A Moth to a Flame

by Stig Dagerman

  Maybe he isn’t so calm, after all. Maybe he has said something, too. He might have even given a start. In any case, he feels a stone arm around his shoulder. In any case, he sees a stone hand rubbing and rubbing the misty glass. No, a large cold eye. He feels it with his fingertips and shivers. But the stone hand is still rubbing, and once it is finished, the eye is cold and clear, but the back of the hand is wet with tears. He wipes it off on his sleeve and then lets it fall.

  Don’t cry, my boy, he hears the father whisper.

  But he continues to cry. Someone presses a handkerchief into his hand, and as he is drying his eyes he can hear through the silence of the room that everyone is listening to him cry. Out of shame, he quiets down. Then he forces his eyes to comply and then rolls the little yellow handkerchief, which smells like pungent perfume, into a ball and proceeds to hand it to the nearest woman. That is when the father says:

  Keep it. I have another.

  The ball has grown heavy in his hand. He leans in closely against the glass, but it doesn’t fog up this time. The father gently presses his cheek against his. It is a cheek of stone.

  Look, he whispers.

  And the son looks. He sees the cars pulling up around the corner in a long procession. Five black cars in bluish snow. Five black cars relentlessly gliding up to the entrance and gently stopping with snow on their roofs.

  Three would have probably been enough, the aunt with glasses whispers so that no one will hear, yet so that almost everyone does.

  And three certainly would have been enough, but there had to be at least five black cars for it to be eye-catching. The father adores things that attract attention, and he adores things that are beautiful. So he ordered five.

  They have to walk down four flights of stairs to reach the cars. They descend very slowly as if for the last time. The father goes first, then the son, and then the thirteen others. Through the staircase windows they can see the snow falling more and more heavily and draping the hangers on the carpet-beating rack in gray clouds. And if it doesn’t clear up, the cars won’t be visible at all. Now all fifteen of them are silent, no sixteen, for the son’s fiancée meets them on the third flight. She is thin and pale and had trouble getting time off from the clothing shop in Norr Mälarstrand. She has snow on the front of her black coat, snow on her black gloves, and snow on the veil of her hat, so that only her eyes are visible. And she was probably crying. But who knows why?

  The black procession glides silently down the stairs. Neighbors open their doors and look on in grave silence. It is a beautiful performance with fine roles. A child begins to cry and cleaves desperately to the wall as though it were looking at death itself. Once they have passed, all the doors close in compassionate silence. The son goes first, followed by the son’s fiancée, then the father, and finally the thirteen others. The stone steps are hard, and the clanging of their heels and the rustling of their black clothes are dreadful. Dreadful is the snow outside as it falls silently and heavily, burying all the living and the dead. Dreadful, too, is the length of the steps. They walk and walk but never reach the bottom. The son reaches for the fiancée’s hand but only finds her cold, wet glove. He squeezes it hard, harder, but only to feel how cold she is. He peers down the stairs and continues walking on and on. The grooves are deep in the steps of sorrow and full of salt and sand.

  Most dreadful is the sight awaiting him at the final step. Beautiful yet dreadful. Without realizing it, he has let go of the fiancée’s hand and walks alone through the dark entrance to the street door. But just before he opens the door and meets the patient cars glowing dimly like shadows through the snow and glass, it strikes him how still and gloomy it is behind him. He slowly turns around on the doormat and catches a glimpse of something he will never forget, because it is so beautiful and so dreadful. All fifteen of them in black have stopped halfway down the steps. They are obscuring the window with their bodies, making it very dark. The women’s faces glisten as hard as bone through their thick veils. Everything else is gloomy: the stairs, the walls, and the somber clothes. Only their faces are white, as well as a single gloveless hand pressed against a coat. For a moment, they stand completely still, as if waiting for an invisible photographer. Then they drift slowly down to him like one giant shadow. The steps of sorrow have ended.

  Snow is falling outside. An unseen streetcar jingles as it rolls by. The streetlights glow dimly over some roadwork. They climb into the cars with snow on their clothes. With sixteen people to five spacious cars, they are forced to sit far apart from each other and freeze. Just as they are about to leave, the snow begins to subside enough for people to see them depart. They pick up the pastor at the parsonage. He is waiting for them, bareheaded, in the vestibule. He climbs into the car of the immediate family and sits in the front seat, next to the chauffeur. He shakes their hands through the window, drawing out his solemn gaze at each one of them. His eyes are clouded with tears from the biting wind, but for a brief moment they almost think he is crying.

  On the way he asks them about the deceased. What her life was like, what she died of, and how she died. The father answers for the four of them: for himself, for the son, for the son’s fiancée, and for his pretty sister. He doesn’t like priests. He just thinks it’s nice to have one. So he answers sullenly that she lived like poor people do. When she could, she went off to clean, and when she could no longer do that, she stayed home, lying around mostly. Had a bad temper. Otherwise, she was nice, nice for the most part. At least she meant well. She was bloated in the end and had trouble with stairs.

  The son is sitting by the window, gazing out. It’s clearing up outside, and the sky over Södermalm is as clear as ice. The street they are on is cold and rough, and the wind’s fierce broom sweeps over the sidewalks, taking a hat with it, a new black hat. There is a pale man in a butcher shop with a saw in his hand … she had trouble with stairs … yet they still let her go. They drive over the bridge. The canal is frozen. Thin ski tracks zigzag across it. At the dock, a boat is paralyzed askew in the frozen water.

  In which hospital did Mrs. Lundin pass away? the pastor asks.

  They are all taken aback by this and look down at the floor of the car. For a long time, the father explains what she died of, for a really long time, almost until they can see the gates of the cemetery. But how she died is nobody’s business. The pale fiancée turns around and looks at the son. But he is looking out the rear window, watching how the other cars are rolling up, one after the other, along the long white curve. It’s really quite beautiful with so many lined up, and someone stops to look.

  She died at home? the pastor asks.

  Yes, says the beautiful sister, exactly. She died at home.

  Then they arrive.

  They walk down the long path to the chapel. The wind slashes through veils and whips tears from their eyes. The pastor and the father go first. Then the son and the fiancée. Then the aunts, hand in hand. Then the father’s relatives from the country. Then the four fake friends. Then the two female neighbors. Lastly, the sick neighbor, who is only thinking about his illness.

  They do not take up a lot of space in the chapel. The father plops down on the first pew with his black hat in his hand. He looks over his shoulder to see if anyone else is coming, but there is no one in sight. Actually, as soon as everyone sits down, two women appear with a flag. Before the deceased became ugly and bloated, she had once belonged to a women’s club. They have all but forgotten, but the club has not forgotten. And as the woman carrying the flag proceeds down the aisle with the banner valiantly raised, the widower, too, remembers it painfully well. He didn’t mean any harm by it, but one evening he snapped at her for dashing off to the meetings, and she never went again. Regardless, the banner is beautiful with its black mourning veil, and the one carrying it isn’t so bad herself. Her face was already red because of the wind, but now it turns crimson on account of the eighteen sets of eyes on her. Some of the relatives from the country in the second pew are somewhat up
set by the red banner, but as someone whispers, At least it has a crepe, a mourning crepe, that is.

  The yellow casket is in the middle of the room, and although they have tried to avoid looking at it, they are ultimately forced to acknowledge it’s there. It’s there on its bier and looks magnificent with its eight wreaths. And if they tilt their heads, they can read what it says on the ribbons.

  A final farewell from the Carlsson family, a woman reads quietly into her husband’s ear. Then she suddenly begins to sob. It is their wreath. And it is beautiful.

  The music begins. A violin and an organ, and as they play in the gallery, the son looks down at his fiancée’s hands, which are quivering rhythmically like a leaf inside her gloves. Then he looks at his father’s hands. They are resting heavily and motionless on his lap. But suddenly they pull out a watch and begin opening and closing the watchcase, over and over again until the music stops. The pretty sister is fiddling with a ring, twisting and turning it. Then she takes it off and seems lost. But the ugly sister cannot see the casket very well, so she huffs on her lenses and wipes them with a large white handkerchief. Now she can see better. And at the very front, nearest the casket, the woman holding the banner is standing stiffly, but they can tell from the fluttering of the veil that she is shaking.

  The pastor begins to speak. It is a speech about a good wife to a good husband and a good mother to a good son and a good daughter. So the pastor thinks the son’s fiancée is the daughter of the deceased. This makes everyone annoyed with her, but they look in her direction anyway. She, for that matter, is biting into her glove and crying – she cries easily. The pastor talks about a strenuous life and about the great amount of patience needed to endure an illness. And all the women sob into their handkerchiefs or the sleeves of their coats, because they all have their own illnesses. Finally, the pastor speaks about the good fortune she had to die at home, surrounded by her dear loved ones. Then all the men bite their lips, either harshly or lightly, because they are all afraid of dying. But the son is fumbling after a handkerchief, which is damp and smells like perfume. Then at the graveside the sand starts to rattle and the coffin, with all its flowers, sinks down slowly like a cinema organ. They try to keep it in sight for as long as they can, like a train vanishing with a friend on board. At last, there is nothing left. Just a hole in the ground that smells like flowers and, soon, not even flowers. Now the widower is standing by the hole. He is standing nervously and a little hunched over, and they can see his watch dangling behind his unbuttoned coat. And every time he tries to speak, it swings like a pendulum behind the black coat.

  My dear, he says.

  But tears overcome him. Suddenly, certainty lashes him like a whip and he gives a start so violent that one of them fears he is about to fall in. But he does not fall in. He merely leans over the hole. Then he takes a step back, his expression frozen with certainty. But when he is back at his seat, the pastor lays his large hand reassuringly over the father’s until it stops trembling and becomes as still as a stone.

  The son reads a poem at the graveside. It’s on a little sheet of white paper that had been in the same pocket as the wet handkerchief. Now the poem smells like perfume and the ink has smeared to the edges, but this isn’t why he is reading so poorly. It is because he is crying. He knows the poem by heart, and the last verses, once he has settled down, go very well. His voice is steady and calm now, and he sounds perhaps even a little pleased with himself.

  The father is also pleased because he appreciates anything beautiful. He appreciates beautiful poems at beautiful funerals. He looks at the pastor, but the pastor is merely listening. But he is listening beautifully. After all, he’s accustomed to listening gracefully to funeral poems. It’s a long poem even though the paper is small, and once it is read, several of them shift their gaze toward the pastor to see what he thinks of their service.

  But for the son the page is instantly blank. He is standing in front of the hole with a piece of paper in his hand, and his hand is trembling. He looks at the white empty space and can’t make out a thing. So he looks over the edge of the paper, and his eyes sink lower and lower. The edges of the grave are gray and smooth. The coffin’s lid is yellow and cold. The flowers gleam red.

  It isn’t until then that he finally understands. And it’s difficult to understand. One step forward and he is crying. One step more and he knows this is the end. A handkerchief firmly against his eye and he senses there is no more delay. No more death announcements to compose. No invitations to write up. No poem to think about at night when he’s unable to sleep. No solace and no sanctuary, and no end and no beginning. Only a certainty, as empty as the grave, that his mother is lying down there and that she is dead, irretrievably gone. Beyond prayers and thoughts, flowers and poems, tears and words. And with a handkerchief pressed against one eye at a time, he cries with emptiness, cries and cries, because emptiness has more tears than anything else.

  The pastor cautiously guides him back, a stone hand pulls him down to his seat, and then a stone arm wraps around his shoulder. Through a curtain of tears he then sees the woman with the banner go up and lower it three times into the hole, but when the banner comes up the third time, the mourning veil comes loose and floats slowly down to the ground. Then they all walk around the grave one last time. Those with bouquets let them fall. They either bang against the coffin lid or fall rustling onto a wreath. The others just look – a brief glimpse or an extended gaze – take two steps back, and shake the pastor’s hand.

  But at the edge of the grave, the son frees himself from the stone arm, and with emptiness throbbing in his throat he rips his poem into tiny, tiny pieces. So small that it looks like snow dancing delicately over the coffin, covered by flowers and tears.

  They drop the pastor at the snowdrift in front of the parsonage. He is in a hurry, and now no one thinks he was ever crying. It’s snowing hard, and on the way back to the city the five cars have lost each other in the snowfall. They became six and then seven in the funeral procession. A butcher’s van has joined them as well as a small truck with furniture. And when it clears up on the bridge for half a minute, they can see a cabinet with a mirror from one car and a large slaughtered animal from another. The ride back from the cemetery has been a difficult one. The whirling snow has whipped tears out of the ones who haven’t cried. But for the ones who have been crying, it has stripped them of their sorrow and provided empty teardrops instead. They invited the woman with the banner and her companion to ride in the last car, and because the flagpole is so long, they had to leave one of the windows open. Snow has therefore drifted inside, and the man who is sick has complained the whole way, talking about his illness and about how sensitive he is to the cold. But the two women from the club were talking about Alma.

  Alma was a good friend, they were saying; you couldn’t find a better friend than her.

  But nobody has agreed with them; they merely sat in silence without conceding. And when they stepped out at the top of Södermalm, someone hastily rolled up the window, looking forward to a warm funeral meal.

  And it’s warm in the restaurant. Warm and elegant. It feels a little strange that the waiters are wearing such white jackets and that they bow so low. They probably could have had it at home – the funeral meal, that is. The sister with glasses could have made the food, and the sister without glasses could have served it, and they would have had enough space. But it’s a fine restaurant, and the private room, which the widower has rented, is a beautiful and impressive room, since the widower has a taste for anything beautiful and impressive, even if it costs him.

  In this regard Alma was cheap, some of them think as they enter the private room, and had dear Knut died first the funeral meal would have certainly been at home – if there would have been any meal at all. At the very most maybe a little coffee at first, then a glass of wine and some cake afterward.

  A few minutes of silence pass before they sit down. The table is set for seventeen, and the widower stands b
etween the sisters and starts to count. Counts the small plates and the chairs and only reaches sixteen. But after three tries, he hits seventeen. The light in the room is dim, and the seventeen faces are flushed after the storm and grief. The awkward, silent minutes that pass are saturated with sweet sorrow. At first it’s completely silent, then less so because someone is rubbing his hands, rubbing and rubbing as one does before some hard work. Then someone coughs so that the rubbing won’t be heard. Then someone whispers something, and someone coughs again so that the whispering won’t be heard. Then the widower turns around.

  Let’s sit down then, he says, almost whispering.

  Dresses rustle and shoes squeak. Chairs scrape and purse clasps snap. It is dark and solemn in the room, and all of them, feeling curiously pure where they are sitting, look down at their white plates. Pure, almost like children. And the plates are shiny enough for them to reflect their feelings in them, making a beautiful picture.

  But something embarrassing happens to the widower. He is sitting next to the son, and the pretty sister is sitting on his other side. He is looking around for the food and drinks, already raising his hand to wave for them. Then the double doors open, and three white-clad waiters carrying trays enter in succession. They look so curiously at him as they pass by that he squirms and lowers his eyes. This is when he first notices the candle. One by one, they all notice the candle, the tall white candle in the black candlestick that is burning all alone on the table. One by one, they look at the candle and at the large white plate in front of the widower. Then they look at him.