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“What will you have, Rickie?” asked Ursie. “A small beer?”

“No. I’ll wait a minute.” He reached for his cigarettes.

“Andreas said the party was just
grand
! The
Kronenhalle
!”

“It was—pretty. Teddie’s birthday, you know.”

“I know! And Luisa was there?”

“Ye-es.”

After wiping the stems of two glasses, Ursie set two beers proudly on a tray on the counter. “Ah, poor girl! A shock, you know? What’s going to become of the apartment?”

“I don’t know,” said Rickie.

“Will all the girls look for other jobs?”

Rickie took his time. “I dunno. There’s a helper there—Vera. Older, you know. She may take over. We’ll see.”

“Ah Rickie, welcome back!” Andy laughed. He wore his familiar dark trousers, white shirt, and black vest unbuttoned. “Two reds and three beers, Ursie. Teddie coming tonight?”

“Supposed to.”

“And poor Willi,” Ursie went on, setting two glasses under the taps. “He’s a lost soul. He’s hardly eaten since he heard the news—so Frau Wenger told somebody. He did worship Frau Renate!” Ursie rolled her eyes, reached for another maroon-colored tray and slapped it down on the counter.

Too damn bad if Willi lost his appetite, Rickie thought. Had Ursie forgotten the night Teddie got hit in the back; all the suspicions, the interviews later with Willi Biber? Rickie wasn’t going to jog her memory.

“One small beer, Rickie,” said Ursie. “On the house. A big beer, if you want it.”

“Small. Thank you.”

“Teddie hasn’t been here in quite a while, has he? And here he is! Look!”

Teddie, with a big smile for Rickie, entered with two young men from the party, Eric and another whose name Rickie didn’t know.

“Hello again, Rick,” said Teddie. “By yourself?” He nodded to Ursie. “’Evening, Ursie!”

“Except for Lulu. A beer, Teddie?” The boys seemed content to stay at the bar, where only two or three other customers stood.

“This round is on the house!” Ursie said. “In honor of Teddie’s birthday.”

Diplomacy rampant again, Rickie thought, watching the young fellows say their thanks. Beer all round. He also saw Teddie’s gaze move to Willi Biber at the table inside.

“Yep, still around,” said Rickie, “and in his usual place.”

Teddie shook his head. “Poor old son of a bitch,” he murmured.

Rickie gave a laugh. “Teddie, you’re growing up!”

Teddie frowned. “Wasn’t I always growing up?”

Eric cleared his throat and said to Rickie, “Teddie says you make wonderful layouts—for advertisements. He showed me one in a magazine. I have a friend . . .”

Rickie, a bit drunk, answered Eric’s questions politely. Eric had a friend finishing his apprenticeship as
Grafiker
, commercial artist. What kind of job should he aim for? “He should aim for the kind of stuff he likes to draw,” Rickie said, determined to go no further. Instantly, the Custom account invaded his brain, took over. Rickie much wanted to get that account. He liked the name, the people at Custom. He had to invent a trademark, a logo, and series of ads for men’s luxury goods. Was this a noble aspiration for a grown man? No.

Then Teddie asked how Luisa was doing. How was she really doing? And when the other two fellows weren’t listening, was Dorrie in love with Luisa? What was Luisa’s attitude toward Dorrie?

“Dorrie’s been very helpful. That’s all I know. Luisa needs a little help now, you know. Moral support.”

“I’m here too. Tell her. Well, I did tell her.”

The fellows wanted to walk Rickie home, because Teddie had said Rickie’s flat was in the neighborhood. Rickie had explained in Jakob’s that he couldn’t ask them in, because it was late and tomorrow was a working day. So Eric in Jakob’s had rung for a taxi to come to Rickie’s address.

“Big deal,” Rickie said to Teddie. “You’re allowed to come to Jakob’s neighborhood again.”

Teddie laughed. “I said to my mother, since I’m twenty-one—just this once—in a taxi. It won’t be just this once.” His smile was confident.

“What did you do with your presents?”

“I went to my house—and left them.”

32

T
uesday morning. Luisa’s first thought was: the cremation. The lawyer Rensch was supposed to telephone about that. Or was it the bank? No, the lawyer. Luisa leapt out of bed. Five past seven now. Coffee, a slice from a sweet bun in the fridge. Get dressed, make the bed. The studio should look neat when Mathilde came in at nine-thirty or so.

Luisa was unlocking the apartment door by seven-thirty, unpleasantly aware of the closed door of Renate’s bedroom as she walked past it. For today, try not to see it, she told herself. She would go to the cremation, of course—there was some kind of ceremony, she thought.

Vera was the first arrival, well before eight, when Luisa was making coffee in the kitchen. Again Vera mentioned the cremation, and said she would be glad to accompany Luisa if Luisa didn’t mind.

“Mind? Of course
not
,” said Luisa. “Thank you, Vera.”

Dr. Rensch rang before nine. He informed Luisa that the “ceremony” for Frau Hagnauer would take place at two-thirty that afternoon, and would last less than an hour.

“The cremation itself will take about two hours, and it is not necessary to stay for that unless you wish to.” He then gave the address of the crematorium. “Do you want the ashes preserved?”

“No,” said Luisa, not very firmly but firmly enough.

“The bill will be taken care of out of the assets here. All right?”

End of conversation.

Luisa returned to her coffee cup, trying to draw courage from it. Vera’s dark eyes met hers, and Luisa beckoned to her. They spoke in the long hall. Luisa told Vera the time of the ceremony.

“I know where that place is,” Vera said. “We can get a tram and then a taxi.”

“OK. And I think we should let the girls off at lunch, don’t you? After lunch?”

“Certainly, yes. We can manage.” Vera’s long dark hair moved emphatically with her nod. “I’ll tell them. And also—”

“Yes?”

“I’ll come back and help you with Renate’s things.” She nodded toward the closed door. “I can imagine you don’t want to do it alone.”

Luisa reminded herself that she had to stand on her own. To open that door and enter seemed as depressing as entering a tomb, but who else but herself should do it? “My job,” said Luisa.

“All right. If you’d rather.”

“No.” Luisa smiled nervously. “I hadn’t
rather
. It’s—I’d be
glad
if you helped me.”

So the girls at lunch were informed that they were free for the rest of the day. Vera made the announcement, “Frau Hagnauer’s ceremony is at two-thirty this afternoon—followed by a cremation—”

Someone gasped.

“You are of course welcome to come, but it is not obligatory. I shall be going with Luisa.”

Murmurs. No one accepted the invitation.

Stefanie and Elsie drifted off after one o’clock, both making an effort to say the right thing to Luisa. The only words that came clearly were, “See you tomorrow.”

Luisa changed her white slacks for a dark skirt from her room. Then before she and Vera departed, Luisa opened the door of Renate’s room. Again Luisa was aware of holding herself straight, shoulders back, lest she shrink from this.

“I think the two cupboards are pretty full,” she said to Vera. “There are some of those white bags in the kitchen, I know.”

The white bags were for clothing to be given away to the poor, and there were several collections a year on the streets in Zurich.

Vera gave the cupboards a serious glance and said, “We’ll manage. We’ll make a good start today, anyway.”

Then Luisa closed Renate’s door once more. “Let’s take a taxi. Let’s do it right.” She went to the telephone.

The crematorium was in a stone edifice that might have been an office building or a bank, except for a smallish sign in brass beside the wide doors. Renate Hagnauer’s name was the open sesame, bringing first a male attendant, who showed them into a room he called “the chapel.” This softly lit and dark-curtained room was lined with chairs, had chairs also in its center, enough to seat at least forty, Luisa thought. Now only Therese Wenger of L’Eclair was present. Luisa had telephoned Ursie just before noon, but Ursie had begged off: she couldn’t leave her duties, really. Francesca, who had inquired the time of the event this morning, came in just after Luisa and Vera. They all gave silent nods to one another. The stocky coffin sat already on a dais more than a meter high, its end aimed at dark brown curtains which covered a wide area and overlapped at the center.

A man in a dark robe, of no particular religious order (Luisa thought), came out, greeted them softly, and read from a book which he held in one hand. Death calls us all. Renate was a part of all of us (really?), a woman acquainted with work, skilled in her profession, respected by friends and neighbors,
instructrice
to generations of young women who had followed in her footsteps . . . Then Luisa noticed a small-looking man seated in the corner, dark mustache, solemn. A friend of Renate’s?

Amen. It was over, and the speaker turned away, a mechanism began grinding audibly. The casket glided away from them, through the brown curtains, and the curtains swung and closed again. The lights grew brighter.

Therese Wenger said softly, as they were walking out of the room, “Willi didn’t want to come. I asked him, of course. I think he’s too sad. A strange one is our Willi.”

The small man slipped out and on to the pavement.

“Do you know who he is?” Luisa whispered.

Vera pondered, recognition coming. “Yes—Edouard something. French. Renate used to play chess with him, I think. Haven’t seen him in a year or more!”

Frau Wenger said her good-bye. She was going to take a tram home.

Vera had a thought: they could go now to the
Frauenfachschule
at Kreuzplatz to speak with someone about finding a dressmaker. “The sooner the better. We’ll find out what we have to do.”

They also sought a tram. Luisa found herself feeling optimistic for no reason at all, happy, or happier. It was the wrong kind of feeling for today, but she couldn’t stop it. The world looked different as she gazed out of the tram window. The dark-haired and pale-skinned Vera Riedli looked different, though she had known Vera exactly as long as she had known Renate. Vera glanced at her and smiled shyly.

“I was thinking,” Vera said, “I don’t think I’d like to be cremated. I know it saves space and all that. But I think I’d rather be just buried.”

“After you’re dead, of course.”

Then they both laughed, giggled, and had to force themselves back to sobriety.

At the Women’s Technical School, they spoke to a woman who took down the address of the apartment of the late Frau Hagnauer. A new dressmaker could live there, if she wished, and Vera (with Luisa’s accord) said that such an arrangement would be preferable, the dressmaker after all being the manager.

“That may be possible—to find someone and soon. But one never knows,” the woman at the desk added with professional caution. “I shall consult my records and let you know.”

That had been a little misleading, Luisa thought, as they made their way back to the tram stop. They had explained that Luisa and Frau Hagnauer’s sister inherited the flat, which would make Renate’s room occupied, if the sister chose to live there. But still, a new dressmaker could keep her present dwelling and inherit a fine clientele, which might be a step up for her.

Then they were opening the apartment, and the ringing telephone stopped before they could reach it.

“A rubbish bag first, don’t you think, Luisa?” Frowning, with an air of taking charge, Vera stood sideways on the threshold of Renate’s room.

Luisa fetched a couple from the kitchen.

“I thought—these little things that no one will ever use—” Vera meant the nail-polish bottles, the lipsticks, on Renate’s dressing table. “I’ll let you do it while I phone my mother and tell her I’ll be late.”

Luisa got to work, slowly at first, then more rapidly, making decisions. Nearly all had to go, drawers full of stockings, underwear. Handkerchieves were another matter, some quite pretty. Would Francesca, for example, like a few?

Vera was now tossing skirts and dresses onto the floor. “I can’t see—well, anyone wanting these. Long skirts—should we have any cleaned for the white bags?”

Luisa agreed: a few could be cleaned, if they looked as if they needed it, of course. Renate had always had her clothes cleaned frequently.

The telephone again. Luisa went to it.

“How was it? How are you?” asked Dorrie’s voice.

“Vera’s here now. She’s helping with—with Renate’s room. The clothes, you know.”

“I’ll come over. I’m free now. I’ll give you a hand.”

“It’s
boring
.”

Dorrie had hung up.

Luisa went back to her work. They were filling the third thirty-five-liter gray bag for the rubbish. The shoes. Luisa forced herself to handle them. Out, all of them.

Dorrie arrived in no time, it seemed.

“This is Dorrie Wyss,” Luisa said. “Vera Riedli.”

“Oh Dorrie—yes,” Vera said. “You’re the one who was leaving that night.” Vera’s fingers tightened on the three belts she was holding. “You saw her fall.”

“Well, no—”

“I saw her fall,” said Luisa. “Dorrie was walking in the hall below—and she looked back.” Luisa continued. “Renate went down two or three steps before she tripped.” She intended to say no more to Vera.

They put the last shoes into yet another rubbish bag.

The desk. Luisa looked at the open
secrétaire
with its six busy pigeonholes, at the letters in opened envelopes in a surprisingly disorderly heap to the left, a flat transparent box of paper clips, drawing pins, and pencils on the right.

“I can’t face that today,” Luisa said, feeling suddenly not tired but bored with the task.

“OK, dear Luisa,” Vera said. “We’ve done quite a lot today. Look!” She indicated the nearly empty cupboards.

“The bathroom. Let’s make a start, at least,” Luisa said. “We’ll need another sack. But
you
don’t have to stay, Vera.”

Vera wanted to stay a few minutes more.

Toothbrushes, old pill boxes and bottles from the medicine cabinet shelves, aspirin—Luisa didn’t want even Renate’s aspirin, nor the round mirror which on one side enlarged, but Vera said she could use that, with Luisa’s permission. Toothpaste out.

“Laundry bag?” asked Dorrie, holding a couple of towels. “The other’s full.”

Another was found.

“The cleaning women can wash that,” Luisa said, meaning the medicine cabinet.

Then Vera said good-bye to Luisa and Dorrie. “Don’t work anymore, Luisa. There’s tomorrow.” Smiling, Vera waved and departed, carrying one of the gray rubbish bags for tomorrow Tuesday’s collection.

“I’m going to wash my hands in my own, small bathroom,” Luisa said, heading down the hall.

“I too, may I?”

They both washed with soap and warm water, and watched the gray dirt swirl away down the drain.

“I want to get out of this skirt.” Luisa went to her room, and took a pair of white cotton slacks from a hanger. In a few seconds, the slacks were on.

“Knock-knock,” said Dorrie.

Suddenly they both laughed. Luisa’s room seemed big and friendly, familiar. Dorrie took her hands, and suddenly they were kissing. Dorrie put her arms round Luisa and held her tight. And they kissed again. Dorrie, like Vera, was among the trusted.

The telephone rang in the hall.

“Hell and damnation,” said Dorrie.

“Can you answer?”

“Me?” said Dorrie, but she turned and went into the hall.

“Rickie,” Dorrie said, coming back. “Wants to talk with you. He sounds very happy.”

“Hello,
Liebes
,” said Rickie. “How are you doing? I’m glad it’s over . . . My dear Luisa, I have news. I got the Custom account. I can’t say it in a few words but—it’s big and
important
for me. That’s it.”

“The men’s gloves.”

Rickie laughed. “That was my first ad you saw. I’ve got the rest of the account. It’s an advertising campaign, you know? With logo . . . So meet me later, please, you and Dorrie. We’ll have a bite at Jakob’s, all right?”

It was hard to say no to Rickie, and Luisa didn’t want to say no. Luisa informed Dorrie. Jakob’s at eight. It was after seven now.

Where was Luisa sleeping tonight, Dorrie asked. In Rickie’s studio. They tidied, drifted, talked about nothing. Dorrie closed Renate’s room door once more, and set a rubbish bag at the apartment door, so they wouldn’t forget it. Luisa swept the workroom hastily, amassing as ever bits of thread, snippets of material, pins.

They were early at Jakob’s, and Dorrie ordered two Kirs, after making sure Andreas knew how a Kir was made.

“We don’t start with beer on a day like today,” said Dorrie.

Standing at the bar, they raised the pink drinks and sipped.

“Something to show you.” Luisa reached into a back pocket and pulled out a bent and creased snapshot. She handed it to Dorrie.

It was of Luisa aged fifteen or sixteen, taken in the neighborhood of her mother and stepfather’s home. Luisa’s dark brows scowled at the photographer, the wind made her short, tousled hair look wild. She wore a dark green shirt with rumpled collar, and the picture stopped at the waist. There was a pole of some kind and a hedge in the background. “It’s me.”

“That’s
you
?” said Dorrie, unbelieving.

“Just before I met Renate. I was pulling out a drawer in her room today, and it fell out on the floor. I had no idea she had it. Isn’t it incredible?”

“Can’t believe it—but I’ve got to. Were you trying to be a gangster?”

“Yes. Exactly. This was in Brig. I was going to apprentice school but—hanging around boys all the time. Motorcycles, you know. I never owned one, but the boys let me drive theirs—without a license.”

“Wow,” said Dorrie, impressed.

“I wanted to look as ugly as possible. Really!”

“Why?”

Luisa thought of her stepfather, and bit her underlip. She took the picture back and calmly tore it in half, then tore it once more.

Dorrie’s blue eyes stared, as if she had destroyed something important.