On the seventh day, after receiving the line of visitors who came to offer their condolences each afternoon, the Belascos resumed their everyday routines, returning to their own lives. A month after the funeral, they would light a candle in Alma’s name, and at the end of a year there would be a simple ceremony when her name was engraved on the headstone. By that time, most of those who had known her would think of her only occasionally. Alma would live on in her silk screens, in her grandson Seth’s obsessive memory, and in the hearts of Irina Bazili as well as Kirsten, who would never comprehend where she had gone. During shiva, Irina and Seth impatiently waited for Ichimei Fukuda to put in an appearance, but the seven days went by without a sign of him.
The first thing Irina did after the week of ritual mourning was to go to Lark House to collect Alma’s belongings. She had obtained Hans Voigt’s permission to take a few days off but soon had to return to work. The apartment was exactly as Alma had left it, since Lupita had decided not to clean until the family relinquished it. The scant pieces of furniture, bought to be of use rather than decorative in such a reduced space, were to be donated to the Shop of Forgotten Objects, except for the apricot-colored armchair where the cat had spent his last years. Irina decided to give this to Cathy, who had always liked it. As she put the clothes into suitcases—the pairs of baggy trousers, linen tunics, long vicu?a wool jackets, silk scarves—she wondered who would inherit all this, wishing she herself was as tall and strong as Alma to be able to wear her clothes, to wear bright-red lipstick like her and use her masculine bergamot-and-orange-scented cologne. She put everything else into boxes, which the Belasco chauffeur would pick up later. In them were the albums that traced Alma’s life, some documents, a few books, the gloomy oil painting of Topaz, and little else.
Irina realized that Alma had prepared her departure as thoroughly as she did everything: she had divested herself of all the superfluous and kept only the indispensable; she had sorted out both her belongings and her memories. During the week of shiva Irina had found time to mourn, but as she swept away Alma’s presence at Lark House, she said good-bye again; it was like burying her a second time. Overcome with grief, she sat down amidst the boxes and cases and opened the bag Alma always took with her on her escapades, which the police had recovered from the ruins of the Smart car and which Irina had brought back from the hospital. Inside she found Alma’s silk nightshirts, her lotions and creams, a couple of changes of clothes, and the portrait of Ichimei in its silver frame. The glass was splintered. She removed the pieces carefully and took out the photograph, to bid farewell to the mysterious lover. It was then that a letter that Alma must have kept behind the photograph fell into her lap.
At that moment somebody pushed the door half-open and timidly stuck their head in. It was Kirsten. Irina got to her feet, and Kirsten hugged her with her customary enthusiasm.
“Where is Alma?” she asked.
“In heaven,” was the only answer that occurred to Irina.
“When will she return?”
“She won’t be coming back, Kirsten.”
“Never ever?”
“No.”
A shadow of sorrow or concern flitted across Kirsten’s innocent face. She took off her glasses, wiped them on the edge of her T-shirt, and put them back on before poking her face closer to Irina, to see her more clearly.
“Do you promise me she won’t return?”
“I promise you. But you have a lot of friends here, Kirsten, and we all love you very much.”