"The murderer?"
"I can't find any coverage that isn't in Hungarian, and I don't know what's going on. They found the killer? I saw a video of a man—"
"They found him," Eliot said. "It's him. He's being held in jail now."
Brynn exhaled, the relief palpable over the phone.
"I can make it to the funeral," Eliot said, probing tentatively. Brynn said nothing, and he continued, his heart falling into disappointment. "If you want me there."
"Please no," Brynn said. "No, don't. You have so much work to do at the Academy."
"But I—"
"Don't. Eliot, it's already...it's already too hard for me."
"I understand," Eliot said, even though he didn't.
"I have to go," Brynn said. "I have an appointment with the funeral director. My dad hasn't even called back, so I'm the one in charge."
"Brynn—"
"I have to go," Brynn said again, her voice firmer. "I'm sorry."
"I love you," Eliot said. There was a pause during which Eliot's heart threatened to break. Perhaps it had all been a mistake, this relationship with a girl so much younger than him. Perhaps she wanted to be with someone her own age. Perhaps... perhaps...
"I love you too," Brynn said. "Goodbye."
She hung up before he could say another word. Eliot dialed another number, and soon he was in a cab on the way to the airport, to America. She loved him, or said she did. And if there was a fraction of a chance that following her would save the beautiful connection they shared, it would be worth any effort it took. He only hoped that she felt the same way.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Brynn
It was hot and sunny the day my Nagyi was buried. One of her friends from a knitting circle drove me from her house to the cemetery. On the way to the funeral we passed by a park where families were all having play dates and barbecues. Kids ran across the lawn and dogs ran with them, the laughter and barking rising over the music being blasted from a single boombox on a picnic table. I rolled up the car window and closed my eyes.
"She was a wonderful woman, your grandmother," her friend said. I could only nod, my eyes burning. I was all alone in the world now, and in the past day I had spent my waking hours trying not to break down into tears. My father had replied to me with a message saying that he was traveling with his wife on a movie shoot and would not be able to come to the funeral. I hadn't expected him to come, but knowing that the one family member I had left would be absent made me worried. I thought that perhaps it would just be me and the funeral director at the funeral. But the day she died, two of her knitting friends had come over with food for me. At least there would be another person there, I thought.
As we walked toward the place where my grandmother was to be buried, I gasped.
There were hundreds of people milling around the grave. The men were dressed in suits, the women in black dresses with black shawls, despite the heat. So many people. Throngs of people, families with their children. Older couples and small clusters of women who spoke solemnly to each other.
"A wonderful woman," the friend repeated to me. I walked forward. Although I did not know anyone there, everybody seemed to know me. Women came forward to press my hand or kiss me on both cheeks, a gesture that reminded me of Hungary.
"You are Katalin's granddaughter? She took me in when I left my husband," one middle-aged woman said. "If you need anything, anything at all—"
"Katalin was such a large part of the church," another man said. "We will miss her dearly."
I nodded dumbly, moving through the crowd and accepting consolations and offers of help. Katalin. That had been my mother's name. My grandmother I had always known as Nagyi, but here she was Katalin too. I wondered if her name had given her grief after my mother had died, if it had been a reminder of her sorrow.
Some of the people there came up to me and took my hands in theirs, speaking in Hungarian. I answered as best as I could in my halting Hungarian words, and was greeted with happy surprise that I knew their language, even if only in part.
A noise behind me made me turn. Six men were carrying the coffin to the gravesite across the cemetery lawn. Following them was a group of women, their voices raised in song. I could not understand the words, but the music flowed over me and I closed my eyes, tears running freely down my face. The song was dark, the melody as dissonant as the Gymnopedie that Eliot and I had played together. Hearing the women sing all together, though, I felt a strength pass through me and buoy my heart upwards. It was a song of grief, but also a song of hope.
The procession paced slowly towards the grave and placed the coffin down at its side.
I looked at the coffin where it lay. It seemed too big for my grandmother's body, my grandmother whom I could pick up in a hug if I wanted to. It wasn't a fancy coffin—my Nagyi had never liked ornamentation for its own sake—but the wood was stained her favorite cherry color and it had been polished until it shone brightly in the daylight.
It was too beautiful a day for a funeral. California mocked my grief with the blinding daylight, and my tears dried quickly on my cheeks.
The pastor from Nagyi's church rose to speak. He'd warned me that his sermon would be in Hungarian, but that he'd find a translator. The woman standing beside him spoke after each of his sentences. At first the translation was halting, but as they went on the sentences began to flow from one to the next and the two languages cleaved together.
"We gather here to honor the life of Katalin Tomlin. She was a good woman, and more than that, a good person who helped anyone who needed help, who lent a hand to anyone in trouble, who gave until she could not give anymore. Each of us here today has a piece of her in their hearts, and we will not ever let her go."
A stream of people came forward as the pastor spoke, laying flowers on top of my Nagyi's coffin. Most of them were roses, but some people brought bouquets of other flowers, silken orchids and white lilies with their flat round petals. A little girl came forward and lay a handmade bouquet of daisies at the foot of the coffin, stepping shyly away to her mother after glancing up at me.
The flowers piled up as the pastor went on speaking, and soon there was no room left on top of the coffin. I watched as people leaned their bouquets against the sides of the coffin. Petals tumbled down into the grave, and some whole flowers. Soon the coffin was nearly unrecognizable as such; it seemed like a pile of flowers and nothing else. I stepped forward and lay my bouquet on top the rest, balancing the white roses precariously on the other bouquets. The pastor went on, and the sun shone down hard. Drops of sweat beaded on my temples.
"None of us will stay on this earth forever, and Katalin has begun her journey now toward heaven. All of us here grieve at our loss when she steps away from us, as though she has climbed aboard a boat whose final destination is somewhere not of this world but of God's. The white sails rise in the wind, and He is the one who sends the wind. It is his breath who speaks the Word of life and of death, and who takes Katalin away from port now, finally, at the end of her time here on earth."
"We stand on the shore now, waving goodbye, and the boat drifts on, being blown ever farther from our eyes. The sails disappear below the horizon, and then finally even the last glimpse is lost to us. But we must remember that somewhere, on another shore, there is a crowd of people waving at the boat which has just come into sight."
A sob rose in my throat as I thought of my mother waiting for Nagyi, embracing her once again. I wanted them both back so badly that my whole body ached. All of the hugs that I would never be able to give them. All of the love that I had for them wasted, left behind to turn sour in my heart.
"It is important to remember this in our sorrow. For all our loss, Katalin has not left us. She has just gone home. And one day we will see her again, after our own long journeys, and she will be standing on that distant shore, waiting for us, waving hello."
Tears streamed down my face silently. I would hold in my sobs now, in front of everyone. Perhaps later I would be able to grieve, but I had always been a private person and all of this was too much for me to handle.
"We say goodbye to Katalin now, knowing that we will see her later if God's grace permits. Nobody can replace her, and nobody here will forget her. Clamate ter. Kyrie Eleison!"
"Kyrie Eleison!" the crowd repeated, and my lips moved although I could not speak. Lord have mercy.
The sermon was over, but I stayed behind for a while as the men lowered the coffin into the ground and began to shovel dirt in on top. Then I turned to leave.
"Shall we go back now?" It was the woman from the knitting circle whose name I could not remember.
"I'll walk home," I said. "Thank you."
"It's over two miles."
"I'll be fine," I lied.
The pastor came to me as I was leaving the cemetery.
"She spoke very highly of you," he said. "She called you her little math genius."
"I'm not a genius," I said.
"She seemed to think you were."
"I'm an impostor." I spat the words out quietly, but the pastor heard. He put a hand on my shoulder.
"We all feel that way," he said. "Especially in hard times. Be true to yourself and things will turn out alright."
I nodded and smiled wanly. Nothing had turned out alright.
Peering back at the cemetery, I was struck by how empty it seemed without the crowd of people inside. I had kept looking around during the ceremony, expecting Eliot to show up even though I had told him not to. I supposed that it was only in stories that men ran after you. And even in stories, they didn't run after you a second time. I walked down the road towards my grandmother's house, not wanting to arrive to the empty rooms that awaited me.
It was another hour or so before I reached her neighborhood, but even still, I did not want to go inside the house where she would never exist again. I looked up at the dingy rafters of the house. This had been her home. She had left Hungary to come here so that she could take care of me, but then she had stayed.
Walking around the side of the house, I went to the cypress tree in the backyard. In Hungary, I had been able to visit my mother's grave, but it was here, next to the tree my Nagyi and I had planted for her, that I felt her soul. I fell to my knees at the base of the tree and leaned against the trunk. The rough bark scratched my cheek, but I didn't care. I was back home, and there was nothing here left for me. Under this tree, at least, I could grieve properly. I let myself cry, my lips pressed against the tree, hugging the hard wood tightly. My chest heaved with my cries against the cypress.
"Take care of her, mom," I said, my words inaudible through my sobs. "Take care of each other until I get there."
I'd lost everyone I'd ever loved, everyone I'd ever cared about. Eliot had fallen out of love with me, too. I cried until there was no more left inside of me, until my body was wracked with empty sobs that scratched my throat dryly.
I had known it all along - I was no princess. There would be no happiness at the end of my story. The pages had all been torn out and scattered, and I was scattered too, like Humpty Dumpty in the poem, and nobody could put me back together again.