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impossible.

    Elise said nothing. Her baby brother had been sick from the time he was born to the time he died, and in all that time Elise’s parents had done nothing but care for him, while Elise hung out on the streets and got poor grades and became bad company before eventually going to live with her grandparents. Until, that is, her baby brother died six months ago, and Elise moved home to her parents again.
    I don’t think Elise was too sad about her baby brother being dead. And I don’t think she was too sad that he was going onto the heap of meaning. I think Elise was more afraid of her parents than of us, and that that was why after a long silence she said, “We can’t.”
    “Of course we can,” Otto replied.
    “No, we mustn’t.” Elise wrinkled her brow.
    “Must has nothing to do with it. We’re doing it, and that’s that.”
    “But it’s sacrilege,” protested Holy Karl, and it was he more than Elise who was objecting. “We’ll be invoking the wrath of God,” he explained.“The dead are to rest in peace.”
    Peace. More peace. Rest in peace.
    Holy Karl’s objections were in vain.
    “It’s going to take six of us,” Otto declared, undaunted. “Four taking turns to dig and two to keep lookout.”
    We looked at one another. There were no volunteers.
    “We’ll draw lots,” Otto said.
    There was a long discussion about how to make the draw. Eventually we agreed on drawing cards; the four who drew the highest cards were going to the churchyard. Four, because Otto and Elise obviously had to be among the six.
    I offered to run home and get a deck of cards, but time was getting on, so we decided to put it off until the next day. On the bright side, the excavation itself would be done and over with by the following evening. Barring rain.
    ————
    I’ve always liked a game of cards and have always had lots of different decks. As soon as dinner was over I went into my room, closed the door, and took out all my playing cards.
    There were the classical ones in blue and red, but it wasn’t going to be them. Then there were the miniature decks, which didn’t seem right either. And it couldn’t be the ones with the horses’ heads on the back, or the ones with the clowns, or the ones where the jacks and kings looked like Arab sultans. Eventually there was only one deck left. But this one seemed fitting, for the reverse side was black and edged with a thin gilt line, and since they had almost never been used, the gilt edging was fully intact and still shiny. These were the ones.
    I put away the remaining decks and spread out the gilt-edged playing cards on my desk. I examined each carefully. There was something ominous about them, not just the face cards, with the witchlike queen and the king with his piercingeyes, and not just the way-too-black spades and the clawlike clubs, but also the blue-red diamonds and hearts that most of all made me think about exactly what I didn’t want to think about.
    Or maybe I was just starting to get a little rickety at the thought of digging up little Emil’s coffin.
    Up. Down. And bucketsful of something I didn’t want to think about.
    There were two options.
    Either I could remove a deuce and hide it away in my pocket and then somehow swap the card I drew tomorrow with the deuce. Or I could mark one of the deuces in such a way that I’d be able to pick it out when it was my turn to draw, and in a way no one else would notice.
    Even though I didn’t know how I was going to mark the card without it being noticeable, I chose the second option. If anyone decided to count the cards before drawing lots, I’d be found out there and then. The safest thing was to mark them.
    After long deliberation, I scraped away the gilt edge of all four corners of the two of spades. To be on the safe side, I then did the same on the three remaining deuces. It looked like random wear and tear. I was on the safe side now. It wouldn’t be me digging up Elise’s baby brother in