Two Extra Candles
kitchen. I look back at Zaide, now snoring peacefully. “Why can he remember Fayge’s name, but not mine?” *** Twelve years old, and I’m pacing through the cemetery in Springvale. My family forms a morbid train, snaking through the maze of headstones. The rich, earthy smell of wet clay lingers in the cold morning air. Nana leads the procession in silence. Today she has yarzheit for her family, and we’ve come with her to visit them. Tears streak her purple eyeshadow, and her brightly coloured headscarf flaps in the breeze. Occasionally she stoops to pluck a pebble off the floor. Noticing everyone around me is doing the same, I follow suit. Soon I have a handful of pebbles. One is particularly pretty – big and smooth, its white surface is slashed with a brilliant blue that sparkles in the sunshine. Smiling, I slide it into my pocket as I walk. We come to a stop. There are four headstones in a row, with two empty plots beside. Nana pauses at each, bowing her head in silent prayer. As she passes each grave, she lays a pebble on the black marble. At the last, she lays two pebbles. Looking up, I’m surprised to notice that there are two names carved into this headstone. I ask Mum why. “During the war, your Nana’s family lived in the forest to hide from the Nazis. It was Tisha B’Av, and they had fasted the whole day. When night came, they lit a fire to cook and break the fast. But one of the Poles in the village saw the smoke, and turned them in for the reward. The soldiers came and they killed your Nana’s father and uncle. Aunt Chocha,” she waves her hand at the next headstone over, “went back to Poland in the eighties to find the place where they were buried. By that time there were only bones left. She brought them back to Australia in her suitcase. They couldn’t tell whose bones were whose, so they buried them together.” I stand there in stunned silence, not sure what to say. I whisper a prayer at each grave, and place a pebble on each pile. At the last one, I fish out my beautiful white pebble with the blue streak, and place it carefully on top. “Why are they empty?” asks Elisha, pointing at the two vacant plots. “They’re for your Zaide and me,” answers Nana, “so that when our time comes, we can be with our families again.” We stay for a moment, and then turn, heading back toward the carpark.
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