Hypothermia

María hardly registered what was happening during the funeral. She sat numbly in the front pew, holding Baldvin’s hand, barely conscious of her surroundings or the service. The vicar’s address, the presence of the mourners and the singing of the little church choir all blurred into a single refrain of grief. The vicar had come round to see them beforehand to make notes, so María already knew the contents of her address. It focused for the most part on María’s mother Leonóra’s academic career, the courage she had shown in fighting the dreaded illness, the wide circle of friends she had collected during her life, and María herself, her only daughter, who had to some extent followed in her mother’s footsteps. The vicar touched on Leonóra’s eminence in her field and the care she took to cultivate her friendships, as witnessed by the attendance on that miserable autumn day. Most of the mourners were fellow academics. Leonóra had sometimes mentioned to María how rewarding it was to belong to the intelligentsia. There was an arrogance implicit in her words that María had chosen to ignore.

She remembered the autumn colours in the cemetery and the frozen puddles on the gravel path leading to the grave, the crackling sound as the thin film of ice broke under the feet of the pall-bearers. She remembered the chilly breeze and making the sign of the cross over her mother’s coffin. María had pictured herself in this situation countless times before, ever since it became clear that the disease would kill her mother, and now here she was. She stared at the coffin in the grave and recited a brief mental prayer before making the sign of the cross with her outstretched hand. Then she lingered motionless at the graveside until Baldvin led her away.

She remembered people coming up to her at the reception afterwards to pay their respects. Some offered their assistance, asking if there was anything they could do for her.

María’s mind did not return to the lake until all was quiet again and she was left alone with her thoughts, late that night. It did not occur to her until then, when it was all over and she was thinking back over that gruelling day, that no one from her father’s family had turned up to the funeral.