We held one another, both lost in our thoughts, but still together. Then my thoughts grew stale, and I was sad, because I too sensed the barrier that kept us from fully understanding and feeling for each other. Not just Irene and me – from early on, a pane of glass had prevented me from really reaching others – my wife, my children, my friends. I was, always, on my own.

I could have again – but I had already cried enough the evening before. In any case, I tried to remain present in our embrace and to release all the other feelings, all the other thoughts as soon as they came. I didn’t find it easy.

17

The next morning, Irene smelled fire again.

“Wouldn’t Kari be here if something was wrong? Should I go see Meredene? We need to stock up anyway.”

She shook her head. “Don’t go. You’re right – if something’s wrong, Kari will come.” She looked at me anxiously. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold it in today. I feel so weak – I’ve never been this weak before. I was sick once, when I still had the kids. My temperature kept rising, and finally I went to bed and I was grateful that I didn’t have to do anything, and could just lie there. Actually it can be nice, just lying there. Lying down, sleeping, maybe even dying. Would you tell me something?”

“I have two memories of my mother. Right after the war, my parents and I moved from north to south Germany, and we made the trip in the trailer of the moving van, which had a cab with a bench seat and a window, like in a truck, but without the steering wheel or engine. Sitting on my mother’s lap and looking out the window – that is one memory. The other is being with my mother at a playground once. It was behind the empty lot where the synagogue had stood until 1938, a small, oblong park with trees and benches and a sand box.