Chapter Nine

The next few days passed slowly and solemnly. Papa did not improve. He developed a high fever and needed someone with him around the clock to fan him and put cold compresses on his head.

Dr. Clark made two special trips from Knoxville in his buggy to see Papa, but he didn’t have any medicine that could help bring down the fever. He determined that even bleeding Papa with leeches would do nothing to clear up his lungs, which had become more congested because he was too weak to get out of bed. Elisa heard the word “pneumonia” used when Mama and the doctor were talking in hushed tones in the foyer.

The children spent the holiday season playing with the toys and books they received for Christmas, but without their usual holiday joy. Everyone had to tiptoe through the house so Papa could rest as much as possible. When Mama sat down in her rocking chair by the fire in the kitchen during the day, she was soon fast asleep. Finally, Emmanuel, Cecile, and Elisa convinced her they could take turns caring for Papa at night so she could get some rest.

New Year’s Eve arrived and Elisa was with Papa when the stroke of midnight signaled the beginning of 1854. She had just placed a fresh compress on his head when Cecile came in to relieve her.

“Happy New Year, Sister,” Cecile whispered as she put her arm around Elisa’s shoulders. The light from the candle on the bedside table cast the girls’ shadows on the wall next to Papa’s bed.

“I wish I thought it would be happy,” Elisa whispered back as she looked down at Papa, who lay very still with his eyes closed. “What’s that noise outside?”

“The neighbors are shooting their guns in the air to celebrate the New Year,” Cecile said. She walked to the window and looked in the direction of town. “We may even be hearing the fireworks they’re shooting from the riverbank in Knoxville.”

“Remember going to the beach on New Year’s Eve in Pernambuco?” Elisa asked Cecile when her sister returned to Papa’s bedside.

In all the coastal cities of Brazil on New Year’s Eve the residents, dressed all in white, gathered on the beaches to watch the fireworks. It was a joyous time of celebration.

“Papa was so handsome in his white suit,” Cecile said. “That seems like a very long time ago instead of just last year, doesn’t it?”

Elisa left Cecile with Papa and went up to bed. Before blowing out the candle, she wrote in her journal: “I don’t like to see 1854 written out in numerals. I’m too fearful of seeing it engraved on my father’s tombstone.”

Reverend and Mrs. Chavannes and Aunt Cecile and Uncle Theodore often came by to pray with the Bollis as did the Esperandieus and the Buffats. They prayed for Papa to be miraculously healed, but that if it was not the Lord’s will, that he be taken quickly to heaven. When they came they brought baskets of food and jars of homemade soup so Mama wouldn’t have to cook. Elisa was always glad to see her friends when they came with their parents, but she wished they could be as happy together as they had been in the summer and autumn.

In addition to Papa’s sad condition, the weather was ugly. One light snow the first week of January brightened up the landscape for a day or two, so the children bundled up to play in it. Turk raced around trying to bite the snowflakes and the children laughed together for the first time since Christmas Eve.

After that snowfall, however, the days turned gray and dreary. By the middle of January a cold winter rain had settled in. One night Elisa sat by Papa’s bed listening to the rain pelting against the window. The candle was lit on the table by the bed. Elisa had just returned to the bedroom with a fresh basin of water from the kitchen. She took the compress off Papa’s head and dipped it in the cool water. Then she wrung it out and placed it back across his forehead.

Just then Papa opened his eyes and looked right up into Elisa’s face.

“Are you an angel?” he asked. And he smiled a wonderful Papa smile.

“No, Papa,” Elisa said. “It’s me, Elisa, I’m just changing your compress to keep you cooler.”

“Oh, Elisa, yes. My precious daughter. I love you, Elisa.”

“I love you, too, Papa,” Elisa said. His eyes closed again before he saw her tears.

*  *  *

After that night, Elisa never saw Papa’s blue eyes open again. Cecile and Emmanuel had similar brief moments with their father; times Mama called the Lord’s gift to each of them. Mama took Albertine and Adele in to say good-bye to Papa too. And Turk, well, Turk never left Papa’s bed. Emmanuel had to carry him to the back door and force him to go out in the rain to relieve himself.

On the morning of January 26, 1854, Elisa awoke before daylight to strange sounds in the house. She could hear men’s voices in the foyer mingled with the sound of men stamping their boots on the mat to clean off the mud from outdoors. Still in her nightclothes, she peeked down the stairs into the foyer. There she saw Dr. Clark and Reverend Chavannes talking to Mama and Emmanuel.

Elisa slipped back under her covers without waking Cecile. She wondered why Emmanuel hadn’t wakened her to take her turn caring for Papa, yet something told her she didn’t really want to know.

Soon Mama came into her room.

“Elisa. Cecile. Wake up and come into the little girls’ room. There’s something I have to tell you, and I want you all to be together.”

Albertine and Adele rubbed the sleep from their eyes and leaned against each side of Mama, who was sitting on the edge of Adele’s bed. Cecile and Elisa sat on the edge of Albertine’s bed, her feather comforter wrapped around their shoulders.

“You know Papa has been very ill,” Mama began. “Last night, when Emmanuel was with him, Papa started talking to the angels,” Mama said. “Emmanuel said Papa sat straight up. That’s when he ran to wake me.”

“Then what happened, Mama?” Adele asked.

“As soon as we got back to the bedroom, Papa laid down again. I took his hand in both of mine and told him I loved him. He looked at me so peacefully, girls, so peacefully,” Mama said, and the tears began to flow down her cheeks. “Then he went to be with the Lord.”

“Papa’s gone?” Albertine asked.

“Yes, sweetheart. He’s gone to heaven,” Mama said.

Elisa didn’t know if she could move. She didn’t even know if she would ever be able to breathe again. But after a few moments she and Cecile joined Mama and the little girls on Adele’s bed. The five of them hugged and cried together as Mama tried to hold and rock them all at once.

Soon the room began to fill with a grayish light. Elisa realized it was morning, but she couldn’t imagine why. How could another day dawn when Papa was dead? There should have been so many more days with Papa. He was only forty-nine years old when he died.

*  *  *

People began stopping by almost as soon as the children were dressed and gathered in the kitchen. Emmanuel built a big fire in the fireplace and started the coffee brewing before going to lie down for a bit. He had been up all night. After Papa died, he had walked to the Esperandieus and borrowed a horse to ride for Dr. Clark and Reverend Chavannes. Once they had all arrived back at the house, the doctor had declared Papa dead. Reverend Chavannes had prayed with Mama and talked to her about Papa’s funeral.

Soon Uncle and Aunt Esperandieu arrived. Mr. Esperandieu and the other men carried a large black coffin into the house and set it in the middle of the parlor. Aunt Esperandieu helped Mama bathe Papa and dress him in his best gray suit, with the same shirt and tie he had worn at Thanksgiving. Then the men carried Papa’s body into the parlor and laid it in the coffin. Mama combed his blonde hair to one side and placed his hands one on top of another. In his right hand she placed a silver cross. One that used to hang by the front door in Pernambuco.

Cecile and Elisa knew all these preparations were taking place, but they tried to keep Adele and Albertine busy in the kitchen by making breakfast for them. Once Papa was all arranged in his coffin, the adults came back into the kitchen. Emmanuel had come back downstairs and was with them.

“Children,” Mama said. “It’s time for you to say good-bye to Papa one last time.” Together, the family went into the parlor to see Papa lying in his coffin. Elisa wasn’t sure she would be able to force her feet to carry her into the room. Cecile took her hand, and together they slowly approached the coffin.

Mama was right. Papa did look peaceful. His eyes were closed now, and the expression on his face looked almost like he was having a pleasant dream. He looked young again. Elisa hadn’t realized how the months of illness had left lines on Papa’s face until she noticed that they were gone.

“Good-bye, Papa,” Elisa said when it was her turn to give him a kiss on the cheek and place her warm hand on his cold ones. “I will love you every day that I live.”

After the family said their good-byes, Reverend Chavannes went in to close the coffin. Then the door to the parlor was also closed, leaving Papa all alone, as was the custom in Switzerland.

More neighbors stopped by throughout the day bringing pies, sausages, bread, and an array of cookies and cakes that would have delighted the children under other circumstances. Elisa just looked at the food. The lump in her throat seemed to grow larger as the day wore on. She couldn’t imagine how she would swallow anything ever again.

The discussion in the kitchen was all about deaths and funerals. The French-Swiss people who had lived in Tennessee for several years explained to Mama how services and burials were handled differently here than in the old country. Elisa could tell that her mother was trying very hard to understand all that was being said. But she was so very tired.

In Switzerland, before the immigrants left, anyone who died was buried in a plain black coffin like Papa’s, and left in a room alone until the funeral. Only the men, dressed completely in black, went to the services or the cemetery for the burial.

Among worldly people, the friends and family would gather later at the home of the deceased for eating and drinking raucously together. The French-Swiss people who were Christians didn’t believe in that kind of behavior. That’s why they had decided not to socialize after funerals at all. When the neighbors talking to Mama told her of the funerals they had attended in Tennessee, she was surprised to hear visitation was not only allowed after the service, but encouraged. She was also surprised to hear that it was the custom in the new country for relatives to “sit up” with the deceased until the service.

That night, after everyone had returned to their own homes, Mama gathered the children in the kitchen and encouraged them to select at least one thing from the array of donated foods to eat in order to keep up their strength. The children did as they were told and brought their plates to the table.

Mama sat at one end and Emmanuel sat at the other. The children stared at Mama, realizing this was the first time in months she had stayed at the table with them without excusing herself to take a tray to Papa.

“Gracious and merciful Lord,” Mama prayed. “We thank You for welcoming our beloved husband and father into Your presence this day. We praise You for sending Your own precious Son to die for us so that we do not have to die, but have eternal life through faith in Him.” Mama’s shoulders began to shake. She was crying, and couldn’t continue praying.

“Fill us with Your strength now, Lord,” Emmanuel continued. “May all that we do now and in the days to come, our thoughts and our deeds, bring glory to You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

“Thank you, Emmanuel,” was all Mama said as she picked up a fork and began poking at the food on her plate. After supper, Mama suddenly seemed to brighten a bit.

“I want you to bring me all the candles and candleholders in the house,” Mama said. “Hurry now.”

The children scattered and returned with the candles from each of their bedrooms. They put them all, plus Mama’s fancy candelabra now kept on the parlor mantel, around the oil lamp on the kitchen table. Mama took one of the long, wooden matches out of the iron matchbox on the wall and began to light the candles one by one.

“Follow me,” she said at last. Each child chose a candle or two to carry, and the lighted procession made its way from the kitchen down the hall and into the parlor. Once the candles were set about, the room seemed to glow with a holy presence.

“You children go on to sleep now,” Mama said as she hugged each one in turn. “I’m going to sit up with Papa for a while. There is a time for old customs and a time for new ones. This is a new one I want to observe.”

The glow from the parlor into the foyer was more than enough light for the children to see to go upstairs to bed. Elisa took Adele by the hand and Cecile took Albertine by hers. They got the little girls tucked into bed before climbing under their own covers.

To Elisa’s surprise, the exhaustion of the day overtook her and she fell to sleep quickly. But she awoke an hour or so later to the sounds of Cecile crying in her bed.

“I love you, Cile,” Elisa said in the dark.

“I love you, Lizzie,” Cecile said in return.

Then the tears came to Elisa as well. She wasn’t sobbing. She was just lying on her back with her eyes open, letting the tears spill down the sides of her face, trickle into her ears, and sop her pillow. There was no end to them, so it seemed hopeless to even try to wipe them away.