The song from Oklahoma! leapt to mind: Poor Jud is dead … it’s summer and we’re runnin’ out of ice.
“So,” Koesler said, “You’ve contacted Kaufman Funeral Home?”
“Yes, but they turned me down.”
“A funeral home turned you down?” Koesler had been subjected to a remarkable number of surprises this day. He had a hunch there would be more. “I’ve never heard of a funeral home turning anyone down.”
“Oh, they were nice enough about it. But after I explained what I wanted, the man said if we were going to wake Moe in a Catholic church there was just no way they were going to participate.”
“That’s ‘nice’?”
“They offered their refrigerator if we needed it overnight.”
“All things considered, I guess that was nice.”
“So what are we going to do?” She leaned forward. “By tomorrow we’ll be gone—out of your hair. No need to ask the Cardinal then. It’ll be over. And for something so minor you don’t want to bother him—maybe even wake him up—with a phone call. After all, you said yourself, there’s no law against it.”
“I know. But I’m beginning to think there’s no law simply because no canon lawyer ever imagined this precise situation.”
She brightened like the risen sun. “Then you’ll do it!”
He rose from his chair and walked to the window. He stood looking out, his back to her.
He considered this … this, as far as he was concerned, unprecedented … request. He couldn’t find any loopholes in her argument. There was no law even addressing this specific situation. There was plenty of room to question the wisdom of going along with her request. But any substantial doubt was supposed to be submitted to the ordinary—if there was time to do so.
Cardinal Boyle was winging his way across the Atlantic. Should he try to phone his archbishop aboard the plane? From experience, he knew that Boyle, for the most part, preferred his priests to handle parish-level matters in the parish.
So, Koesler decided, it would have to be his call.
He wanted to refuse her. He leaned toward agreeing with the Jewish funeral home: This was a hopeless mishmash of religions. The wake, Catholic for the relatives and friends; the burial, Jewish, as was the deceased.
If he said no, the widow undoubtedly would be upset. No, that was a serious understatement; she would be in a rage. But it would be over. “No” seemed the sensible response on his part.
Still, he hesitated. In his experience, true Christianity often did not lead to a “sensible” action. “Sensible” responses came from the head. In the Bible, God said, “I will give these people a heart to know that I am their God. And they shall be my people.”
Very much at odds with himself, he decided to go along with the widow and family.
He turned to face her. Her countenance betrayed her anxiety. It was evident that she was fearful. Something like a lawyer calculating the verdict from the length of time the jury is out, Mrs. Green seemed to think that the longer Koesler took to decide her case, the less likely his decision would be favorable.
He returned to his desk. “Let’s just check and see if there are any more surprises.”
She beamed. “Then you’ll do it?”
“First,” he admonished, “any more surprises?”
“Not that I can think of.” Her forehead furrowed as she considered the question.
“The funeral home,” he suggested, trying to be helpful. “Which one are you using?”
“McGovern.”
“On Woodward near Birmingham? They’re good. When will they have the body ready?”
“Now, I suppose. They really didn’t have to do much. I cleaned the body before they came for Moe. All they have to do is shroud the body and put it in the casket and bring it to the church.”
“You had time to select a casket?”
“I just asked them for their best.”
“And they’re going to use a shroud?”
“They had no problem with that.”
“How do you expect to notify the others on such short notice?”
“The kids, David and Judith, are calling people.”
Koesler thought about that. “Wait a minute.… If they’re calling people, they’d need to tell them where the wake is being …” He looked at her intently with a new appreciation of her self-confidence. “And,” he continued, “they’re telling the mourners that the wake will be at St. Joseph’s downtown, aren’t they?”
Her smile was playful. “We could have called them back.”
Maybe, he thought. But his guess was that this would have been her final salvo if all her other ploys had failed.
Not bad. She would have no way of knowing that she was borrowing the thinking behind a Church law. To students of the code it was known by its opening words: Omnia parata—everything is ready. A good number of canonical glitches could be overlooked in, say, a Catholic wedding because the bridesmaids are walking down the aisle and the groom is waiting and the glitch has just been discovered. Everything is ready. I.e., get on with it and take care of the problem later.
If Koesler’s decision had been in the negative, she probably would have noted that a hell of a lot of people would be arriving at St. Joe’s church this evening—all expecting to attend a wake. The good old parish priest might have had the onerous task of explaining what had happened.
“Okay.” A smile played about his lips even though he was feeling quite ambivalent at this point. “Level with me. Any more surprises?”
Certain she had won, she would now mention her final two concerns, though she was not sure he would consider them genuine problems. “Well … there is the time for visitation. We wanted it from 6:30 until … well, about midnight.”
“Midnight! Visitation routinely ends about nine. Why in the world are you thinking of midnight?”
“Aunt Sophie.”
“Aunt Sophie? Oh, the only one on your husband’s side of the family who accepted your marriage. What about Aunt Sophie?”
“Did I mention she lives in Florida? I called her right after I notified the kids. She said she would get a flight to Detroit even if she had to charter a plane. And under no circumstances were we to bury Moe until she got here and viewed him.”
“Even then! We’re supposed to keep the church open? What if she doesn’t get here tonight?”
“You don’t know Sophie. She does what she says. If she has to charter a plane, she’ll do it. She’ll be here tonight. If she gets here and the church is locked, she’ll huff and she’ll puff and she’ll blow the place down.”
“Still …”
“Father, I’m sure she’ll be here much earlier than midnight. I was just trying to be honest by drawing a worst-case scenario.”
“Can’t she visit him tomorrow morning if she misses tonight?”
She shook her head. “We’re planning on refrigerating Moe at Kaufman’s. We’ll go directly to the cemetery from the funeral home.” Aware of his growing irritation, she added, “And, Father, we’ll provide security people for the length of the viewing. We’ll guarantee the security of the church. We’ll even lock it before we leave—whatever time that will be.”
“This is growing like Topsy.”
“There’s just one last thing.”
Would this never end?
“Father, I would really appreciate it if you would just say a few words.”
“Say a few words! I didn’t know your husband. I never even met the man—”
“I know. I understand.” She might have been consoling a hurt child. “But this surely can’t be the first time for this sort of thing. A busy priest like yourself, and all the years you’ve been a priest, you can’t have personally known every individual whose funeral you conducted. You must’ve had to eulogize some people you knew no better than you knew my husband.”
Koesler was getting the notion that he was following a script that had been crafted by this woman. Every argument he made, every point he advanc
ed led to a perfect response from her. Every move he made she checked.
“Sure,” he said, “of course I’ve had to do that. But at least the deceased and I were of the same faith. If I could not speak from a personal relationship and knowledge of the deceased, I could talk about our common belief. I have never officiated at a funeral for a non-Catholic. According to your own account, your husband was not only not Catholic, he was only ethnically Jewish. In sum, he was a man of no religion at all.”
“Father, just a few words. Everyone would appreciate that so very much. And remember, a good number of people there will be Catholic.”
“A few words! A few words about what?”
“I’ll tell you all about him … introduce you to some of his friends, acquaintances, his children. You’ll be more comfortable once you meet them. I know you can do this.”
“Well …”
“Just be in the church about seven o’clock. We’ll get you acquainted with some of the people … 7:30, a few words, and you’re done.”
Scheduling seemed to play a significant role in this lady’s life. By sometime tonight—at Aunt Sophie’s good pleasure—the wake would be over. A few words at 7:30 and the eulogy would be done. No one was supposed to think about any specific complication, just about conclusions.
What a woman!
“Okay … okay. Is there anything else? Anything at all?”
With a satisfied smile, she shook her head.
“All right,” he said. “There’s one thing I’ve got to ask you.”
“Of course. Just tell me what the usual offering is and I’ll double it … no, triple it!”
“No, no, not that. The point is that things may get a bit dicey about this. My decision to agree to your request is pretty marginal. I could get into some trouble over it. All I’m asking you to do is to keep this as quiet as you can. The more we can limit and kind of control the information about this wake, the happier I’ll be. Would you see to that?”
“As best I can.” She smiled. “And you may be uninterested in the offering, but I’ll be back soon after we bury my poor husband.”
Koesler saw her to the door and watched as she walked through the adjacent parking lot, entered a Lincoln Town Car, and drove away.
His lingering impression was of a petite, attractive, emotional, feminine bulldozer.
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