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Her throat tightened.
When the puzzle came together in her mind, when she finally understood the intention of her breh and of her daughter, of the pyre beside her, and of Jean-Pierre’s earlier speech, she was moved beyond words.
“This will take time,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
“Please, chérie, take all the time that you need. We are here only for you in this moment.”
She carefully untied the bow that held the papers together. She lifted the first one out, spoke the name, then dipped the corner into the candle’s flame. The paper ignited. She dropped it into the copper basin.
She drew the next paper out and read the second name. She repeated the process so that the papers burned together.
Within a few minutes a little bonfire blazed in the copper bowl, and with each passing tribute her voice grew stronger. She then asked each of them to participate, to draw a paper, read a name, and offer up the little torches as an honor to those who had died.
She wept, she laughed, and at times she shouted her rage at what had killed so many. But with each burst of flame, as the fire grew, as the breeze sometimes sent sparks into the air, her heart grew lighter and freer. By the time the last of the papers had burned to ashes, as Jean-Pierre held her in a warm embrace from behind, she smiled.
This would not be the last time she performed this ritual, of that she was sure. She suspected there would be days, as the war took its awful toll in countless ways, that she would need to come to this pyre again and again, the names once more inscribed on another set of papers, to create more little bonfires in order to release the terrible burdens of the past.
But for now, with Jean-Pierre’s arms holding her tight, with her hands clasped over his arms, with her daughter and Seriffe standing in a similar manner, with the last of the flames dying down to embers and the papers burning to ashes, her heart was at ease. And she knew joy. Great, wondrous, unqualified joy.
