The Undertaker's Daughter

by Sara Blaedel

  There was also a photo of two small girls on the desk. She knew these were her younger half sisters, who were smiling broadly at the photographer. Suddenly, deep inside her chest, she felt a sharp twinge—but why? After setting the photo back down, she realized it wasn’t from never having met her half sisters. No. It was pure jealousy. They had grown up with her father, while she had been abandoned.

  Ilka threw herself down on the bed and pulled the comforter over her, without even bothering to put the sheets on. She lay curled up, staring into space.

  3

  At some point, Ilka must have fallen asleep, because she gave a start when someone knocked on the door. She recognized Artie’s voice.

  “Morning in there. Are you awake?”

  She sat up, confused. She had been up once in the night to look for a bathroom. The building seemed strangely hushed, as if it were packed in cotton. She’d opened a few doors and finally found a bathroom with shiny tiles and a low bathtub. The toilet had a soft cover on its seat, like the one in her grandmother’s flat in Bagsværd. On her way back, she had grabbed her father’s jacket, carried it to the bed, and buried her nose in it. Now it lay halfway on the floor.

  “Give me half an hour,” she said. She hugged the jacket, savoring the odor that had brought her childhood memories to the surface from the moment she’d walked into the room.

  Now that it was light outside, the room seemed bigger. Last night she hadn’t noticed the storage boxes lining the wall behind both sides of the desk. Clean shirts in clear plastic sacks hung from the hook behind the door.

  “Okay, but have a look at these IRS forms,” he said, sliding a folder under the door. “And sign on the last page when you’ve read them. We’ll take off whenever you’re ready.”

  Ilka didn’t answer. She pulled her knees up to her chest and lay curled up. Without moving. Being shut up inside a room with her father’s belongings was enough to make her feel she’d reunited with a part of herself. The big black hole inside her, the one that had appeared every time she sent a letter despite knowing she’d get no answer, was slowly filling up with something she’d failed to find herself.

  She had lived about a sixth of her life with her father. When do we become truly conscious of the people around us? she wondered. She had just turned forty, and he had deserted them when she was seven. This room here was filled with everything he had left behind, all her memories of him. All the odors and sensations that had made her miss him.

  Artie knocked on the door again. She had no idea how long she’d been lying on the bed.

  “Ready?” he called out.

  “No,” she yelled back. She couldn’t. She needed to just stay and take in everything here, so it wouldn’t disappear again.

  “Have you read it?”

  “I signed it!”

  “Would you rather stay here? Do you want me to go alone?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Silence. She couldn’t tell if he was still outside.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll come back after breakfast.” He sounded annoyed. “I’ll leave the phone here with you.”

  Ilka listened to him walk down the stairs. After she’d walked over to the door and signed her name, she hadn’t moved a muscle. She hadn’t opened any drawers or closets.

  She’d brought along a bag of chips, but they were all gone. And she didn’t feel like going downstairs for something to drink. Instead, she gave way to exhaustion. The stream of thoughts, the fragments of memories in her head, had slowly settled into a tempo she could follow.

  Her father had written her into his will. He had declared her to be his biological daughter. But evidently, he’d never mentioned her to his new family, or to the people closest to him in his new life. Of course, he hadn’t been obligated to mention her, she thought. But if her name hadn’t come up in his will, they could have liquidated his business without anyone knowing about an adult daughter in Denmark.

  The telephone outside the door rang, but she ignored it. What had this Artie guy imagined she should do if the telephone rang? Did he think she would answer it? And say what?

  At first, she’d wondered why her father had named her in his will. But after having spent the last twelve hours enveloped in memories of him, she had realized that no matter what had happened in his life, a part of him had still been her father.

  She cried, then felt herself dozing off.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Not today,” she yelled, before Artie could even speak a word. She turned her back to the room, her face to the wall. She closed her eyes until the footsteps disappeared down the stairs.

  The telephone rang again, but she didn’t react.

  Slowly it had all come back. After her father had disappeared, her mother had two jobs: the funeral home business and her teaching. It wasn’t long after summer vacation, and school had just begun. Ilka thought he had left in September. A month before she turned eight. Her mother taught Danish and arts and crafts to students in several grades. When she wasn’t at school, she was at the funeral home on Brønshøj Square. Also on weekends, picking up flowers and ordering coffins. Working in the office, keeping the books when she wasn’t filling out forms.

  Ilka had gone along with her to various embassies whenever a mortuary passport was needed to bring a corpse home from outside the country, or when a person died in Denmark and was to be buried elsewhere. It had been fascinating, though frightening. But she had never fully understood how hard her mother worked. Finally, when Ilka was twelve, her mother managed to sell the business and get back her life.

  After her father left, they were unable to afford the single-story house Ilka had been born in. They moved into a small apartment on Frederikssundsvej in Copenhagen. Her mother had never been shy about blaming her father for their economic woes, but she’d always said they would be okay. After she sold the funeral home, their situation had improved; Ilka saw it mostly from the color in her mother’s cheeks, a more relaxed expression on her face. Also, she was more likely to let Ilka invite friends home for dinner. When she started eighth grade, they moved to Østerbro, a better district in the city, but she stayed in her school in Brønshøj and took the bus.

  “You were an asshole,” she muttered, her face still to the wall. “What you did was just completely inexcusable.”

  The telephone outside the door finally gave up. She heard soft steps out on the stairs. She sighed. They had paid her airfare; there were limits to what she could get away with. But today was out of the question. And that telephone was their business.

  Someone knocked again at the door. This time it sounded different. They knocked again. “Hello.” A female voice. The woman called her name and knocked one more time, gently but insistently.

  Ilka rose from the bed. She shook her hair and slipped it behind her ears and smoothed her T-shirt. She walked over and opened the door. She couldn’t hide her startled expression at the sight of a woman dressed in gray, her hair covered by a veil of the same color. Her broad, demure skirt reached below the knees. Her eyes seemed far too big for her small face and delicate features.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Sister Eileen O’Connor, and you have a meeting in ten minutes.”

  The woman was already about to turn and walk back down the steps, when Ilka finally got hold of herself. “I have a meeting?”

  “Yes, the business is yours now.” Ilka heard patience as well as suppressed annoyance in the nun’s voice. “Artie has left for the day and has informed me that you have taken over.”

  “My business?” Ilka ran her hand through her hair. A bad habit of hers, when she didn’t know what to do with her hands.

  “You did read the papers Artie left for you? It’s my understanding that you signed them, so you’re surely aware of what you have inherited.”

  “I signed to say I’m his daughter,” Ilka said. More than anything, she just wanted to close the door and make everything go away.

  “If you had read what was
written,” the sister said, a bit sharply, “you would know that your father has left the business to you. And by your signature, you have acknowledged your identity and therefore your inheritance.”

  Ilka was speechless. While she gawked, the sister added, “The Norton family lost their grandmother last night. It wasn’t unexpected, but several of them are taking it hard. I’ve made coffee for four.” She stared at Ilka’s T-shirt and bare legs. “And it’s our custom to receive relatives in attire that is a bit more respectful.”

  A tiny smile played on her narrow lips, so fleeting that Ilka was in doubt as to whether it had actually appeared. “I can’t talk to a family that just lost someone,” she protested. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve never—I’m sorry, you have to talk to them.”

  Sister Eileen stood for a moment before speaking. “Unfortunately, I can’t. I don’t have the authority to perform such duties. I do the office work, open mail, and laminate the photos of the deceased onto death notices for relatives to use as bookmarks. But you will do fine. Your father was always good at such conversations. All you have to do is allow the family to talk. Listen and find out what’s important to them; that’s the most vital thing for people who come to us. And these people have a contract for a prepaid ceremony. The contract explains everything they have paid for. Mrs. Norton has been making funeral payments her whole life, so everything should be smooth sailing.”

  The nun walked soundlessly down the stairs. Ilka stood in the doorway, staring at where she had vanished. Had she seriously inherited a funeral home? In the US? How had her life taken such an unexpected turn? What the hell had her father been thinking?

  She pulled herself together. She had seven minutes before the Nortons arrived. “Respectful” attire, the sister had said. Did she even have something like that in her suitcase? She hadn’t opened it yet.

  But she couldn’t do this. They couldn’t make her talk to total strangers who had just lost a relative. Then she remembered she hadn’t known the undertaker who helped her when Erik died either. But he had been a salvation to her. A person who had taken care of everything in a professional manner and arranged things precisely as she believed her husband would have wanted. The funeral home, the flowers—yellow tulips. The hymns. It was also the undertaker who had said she would regret it if she didn’t hire an organist to play during the funeral. Because even though it might seem odd, the mere sound of it helped relieve the somber atmosphere. She had chosen the cheapest coffin, as the undertaker had suggested, seeing that Erik had wanted to be cremated. Many minor decisions had been made for her; that had been an enormous relief. And the funeral had gone exactly the way she’d wanted. Plus, the undertaker had helped reserve a room at the restaurant where they gathered after the ceremony. But those types of details were apparently already taken care of here. It seemed all she had to do was meet with them. She walked over to her suitcase.

  Ilka dumped everything out onto the bed and pulled a light blouse and dark pants out of the pile. Along with her toiletry bag and underwear. Halfway down the stairs, she remembered she needed shoes. She went back up again. All she had was sneakers.

  The family was three adult children—a daughter and two sons—and a grandchild. The two men seemed essentially composed, while the woman and the boy were crying. The woman’s face was stiff and pale, as if every ounce of blood had drained out of her. Her young son stared down at his hands, looking withdrawn and gloomy.

  “Our mother paid for everything in advance,” one son said when Ilka walked in. They sat in the arrangement room’s comfortable armchairs, around a heavy mahogany table. Dusty paintings in elegant gilded frames hung from the dark green walls. Ilka guessed the paintings were inspired by Lake Michigan. She had no idea what to do with the grieving family, nor what was expected of her.

  The son farthest from the door asked, “How does the condolences and tributes page on your website work? Is it like anyone can go in and write on it, or can it only be seen if you have the password? We want everybody to be able to put up a picture of our mother and write about their good times with her.”

  Ilka nodded to him and walked over to shake his hand. “We will make the page so it’s exactly how you want it.” Then she repeated their names: Steve—the one farthest from the door—Joe, Helen, and the grandson, Pete. At least she thought that was right, though she wasn’t sure because he had mumbled his name.

  “And we talked it over and decided we want charms,” Helen said. “We’d all like one. But I can’t see in the papers whether they’re paid for or not, because if not we need to know how much they cost.”

  Ilka had no idea what charms were, but she’d noticed the green form that had been laid on the table for her, and a folder entitled “Norton,” written by hand. The thought struck her that the handwriting must be her father’s.

  “Service Details” was written on the front of the form. Ilka sat down and reached for the notebook on the table. It had a big red heart on the cover, along with “Helping Hands for Healing Hearts.”

  She surmised the notebook was probably meant for the relatives. Quickly, she slid it over the table to them; then she opened a drawer and found a sheet of paper. “I’m very sorry,” she said. It was difficult for her not to look at the grandson, who appeared crushed. “About your loss. As I understand, everything is already decided. But I wasn’t here when things were planned. Maybe we can go through everything together and figure out exactly how you want it done.”

  What in the world is going on? she thought as she sat there blabbering away at this grieving family, as if she’d been doing it all her life!

  “Our mother liked Mr. Jensen a lot,” Steve said. “He took charge of the funeral arrangements when our father died, and we’d like things done the same way.”

  Ilka nodded.

  “But not the coffin,” Joe said. “We want one that’s more upscale, more feminine.”

  “Is it possible to see the charms?” Helen asked, still tearful. “And we also need to print a death notice, right?”

  “Can you arrange it so her dogs can sit up by the coffin during the services?” Steve asked. He looked at Ilka as if this were the most important of all the issues. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”

  “No, not a problem,” she answered quickly, as the questions rained down on her.

  “How many people can fit in there? And can we all sit together?”

  “The room can hold a lot of people,” she said, feeling now as if she’d been fed to the lions. “We can squeeze the chairs together; we can get a lot of people in there. And of course you can sit together.”

  Ilka had absolutely no idea what room they were talking about. But there had been about twenty people attending her husband’s services, and they hadn’t even filled a corner of the chapel in Bispebjerg.

  “How many do you think are coming?” she asked, just to be on the safe side.

  “Probably somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty,” Joe guessed. “That’s how many showed up at Dad’s services. But it could be more this time, so it’s good to be prepared. She was very active after her retirement. And the choir would like to sing.”

  Ilka nodded mechanically and forced a smile. She had heard that it’s impossible to vomit while you’re smiling, something about reflexes. Not that she was about to vomit; there was nothing inside her to come out. But her insides contracted as if something in there was getting out of control. “How did Mrs. Norton die?” She leaned back in her chair.

  She felt their eyes on her, and for a moment everyone was quiet. The adults looked at her as if the question weren’t her business. And maybe it was irrelevant for the planning, she thought. But after Erik died, in a way it had been a big relief to talk about him, how she had come home and found him on the kitchen floor. Putting it into words made it all seem more real, like it actually had happened. And it had helped her through the days after his death, which otherwise were foggy.

  Helen sat up and looked over at her son, who
was still staring at his hands. “Pete’s the one who found her. We bought groceries for his grandma three times a week and drove them over to her after school. And there she was, out in the yard. Just lying there.”

  Now Ilka regretted having asked.

  From underneath the hair hanging over his forehead, with his head bowed, the boy scowled at his mother. “Grandma was out cutting flowers to put in vases, and she fell,” he muttered.

  “There was a lot of blood,” his mother said, nodding.

  “But the guy who picked her up promised we wouldn’t be able to see it when she’s in her coffin,” Steve said. He looked at Ilka, as if he wanted this confirmed.

  Quickly she answered, “No, you won’t. She’ll look fine. Did she like flowers?”

  Helen smiled and nodded. “She lived and breathed for her garden. She loved her flower beds.”

  “Then maybe it’s a good idea to use flowers from her garden to decorate the coffin,” Ilka suggested.

  Steve sat up. “Decorate the coffin? It’s going to be open.”

  “But it’s a good idea,” Helen said. “We’ll decorate the chapel with flowers from the garden. We can go over and pick them together. It’s a beautiful way to say good-bye to the garden she loved, too.”

  “But if we use hers, will we get the money back we already paid for flowers?” Joe asked.

  Ilka nodded. “Yes, of course.” Surely it wasn’t a question of all that much money.

  “Oh God!” Helen said. “I almost forgot to give you this.” Out of her bag she pulled a large folder that said “Family Record Guide” and handed it over to Ilka. “It’s already filled out.”

  In many ways, it reminded Ilka of the diaries she’d kept in school. First a page with personal information. The full name of the deceased, the parents’ names. Whether she was married, divorced, single, or a widow. Education and job positions. Then a page with familial relations, and on the opposite page there was room to write about the deceased’s life and memories. There were sections for writing about a first home, about becoming a parent, about becoming a grandparent. And then a section that caught Ilka’s attention, because it had to be of some use. Favorites: colors, flowers, season, songs, poems, books. And on and on it went. Family traditions. Funny memories, role models, hobbies, special talents. Mrs. Norton had filled it all out very thoroughly.