything. He said he wanted to experience being one of the living dead.

In the village we don’t have a definite opinion about the state of living death. We don’t talk about it, especially with a person we know will come back. You must never hate the future revenant, but you should still keep a distance from them emotionally. When they come back there’s nothing else to do but deal with them. After all, we can’t allow the living dead to roam our fields and streets.