It’s a strange business, letting go. A tooth falls out of my mouth as I’m washing. It never hurt, or even wobbled. Now it’s lying in the washbasin, ground down and yellow, stained with brown. It’s a traitor. At least I still have seven. I’m going to give them names.

Father’s steps in the hall. The smell of Mother’s fur hat. The doctor. The night nurses’ voices. The railway. Our fingers in the disgusting velvety gap between the cushions of the cinema seats. Bus journeys. Dark winter evenings. Spilled milk on the kitchen floor. Falls. Wounds. Scars. Her arms. Her feet. Her forehead. The box of building blocks in the dustbin. Biscuits. Apples. Bread and butter. Thirteen glasses still aren’t enough. Dead birds outside the front door. A dying wasp like a droning top on the window ledge. Distant music. Death comes like a wind. It picks you up. It carries you away.

How do I know this? I don’t know.

Stephanie Stanek

I saw the church burn. It was a warm autumn morning. I was already old by then, and restlessness drove me outdoors very early. I walked through the streets and soon heard the crackling of the flames. The church was burning bright, and the priest’s shadowy form could be seen through the open door, standing amid the billowing smoke with outstretched arms as the sparks rained down. People came running. They screamed. Then the fire brigade arrived. The priest’s back was blackened when they carried him out and laid him on a stretcher. The church burned to the ground. Sparks hung in the twigs of the chestnut tree like little electric lights. They looked pretty. My heart hurt, because of the memories. Later, the church was rebuilt, but I didn’t live to see the topping-­out ceremony.

The night I died the sky clouded over, and not long afterwards it began to snow. It was cold. At the funeral, one of the gravediggers slipped and nearly fell into the open grave. Not many people came. Lotte. My granddaughter Louise. Three women. A priest I didn’t know. He said, ‘Lie down and rest, for you were tired,’ and it snowed and snowed.

I’ve seen a lot of clergymen, but I didn’t like any of them. I mistrusted them. I liked going to church, but never to confession. I knew that even if God forgave me, I couldn’t forgive myself.

But the priest was right: I was tired. My journey had been a long one. I remember how it began. The village, the name of which I do not like to say aloud. The animals. The smell of burnt straw, horse dung and spring sunshine. The skeletal winter trees. A hare without eyes, frozen stiff in the bushes. Meat at Christmas. My parents. Papa’s boots. The forest. The snow. So much snow.

The front was already within earshot, and the forest on the horizon seemed to be glowing. When they came and broke down the door, I was crouching in the damp straw beside the cow with my little Lotte. They took away my parents and all that we had. Our house disappeared in the last of the fires.