Keith slides the empty coffin back into the hearse and drives away down the lane, where it is soon swallowed up again by the green gullet of grass. "In case it explodes because of the buildup of the gases." He looks unhappily at the ground.
" He pauses to think if there is a way to say this delicately. "It is necessary," Tapera says quietly, "to hold the body down in case. "Huuuh." My father exhales one last loud breath with the weight of it. Tapera is staggering up the steps with a heavy musasa log. And then, as his head settles back, the shroud stretches shut again, and he is gone.
His jaw, grizzled with salt-and-pepper stubble the little dents on his nose where his glasses rested his mustache, slightly shaggy and unkempt now the lines of his brow relaxed at last in death. As he does so the shroud peeks open at a fold, and I get a sudden, shocking glimpse of my father's face. Gently, Tapera lifts Dad's head to place a small eucalyptus log under his neck as a pillow. And on top of the tiers of logs inside it, we have placed a thick bed of pine needles and garnished it with fragrant pine shavings. We have woven fresh green branches through its black bars. We shuffle up the concrete stairs that lead to the top of the iron crib. The others arrange themselves along his body, and on Keith's count we lift it out of the coffin. He is cool and surprisingly soft to my touch. I ease one hand under the back of my father's head and my other arm under his shoulders, and I give him a last little hug. Keith unlatches the lid to reveal a body tightly bound in a white linen winding-sheet. Together we slide it out and carry it over to the concrete steps. The driver reaches down to unlatch the tailgate. "We were stopped at a police roadblock up on Rotten Row. It passes us and then backs up into position.
The car, long and low and sinister, glides slowly toward us, only the black roof visible above the reef of elephant grass. The motion pleats the base of his shaven skull into an accordion of glistening brown flesh. We have finished the little Chinese thermos of coffee that my mother prepared, and the sandwiches. We sit on a mossy stone bench under a giant fig tree, waiting for him. M Y FATHER IS NOW more than an hour late.
0 kommentar(er)
