Grandmother Speaks of the Old Country

That year there were many deaths in the village. Germs flew like angels from one house to the next and every family gave up its own. Mothers died at their mending. Children fell at school. Of three hundred twenty, there were eleven left. Then, quietly, the sun set on a day when no one died. And the angels whispered among themselves. And that evening, as he sat on the stone steps, your grandfather felt a small wind on his neck when all the trees were still. And he would tell us always, how he had felt that night, on the skin of his own neck, the angels, passing.