Perhaps the music was coming from inside the redbrick building, where the people who did not believe in death were. My sister had looked for an outdoor activity, a place we could gather together in safety; that was Schutzenfest. But inside, bunkered down, with bare faces—singing—is where my father wanted us; he kept surveying the outdoor melee and saying, “Ridiculous.” It would be our fear that struck us, the thought that we could ever be vulnerable. But look at me, I thought to him, willing him to turn his eyes. I look like Nosferatu with Fly Girl bangs.
