Before the Priest Arrives and After

It was 8:00 pm, there had been stew for dinner, and Tino –in his permanent place on the bed in the other room– had to be put in his night clothes. They always ate dinner with him. The nurse, Lina, sat at the bedside, his sister, Mariella, on the chair by the dresser. Mariella used to take care of him by herself, now her hands shook and Lina helped. 

Mariella dealt with the dinner things in the sink while the nurse prepared her brother for bed. 

“There was a Frenchman in the muck with him who brought the big silver pocket watch. Most beautiful thing he’d ever seen –expensive.” Tino had the pocket watch from their mother’s brother. It sat on his bedside. “He wouldn’t stop bragging about it to him and the other guys.”

From the linen closet Lina collected a shirt and pants for Tino. She also took out a plain nightgown for herself and a flowered one for Mariella which she left on the two beds in the smaller room.

“Well one day —the general it was, or whoever was in charge— he said they took some of the soldiers and told them to go walk out in the middle bit. They didn’t know why they had to walk out there, but when they did it they got shot up right away until they were nothing. You know why they had to go out there? So the general could see where the other guys fired their guns from. So they could write it down on their papers.”

 Mariella’s voice sailed through the low-ceilinged house. Lina worked with Tino’s door open so she could listen.

“The Frenchman was one of the guys who walked out into the middle bit and died, but he had that silver watch with him. Well one of the other guys said he saw where the Frenchman died and told them all that he was going to go get the watch. They all said it was a crazy thing to do but he wanted it and he knew where it was so, he said, when night fell this guy crawled out there into the middle to get it. Stupid. Maybe he wanted to die, I don’t know.”

Tino grabbed Lina’s forearm with a strength he hadn’t shown in weeks. Mariella hadn’t heard the story the way their uncle told it, with the details of how everything looked and smelled. When Tino relayed the story years ago, he didn’t tell it to her the way their uncle told it to him. 

He stared into her eyes lucidly and mute. He hadn’t been exerting much effort. He was not doing well. Lina rested Tino’s head between his pillows. In the position he said was most comfortable the month prior.

“When this guy crawled out there the guns started going crazy in both directions. They were throwing bombs, they were shooting wherever and making all kinds of noise for twenty minutes and then they gave up. Two days later the crazy guy crawled back with the watch between his teeth and a smile on his face.”

With their errands complete, the women met in Mariella’s room and changed into their nightgowns. Lina was dark and round, Mariella pale and angular. They were both short. On the edge of her bed Mariella massaged her bad shoulder, Lina sat on her cot braiding dark hair in front of a small mirror. 

“How did your uncle end up with the watch?”

“The man who crawled out to get it died too, but he left it under his pillow.” They shared a smile.

When Lina first came to the house for the old man, Mariella was nervous, determined not to get along with her. After Lina first heard Mariella cry –at night, after Tino had a bad day– she started to lean on the nurse for support. She was there to help Tino, but when Tino couldn’t be Mariella’s brother anymore, the nurse was her sister.

Lina wiggled into the cot, which sat pushed against Mariella’s closet. She looked at her friend's tired eyes, “I think the priest should come tomorrow.” and watched them fill with tears.

“For a coffee, do you mean?”

“Maybe for a prayer.”

“A prayer can only help.”

“I’ll call him in the morning then?”

It came out choked and quiet but she managed to say, “If it’s time.”

Mariella made coffee for the priest without wrinkling her chin. Her breath remained calm while Lina mumbled with him over Tino’s bed. She listened while he said his prayers without letting any of her tears fall. They all sat down to wait.

“Lina, I saw your sister yesterday,” said the priest.

“Did you? She came to church?”

“No, I wish she had.” Mariella didn’t know Lina had a sister. “I saw her at the pharmacist’s. She was getting something for that cough she has.”

“Ah, but she told me it was getting better.” They were together every day, when did she have time to speak with her sister? “Did she sound okay to you?”

“Yes, fine. She must be worried about getting the baby sick.” Whose baby? Mariella didn’t know there was a baby. “He’s so little still. A cough like that could kill him.”

Her chair scraped against the floor.

In his sickroom, her brother’s chest moved with only the slightest heave. She rested her head there for comfort like he used to do with their mother as a boy and let her tears fall. His heartbeat was weak. His heartbeat kept him with her. She remembered the day he was born, one week before she turned five. Their parents called him her birthday present. She became a sister. Their parents were busy then, and it was her responsibility to keep him safe. She dressed him up and played with him like he was a little doll. When he got a little older and did something bad, she would drag him away before he could be punished. The only baby she ever raised. And now he was leaving her.

On the day she watched him take his first steps she started fearing he would fall. Every time she saw him run through a sprinkler or climb a ladder she got the same boiling anticipation that he would hurt himself. Last week she watched him take his last steps. He wasn’t going to trip over anything now. He’d never get the chance.

The house had a tilted gloom after the priest said goodbye. It was often quiet if no one was in the kitchen, but now the quiet echoed. Mariella clutched her brother’s cold hand to her forehead, Lina did some mending under the window with a black shawl over her shoulders, no one spoke.

The funeral happened at the house. Mariella couldn’t remember the last time it was so full, even though it was only a small gathering: a few people from town, some cousins, and their remaining aunts and uncles who came to say goodbye. She shook everyone’s hand and accepted everyone's hug. They reminded her she was alone now.

Eventually Lina betrayed her, Lina left. Mariella didn’t know where she went; to be a nurse to someone else? To help her sister with the baby? She didn't ask. She didn’t want to know. Every so often Lina came for a coffee to check if Mariella was still alive. To bring her things she needed and was too stubborn now to buy. Mariella didn’t ask her any questions. She didn’t talk much at all anymore.

Tino had been sick for a long time. Every day he could die, so for most of his sickness he didn’t know when it would come. Mariella never got sick at the end, it wasn’t her style. One day she sat down in the moonlit chair by the window and waited for death to collect her too. Life had given her too many things she couldn’t control, but she knew when it was time to die. She held her brother’s hand, and the hands of each of her parents when they died. She held the tiny hand of her little baby when it couldn’t make it through its first night. She knew about things she couldn’t control. She knew when it was time.